Cellular immunotherapies have so far not been very effective against non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. A team led by Armin Rehm of the MDC has discovered a possible reason. As the they describe in “Cell Reports”, this cancer induces changes in the large blood vessels through which immune cells normally migrate to the lymph nodes. Immunotherapies have become an indispensable part of modern cancer treatment. They are particularly effective against cancers like Hodgkin’s disease, a type of blood cancer that attacks the lymphatic system….
The humble quillworts are an ancient group of about 250 small, aquatic plants that have largely been ignored by modern botanists. A group of researchers, led by Boyce Thompson Institute’s Fay-Wei Li, have sequenced the first quillwort genome and uncovered some secrets of the plant’s unique method of photosynthesis – secrets that could eventually lead to the engineering of crops with more efficient use of water and carbon dioxide. Most plants breathe in carbon dioxide (CO2) and use sunlight to…
Using cold temperatures and machine learning, researchers visualized individual molecules in a synthetic soft material for the first time. The Science Scientists have created thin, paper-like crystalline sheets using a synthetic, protein-like molecule called a polypeptoid. These nanosheets are only one molecule thick, with the molecules arranged in very specific ways. Scientists take images of these nanosheets using electron microscopes under cryogenic conditions. Until recently these images were blurry because of the tiny number of electrons that can pass through…
A team using the nation’s fastest supercomputer to look at protein binding finds that some binding processes are simpler than expected. The Science Proteins bind to one another through a complex mix of chemical interactions. What if some proteins bind due to their shapes, a much simpler process? To answer this question, researchers used Summit, the nation’s fastest supercomputer, to model lock-and-key interactions. In these interactions, molecules in the proteins that are binding together must chemically “fit” precisely. The team…
Coral restoration could become easier and quicker with the use of 3D printing. As the technology matures, it could be used to rapidly and reliably create support structures for corals to grow on. Coral reefs around the world are suffering from warming oceans and increasing pollution. Reef restoration efforts employ concrete blocks or metal frames as substrates for coral growth. The resulting restoration is slow because corals deposit their carbonate skeleton at a rate of just millimeters per year. Charlotte…
A new study published in Nature reports on a new antibiotic that binds to the ribosome of bacterial cells and stops drug-resistant pathogens from making mice sick. Co-authored by researchers from the University of Illinois Chicago, the study not only shows the potential of the drug — called iboxamycin — to one day help humans who are ill because of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, but also identifies how the drug overcomes the most widespread mechanism of resistance to this class of antibacterials….
Over the past decade, single-atom catalysts (SACs) have been intensively investigated in the field of heterogeneous catalysis. However, SACs only contain one metal center, which makes it difficult to break the scaling relationship in many catalytic processes. In recent years, it has been proposed to construct “dual-atom catalysts”, which can overcome the limitations of SACs by introducing a second metal site. While DACs are attracting ever-increasing interest, there are still many challenges remaining. A comprehensive overview of the current landscape…
Discovery of new metabolic pathway for stored sugars helps explain how cellular energy is produced and expended in obesity, advancing therapeutic potential. Humans carry around with them, often abundantly so, at least two kinds of fat tissue: white and brown. White fat cells are essentially inert containers for energy stored in the form of a single large, oily droplet. Brown fat cells are more complex, containing multiple, smaller droplets intermixed with dark-colored mitochondria — cellular organelles that give them their…
Hydrogen from real biogas: TU Graz and the start-up Rouge H2 Engineering have scored a world’s first in producing high-purity hydrogen from biogas directly at a biogas plant using a new chemical looping process. Green hydrogen is seen as a beacon of hope in the energy and mobility revolution, but it is not yet suitable for mass production. There are several reasons for this. Hydrogen is currently produced mainly centrally from fossil raw materials. It then has to be compressed…
… a fundamental discovery. Scientists at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna have developed a CRISPR-Cas9 screening assay that allows to systematically pinpoint regulators of any gene of interest, including cancer-related genes. Using this approach, they discovered how cells transport their clean-up machinery, the proteasome, into the nucleus to maintain protein balance and get rid of unwanted nuclear proteins. The results of this study are now reported in the journal Nature. At the Research Institute of Molecular…
Oregon State University research has shed new light on the way malignant cells change their shape and migration techniques to invade different types of tissue. The findings, published in Scientific Reports, are a key step toward understanding and preventing cancer metastasis, the internal spreading of the disease that’s responsible for 95% of all cancer deaths. “Through billions of years of evolution, cells have learned a number of distinct ways to migrate,” said OSU biophysicist Bo Sun, who led the study….
The SARS-CoV-2 virus does not infect blood vessels, despite the high risk of blood clots to COVID-19 patients, University of Queensland researchers have found. Dr Emma Gordon and Dr Larisa Labzin from UQ’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience and Dr Kirsty Short from UQ’s School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences pooled their expertise in vascular biology and virology to determine how the virus causes damage to blood vessels. The researchers found that the cardiovascular complications of COVID-19 are triggered by inflammation…
Researchers at the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience (MPFI) have uncovered a surprisingly complex yet precisely ordered map of visual space in area V2 of the cortex. Requiring a discerning eye, mathematical precision, and keen sense of aesthetics, map making is a unique application of both art and science. Though the scale may differ, neuroscientists that study vision are like cartographers of the brain; investigating and mapping how our brain represents and makes sense of what we see in…
Archaea are often mistaken as bacteria, given that both are small, single-cell organisms. However, archaea are as genetically different from bacteria as humans are from bacteria. While archaea are found in most environments, including the human gut microbiome, relatively little is known about them. An international team of researchers from Germany and Austria, led by Nicholas Youngblut at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen, Germany, has compiled the first large scale assessment of archaeal diversity in the…
The sharpest images ever of living bacteria have been recorded by UCL researchers, revealing the complex architecture of the protective layer that surrounds many bacteria and makes them harder to be killed by antibiotics. The study, published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA and done in collaboration with scientists at National Physical Laboratory, King’s College London, University of Oxford and Princeton University, reveals that bacteria with protective outer layers – called Gram-negative bacteria –…
Existing analysis software fails to detect missing gene building blocks. Automated gene analyses of Sars-CoV-2 samples consistently miss gene segments in the virus genome that have undergone deletion due to mutations. This is revealed in a new study by researchers at Bielefeld University’s Center for Biotechnology (CeBiTec) and the Evangelical Hospital Bethel (EvKB), one of the supporting hospitals of Medical School OWL. The research team was able to show that a large part of the ORF8 gene segment was missing…
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