A novel electrochemical strategy for efficient hydrogen storage. The catalytic hydrogenation of N-heteroarenes showcases wide and important applications in the fields of synthetic chemistry, drug discovery, materials science, and hydrogen storage. However, it remains a long-standing scientific and technological challenge in breaking the aromaticity of substrates and overcoming catalyst poisoning by either substrates or hydrogenated products. Although different homogeneous systems mainly based on precious metal catalysts have been developed, harsh conditions with extra additives are always required. Furthermore, homogeneous catalysis…
Vahey’s lab investigates shape-shifting protein in common respiratory virus. Respiratory syncytial virus, more commonly known as RSV, is a highly contagious respiratory virus that can be very serious and even fatal for young children and the elderly. In summer of 2021, health-care providers saw an unseasonable spike in the virus, which typically causes illness from October through March. While the virus has been recognized since the 1950s, there is no vaccine available. Michael D. Vahey, a biomedical engineer at the…
Rice chemists discover mechanism in controlled growth of tetrahedron-shaped nanoparticles. Nature clearly likes symmetry. Look at your own hands, for example. But sometimes nature produces asymmetric things, and the reasons aren’t always clear. Rice University chemist Matthew Jones and his team have been seeking answers to such questions about useful nanoparticles — and now appear to have one. A new study by Jones, lead author and postdoctoral researcher Muhua Sun and graduate students Zhihua Cheng and Weiyin Chen demonstrates how symmetry breaking during particle…
Researchers from Japan develop a platform based on nanofibers to trap brain cancer cells as a therapeutic strategy. Our body heals its injuries by essentially replacing damaged cells with new cells. The new cells often migrate to the site of injury, a process known as “cell migration.” However, abnormal cell migration can also facilitate the transport and spread of cancer cells within the body. Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is one such example of a highly invasive brain tumor that spreads via…
The skin bacterium Staphylococcus aureus often develops antibiotic resistance. It can then cause infections that are difficult to treat. Researchers at the University of Bonn have uncovered an ingenious way in which a certain strain of Staphylococcus aureus protects itself against the important antibiotic vancomycin. The results have now been published in the journal Microbiology Spectrum. In the study, the researchers investigated the development of resistance in a Staphylococcus aureus strain that is innocuous to humans. For this purpose, they…
Neurons use local protein synthesis as dominant source of protein production To form and modify synaptic connections and store information, such as memories, neurons continuously remodel their essential cellular resources, the proteins. The complexity of a neuron’s dendrites and axons (the information-receiving and -sending parts of the neuron), though, poses unique challenges for protein supply at remote locations. To fulfill the local demand for new protein, neurons localize messenger RNAs (mRNAs) and ribosomes near synapses to produce proteins directly where…
Reactive oxygen species (ROS) can act as signal carriers during the evolution of malignant tumors. At the appropriate concentration, ROS mediate signal transduction and cell growth. However, ROS are a double-edged sword, as excessive ROS can oxidize proteins, damage the DNA structure, and induce cell apoptosis. Moreover, ROS can induce inflammation at the tumor site, which further improves tumor immunogenicity. Therefore, increasing the content of ROS in tumor sites has become an effective method for cancer therapy. At present, the…
The breakthrough advance could lead to a novel, drug-free therapeutic that can slow, possibly stop, the growth of cancer cells. A multi-institutional research team has designed nanoparticles that can communicate with and slow the development of cancer cells. The work — detailed in a newly published paper in Advanced Materials — has uncovered a novel framework for the potential development of drug-free cancer therapies. Led by scientists at the Advanced Science Research Center at the Graduate Center, CUNY (CUNY ASRC),…
Rethinking the formation and growth of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), key contributors to harmful soot particles formed during fuel combustion and the smallest dust grains in interstellar matter, is helping KAUST researchers to develop greener and more efficient combustion processes, while also shedding light on interstellar evolution. Several pathways are proposed to explain how these large organic molecules form. These typically involve a cascade of chemical reactions that assist in removing hydrogen atoms from aromatic compounds — organic compounds comprising…
New tool offers ways to improve CRISPR gene-editing method. The ability to edit the genome by altering the DNA sequence inside a living cell is powerful for research and holds enormous promise for the treatment of diseases. However, existing genome editing technologies frequently result in unwanted mutations or can fail to introduce any changes at all. These problems have kept the field from reaching its full potential. Now, new research from the laboratory of Princeton University researcher Britt Adamson, conducted…
Every day, the human kidneys clean about 1,500 liters of blood by producing approximately 1–2 liters of urine. Thereby, the body gets rid of excess water and toxic waste products of the metabolism or also drugs and maintains the balance of water and minerals in the tissues. While waiting for kidney transplantation, patients with chronic kidney failure must be treated regularly with dialysis that cleanses the body of fluid and deleterious substances. Peritoneal dialysis, which can be done at home…
Researchers from Nara Institute of Science and Technology find that the bacterium Ideonella sakaiensis can not only degrade petroleum-based plastics but can also sustainably produce biodegradable plastics. Plastic pollution is one of the most pressing environmental issues of our time. The accumulation of petroleum-based plastics is having devastating effects on our environment, wildlife and human health. In a recent study published in Scientific Reports, researchers from Nara Institute of Science and Technology revealed a bacterium that is not only able…
Without enzymes, an organism would not be able to survive. It is these biocatalysts that facilitate a whole range of chemical reactions, producing the building blocks of the cells. Enzymes are also used widely in biotechnology and in our households, where they are used in detergents, for example. To describe metabolic processes facilitated by enzymes, scientists refer to what is known as the Michaelis-Menten equation. The equation describes the rate of an enzymatic reaction depending on the concentration of the…
This new method from UNC School of Medicine researvchers Klaus Hahn and Tim Elston, has the potential to super-charge the study of human proteins as they interact and change their conformations in fundamentally important ways in human health and disease. Understanding how proteins bend, twist, and shape-shift as they go about their work in cells is enormously important for understanding normal biology and diseases. But a deep understanding of protein dynamics has generally been elusive due to the lack of…
Swiss and German scientists show that activation of the immune system oscillates throughout the day, with a peak just before the start of the day. Circadian clocks, which regulate most of the physiological processes of living beings over a rhythm of about 24 hours, are one of the most fundamental biological mechanisms. By deciphering the cell migration mechanisms underlying the immune response, scientists from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), in Switzerland, and the Ludwigs-Maximilians University (LMU), in Germany, have shown…
A discovery of how to build little blocks out of DNA and get them to stick to lipids has implications for biosensing and mRNA vaccines. Scientists have worked out how to best get DNA to communicate with membranes in our body, paving the way for the creation of ‘mini biological computers’ in droplets that have potential uses in biosensing and mRNA vaccines. UNSW’s Dr Matthew Baker and the University of Sydney’s Dr Shelley Wickham co-led the study, published recently in…
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