Novel technology for the selection of single photosynthetic cells for industry and ecosystem understanding. You might need a microscope to witness the next agricultural revolution. New research, published in the journal Science Advances, demonstrates how microfluidic technologies can be used to identify, isolate and propagate specific single photosynthetically active cells for fundamental industry applications and improved ecosystem understanding. Natural environments are inherently dynamic and require photosynthetic organisms to adapt their physiology to make optimal use of available resources and grow…
A joint paper by Kazan Federal University, Boreskov Institute of Catalysis, and Russian Oil and Gas University was published in Chemistry – A European Journal. The team produced and studied new active photocatalysts based on natural aluminosilicate nanotubes with cadmium sulfide quantum dots stabilized on their surface synthesized by self-assembly. Co-author, Chief Research Associate of the Bionanotechnology Lab (Kazan Federal University) Rawil Fakhrullin explains, “Quantum dots are semiconductor nanoparticles up to 10 nanometers in size with unique optical properties. They…
A unified classification of diverse cell types proposed by a Columbia-led team could shed light on how our brains are wired. The human brain has about 100 billion neurons, linked in intricate ways, that the Spanish neuroanatomist Ramón y Cajal compared to “the impenetrable jungles where many investigators have lost themselves.” But to decipher how the brain works and understand how it can go awry in many diseases, it is essential to figure out how many classes of neurons it…
Scientists from Regensburg and Zurich have found a fascinating way to push an atom with controlled forces so quickly that they can choreograph the motion of a single molecule within less than a trillionth of a second. The extremely sharp needle of their unique ultrafast microscope serves as the technical basis: It carefully scans molecules, similar to a record player. Physicists at the University of Regensburg now showed that shining light pulses onto this needle can transform it into an…
Scientists led by Dr. Elisabeth Fischer-Friedrich, group leader at the Excellence Cluster Physics of Life (PoL) and the Biotechnology Center TU Dresden (BIOTEC) studied how cancer cells are able to divide in a crowded tumor tissue and connected it to the hallmark of cancer progression and metastasis, the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). Most animal cells need to become spherical in order to divide. To achieve this round shape, the cells must round up and deform their neighboring cells. In a growing…
Many people use cortisone of a regular basis. It is used for treating rheumatism, asthma, multiple sclerosis, or even COVID-19. Steroidal medication such as cortisone is highly effective but also possesses severe side effects. Henriette Uhlenhaut, professor at Technical University of Munich (TUM), and her team are examining the beneficial effects of cortisone in order to lay the groundwork for the development of similar drugs with fewer side effects. A group of scientists around Henriette Uhlenhaut, Professor for Metabolic Programming…
Your genetic code determines that you will grow two arms and two legs. The same fate is true for all mammals. Similarly, the number of fins a fish has and the number of legs and wings an insect has are embedded in their genetic code. Sea anemones, however, defy this rule and have a variable number of tentacle arms. Until now it’s been unclear what regulates the number of tentacles a sea anemone can grow. Scientists from the Ikmi group…
An international team of scientists led by Christopher Bellas from the University of Innsbruck, Austria, studying life on the surface of glaciers in the Arctic and Alps challenge assumptions on virus evolution. Their study, now published in the journal Nature Communications shows that, contrary to expectations, the viruses on glaciers in the Alps, Greenland and Spitsbergen are remarkably stable in the environment. Viruses are often thought of as a human problem, however they are the most abundant biological entities on…
A team led by researchers at the University of California, Davis, has discovered a missing link in the evolution of photosynthesis and carbon fixation. Dating back more than 2.4 billion years, a newly discovered form of the plant enzyme rubisco could give new insight into plant evolution and breeding. Rubisco is the most abundant enzyme on the planet. Present in plants, cyanobacteria (also known as blue-green algae) and other photosynthetic organisms, it’s central to the process of carbon fixation and…
A team of researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena has investigated how the parasitic dodder Cuscuta australis controls flower formation. They showed that the rootless and leafless parasite eavesdrops on the flowering signals of its host plants in order to activate its own flowering machinery. By synchronizing flowering with the respective host plant, the parasite makes sure that it can grow on its host long enough to produce the…
Fraunhofer develops with partners new therapeutic approach in battle against infectious diseases Infections pose an increasing risk to hospitalized patients. In collaboration with a number of partners, the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB has developed a new therapeutic approach as part of the InnateFun project. Their strategy is to improve cells’ ability to defend themselves against harmful microorganisms by acting on their immune receptors. The researchers’ work on this therapeutic approach has reached the animal model stage….
When predator and non-predator cues are similar in the same habitat Ecosystems can be incredibly complex, with many interacting species. In many habitats, predators shape they behavior of prey and prey shape the behavior of predators. This paper provides a detailed look at the predator-prey relationship between bats and katydids, a group of insects related to crickets and grasshoppers. Some species of bats hunt katydids by eavesdropping on their mating calls. However, katydids aren’t defenseless. Many species of katydids have…
Preventing infection, facilitating healing New biomaterials developed at the University of Bayreuth prevent colonization by bacteria and fungi, but at the same time proactively assist in the regeneration of human tissue. These nanostructured materials are based on spider silk proteins. New biomaterials developed at the University of Bayreuth eliminate risk of infection and facilitate healing processes. A research team led by Prof. Dr. Thomas Scheibel has succeeded in combining these material properties which are highly relevant to biomedicine. These nanostructured…
Imagine working on a jigsaw puzzle with so many pieces that even the edges seem indistinguishable from others at the puzzle’s centre. The solution seems nearly impossible. And, to make matters worse, this puzzle is in a futuristic setting where the pieces are not only numerous, but ever-changing. In fact, you not only must solve the puzzle, but “un-solve” it to parse out how each piece brings the picture wholly into focus. That’s the challenge molecular and cellular biologists face…
Nerve cells are particularly dependent on mitochondria for their activity and decreased mitochondrial function is seen in both inherited and more common age-associated forms of degenerative diseases. A long-standing view has been that neurons, in contrast to other cell types, cannot adjust their metabolism to compensate for mitochondrial dysfunction, and therefore irreversibly degenerate. In a new study, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Aging in Cologne, Germany, and the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, challenge this dogma…
New EU-funded Research Project “HCA|Organoid” The HCA|Organoid project is one of six pilot actions funded by the European Commission to contribute to the worldwide Human Cell Atlas initiative An “Organoid Cell Atlas” will combine single-cell profiling and organoid technology HCA|Organoid is a new EU research project that combines single-cell profiling and organoid technology to validate organoids as faithful models of human biology. The project seeks to kickstart the development of an open access “Organoid Cell Atlas”. By creating well-characterized in…
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