… with biodegradable luminescent polymers. The discovery has the potential to reduce electronic waste and develop new applications for luminescent polymers. From your car’s navigation display to the screen you are reading this on, luminescent polymers — a class of flexible materials that contain light-emitting molecules — are used in a variety of today’s electronics. Luminescent polymers stand out for their light-emitting capability, coupled with their remarkable flexibility and stretchability, showcasing vast potential across diverse fields of application. However, once these electronics…
A bitter taste is traditionally considered a warning sign of potentially toxic substances. But not all bitter substances are harmful. For example, some peptides and free amino acids taste bitter, even though they are non-toxic, nutritious and sometimes even vital for humans. A new study by the Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich now offers the first explanation for this seemingly paradoxical phenomenon. In general, our sense of taste helps us to make food…
Researchers at the University of Bayreuth have developed a new method for controlling the growth of physical micro-runners. The research results have now been published in the renowned journal “Nature Communications”. What for? The Bayreuth researchers used an external magnetic field to assemble paramagnetic colloidal spheres – i.e. only magnetic due to external influences – into rods of a certain length. Colloidal particles are tiny particles in the micro- or nanometer range that can be used in medicine as carriers…
An international team of researchers has embedded gold nanorods in hydrogels that can be processed through 3D printing to create structures that contract when exposed to light – and expand again when the light is removed. Because this expansion and contraction can be performed repeatedly, the 3D-printed structures can serve as remotely controlled actuators. “We knew that you could 3D print hydrogels that would contract when heated,” says Joe Tracy, co-corresponding author of a paper on the work and a…
OHSU-led research uses innovative vaccine platform to target interior of virus; scientists validate theory using 1918 flu virus. New research led by Oregon Health & Science University reveals a promising approach to developing a universal influenza vaccine — a so-called “one and done” vaccine that confers lifetime immunity against an evolving virus. The study, published today in the journal Nature Communications, tested an OHSU-developed vaccine platform against the virus considered most likely to trigger the next pandemic. Researchers reported the…
New insights into protein factories in human mitochondria. The “power plants” of living cells, the mitochondria, probably evolved through endosymbiosis: A bacterium migrated into a primordial cell and eventually developed into an organelle that provides the cell with energy, among other things. Mitochondria produce some of the proteins they need themselves – with the help of special protein factories called mitoribosomes, which consist of RNA and proteins. Researchers in Göttingen have now provided a roadmap for how cells assemble human…
A distinct signaling pathway called TNF-α drives the transformation of epithelial cells into aggressive tumor cells. During cancer progression, cells activate their own TNF-α program and become invasive. This finding could help to improve early detection and treatment of patients with cancers in skin, esophagus, bladder or colon, as UZH researchers state. How does a normal cell in the body develop into an aggressive cancer cell? According to the central tumor model, cancer develops in an evolutionary process. When randomly…
Cheap, available drug could help reduce impact of snakebites worldwide. Scientists at the University of Sydney and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine have made a remarkable discovery: a commonly used blood thinner, heparin, can be repurposed as an inexpensive antidote for cobra venom. Cobras kill thousands of people a year worldwide and perhaps a hundred thousand more are seriously maimed by necrosis – the death of body tissue and cells – caused by the venom, which can lead to amputation….
Freiburg-Prague research collaboration achieves scientific breakthrough in understanding cell division. An international research collaboration, led by Prof. Dr. Robert Grosse (Centre for Integrative Biological Signalling Studies and Institute of Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology and Toxicology, University of Freiburg), Dr. Libor Macurek (Institute of Molecular Genetics, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague) and Dr. Zdenek Lansky (Institute of Biotechnology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague) has uncovered a new mechanism of the crosstalk between microtubules and actin cytoskeleton during cell division and revealed…
Vincent Zoete is developing computer tools to fight cancer. The chemist, who heads two groups at the University of Lausanne and the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, predicts the effects of new drugs. In front of his first computer at age 12, Vincent discovered the joys of coding. The boy soon realised that he had more fun programming the machine himself rather than simply playing games developed by others. He did take a few computer courses during his time at engineering…
Have you ever had the solution for a tough problem suddenly hit you when you’re thinking about something entirely different? Creative thought is a hallmark of humanity, but it’s an ephemeral, almost paradoxical ability, striking unexpectedly when it’s not sought out. And the neurological source of creativity—what’s going on in our brains when we think outside the box—is similarly elusive. But now, a research team led by a University of Utah Health researcher and based in Baylor College of Medicine…
There’s a frustrating fact about today’s immunotherapies for cancer. While sometimes they work beautifully — completely eliminating or greatly reducing cancer in particular patients — other times they don’t work at all. It’s a mystery. Scientists have posed several hypotheses to explain the disparity. Perhaps it’s the number of mutations present in a tumor, with more mutations leading to better responses. Or maybe it’s the tissue environment surrounding the tumor, with some environments supporting and others suppressing effective immune responses. But so far,…
One project will explore how psilocybin, the psychoactive compound in “magic mushrooms,” changes brain activity at a cellular level. How do neurons react to magic mushrooms? What happens in the brain when we see motion, or when we recognize grain patterns in a piece of wood? How do our brains track the subtle changes in our friends’ appearances over time? The Allen Institute has launched four projects to investigate these questions through OpenScope, a shared neuroscience observatory. Just as astronomers use a…
A research team from the University Alliance Ruhr, Germany, has found a catalyst that can be used to convert ammonia into the energy carrier hydrogen and the fertilizer precursor nitrite. The production of hydrogen and the production of fertilizer have so far been separate chemical processes. With the new approach, the team from Ruhr University Bochum and the University of Duisburg-Essen is demonstrating that the two can be combined on a laboratory scale. The Bochum-based group led by Ieva Cechanaviciute…
International team of evolutionary biologists investigate genomic underpinnings for the adaptive potential of spoonworts. Plant cold specialists like the spoonworts have adapted well to the cold climates of the Ice Ages. As cold and warm periods alternated, they developed a number of species that also resulted in a proliferation of the genome. Evolutionary biologists from the universities of Heidelberg, Nottingham, and Prague studied the influence this genome duplication has on the adaptive potential of plants. The results show that polyploids…
A method to screen a wide variety of drug candidates without laborious purification steps could advance the fight against drug-resistant bacteria. Efforts to combat the increasing threat of drug-resistant bacteria are being assisted by a new approach for streamlining the search for antimicrobial drug candidates, pioneered by researchers at Hokkaido University, led by Assistant Professor Kazuki Yamamoto and Professor Satoshi Ichikawa of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Their methods, developed together with researchers elsewhere in Japan and in the USA,…
Feedback
