… exhibit surprisingly heterogeneous wiring. Analysis of the connectome of Drosophila melanogaster provides new insights into how its visual system is organized / Research contribution by the FlyWire Consortium. An isolated Tm9 cell (left) and with all its presynaptic neurons, reconstructed with aid of FlyWire.ai (right). (photo/©: Marion Silies) The brain is a particularly complex organ, not only in humans. Even the brain of a fly contains more than 100,000 neurons connected by millions of synapses. For the first time,…
New mathematical framework sheds light on how cells communicate to form an embryo. Biological processes depend on puzzle pieces coming together and interacting. Under specific conditions, these interactions can create something new without external input. This is called self-organization, as seen in a school of fish or a flock of birds. Interestingly, the mammalian embryo develops similarly. In PNAS, David Brückner and Gašper Tkačik from the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) introduce a mathematical framework that analyzes self-organization…
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen, the University of Tübingen, and the University Hospital Tübingen have developed a web-based toolkit to accelerate and simplify protein design without needing powerful computers or extensive protein design expertise on the user’s end. The toolkit benefits its users with multiple design tools, fast analyses, easy interpretation, and downloadable results. Their framework for the Damietta Server, published in Nucleic Acids Research, offers a comprehensive resource for biological research community. Designing proteins with…
The viruses probably regulate the growth of snow algae on the ice by infecting them. Knowing how to control these viruses could help us reduce some of the ice from melting. Every spring when the sun rises in the Arctic after months of darkness, life returns. The polar bears pop up from their winter lairs, the arctic tern soar back from their long journey south and the musk oxen wade north. But the animals are not the only life being…
Due to their stability and resistance to water and grease, PFAS chemicals are used in a wide range industries, but they are harmful to health and the environment. Membranes containing PFAS are used in many semiconductor manufacturing processes, for example. Researchers from the Fraunhofer IAP have now developed a sustainable alternative in the form of an innovative, PFAS-free membrane. The chemically stable, highly permeable polymer membrane has a pore diameter of approx. seven nanometers and enables filtration of the smallest…
Animal testing has long been a fixture of medical and pharmaceutical research, but alternative methods are growing more and more important. Innovative methods allow for research aimed directly at humans — without using animal testing as an intermediate step. TigerShark Science, a planned Fraunhofer start-up and spin-off of the Fraunhofer Translational Center for Regenerative Therapies TLC-RT at the Fraunhofer Institute for Silicate Research ISC, is taking this kind of approach. TigerShark Science hopes to use skin models grown from human…
Scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have developed the most sensitive method yet for detecting and profiling a single molecule — unlocking a new tool that holds potential for better understanding how the building blocks of matter interact with each other. The new method could have implications for pursuits as varied as drug discovery and the development of advanced materials. The technical achievement, detailed this month in the journal Nature, marks a significant advance in the burgeoning field of observing…
… to an unconventional mode of bacterial toxicity. A collaborative study between researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research and the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology has shown how a single metabolite can render bacteria toxic to plants under high salt conditions. Their findings may have important implications for agriculture and plant health in changing climates. Climate change, and specifically rising temperatures, will place a great strain on plant growth and will almost certainly…
Improves outlook for lymphoma patients… A team of cancer researchers, led by the University of Houston, has discovered a new subset of T cells that may improve the outcome for patients treated with T-cell therapies. T cell-based immunotherapy has tremendous value to fight, and often eliminate, cancer. The strategy activates a patient’s immune system and engineers a patient’s own T cells to recognize, attack and kill cancer cells. In this way, the body’s own T cells become living drugs. While…
A widely found gene in plants has been newly identified as a key transporter of a hormone that influences the size of corn. The discovery offers plant breeders a new tool to develop desirable dwarf varieties that could enhance the crop’s resilience and profitability. A team of scientists led by Iowa State University spent years working to pinpoint the functions of the gene ZmPILS6. Now, they have been able to characterize it as an important driver of plant size and…
Researchers from Duke-NUS Medical School have found that a new class of light-sensitive proteins are capable of turning off brain cells with light, offering scientists an unprecedentedly effective tool to investigate brain function. The study, recently published in Nature Communications, opens exciting new opportunities to apply optogenetics to investigate the brain activity underlying neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and depression. Optogenetics is a technique where specific cells are bioengineered to include light-sensitive proteins that act as switches,…
A new strain of vaccinia virus is able to induce so-called immunogenic cell death in tumor cells. Vaccinia viruses are therapeutic tools with different biomedical applications depending on the susceptibility characteristics. For example, the strain called MVA (modified vaccinia Ankara), which is unable to replicate in mammalian cells, triggers a potent immune system response and is used to develop vaccines against COVID-19 or AIDS. In contrast, other strains such as Western Reserve (WR) or Copenhagen (Cop), which replicate efficiently in…
New study details high-throughput process for rapid screening, identification of mysterious ‘long non-coding RNA’. UC Santa Cruz researchers have discovered a peptide in human RNA that regulates inflammation and may provide a new path for treating diseases such as arthritis and lupus. The team used a screening process based on the powerful gene-editing tool CRISPR to shed light on one of the biggest mysteries about our RNA–the molecule responsible for carrying out genetic information contained in our DNA. This peptide…
Recurrent heart failure linked to accumulated stress in immunity-forming stem cells. The stress of heart failure is remembered by the body and appears to lead to recurrent failure, along with other related health issues, according to new research. Researchers have found that heart failure leaves a “stress memory” in the form of changes to the DNA modification of hematopoietic stem cells, which are involved in the production of blood and immune cells called macrophages. These immune cells play an important…
A new process for the mass production of erythro-isocitric acid from waste could make the substance interesting for industry in the future. The fungus Talaromyces verruculosus can produce the chemical erythro-isocitric acid, which has received little attention on the market to date, directly from cheap plant waste and thus make it interesting for industrial utilization. Using the natural abilities of the non-genetically modified fungus, a research team from Jena has discovered a method for the efficient conversion of cellulose into…
Using the example of the freshwater polyp Hydra, a CRC 1182 research team shows how even creatures with very simple nervous systems can regulate the complex coordination of satiety and related behaviours. Over the course of evolution, living organisms have gradually developed more complex nervous systems in order to coordinate increasingly complex sensory, motor and cognitive functions and to control the associated behaviour. Recently, different research projects have shown that even simple creatures with diffuse nervous systems can exhibit complex…
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