Life & Chemistry

Life & Chemistry

New Micromotor Method Purifies Water and Generates Green Energy

Researchers from ICIQ in Spain have designed micromotors that move around on their own to purify wastewater. The process creates ammonia, which can serve as a green energy source. Now, an AI method developed at the University of Gothenburg will be used to tune the motors to achieve the best possible results. Micromotors have emerged as a promising tool for environmental remediation, largely due to their ability to autonomously navigate and perform specific tasks on a microscale. The micromotor is…

Life & Chemistry

Shedding new light on sugars, the “dark matter” of cellular biology

Scientists at Université de Montréal’s Department of Chemistry have developed a new fluorogenic probe that can be used to detect and study interactions between two families of biomolecules essential to life: sugars and proteins. The findings by professor Samy Cecioni and his students, which open the door to a wide range of applications, were published in mid-October in the prestigious European journal Angewandte Chemie. Found in all living cells Sugar is omnipresent in our lives, present in almost all the…

Life & Chemistry

New Research Unveils Active Substances for Stress-Related Diseases

Researchers at TU Darmstadt present two new publications. Depression, obesity or chronic pain – all of these disorders can be triggered or promoted by stress. In two recent publications in renowned scientific journals, researchers at TU Darmstadt show new ways of treating stress-related diseases. In a recent publication in in the journal “Nature Structural and Molecular Biology”, Felix Hausch and coworkers at the Department of Chemistry and the Centre for Synthetic Biology (research field Matter+Materials) at TU Darmstadt elucidated the…

Life & Chemistry

When (new) drugs don’t work

Mozambique Faces Alarming Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis Epidemic. New study from the Research Center Borstel, Leibniz Lung Center reveals urgent threat to public health by the spread of drug-resistant tuberculosis in Mozambique. With one of the highest tuberculosis (TB) incidences (368 cases/100,000 population) in the African region, Mozambique is particularly affected by the TB epidemic. Drug-resistant TB is also a major problem, with an estimated 4800 new cases of multidrug resistant (MDR)/rifampicin-resistant TB in the country by 2021. Even more worrisome, researchers…

Life & Chemistry

MAF Protein’s Role in Breast Cancer Metastasis Explained

The MAF protein interacts with the estrogen receptor, alters its function, and promotes the spread of cancer. The KDM1A enzyme plays a fundamental role in the epigenetic remodelling that facilitates the function of pro-metastatic genes. The work carried out in Dr. Roger Gomis Lab at IRB Barcelona has been published in the journal Nature Cell Biology. Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer among women, with more than 2 million new cases diagnosed each year. In cases where the tumour remains…

Life & Chemistry

New Advances in Crystal Structure Prediction for Pharmaceuticals

Physicists from the University of Luxembourg together with experts from Avant-garde Materials Simulation (AMS) and seven pharmaceutical companies have redefined the state-of-the-art in modeling and predicting the free energy of crystals. Their work, recently published in Nature, shows that crystal form stability under real-world temperature and humidity conditions can be reliably and affordably predicted through computer simulation. Physical properties (stability, solubility, etc.), critical to the performance of pharmaceutical and functional materials, are known to strongly depend on the solid-state form…

Life & Chemistry

How Liver Cells Age Differently Based on Their Location

Liver cells age differently depending on where they are in the organ. Looking around us, we can see that people age at different rates. But what about inside? Do all cells age in the same way? And does the location of a cell in the organ make a difference to the ageing process? Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne and CECAD Excellence Cluster for Ageing Research have now shown in the liver of mice…

Life & Chemistry

GIPR:GLP-1R Co-Agonists Transform Diabetes and Obesity Care

… in Managing Diabetes and Obesity. The increasing amount of patients with obesity and type 2 diabetes benefit greatly from the recently developed GIPR:GLP-1R co-agonists. These novel compounds lead to substantial weight loss, offering a revolutionary approach to patients worldwide. Although the hormone glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) was already shown by Helmholtz Munich scientists to decrease body weight via the brain GIP receptor, the underlying neurons through which GIP acts in the brain remained unknown. Scientists led by Dr. Timo…

Life & Chemistry

Bacterial Protein Found to Enhance Human Cell Health

Researchers describes a hitherto unknown protein with anti-oxidizing properties secreted by Coxiella burnetii, a Gram-negative intracellular bacterium, pointing to possible treatments for auto-immune diseases and even cancer. Researchers at the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil, partnering with colleagues in Australia, have identified a novel bacterial protein that can keep human cells healthy even when the cells have a heavy bacterial burden. The discovery could lead to new treatments for a wide array of diseases relating to mitochondrial dysfunction,…

Life & Chemistry

Understanding Immune System Insights From Human Diseases

Jennifer Oyler-Yaniv is using cancer as a model system to understand general principles of the immune system. The immune system is a crucial part of our survival, regularly fending off wide-ranging attacks on the body, both internal and external. Unsurprisingly, the elegant defense system that protects us from viruses, bacterial infections, cancer, and other threats is immensely complicated. Each time it mounts a response, it must quickly and carefully orchestrate communication across vast numbers of cells and molecules. Jennifer Oyler-Yaniv…

Life & Chemistry

Hummingbirds’ Sideways Flutter: Mastering Tight Spaces

High-speed video reveals strategies hummingbirds use to transit apertures too small for their wingspan. Most birds that flit through dense, leafy forests have a strategy for maneuvering through tight windows in the vegetation — they bend their wings at the wrist or elbow and barrel through. But hummingbirds can’t bend their wing bones during flight, so how do they transit the gaps between leaves and tangled branches? A study published today in the Journal of Experimental Biology shows that hummingbirds…

Life & Chemistry

New Method Uncovers Host-Microbe Interactions in Bacteria

New method reveals host-microbe interactions. Joint press release by the CAU and the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology: North German researchers are developing a method that reveals the chemical communication between microbes and their host. The fascinating world of bacteria that live as symbionts or parasites in animal hosts often remains a mystery to researchers. Kiel University (CAU) and the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen are contributing to solving this puzzle with their research into the…

Life & Chemistry

UNITE4TB Launches Clinical Trials in Tuberculosis Drug Development

UNITE4TB, the largest public-private collaboration in tuberculosis drug development, announces start of clinical trials. The TB challenge TB is a major threat to public health, being among the leading causes of death worldwide. In 2021, the disease claimed the lives of 1.6 million people, making it the second leading infectious killer after COVID-19.[1] Drug-resistant TB and long treatment regimens have increased the urgency for action and investment in TB research. For people affected by TB, the most important outcome is…

Life & Chemistry

Device Detects Molecules in Seawater for Marine Insights

Under the ocean’s surface, marine organisms are constantly releasing invisible molecules. Some of the chemical clues reveal which creatures are nearby, while others could be used someday as medications. Now, researchers in ACS Central Science report a proof-of-concept device that “sniffs” seawater, trapping dissolved compounds for analyses. The team showed that the system could easily concentrate molecules that are present in underwater caves and holds promise for drug discovery in fragile ecosystems, including coral reefs. A drop of seawater is…

Life & Chemistry

How Animals Get Their Stripes and Spots: Nature’s Patterns Explained

Nature has no shortage of patterns, from spots on leopards to stripes on zebras and hexagons on boxfish. But a full explanation for how these patterns form has remained elusive. Now engineers at the University of Colorado Boulder have shown that the same physical process that helps remove dirt from laundry could play a role in how tropical fish get their colorful stripes and spots. Their findings were published Nov. 8 in the journal Science Advances. “Many biological questions are…

Life & Chemistry

Hodgkin’s lymphoma: Small change, big effect

Hodgkin’s lymphoma is one of the most common types of lymphoma in young adults. It is characterized by the presence of enlarged B lymphocytes, which are unusual in that they bear on their surface the identifying markers of many other immune cells – such as those found on phagocytes, dendritic cells, or T cells. Now, a team led by Stephan Mathas from the Experimental and Clinical Research Center (ECRC) has explained how these changes take place in the cells and…

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