Chemists from Chemnitz prepared long searched Chemical Compound for the First Time. High-profile publication in the journal Nature Chemistry: Prof. Dr. Johannes Teichert and his team from Chemnitz University of Technology successfully show the existence of the neutral homoaromatic compound. In a recent issue of the renowned and highly cited international journal Nature Chemistry, Prof. Dr. Johannes Teichert, head of the Professorship of Organic Chemistry at Chemnitz University of Technology, his research assistant Trung Tran Ngoc, and other contributors report…

Senescent Cells Aid Regeneration in Salamanders. Scientists show that so called senescent cells, i.e., cells that have permanently stopped dividing, boost production of new muscle cells to enhance regeneration of lost limbs in salamanders. Senescent cells, often referred to as “zombie” cells, have long been associated with aging and disease. However, a new study from the Center for Regenerative Therapies Dresden (CRTD) at TU Dresden adds to a growing body of evidence that not all senescent cells are harmful. The…

Taming pancreatic cancer with intratumoral immunotherapy. Houston Methodist nanomedicine researchers have found a way to tame pancreatic cancer – one of the most aggressive and difficult to treat cancers – by delivering immunotherapy directly into the tumor with a device that is smaller than a grain of rice. In a paper recently published in Advanced Science, Houston Methodist Research Institute researchers used an implantable nanofluidic device they invented to deliver CD40 monoclonal antibodies (mAb), a promising immunotherapeutic agent, at a…

Novel microelectrode array system enables long-term cultivation and electrophysiological analyses. Brain organoids are self-organizing tissue cultures grown from patient cell-derived induced pluripotent stem cells. They form tissue structures that resemble the brain in vivo in many ways. This makes brain organoids interesting for studying both normal brain development and for the development of neurological diseases. However, organoids have been poorly studied in terms of neuronal activity, as measured by electrical signals from the cells. A team of scientists led by…

Diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) is a lethal pediatric brain cancer that often kills within a year of diagnosis. Surgery is almost impossible because of the tumors’ location. Chemotherapy has debilitating side effects. New treatment options are desperately needed. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Professor Adrian Krainer is best known for his groundbreaking research on antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs)—molecules that can control protein levels in cells. His efforts led to Spinraza®, the first FDA-approved treatment for a deadly neurodegenerative disease called spinal muscular atrophy (SMA)….

It’s extremely difficult to study the biological basis of psychiatric disorders, in part because researchers can’t easily collect brain cells from living people to study in the laboratory. Now, University of Utah Health scientists have developed a way around that. The researchers grew three-dimensional structures, called “organoids”, derived from blood cells donated by a patient with pediatric bipolar disorder and by several family members. The approach identified significant molecular changes linked to the psychiatric condition. The results, reported in Molecular…

Leipzig scientists increase efficiency. One of the most widely used plastics in the world is polyethylene terephthalate, or PET for short. It is everywhere in our daily lives in the form of reusable PET drinks bottles. At the end of the lifecycle of a product containing PET, the environmentally friendly reuse of the PET components through the activity of enzymes is an economically and ecologically interesting alternative to incineration, landfill or purely chemical recycling. A team of researchers from Leipzig…

EPFL researchers have used a nanoplasmonics approach to observe the real-time production of cell secretions, including proteins and antibodies; an advancement that could aid in the development of cancer treatments, vaccines, and other therapies. Cell secretions like proteins, antibodies, and neurotransmitters play an essential role in immune response, metabolism, and communication between cells. Understanding cell secretions is key for developing disease treatments, but current methods are only able to report the quantity of secretions, without any detail as to when…

… world’s leading cause of foodborne infection. Dual vaccine comprising two diarrhea-causing viruses generates antibodies against both. Every year, norovirus causes hundreds of millions of cases of food poisoning — and the deaths of at least 50,000 children — yet there exists no real way to control it. The virus has proven exceptionally difficult to study in the lab, and scientists have struggled to develop effective vaccines and drugs. A new study at Washington University School of Medicine in St….

Bonn researchers uncover contribution of protein degradation processes to cisplatin resistance in germ cell tumors: Cisplatin is used successfully in the chemotherapy of testicular cancer. However, patients who develop resistance to the cytostatic drug urgently need alternative therapy options. Researchers at the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) have now been able to elucidate a mechanism underlying cisplatin resistance in testicular cancer. Using CRISPR gene scissors, they identified the NAE1 gene as its driver. Inhibiting this resistance mediator by adding the NAE1…

Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, in Cologne, in collaboration with an international team of researchers, have identified natural chemical strategies that bacteria use to keep competitors at bay and successfully proliferate on plants. The study is now published in the journal PNAS. In recent years, the microbiota – communities of microorganisms composed primarily of bacteria and fungi that are found in all eukaryotic organisms, including humans, animals and plants – has come into focus due…

Insights into gene and protein control systems that regulate the use of nitrogen by plant roots could help develop crops that require less nitrogenous fertilizers to produce acceptable yields. Plant biochemist Soichi Kojima and colleagues at Tohoku University discuss their findings and future plans in an article in the journal Frontiers in Plant Science. Nitrogen is such a crucial nutrient for plants that vast quantities of nitrogen-containing fertilizers are spread on farmlands worldwide. These fertilizers mostly contain nitrogen as ammonium…

Our brains are made of billions of neurons, which are connected forming complex networks. They communicate between themselves by sending electrical signals, known as action potentials, and chemical signals, known as neurotransmitters, in a process called synaptic transmission. Chemical neurotransmitters are released from one neuron, diffuse to the others and arrive at the targeted cells, generating a signal which excites, inhibits or modulates the cellular activity. The timing and strength of these signals are crucial for the brain to process…

Using advanced in-situ spectroscopy techniques, scientists at Binghamton University and Brookhaven Lab gain new insights into catalytic oxidation. Researchers at Binghamton University led research partnering with the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN)—a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility at Brookhaven National Laboratory—to get a better look at how peroxides on the surface of copper oxide promote the oxidation of hydrogen but inhibit the oxidation of carbon monoxide, allowing them to steer oxidation reactions. They were able…

Small proteins play a critical role in the regulation of immune response, inflammation and neurodegenerative diseases. In order to better detect and study them, scientists at the Max-Planck-Institute for the Science of Light have combined one of the most effective microscopy methods, called iSCAT, with artificial intelligence. Biological molecules such as proteins are central constituents of all living systems and dictate all physiological reactions in health and disease conditions. In particular, many small proteins play critical roles in the regulation…

A UNIGE team has developed a new approach to customize treatments by testing them on artificial tumors. How to determine the most effective treatment for colon cancer? The response to chemotherapy varies greatly from one patient to another. A team from the UNIGE has developed a new method for testing different drugs, without going through the affected person’s body and without resorting to animal experiments. The researchers used organoids – miniature reproductions of organs and tissues – derived from patients…