UNC School of Medicine researchers Jack Griffith, PhD, and Taghreed Al-Turki, PhD, found that telomeres at the tips of chromosomes contain sufficient genetic information to produce two small proteins with potentially potent biological properties. Once thought incapable of encoding proteins due to their simple monotonous repetitions of DNA, tiny telomeres at the tips of our chromosomes seem to hold a potent biological function that’s potentially relevant to our understanding of cancer and aging. Reporting in the Proceedings of the National…

Scientists at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have used the Swiss X-ray free-electron laser SwissFEL and the Swiss Light Source SLS to make a film that could give a decisive boost to developing a new type of drug. They made the advance in the field of so-called photopharmacology, a discipline that develops active substances which can be specifically activated or deactivated with the help of light. The study is being published today in the journal Nature Communications. Photopharmacology is a…

… senses when your voice needs a break. Singers, politicians, teachers, coaches could benefit from new smart technology. Vocal fatigue is a common condition caused by overuse Sensors provide awareness around how much wearers use their voices, with the goal to prevent vocal fatigue and further injury Developed by biomedical engineers and opera singers, the small, soft, flexible, wireless device sits on upper chest to monitor vocal activity in real time Using Bluetooth, data is streamed to an app, where…

Electrocatalysis is an interface-dominated process, in which the activity of the catalyst highly relates to the adsorption/desorption behaviors of the reactants/intermediates/products on the active sites. From the perspective of catalyst design, the chemical functionalization on noble metal surfaces will inevitably affect the reaction process, which is considered to be one of the effective strategies to tune the electrocatalytic performance of noble metal nanocrystals. Recently, a research team led by Prof. Yu Chen from Shaanxi Normal University, China published the latest…

Knowledge of the cell-type specific make-up of the brain is useful to understand the role of each cell type as part of the network, is necessary to tackle any large scale neural circuit simulation, and is key to Blue Brain’s long term goal of accurately building a digital model of the whole mouse brain. Nonetheless, obtaining a global understanding of the cellular composition of the brain is an excessively complex task, not only because of the great variability inherent in…

Very soon, we need to become fossil free, not only in the energy sector, but as well in industry. Hydrocarbons or other raw chemicals can be produced in principle using renewable energy and abundant molecules such as water and carbon dioxide with the help of electrocatalytically active materials. But at the moment, those catalyst materials either consist of expensive and rare materials or lack efficiency. Key reaction in water splitting A team led by Dr. Prashanth W. Menezes (HZB/TU-Berlin) has…

Software opens the door for a greater number of complete genome sequences. National Institutes of Health researchers have developed and released an innovative software tool to assemble truly complete (i.e., gapless) genome sequences from a variety of species. This software, called Verkko, which means “network” in Finnish, makes the process of assembling complete genome sequences more affordable and accessible. A description of the new software was published today in Nature Biotechnology. Verkko grew from assembling the first gapless human genome…

Researchers at Berkeley Lab have made real-time movies of copper nanoparticles as they evolve to convert carbon dioxide and water into renewable fuels and chemicals. Their new insights could help advance the next generation of solar fuels. Since the 1970s, scientists have known that copper has a special ability to transform carbon dioxide into valuable chemicals and fuels. But for many years, scientists have struggled to understand how this common metal works as an electrocatalyst, a mechanism that uses energy…

… of a wide range of mental health disorders related to stress, anxiety. Virginia Tech research points to a molecule critical in development of the brain’s stress response. Virginia Tech researchers studying brain development have identified a molecule that is critical in developing the stress response, a finding that sheds new light on the potential cause of mental health conditions such as stress, anxiety and related disorders. Deficiencies in the molecule called DSCAML1, short for DS cell adhesion molecule like 1,…

A team of scientists led by Professor Tanja Gulder at Leipzig University’s Institute of Organic Chemistry, together with colleagues from the University of Regensburg, has developed a simplified and efficient method for the artificial production of terpenes. Terpenes are a very extensive and diverse class of natural products that perform a wide range of functions in nature and are also used industrially. Until now, producing them has required a wide variety of starting scenarios, some with harsh conditions, or has…

MHH cardiology starts the multicentre ORION HF study. She wants to find out whether a preparation in tablet form can correct iron deficiency and alleviate the typical symptoms of heart failure. People with heart failure, also called heart failure, often have too little iron in the body. Iron deficiency exacerbates the symptoms of heart disease such as shortness of breath, tiredness and weakness. A dose of iron can help those affected. So far, this is done by infusion through the…

The so-called isolated REM-sleep behavior disorder is a condition that can provide an indication of Parkinson’s disease well in advance. A research team headed by Professor Dr Erdem Gültekin Tamgüney from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) has shown that a greater concentration of α-synuclein aggregates can be detected in the stool samples of sufferers. In the scientific journal “npj Parkinson’s disease”, which is published by the NatureSpringer group, they now present a method for detecting these aggregates, which they have…

Researchers from the DZNE have solved an important puzzle in neurobiology: the wiring and the movement of nerve cells are interwoven, but separately controlled. The study focuses on neuronal growth and migration: As nerve cells form, they wire the brain to enable communication with other nerve cells. One of these wires, the axon, becomes long; these wires are a basis for neuronal networks. At the same time, nerve cells migrate to a specific place in the brain, the cortex. Remarkably,…

Routing activity in the visual cortex. A new study by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research uses computer simulations to explore how patterns of spikes propagate in neuronal networks constrained by experimental data from the turtle visual cortex. The researchers found that rare but strong connections in the network could promote the reliability of propagation, providing a substrate to easily halt or promote propagation, resulting in a highly reliable system to route activity within these networks. The…

Advance offers a new way of investigating diseases—including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and different cancers—where mitochondria are disrupted. An advanced imaging-based method from scientists at Scripps Research offers a new way of studying mitochondria, which are best known as the “powerhouses” of cells. In their report on February 14, 2023, in the Journal of Cell Biology, the scientists described a set of techniques that enables the imaging and quantification of even subtle structural changes inside mitochondria, and the correlation of those changes…

Protein degrader shows promise against STAT5, which plays a role in leukemia, other cancers. The protein STAT5 has long been an appealing target against cancer, but after decades of research it was consigned to the “undruggable” category. Now, University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center researchers have found success with a new approach. By tapping into a cellular garbage disposal function, researchers found they could eliminate STAT5 from cell cultures and mice, setting the stage for potential development as a cancer…