… yielding insight into evolution, food security and climate change. The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently announced that it will support the efforts of a collaborative group of researchers, led by Elizabeth Vierling, Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who plan to spend the next four years investigating the role that mitochondria play in plant productivity. This research has immediate implications for ensuring that agriculture can meet the challenge of global warming. “One of the things…

“We put nanotubes inside of bacteria,” says Professor Ardemis Boghossian at EPFL’s School of Basic Sciences. “That doesn’t sound very exciting on the surface, but it’s actually a big deal. Researchers have been putting nanotubes in mammalian cells that use mechanisms like endocytosis, that are specific to those kinds of cells. Bacteria, on the other hand, don’t have these mechanisms and face additional challenges in getting particles through their tough exterior. Despite these barriers, we’ve managed to do it, and…

LJI scientists uncover major clue toward developing a pan-flavivirus therapy. Zika virus has a trick up its sleeve. Once inside the body, the virus likes to make a bee line for dendritic cells, the cells we rely on to launch an effective immune response. “Dendritic cells are major cells of the innate immune system,” says LJI Professor Sujan Shresta, Ph.D., a member of the LJI Center for Infectious Disease and Vaccine Research. “How is this virus so clever that it’s…

New Neuropixels technology provides evidence of mosaic-like neural connections. For the first time, neuroscientists from Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence (currently in the process of being established) have revealed the precise connections between sensory neurons inside the retina and the superior colliculus, a structure in the midbrain. Neuropixels probes are a relatively recent development, representing the next generation of electrodes. Densely packed with recording points, Neuropixels probes are used to record the activity…

Researchers discover cellular protection against epigenetic changes. The liver can regenerate even in old age and remains surprisingly fit, even though the chromatin in its cells undergoes major remodeling due to epigenetic changes, as researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne have now discovered. One possible reason why the transformation has minor consequences could be a mechanism that the researchers now describe in the journal Molecular Systems Biology. Changes in epigenetics are considered to be…

Self-assembling molecules could help in cancer therapy. Treatment of cancer is a long-term process because remnants of living cancer cells often evolve into aggressive forms and become untreatable. Hence, treatment plans often involve multiple drug combinations and/or radiation therapy in order to prevent cancer relapse. To combat the variety of cancer cell types, modern drugs have been developed to target specific biochemical processes that are unique within each cell type. However, cancer cells are highly adaptive and able to develop…

Solid-aqueous interfaces are ubiquitous and essential in a diverse range of natural and man-made systems and processes, from mineral formation, rock weathering, metal corrosion, to the intricate functioning of biological membranes and ion channels. In all these systems and processes, water and water-borne ions play decisive roles and underpin the interfacial chemical reactivities, but oftentimes, a fundamental understanding of such roles and effects is lacking. Water is regarded a ‘green’ medium that is abundantly available, environmentally benign and inexpensive, so…

Research team succeeds in creating novel metal-organic frameworks. Discovered 25 years ago, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) quickly gained the aura of a “miracle material” due to their particular properties: their large inner surfaces and tuneable pore sizes facilitate improved applications, for example in materials separation and gas storage. While previous representatives were mainly based on transition metals like copper and zinc, a team at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) has explored more exotic parts of the periodic table: they investigated analogous compounds…

Professor Sabrina Jabs from the Cluster of Excellence “Precision Medicine in Chronic Inflammation” (PMI) investigated the function of a new disease gene with international cooperation. The starting point of the research was the search for host factors, that are necessary for RNA viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 to replicate. For this purpose, genome-wide CRISPR/Cas knock-out screens in human cell cultures were used to investigate which cells survive after infection with certain viruses. “In other words, in the cell culture, we switched…

New method converts carbon dioxide into chemical. A team of researchers led by Meenesh Singh at University of Illinois Chicago has discovered a way to convert 100% of carbon dioxide captured from industrial exhaust into ethylene, a key building block for plastic products. Their findings are published in Cell Reports Physical Science. While researchers have been exploring the possibility of converting carbon dioxide to ethylene for more than a decade, the UIC team’s approach is the first to achieve nearly 100% utilization of carbon dioxide…

COVID-19 has been mutating and spreading ever since the pandemic plagued the world. Contrary to what people believe, this disease is far from resolved. SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, which causes a respiratory disease, was identified first in 2019. It spreads through droplets when people speak, sneeze, or cough. Recently, a surge in COVID-19 cases has been reported across Asian countries. Considering its fatal effects on humans, primarily death makes it a deadly disease requiring a permanent and potent…

Just two weeks after announcing the development of a mouse embryo model, complete with beating hearts and the foundations for a brain and other organs, from mouse stem cells, researchers in the laboratory of Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, Bren Professor of Biology and Biological Engineering, have published new findings about another mouse embryo model reaching similar developmental stages, but created out of only mouse embryonic stem cells. This modification has simplified the protocol and makes the embryo model easier to be adopted in other laboratories….

Ecosystem changes can be more accurately predicted by emissions of chiral compounds. Worldwide, plants emit about 100 million tonnes of monoterpenes into the atmosphere each year. These volatile organic molecules include many fragrances such as the molecule pinene – known for its pine fresh scent. Since these molecules are highly reactive and can form tiny aerosol particles that can grow into nuclei for clouds droplets, natural emissions play an important role in our climate. Therefore, it is important for climate…

Tuebingosaurus maierfritzorum lived in the Swabian Alb region – paleontologists reclassify 100-year-old discovery. Paleontologists at the University of Tübingen’s Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment have discovered a hitherto unknown genus and species of dinosaur. Tuebingosaurus maierfritzorum lived about 203 to 211 million years ago in the region now known as Swabian Alb and was a herbivore. The new species displays similarities with the large long-necked dinosaurs known as sauropods, and was identified when already-known dinosaur bones were re-examined….

Tuberculosis is one of the leading causes of death worldwide, with an estimated 1.4 million deaths and ten million people infected annually. Resistant and multidrug-resistant (MDR) variants of the tuberculosis pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis pose a major threat to tuberculosis control and global health. Rapid detection of these patient-specific resistance patterns is therefore crucial for targeted treatment and successful control of the transmission of antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis bacteria—a goal that DZIF scientists have now taken a major step towards. Mutations in the…

World’s tiniest plumbing could one day funnel drugs to individual human cells. Working on microscopic pipes only a millionth as wide as a single strand of human hair, Johns Hopkins University researchers have engineered a way to ensure that these tiniest of pipes are safe from the tiniest of leaks. Leak-free piping, made with nanotubes that self-assemble, self-repair, and can connect themselves to different biostructures, is a significant step toward creating a nanotube network that one day might deliver specialized…