Glycosylation is a common post-translational modification (PTM) of proteins and plays a crucial role in many biological processes. Many disease biomarkers are glycosylated proteins. Mass spectrometry-based intact glycopeptide identification can provide information on glycosite and the attached glycans. However, the interpretation of acquired glycopeptide spectra is still challenging. Recently, a research team led by Prof. YE Mingliang from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has developed a new glycoproteomics software tool, Glyco-Decipher,…

One cutting-edge cancer treatment exciting researchers today involves collecting and reprogramming a patient’s T cells – a special set of immune cells – then putting them back into the body ready to detect and destroy cancerous cells. Although effective for widespread blood cancers like leukemia, this method rarely succeeds at treating solid tumors. Now, Stanford University engineers have developed a delivery method that enhances the “attack power” of the modified immune cells, called chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells. Researchers…

An international research team has successfully developed and tested a concept in which nerves are stimulated with light pulses. The method provides considerable advantages for medicine and opens up a wide range of possible applications. The technology enables completely new types of implants that can be used to stimulate nerve cells and was developed in a joint effort by researchers from Graz University of Technology (TU Graz), the Medical University of Graz (Med Uni Graz), the University of Zagreb and…

New technique uses the body’s naturally occurring ions to help transmit data. Implantable bioelectronics are now often key in assisting or monitoring the heart, brain, and other vital organs, but they often lack a safe, reliable way of transmitting their data to doctors. Now researchers at Columbia Engineering have invented a way to augment implantable bioelectronics with simple, high-speed, low-power wireless data links using ions, positively or negatively charged atoms that are naturally available in the body. Implantable bioelectronics are…

A new platform designed by Gladstone scientists for studying how the immune system responds to hepatitis C virus could speed the hunt for a vaccine. A vaccine for hepatitis C has eluded scientists for more than 30 years, for several reasons. For one, the virus that causes the disease comes in many genetic forms, complicating the creation of a widely effective vaccine. For another, studying hepatitis C has been difficult because options in animals are limited and lab methods using infected cells have…

WEHI has joined forces with the leading science and technology company Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany on a drug discovery campaign to find new cancer therapeutics. The partnership will leverage WEHI’s expertise in minor splicing and the genetic regulation of rapid cellgrowth and proliferation. At a glance WEHI has joined forces with the leading science and technology company Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany on a drug discovery campaign to find new cancer therapeutics for a broad spectrum of cancers. WEHI scientists have shown that…

Scientists at ISTA use brain organoids to understand how a mutated gene affects brain development. Study published in Cell Reports. Several hundred genes are associated with autism spectrum disorders. Some patients are only mildly affected, while others have severe disabilities. In addition to characteristic symptoms like difficulties in social interaction and communication with other people, as well as repetitive-stereotypic behaviors, patients with mutations of the gene CHD8 oftentimes have intellectual disabilities and macrocephaly – an unusually large brain. How CHD8…

Cutting-edge technology used to fingerprint different types of cells in one of deadliest cancers. Houston Methodist researchers have identified the genetic and molecular fingerprints of different cancer and immune cells in glioblastoma, the deadliest and most common type of brain cancer in adults. Their in-depth molecular analysis of over 200,000 single cells revealed a protein, called S100A4, that could be a potential therapeutic target for restoring antitumor action of immune cells toward glioblastomas that have otherwise tricked the immune system…

Electrical synapses – omnipresent and yet hardly explored. They are part of the brain of almost every animal species, yet they remain usually invisible even under the electron microscope. “Electrical synapses are like the dark matter of the brain,” says Alexander Borst, director at the MPI for Biological Intelligence, in foundation (i.f). Now a team from his department has taken a closer look at this rarely explored brain component: In the brain of the fruit fly Drosophila, they were able…

… boosts immune system’s attack on several cancers in mice. A new biodegradable gel improves the immune system’s ability to keep cancer at bay after tumors are surgically removed. The gel, tested in mice, releases drugs and special antibodies that simultaneously deplete immune-blocking cells called macrophages from the surgical site and activate T cells so they can attack cancer. University of Wisconsin–Madison scientists tested the gel on mouse models of several cancers. They found that the gel effectively kept in…

At TU Wien (Vienna), it was now possible to explain how a chemical reaction takes place that, at first glance, should not be possible at the temperatures observed. What happens when a cat climbs onto a sunflower? The sunflower is unstable, will quickly bend, and the cat will fall to the ground. However, if the cat only needs a quick boost to catch a bird from there, then the sunflower can act as a “metastable intermediate step”. This is essentially…

KIT Researchers use CRISPR-Kill to prevent the formation of specific organs during plant development. With the help of the CRISPR/Cas molecular scissors, genetic information in a plant can be modified to make the latter more robust to pests, diseases, or extreme climatic conditions. Researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have now developed this method further to eliminate the complete DNA of specific cell types and, thus, prevent their formation during plant development. This will also help to better understand…

Some jellyfish have simple eyes; some have complex ones. Other jellyfish have no eyes at all. Indeed, recent research has shown jellyfish eyes in different species have evolved separately and independently many times in different ways over many millennia, making them an ideal model to better understand how the trait expresses itself genetically. Now, a team of researchers that includes Paulyn Cartwright, professor of ecology & evolutionary biology at the University of Kansas; Maria Pia Miglietta of Texas A&M University,…

The birds and the bees… Study calculates winged helpers’ effects on coffee—while pioneering a better way to measure nature’s ‘unpaid labor’. A groundbreaking new study finds that coffee beans are bigger and more plentiful when birds and bees team up to protect and pollinate coffee plants. Without these winged helpers, some traveling thousands of miles, coffee farmers would see a 25% drop in crop yields, a loss of roughly $1,066 per hectare of coffee. That’s important for the $26 billion…

University of Jena research team studies molecular components of the endogenous clock in the green lineage. Life on Earth runs in 24-hour cycles. From tiny bacteria to human beings, organisms adapt to alterations of day and night. External factors, such as changes in light and temperature, are needed to entrain the clock. Many metabolic processes are controlled by the endogenous clock. Scientists at the University of Jena have now studied the molecular rhythms of the endogenous clock in the “green…

A new tool speeds up development of vaccines and other pharmaceutical products by more than one million times while minimizing costs. In search of pharmaceutical agents such as new vaccines, industry will routinely scan thousands of related candidate molecules. A novel technique allows this to take place on the nano scale, minimizing use of materials and energy. The work is published in the prestigious journal Nature Chemistry. More than 40,000 different molecules can be synthesized and analyzed within an area…