The tabletop diagnostic yields results in an hour and can be programmed to detect variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Engineers at MIT and Harvard University have designed a small tabletop device that can detect SARS-CoV-2 from a saliva sample in about an hour. In a new study, they showed that the diagnostic is just as accurate as the PCR tests now used. The device can also be used to detect specific viral mutations linked to some of the SARS-CoV-2 variants…

Australian researchers have revealed how the bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus) obtains the essential nutrient, manganese, from our bodies, which could lead to better therapies to target what is a life-threatening, antibiotic-resistant pathogen. Pneumococcus is one of the world’s deadliest organisms, responsible for more than one million deaths each year and is the leading infectious cause of mortality in children under five. It is the main cause of bacterial pneumonia, as well as a major cause of meningitis, sepsis and inner…

Nanotubes with designed defects allow better performance for next-generation optical telecommunications. The Science Scientists have learned how to place crystalline defects in new materials with atomic-scale precision. This enables materials that can control excitons—energy carriers that are similar to subatomic particles. New research shows that, by precisely attaching specific chemical compounds to a carbon nanotube surface, scientists can create local energy wells that “capture” the excitons. The wells lower the excitons’ energy state. This prevents the loss of their energy…

Researchers find three immunotherapy drugs given together can eliminate pancreatic tumors in mice. Pancreatic cancer, which affects about 60,000 Americans every year, is one of the deadliest forms of cancer. After diagnosis, fewer than 10 percent of patients survive for five years. While some chemotherapies are initially effective, pancreatic tumors often become resistant to them. The disease has also proven difficult to treat with newer approaches such as immunotherapy. However, a team of MIT researchers has now developed an immunotherapy…

Researchers may have discovered a new and better genome editing technology than the existing CRISPR-Cas9, which has proved itself a revolution within biotechnology and medical sciences. The similar but much smaller CRISPR-Cas12j system was recently found within the archenemy of bacteria – bacteriophages. These tiny organisms are viruses that can infect and kill bacteria while not being harmful to plants, animals or humans. Researchers from the University of Copenhagen have now mapped the structure of CRISPR-Cas12j3 from bacteriophages. This is…

– underappreciated bacteria step into the spotlight. It was long assumed that cyanobacteria were mainly responsible for fixing nitrogen on early Earth, thus making nitrogen available to the biosphere. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany, now show that purple sulfur bacteria could have contributed substantially to nitrogen fixation under the conditions prevailing in the Proterozoic ocean. Nitrogen is vital for all forms of life: It is part of proteins, nucleic acids and other cell…

Chronic stress is a well-known cause for mental health disorders.  New research has moved a step forward in understanding how glucocorticoid hormones (‘stress hormones’) act upon the brain and what their function is. The findings could lead to more effective strategies in the prevention and treatment of mental health disorders. The study, led by academics at the University of Bristol and published today [6 August] in Nature Communications, has discovered a link between corticosteroid receptors – the mineralocorticoid receptor (MR)…

University of Warwick scientists find protein that bends the cytoskeleton of cells, twisting them into different shapes. University of Warwick scientists find protein that bends the cytoskeleton of cells, twisting them into different shapes The ‘curly’ protein could play a key role in cell division, a process essential to all living matter Provides a new cell engineering tool for biologists to modify cell shapes, much like balloon modelling A protein that causes a cell’s skeleton to bend, allowing it to…

Collagen is the most abundant protein in the human body. It makes up a third of protein content and single strands assemble to form stable fibres that give structure to connective tissue such as skin, tendons, cartilage and bones. Researchers at ETH Zurich have now developed a multi-component molecule that interacts with collagen and can be used to illuminate new tissue growth in the body. Our bodies start producing more collagen as wounds heal – or as tumours grow. During…

Researchers at Sinai Health have used a tiny worm to track how an animal’s brain changes throughout its lifetime, shedding new light on how human brains develop. In new research out today in Nature, scientists from the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute (LTRI) at Sinai Health describe four basic patterns of how new connections are made in the brain of the nematode worm, Caenorhabditis elegans, or C. elegans. “This is the first time that an entire brain’s structure is deduced and compared…

As the third-most lethal cancer in the United States, with only a 1% five-year survival rate for people with its most aggressive form, pancreatic cancer has long been a target of researchers who search for ways to slow or stop its growth and spread. Now, a team of Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers have found that an anti-parasitic drug prevents pancreatic cancer’s initiation, progression and metastasis in genetically engineered mice. In a study published in the journal Oncotarget on July 6,…

A research team headed by chemist Prof Bart Jan Ravoo and biochemist Prof Volker Gerke has designed nanocontainers made of sugar and protein components. These containers are taken up by cells through natural processes and can thereby transport substances that normally cannot penetrate the cell membrane – such as drugs or labelled substances for the investigation of cell functions – into cells. The study was published in “Advanced Science”. Nanocontainers can transport substances into cells where they can then take…

Chemical catalysts are the change agents behind the production of just about everything we use in our daily lives, from plastics to prescription drugs. When the right catalysts are mixed with the right chemical compounds, molecules that would otherwise take years to interact do so in mere seconds. However, developing even one catalyst material to trigger this precise choreography of atoms can take months, even years, when using traditional wet chemistry procedures that use only chemical reactions, often in the…

Dresden and Cambridge researchers identify cell type that regulates liver regeneration with touch. From the time of Aristotle, it has been known that the human liver has the greatest regenerative capacity of any organ in the body, being able to regrow even from a 70% amputation, which has enabled live-donor transplants. Although the liver regenerates fully upon injury, the mechanisms that regulate how to activate or stop the process and when regeneration is terminated, are still unknown.  Researchers at the Max…

Life on Earth today relies on the presence of oxygen. However, the process behind the step-wise rise of oxygen levels in the atmosphere, which took place over nearly two billion years, remains under debate. An international team of scientists around Judith Klatt from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany, proposes an intriguing explanation: that increasing daylength, resulting from slowing Earth rotation, may have allowed microbes to release more oxygen, thereby creating the air we breathe today….

Manganese could make luminescent materials and the conversion of sunlight more sustainable. University of Basel researchers have reached an important milestone in their quest to produce more sustainable luminescent materials and catalysts for converting sunlight into other forms of energy. Based on the cheap metal manganese, they have developed a new class of compounds with promising properties that until now have primarily been found in noble metal compounds. Smartphone screens and catalysts for artificial photosynthesis – to produce fuels from…