Due to their stability and resistance to water and grease, PFAS chemicals are used in a wide range industries, but they are harmful to health and the environment. Membranes containing PFAS are used in many semiconductor manufacturing processes, for example. Researchers from the Fraunhofer IAP have now developed a sustainable alternative in the form of an innovative, PFAS-free membrane. The chemically stable, highly permeable polymer membrane has a pore diameter of approx. seven nanometers and enables filtration of the smallest…

Animal testing has long been a fixture of medical and pharmaceutical research, but alternative methods are growing more and more important. Innovative methods allow for research aimed directly at humans — without using animal testing as an intermediate step. TigerShark Science, a planned Fraunhofer start-up and spin-off of the Fraunhofer Translational Center for Regenerative Therapies TLC-RT at the Fraunhofer Institute for Silicate Research ISC, is taking this kind of approach. TigerShark Science hopes to use skin models grown from human…

MRI scans are commonly used to diagnose a variety of conditions, anything from liver disease to brain tumors. But, as anyone who has been through one knows, patients must remain completely still to avoid blurring the images and requiring a new scan. A prototype device described in ACS Sensors could change that. The self-powered sensor detects movement and shuts down an MRI scan in real time, improving the process for patients and technicians. During an MRI scan, a patient must…

Skin can send certain health-related signals, such as dry skin feeling tighter to indicate the need for moisture. But what if skin could be smarter, capable of monitoring and sharing specific health information, such as the concentration of glucose in sweat or heart rate? That was the question driving a team led by Penn State researchers that recently developed an adhesive sensing device that seamlessly attaches to human skin to detect and monitor the wearer’s health. The details of the…

Vessel-chip technology may offer a future of more personalized pharmaceutical drug testing, leading to our improved ability to combat disease. The pharmaceutical drug development and approval process is a multi-step undertaking that requires a plethora of testing before reaching the market. Even then, humans respond differently to drugs depending on their individual bodies and medical needs. Dr. Abhishek Jain, associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, and his lab received a grant from Texas A&M Innovation to continue developing an advanced…

MHH study identifies new autoantibodies in cerebrospinal fluid as a possible biomarker for rapidly progressing cerebellitis. Cerebellar ataxia is a neurological disorder of the cerebellum. This important area at the back of the brain acts as a conductor, so to speak, coordinating our movements and keeping us in balance. This ability is impaired in cerebellar ataxia. Affected people can have difficulties walking, speaking and grasping or even with controlled eye movements. In some cases, the damage begins gradually and develops…

Dr. Melissa Grunlan is developing synthetic plugs for patients suffering from chronic knee pain or disabilities that would avoid total knee replacements. Osteochondral defects (OCDs) can cause damage to cartilage and underlying bone, leading to chronic pain and loss of joint function. Depending on the extent of damage, individuals must undergo surgical treatment, the most extensive being total knee replacement, which over 800,000 Americans undergo each year. Dr. Melissa Grunlan, professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Texas A&M…

Scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have developed the most sensitive method yet for detecting and profiling a single molecule — unlocking a new tool that holds potential for better understanding how the building blocks of matter interact with each other. The new method could have implications for pursuits as varied as drug discovery and the development of advanced materials. The technical achievement, detailed this month in the journal Nature, marks a significant advance in the burgeoning field of observing…

Diagnostic support with artificial intelligence and robotics. Robotic ultrasound can relieve doctors of routine examinations. Standardized examinations ensure comparable data. No specialized medical personnel required for autonomous or automated examinations. Prof. Nassir Navab from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) uses robotic ultrasound systems that perform routine examinations autonomously and support doctors in the operating theater. His research shows that these systems can make everyday life easier for doctors. Ultrasound became established in medicine 60 years ago. The first remotely…

… to an unconventional mode of bacterial toxicity. A collaborative study between researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research and the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology has shown how a single metabolite can render bacteria toxic to plants under high salt conditions. Their findings may have important implications for agriculture and plant health in changing climates. Climate change, and specifically rising temperatures, will place a great strain on plant growth and will almost certainly…

Improves outlook for lymphoma patients… A team of cancer researchers, led by the University of Houston, has discovered a new subset of T cells that may improve the outcome for patients treated with T-cell therapies. T cell-based immunotherapy has tremendous value to fight, and often eliminate, cancer. The strategy activates a patient’s immune system and engineers a patient’s own T cells to recognize, attack and kill cancer cells. In this way, the body’s own T cells become living drugs. While…

A widely found gene in plants has been newly identified as a key transporter of a hormone that influences the size of corn. The discovery offers plant breeders a new tool to develop desirable dwarf varieties that could enhance the crop’s resilience and profitability. A team of scientists led by Iowa State University spent years working to pinpoint the functions of the gene ZmPILS6. Now, they have been able to characterize it as an important driver of plant size and…

Low-level light therapy appears to affect healing in the brains of people who suffered significant brain injuries, according to a study published today in Radiology, a journal of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). Lights of different wavelengths have been studied for years for their wound-healing properties. Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) conducted low-level light therapy on 38 patients who had suffered moderate traumatic brain injury, an injury to the head serious enough to alter cognition and/or be…

Researchers from Duke-NUS Medical School have found that a new class of light-sensitive proteins are capable of turning off brain cells with light, offering scientists an unprecedentedly effective tool to investigate brain function. The study, recently published in Nature Communications, opens exciting new opportunities to apply optogenetics to investigate the brain activity underlying neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and depression. Optogenetics is a technique where specific cells are bioengineered to include light-sensitive proteins that act as switches,…

A new strain of vaccinia virus is able to induce so-called immunogenic cell death in tumor cells. Vaccinia viruses are therapeutic tools with different biomedical applications depending on the susceptibility characteristics. For example, the strain called MVA (modified vaccinia Ankara), which is unable to replicate in mammalian cells, triggers a potent immune system response and is used to develop vaccines against COVID-19 or AIDS. In contrast, other strains such as Western Reserve (WR) or Copenhagen (Cop), which replicate efficiently in…

New study details high-throughput process for rapid screening, identification of mysterious ‘long non-coding RNA’. UC Santa Cruz researchers have discovered a peptide in human RNA that regulates inflammation and may provide a new path for treating diseases such as arthritis and lupus. The team used a screening process based on the powerful gene-editing tool CRISPR to shed light on one of the biggest mysteries about our RNA–the molecule responsible for carrying out genetic information contained in our DNA. This peptide…