A microbial sensor that helps identify and fight bacterial infections also plays a key role in the development of blood stem cells, valuable new insight in the effort to create patient-derived blood stem cells that could eliminate the need for bone marrow transplants. The discovery by a research team led by Raquel Espin Palazon, an assistant professor of genetics, development and cell biology at Iowa State University, was published last month in Nature Communications. It builds on prior work by…

Best Paper Award: Outstanding Publication by TU Researchers Recognised. One application area of artificial intelligence (AI) is in medicine, especially in medical diagnostics. For instance, scans can be analysed automatically with the help of algorithms. An international and interdisciplinary team led by researchers from TU Darmstadt recently investigated whether AI can better evaluate images of brain tumours. For this publication, the team won the Best Paper Award at the world’s largest information systems conference ICIS, prevailing over more than 1,300…

MHH study investigates Biontech vaccine for booster vaccination against the current coronavirus variant XBB1.5. The pandemic is over, but many people in Germany are still infected with the coronavirus. The current Omikron variants in particular are highly contagious. The new booster vaccines from Biontech and Moderna are specially adapted to the Omikron subline XBB.1.5. However, the effectiveness of the new boosters has not yet been proven. A study by the Department of Rheumatology and Immunology at Hannover Medical School (MHH)…

Scientists have so far identified around 800 different neuromuscular diseases. These conditions are caused by problems in the way muscle cells, motor neurons and peripheral cells interact. These disorders, including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and spinal muscular atrophy, lead to muscle weakness, paralysis, and in some cases death. “These diseases are highly complex, and the causes of the dysfunction can vary widely,” says Dr. Mina Gouti, head of the Stem Cell Modeling of Development and Disease Lab at the Max Delbrück Center….

Researchers find that Ebola virus creates the very tunnels it uses to hide and move within the human body. Understanding how viruses travel once inside the human body is critical to develop effective drugs and therapies that can stop viruses in their tracks. Scientists at Texas Biomedical Research Institute (Texas Biomed) recently published findings in the Journal of Infectious Diseases indicating that Ebola virus creates and uses intercellular tunnels to move from cell to cell and evade treatments. “Our findings…

Study using SERS technology reveals a new type of interaction between tumor cells and their environment and demonstrates the potential of SERS spectroscopy for cancer metabolism research. A study conducted by pre-PhD researcher Pablo S. Valera and recently published in PNAS demonstrates the potential of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) to explore metabolites secreted by cancer cells in cancer research. The study, which has been led by Ikerbasque Research Professors Luis Liz-Marzán (from CIC biomaGUNE) and Arkaitz Carracedo (of CIC bioGUNE)…

New mathematical model of genetic interaction identifies master regulators in biological networks. A team of researchers around Berlin mathematics professor Michael Joswig is presenting a novel concept for the mathematical modeling of genetic interactions in biological systems. Collaborating with biologists from ETH Zurich and Carnegy Science (USA), the team has successfully identified master regulators within the context of an entire genetic network. The research results provide a coherent theoretical framework for analyzing biological networks and have been published in the…

Movements of water molecules change depending on the applied voltage. A collaborative team of experimental and computational physical chemists from South Korea and the United States have made an important discovery in the field of electrochemistry, shedding light on the movement of water molecules near metal electrodes. This research holds profound implications for the advancement of next-generation batteries utilizing aqueous electrolytes. In the nanoscale realm, chemists typically utilize laser light to illuminate molecules and measure spectroscopic properties to visualize molecules….

The University Hospital Zurich, the University of Zurich and the diagnostics company Roche are expanding their collaboration in cancer research. In the fully digitalized Morphomolecular Pathology Laboratory, they are developing algorithms that can further improve the effectiveness of immunotherapies. The treatment of patients with cancer has made enormous progress in recent years. A major step forward has been the development of immunotherapies, which are used with great success in some types of cancer, even at an advanced stage. However, a…

Oceans cover most of Earth’s surface and support a staggering number of lifeforms, but they’re also home to a dilute population of uranium ions. And — if we can get these particular ions out of the water — they could be a sustainable fuel source to generate nuclear power. Researchers publishing in ACS Central Science have now developed a material to use with electrochemical extraction that attracts hard-to-get uranium ions from seawater more efficiently than existing methods. Nuclear power reactors…

With 98% accuracy, new metric predicted aneurysm development on average three years prior to occurrence. Northwestern University researchers have developed the first physics-based metric to predict whether or not a person might someday suffer an aortic aneurysm, a deadly condition that often causes no symptoms until it ruptures. In the new study, the researchers forecasted abnormal aortic growth by measuring subtle “fluttering” in a patient’s blood vessel. As blood flows through the aorta, it can cause the vessel wall to…

Using optogenetics, Würzburg researchers have detected a new acid sensor in plant cells that is addressing a cell-internal calcium store, as they report in the journal “Science”. When plants are infected by pathogens, suffer from a lack of water or have to react to other external stimuli, the first thing they do is increase the proton and calcium concentration in the affected cells. The protons and calcium ions then act like messenger substances that trigger further reactions in the cell….

A combination of two new substances effectively kills methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. “Antimicrobial resistance is a major problem, and being able to help solve it is really great,” says Amanda Holstad Singleton, a PhD candidate at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Singleton is the lead author of a study that shows how a combination of two new substances effectively kills methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). These substances have been developed at NTNU and may become a completely new antibiotic that is…

For the first time, the molecular structure of a complete tailed virus with a flexible tail has been solved in unprecedented detail. The word “virus” is often associated with negative connotations. However, it is important to note that not all viruses are harmful. In fact, there are many viruses that live inside our bodies and play important roles in our health. One example is bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria and can be used to keep bacterial infections under control. These…

With the holiday season in full swing, gifts of all shapes and sizes are being shipped around the world. But all that packaging generates lots of waste, including cardboard boxes and plastic-based foam cushioning, such as Styrofoam™. Rather than discard those boxes, researchers publishing in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering developed a cushioning foam from cardboard waste. Their upcycled material was stronger and more insulating than traditional, plastic foam-based cushioning. Among the many kinds of trash that accumulate within a…

Using generative AI, MIT chemists created a model that can predict the structures formed when a chemical reaction reaches its point of no return. During a chemical reaction, molecules gain energy until they reach what’s known as the transition state — a point of no return from which the reaction must proceed. This state is so fleeting that it’s nearly impossible to observe it experimentally. The structures of these transition states can be calculated using techniques based on quantum chemistry,…