Model enzyme from an edible fungus. “In plasma-driven biocatalysis, we intend to use technical plasmas to drive enzymes that use hydrogen peroxide to convert a substrate into a more valuable product,” explains Julia Bandow, Head of the Department of Applied Microbiology. The plasmas – energetically charged gases – produce hydrogen peroxide as well as a variety of reactive species. The researchers use the non-specific peroxigenase (AaeUPO) from the edible fungus Agrocybe aegerita as a model enzyme. They showed in initial…

A newly developed artificial intelligence (AI) system that analyzes specialized MRIs of the brain accurately diagnosed children between the ages of 24 and 48 months with autism at a 98.5% accuracy rate, according to research being presented next week at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). Mohamed Khudri, B.Sc., a visiting research scholar at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, was part of a multi-disciplinary team that developed the three-stage system to analyze and classify…

The Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) is set to lead the coordination of the PHOTOTHERAPORT project, which will be developed with funding from the European Innovation Council’s Pathfinder Open programme. Pau Gorostiza, an ICREA research professor and principal investigator of the Nanoprobes and Nanoswitches group at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) and CIBER-BBN, is set to coordinate the PHOTOTHERAPORT project, which is funded by the prestigious Pathfinder Open programme of the European Innovation Council (EIC). Through this…

A donated organ always remains foreign to the body and is fought against by the immune system. In order to prevent rejection, the entire immune defence must be suppressed for a lifetime. An MHH research team is now using genetically modified killer cells against precisely those immune cells that want to destroy the transplant. If an organ is incurably diseased and fails, the only remaining treatment option is a transplant. However, the recipient’s immune system recognises the donor organ as…

Day by day, we communicate with our office colleagues to accomplish tasks that are necessary to function. The more than 200 different types of cells in our bodies do the same thing, but the way they communicate with each other isn’t as simple as sending an email. Researchers like Ioannis Zervantonakis are still trying to understand how these cells actually communicate with each other. The assistant professor of bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering recently received…

Scientists have discovered that bacteria can create something like memories about when to form strategies that can cause dangerous infections in people, such as resistance to antibiotics and bacterial swarms when millions of bacteria come together on a single surface. The discovery — which has potential applications for preventing and combatting bacterial infections and addressing antibiotic-resistant bacteria — relates to a common chemical element bacterial cells can use to form and pass along these memories to their progeny over later…

For the first time, researchers at TU Wien have successfully observed the operating principle of so-called promoters in a catalytic reaction in real-time. These promoters play an important role in technology, but so far there is only limited understanding. Catalysts are essential for numerous chemical technologies, ranging from exhaust gas purification to the production of valuable chemicals and energy carriers. Often, tiny traces of additional substances are used alongside catalysts to make them highly effective. These substances are referred to…

Soccer fans exhibit different patterns of brain activation while watching a match that may trigger positive and negative emotions and behaviors, according to research being presented next week at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). The researchers say the implication of these findings could extend beyond sports to fanaticism in other areas, such as politics. “This study aims to shed light on the behaviors and dynamics associated with extreme rivalry, aggression and social affiliation within…

The microbiome (the symbiotic community of microbial organisms of a host) is of existential importance for the functioning of every plant and animal, including human beings. A research team from Düsseldorf and Kiel headed by Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) has now used the example of the sea anemone Nematostella vectenis to investigate how the microbiome develops together with the host. In the scientific journal Microbiome, the researchers describe that the bacterial community is primarily controlled by the host organism…

A team of scientists from the Institut Pasteur has used the database of the National Reference Center for Meningococci to trace the evolution of invasive meningococcal disease cases in France between 2015 and 2022, revealing an unprecedented resurgence in the disease after the easing of control measures imposed during the COVID-19 epidemic. Recently reported cases have mainly been caused by meningococcal serogroups that were less frequent before the pandemic, and there has been a particular uptick in cases among people…

The vision system, evolved over millions of years, is highly complex. To make vision sensitive throughout the whole range of visible wavelengths, Nature employs a supramolecular chemistry approach. The visual pigment, cis-retinal, changes its shape upon capturing a photon. This shape transformation is accompanied by changes in the supramolecular organization of the surrounding proteins, subsequently triggering a cascade of chemical signaling events that get amplified and eventually lead to visual perception in the brain. “Some deep-sea fish have evolved antenna-like…

Proteins that form clumps occur in many difficult-to-treat diseases, such as ALS, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s. The mechanisms behind how the proteins interact with each other are difficult to study, but now researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have discovered a new method for capturing many proteins in nano-sized traps. Inside the traps, the proteins can be studied in a way that has not been possible before. “We believe that our method has great potential to increase the understanding of…

Researchers establish green pharmaceutical production from wood waste. Sustainable and environmentally friendly production processes are playing an increasingly important role in almost all branches of industry. The production of active pharmaceutical ingredients in particular involves the use of various materials and reagents, many of which have environmentally harmful properties and therefore require costly processing and disposal. Researchers at the University of Graz and the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS) have now succeeded in developing a strategy for the…

New therapeutic strategy to reduce neuronal death in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease that affects neurons in the brain and spinal cord causing loss of muscle control. A study by the University of Barcelona has designed a potential therapeutic strategy to tackle this pathology that has no treatment to date. It is a molecular trap that prevents one of the most common genetic ALS-causing peptide compounds, the Poly-GR dipeptide, from causing its toxic effects…

Researchers from Göttingen and Karlsruhe have developed a new treatment approach for pancreatic cancer. The innovative method promises to be able to treat the disease in a more targeted way and with fewer side effects in the future. The therapy is now to be optimized for clinical application as quickly as possible. Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest types of cancers in humans. It is the fourth leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the western world. The early stages…

… such as hip replacements or pacemakers. Thin films containing metal-organic frameworks slowly release nitric oxide, an antimicrobial agent. Researchers at Colorado State University and the University of St. Andrews in Scotland have developed an effective and flexible antimicrobial material that could be used to coat medical devices placed inside the body. The work combines previous research from both universities into metal-organic frameworks – three-dimensional crystalline materials made of metals and linkers that are porous and remain stable in water….