Press monitoring
Enabling biocircuits: New device could make large biological circuits practical
25.11.2014 | Press monitoring
Researchers have made great progress in recent years in the design and creation of biological circuits -- systems that, like electronic circuits, can take a number of different inputs and deliver a particular kind of output. But while individual components of such biological circuits can have precise and predictable responses, those outcomes...
Bio-Inspired Bleeding Control
24.11.2014 | Press monitoring
Taking a cue from the human body’s own coagulation processes, researchers at UC Santa Barbara synthesize platelet-like nanoparticles that can do more than clot blood. Stanching the free flow of blood from an injury remains a holy grail of clinical medicine. Controlling blood flow is a primary concern and first line of defense for patients and...
Biochemists build largest synthetic molecular cage ever
21.11.2014 | Press monitoring
UCLA biochemists have created the largest-ever protein that self-assembles into a molecular "cage." The research could lead to synthetic vaccines that protect people from the flu, HIV and other diseases. At a size hundreds of times smaller than a human cell, it also could lead to new methods of delivering pharmaceuticals inside of cells, or to...
Bacteria become genomic tape recorders, recording chemical exposures in their DNA
20.11.2014 | Press monitoring
MIT engineers have transformed the genome of the bacterium E. coli into a long-term storage device for memory. They envision that this stable, erasable, and easy-to-retrieve memory will be well suited for applications such as sensors for environmental and medical monitoring. "You can store very long-term information," says Timothy Lu, an...
Chemistry trick may herald transformational next-generation RNAi therapeutics
19.11.2014 | Press monitoring
Small pieces of synthetic RNA trigger a RNA interference (RNAi) response that holds great therapeutic potential to treat a number of diseases, especially cancer and pandemic viruses. The problem is delivery—it is extremely difficult to get RNAi drugs inside the cells in which they are needed. To overcome this hurdle, researchers at University of...
Up to 80 million bacteria sealed with a kiss
18.11.2014 | Press monitoring
As many as 80 million bacteria are transferred during a 10 second kiss, according to research published in the open access journal Microbiome. The study also found that partners who kiss each other at least nine times a day share similar communities of oral bacteria. The ecosystem of more than 100 trillion microorganisms that live in our bodies...
Personalized cocktails vanquish resistant cancers
17.11.2014 | Press monitoring
Doctors may be able to overcome drug resistance in cancer by growing cells from a patient's own tumour and then blasting the cells with an array of compounds to see which ones work. A study published on 13 November in Science heralds this ultra-personalized future of cancer therapy. International efforts to sequence cancer genomes have yielded a...
No magic gene behind supercentenarians longevity
14.11.2014 | Press monitoring
What does it take to live to a 110? If supercentenarians have a magic gene that helps them reach this age, it is lying low. A thorough search for longevity gene variants in 17 supercentenarians – average age 112 (the oldest was 116) – has drawn a blank. Previous studies identified genes coding for proteins that might play an important role in...
Vaccine-resistant polio strain discovered
13.11.2014 | Press monitoring
The global initiative to eradicate poliomyelitis through routine vaccination has helped reduce the number of cases by more than 99% in 30 years, from an estimated 350,000 cases in 1988 to 650 reported cases in 2011. However, major epidemics are still occurring today, such as the ones in the Republic of the Congo in 2010, Tajikistan in 2010, and...
Researchers create unique graphene nanopores with optical antennas for DNA sequencing
12.11.2014 | Press monitoring
High-speed reading of the genetic code should get a boost with the creation of the world's first graphene nanopores – pores measuring approximately 2 nanometers in diameter – that feature a "built-in" optical antenna. Researchers with Berkeley Lab and the University of California (UC) Berkeley have invented a simple, one-step process for...
