Press monitoring
Anthrax toxin may be the key to new pain-blocking therapies
20.12.2021 | Press monitoring
Early preclinical work led by researchers from Harvard Medical School has found certain elements in a toxin produced by the anthrax bacterium can silence activity in pain-signaling brain neurons. The research proposes this could be a new model for future pain therapeutics. Anthrax toxins are composed of several molecules secreted by the anthrax...
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A biopolymer hydrogel with amino-functionalized bioactive glass for accelerated bone regeneration
17.12.2021 | Press monitoring
Composite hydrogels can incorporate natural polymers and bioactive glass as promising materials for bone regeneration. However, the applications of such constructs are limited by poor compatibility between organic and inorganic phases. In a new study now published in Science Advances, Xinxin Ding, and a research team in medicine, in Shanghai...
Researchers create contamination test for dairy products, using technology that can be printed inside containers
15.12.2021 | Press monitoring
Researchers at McMaster University, with support provided by Toyota Tsusho Canada, Inc., have proven a method that will allow producers, packagers and retailers to detect bacterial contamination in milk products simply by reading a signal from a test printed inside every container. The technology can be adapted to detect the most common food...
Mimic molecule distracts superbugs to help old antibiotics work again
13.12.2021 | Press monitoring
Bacteria are exceptional at evolving, so when antibiotics put them under environmental pressures, the survivors will quickly share their resistance genes with the community, until the drugs become useless. So scientists will move onto other antibiotics, which bacteria will also eventually become resistant to, and the cycle continues. And in the...
Important role of prokaryotic viruses in sewage treatment
10.12.2021 | Press monitoring
Prokaryotic viruses (phages) existing in activated sludge (AS), a biological treatment process widely used in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), act to regulate the composition of microbial community in the activated sludge. Phages are major bacterial predators, through virus-host interactions with key bacterial populations in AS systems, they...
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CRISPR gene therapy, ultrasound and drugs team up against liver cancer
8.12.2021 | Press monitoring
Researchers in China have developed a new three-pronged method to fight liver cancer that shows promise in tests in mice. The technique combines drugs and CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing into lipid nanoparticles, then activates them with ultrasound. One emerging treatment against cancer is known as sonodynamic therapy (SDT), which involves delivering...
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Biomedical probe created from spoiled oranges
6.12.2021 | Press monitoring
A University of Sydney Ph.D. researcher is developing a cancer and serious disease-detecting biomedical probe that can be made from the juice of rancid oranges. Called a nanobiosensor – a tiny probe that uses fluorescence to signal cells' pH in terms of their acidity or alkalinity – it detects whether cells are at risk, or in the early stages of...
Researchers develop novel 3D printing technique to engineer biofilms
3.12.2021 | Press monitoring
Anne S. Meyer, an associate professor of biology at the University of Rochester, and her collaborators at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands recently developed a 3D printing technique to engineer and study biofilms – three-dimensional communities of microorganisms, such as bacteria, that adhere to surfaces. The research provides...
Flu virus shells could improve delivery of mRNA into cells
1.12.2021 | Press monitoring
Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a new and potentially more effective way to deliver messenger RNA (mRNA) into cells. Their approach involves packing mRNA inside nanoparticles that mimic the flu virus – a naturally efficient vehicle for delivering genetic material such as RNA inside cells. The work addresses...
New nanochip reprograms cells in the body to perform different functions
29.11.2021 | Press monitoring
A team of researchers led by Chandan Sen at the Indiana University School of Medicine, is moving a new nanochip device, which can reprogram skin cells in the body to become new blood vessels and nerve cells, out of the prototype phase. Stem cells have great therapeutic potential because they can then be induced to grow into various cells,...
