Press monitoring
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,...
For the first time, DNA and proteins sensed by de novo-designed nanopore
26.11.2021 | Press monitoring
Researchers in Japan have designed the first bottom-up designed peptides, comprising chains of amino acids, that can form artificial nanopores to identify and enable single molecule-sorting of genetic material in a lipid membrane. Biological nanopores are generally channels made by pore-forming proteins, that can detect specific molecules, but...
UTI vaccine uses caged and killed bacteria to trigger an immune response
24.11.2021 | Press monitoring
Researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas have developed a new type of vaccine against urinary tract infections (UTIs) that has shown promise in tests in mice. The treatment uses a whole dead bacteria cell, wrapped in a protective cage, to trigger an immune response. UT Dallas researchers found a way to protect the bacterial cells, so they...
