The delta variant within the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) virus continued to cause devastation with high infection rates and transmissibility and this illustrated the lack of efficacy by the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. However, novel research published in the journal, ACS Omega has reported the use of human host defense peptide-conjugated graphene quantum dots for the prevention of virus entry [...]
University of Wisconsin–Madison engineers have created a nanofiber material that outperforms its widely used counterparts — including steel plates and Kevlar fabric — in protecting against high-speed projectile impacts. Basically, it’s better than bulletproof. “Our nanofiber mats exhibit protective properties that far surpass other material systems at much lighter weight,” says Ramathasan Thevamaran, a [...]
A team of researchers recently published a paper in the journal ACS Applied Nano Materials that demonstrated the effectiveness of specific chemically-modified nanohole edges in reduced graphene oxide (rGO) in binding proteins. Graphene-Based Biosensors Biosensors are gaining considerable prominence owing to the rising significance of quantitative or qualitative detection of biological markers and early prognosis of [...]
New research led by the Doherty Institute has found the SARS-CoV-2 virus has the ability to momentarily accelerate its evolutionary pace, enabling variants to emerge more rapidly than other viruses. Recently published in Molecular Biology and Evolution, the team, led by University of Melbourne Dr. Sebastian Duchene, an Australian Research Council DECRA Research Fellow at [...]
Canadian biopharma company Medicago, a subsidiary of Japan's Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma (TYO: 4508), and UK pharma major GlaxoSmithKline (LSE: GSK) have announced that Health Canada has granted approval for Covifenz, COVID-19 vaccine, (plant-based virus-like particles [VLP], recombinant, adjuvanted). This vaccine, formerly dubbed MT-2766, is indicated for active immunization to prevent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‑19) [...]
Emerging research on nerve repair has consisted of MXenes being used to improve nerve guidance conduits, which would also enhance its subsequent electrical conductivity. This pre-proof research has been submitted in the journal, Additive Manufacturing. The Need for Advanced Nerve Guidance Conduits The peripheral nervous system is a little different from the central nervous system [...]
Conventional cancer therapies risk causing damage to healthy tissue while working to destroy cancer cells. Researchers are developing novel therapeutics based on nanotechnology to overcome this limitation, as well as to improve the pharmacokinetics of a pharmaceutical and reduce the related toxicities (Nat Rev Drug Discov 2021; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41573-020-0090-8). Another encouraging area of nanotechnology in oncology is [...]
With the advent of Big Data, current computational architectures are proving to be insufficient. Difficulties in decreasing transistors' size, large power consumption and limited operating speeds make neuromorphic computing a promising alternative. Neuromorphic computing, a new brain-inspired computation paradigm, reproduces the activity of biological synapses by using artificial neural networks. Such devices work as [...]
The occurrence of microplastics in nature has been studied extensively, also at the University of Eastern Finland. However, little is known about the health effects of microplastics, and understanding of their transport into the human body is also lacking. Any adverse health effects possibly associated with plastics may be caused by the plastic compound [...]
T cells, also known as lymphocytes, have important roles in various immune reactions. However, there are only a few reports on delivery systems into T cells. Associate Professor Chie Kojima and her co-workers from Department of Applied Chemistry, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka Prefecture University (OPU), collaborating with Professor Ikuo Fujii and Ikuhiko Nakase [...]
