Exclusive: Oxfordshire-based Emergex gets go-ahead for trials in Switzerland for skin patch vaccine. An Oxfordshire-based company will soon start clinical trials of a second-generation vaccine against Covid-19, an easy-to-administer skin patch that uses T-cells to kill infected cells and could offer longer-lasting immunity than current vaccines. Emergex was set up in Abingdon in 2016 [...]
New research published in the bioRxiv* preprint server suggests a small cationic peptide known as crotamine may inhibit the replication and transcription of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Crotamine in the D-enantiomer form successfully inhibited SARS-CoV-2 replication by targeting the C30 Endopeptidase (3CLpro protease). Crotamine is found in rattlesnake Crotalus durissus terrificus venom and has analgesic, [...]
A team of researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology has developed a high-performance Scanning Ion Conductance Microscope (SICM) using the latest advances in nanopositioning, nanopore fabrication, microelectronics and controls engineering. Time-resolved scanning allows the 3D visualization of dynamic structures in a eukaryotic cell membrane at nanometer resolutions. Studying the functions of living cells and [...]
Nanotechnology is revolutionizing everything from industry to medicine. We live in the most scientifically advanced age of all time, while simultaneously living in a profoundly scientifically-illiterate era, especially in the United States. People used to believe the sun was driven around the Earth by some god in a chariot, but considering what genuine scientific knowledge [...]
Study says some individuals clear virus rapidly due to a strong immune response from existing T-cells, meaning tests record negative result. We all know that person who, despite their entire household catching Covid-19, has never tested positive for the disease. Now scientists have found an explanation, showing that a proportion of people experience “abortive [...]
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused several waves of infections in many world regions, so strong as to overwhelm local healthcare services. In this new situation, faced with an unknown virus, the need is to produce clinical guidelines that help recognize and manage critical COVID-19. Meanwhile, conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary [...]
Researchers at the University of Queensland and Vaxxas, a medtech company, announced the development of a high-density microarray patch (HD-MAP) that can deliver a COVID-19 vaccine through the skin without the need for needles. While such minimally invasive vaccine technology is to be welcomed, the major breakthrough is the temperature stability of the vaccine. [...]
An international research team, led by scientists from the EMPA (Zurich) and the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory, which has researchers from the UPV/EHU, has succeeded in building chains of quantum magnets made of nanographene that capture the essence of one of the core models of quantum magnetism. The team's results (Nature, "Observation of fractional edge excitations in [...]
Using nanopore DNA sequencing technology, researchers from TU Delft and the University of Illinois have managed to scan a single protein: by slowly moving a linearized protein through a tiny nanopore, one amino acid at the time, the researchers were able to read off electric currents that relate to the information content of the [...]
The bonding interaction amongst Influenza A and the peptide "PeB," which selectively binds the viral surface protein hemagglutinin, has been investigated using electrically controlled deoxyribonuclic acid (DNA) nanolevers in the journal Advanced Materials. PeB is conjugated to DNA strands that are bonded to complementary anchors and fixed on the electrode surface of a "switchSENSE" biochip. [...]
