Increasing drug resistance could leave us powerless to fight infections we now consider routine, and scientists are urgently searching for answers. It was just a urinary tract infection (UTI). Helen Osment, a fundraiser from Hertfordshire, had had them before and she knew the symptoms. When she called the doctor with pain, a burning sensation and blood [...]
Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science & Technology (DGIST, President Yang Kook) Professor Hongsoo Choi’s team of the Department of Robotics and Mechatronics Engineering collaborated with Professor Sung-Won Kim’s team at Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital, Catholic University of Korea, and Professor Bradley J. Nelson’s team at ETH Zurich to develop a technology that produces more [...]
Tiny nets woven from DNA strands can ensnare the spike protein of the virus that causes COVID-19, lighting up the virus for a fast-yet-sensitive diagnostic test—and also impeding the virus from infecting cells, opening a new possible route to antiviral treatment, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and [...]
Roughly two decades ago, a strategy called optogenetics emerged to control brain activity with lasers. It uses viruses to insert genes into cells that make them sensitive to light. Optogenetics has revolutionized neuroscience by giving researchers a precise way to excite or suppress brain circuits and shed light on what role they play in the brain. [...]
Shigella bacteria, which causes Shigellosis, is the primary cause of bacterial diarrhea and diarrheal death among juveniles under five years of age. Because of the antibiotic resistance of Shigella strains, no commercial vaccines are available to date. An article published in Molecular Pharmaceutics presented an extension of a previous work that demonstrated the stabilization of “invasion plasmid antigen C” [...]
Scientists have built microscopic robots equipped with electronic “brains” that are capable of walking autonomously. A team from Cornell University in the US developed the solar-powered bots as part of research into a new generation of tiny devices that can perform roles ranging from performing microsurgery, to cleaning the inside of arteries. The microrobots measure just [...]
Blood samples from patients with long COVID who are still suffering from fatigue and shortness of breath after a year show signs of autoimmune disease, according to a study published today (Thursday) in the European Respiratory Journal [1]. Autoimmune disease occurs when the immune system mistakenly attacks healthy parts of the body, instead of [...]
High-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC) is among the deadliest human cancers and its prognosis remains extremely poor. An article published in Advanced Science explored the self-therapeutic properties of gold nanoparticles to identify a molecular axis that fosters the growth of HGSOC. The gold nanoparticles injected intravenously or intraperitoneally in single or multiple doses over two weeks [...]
Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have a broad spectrum of antimicrobial activity and lyse microbial cells by interaction with biomembranes, offering great potential in designing new therapeutics. The antimicrobial resistance (AMR) caused due to overuse of antibiotics can be circumvented by using AMPs as alternatives to antibiotics. The rod-shaped chitosan nanocrystals are polysaccharide-based nanomaterials obtained by [...]
Tumor cells are notoriously good at evading the human immune system; they put up physical walls, wear disguises and handcuff the immune system with molecular tricks. Now, UC San Francisco researchers have developed a drug that overcomes some of these barriers, marking cancer cells for destruction by the immune system. The new therapy, described [...]
