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More than 20 years ago, the human genome was first sequenced. While the first version was full of “holes” representing missing DNA sequences, the genome has been gradually improved in successive rounds. Each has increased the quality of the genome and, in so doing, resolved most of the blank spaces that prevented us from having a complete reading of our genetic material.

The fundamental difficulty researchers faced in reading the genome from end to end is the enormous number of repeated sequences that populate it. The 20,000 or so genes we humans have occupy barely 2% of the entire genome. The remaining 98% is essentially made up of these families of repeated sequences, mobile elements known as transposons and retrotransposons, and—to a lesser but functionally important extent— gene expression regulatory sequences. These function as switches that determine when and where genes are turned on and off.

In March 2022, a major revision of the genome was published in the journal Science. An international consortium of researchers known as “T2T” (telomere to telomere, which are the ends of chromosomes) used a novel strategy based a type of cell (CHM13) that retains only one copy of each chromosome.

Scientists already have their ways of coaxing human cells into new forms, using a special concoction of chemicals to nudge humble skin cells into malleable tissues known as induced pluripotent stem cells.

In spite of this new lease on life, these particular cells still retain a few genetic reminders of their time as a fully developed tissue, affecting their use as a blank slate.

Now an international team of researchers has gone one better: finding a new way of wiping a cell’s memory clean so it can be better reprogrammed as a stem cell.

Stem cells in organoids self-organize into tissue patterns with unknown mechanisms. Here, we use skin organoids to analyze this process. Cell behavior videos show that the morphological transformation from multiple spheroidal units with morphogenesis competence (CMU) to planar skin is characterized by two abrupt cell motility–increasing events before calming down. The self-organizing processes are controlled by a morphogenetic module composed of molecular sensors, modulators, and executers. Increasing dermal stiffness provides the initial driving force (driver) which activates Yap1 (sensor) in epidermal cysts. Notch signaling (modulator 1) in epidermal cyst tunes the threshold of Yap1 activation. Activated Yap1 induces Wnts and MMPs (epidermal executers) in basal cells to facilitate cellular flows, allowing epidermal cells to protrude out from the CMU. Dermal cell–expressed Rock (dermal executer) generates a stiff force bridge between two CMU and accelerates tissue mixing via activating Laminin and β1-integrin. Thus, this self-organizing coalescence process is controlled by a mechano-chemical circuit. Beyond skin, self-organization in organoids may use similar mechano-chemical circuit structures.

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Hello and welcome! My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about bizarre quantum effects discovered in the last few months.
Links:
https://news.uchicago.edu/story/uchicago-scientists-observe-…laboratory.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-023-02139-8
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05727-z.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s42005-022-00881-8
#quantum #quantumphysics #quantummechanics.

0:00 Evidence for quantum superchemistry.
3:40 Solar fusion is quantum and not classical.
5:20 Quantum tunneling and microscopy.
7:00 Tunneling causes chemistry.
7:40 Tunneling affects DNA and causes mutation.

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Life runs on ribosomes. Every cell across the globe requires ribosomes to convert genetic data into the vital proteins required for the organism’s operation, and, subsequently, for the production of more ribosomes. However, scientists still lack a clear understanding of how these essential nanomachines are assembled.

Now, new high-resolution images of the large ribosomal subunit are shedding light on how arguably nature’s most fundamental molecule coalesces in human cells. The findings, published in Science, bring us one step closer to a complete picture of ribosome assembly.

“We now have a pretty good idea of how the large ribosomal subunit is assembled in humans,” says Rockefeller’s Sebastian Klinge. “We still have quite a few gaps in our understanding, but we certainly now have a much better idea than we had before.”

Over the past few decades, material scientists and chemists have been working on designing increasingly sophisticated materials for a wide range of technological and scientific applications. These materials include synthetic polymers and hydrogels that could be introduced inside the human body as part of medical interventions.

Researchers at the Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research Dresden, Technische Universität Dresden and other institutes in Germany recently designed new fully synthetic materials with a dynamic DNA-crosslinked matrix that could prove useful for the creation of organoids (artificial organs) and other bio-mimetic systems. These materials, introduced in Nature Nanotechnology, are versatile, programmable and relatively inexpensive, making them advantageous for medical and biological research.

“Polymer chemistry can create materials with wonderful properties,” Elisha Krieg, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Phys.org. “Think of everyday products like toys and packaging, but also bullet-proof vests, parachutes, medical implants, etc. But these materials are very static—it is not easy to change their properties, once broken they cannot heal themselves, and their characteristics are difficult to predict. Our group tries to make materials that are more akin to living matter: adaptive, self-healing, and programmed to fulfill specific functions.”

Learn about Regeneron’s Spectacular Science and home-grown technologies accelerating drug discovery and development such as VelociGene®, VelociMouse®, VelocImmune® and more.

Scientists at St. Anna Children’s Cancer Research Institute and the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen have shown that immunotherapy after stem cell transplantation effectively combats certain nerve tumors in children. Crucially, stem cells from a parent provide children with a new immune system that responds much better to immunotherapies. These results of an early clinical trial were published in the prestigious Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Childhood tumors of the nervous system, known as neuroblastomas, are associated with an unfavorable prognosis if the tumor is classified as a high-risk type. The chances are particularly poor for patients in the relapsed stage. In this case, immunotherapy following stem cell transplantation is now associated with long-term survival in a substantial proportion of the patients included in a recent study. Compared to an earlier study the survival rate was increased.

“After the transplantation of stem cells from a parent, the patients are equipped with a new immune system. This enables a better immune response to the subsequent immunotherapy and clearly improves the outcome,” explains Prof. Ruth Ladenstein, MD, head of the Studies & Statistics group for Integrated Research and Projects (S²IRP) at St. Anna Children’s Cancer Research Institute and professor at the Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine at MedUni Vienna, who played a key role as co-first author.

What happens in femtoseconds in nature can now be observed in milliseconds in the lab.

Scientists at the university of sydney.

The University of Sydney is a public research university located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Founded in 1,850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is consistently ranked among the top universities in the world. The University of Sydney has a strong focus on research and offers a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate programs across a variety of disciplines, including arts, business, engineering, law, medicine, and science.