Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: biotech/medical – Page 1,397

How a particle accelerator works

Los Alamos National Lab

In early June 1972, the world’s most intense proton beam was delivered through nearly a mile of vacuum tanks at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center, or LANSCE. As the facility has evolved over five decades, that proton beam is now delivered to five state-of-the-art experimental areas, including the Isotope Production Facility.

The Isotope Production Facility excels in the basic science and applied engineering needed to produce and purify useful isotopes that can then be produced at scale in the marketplace. In the fight against cancer, recent and current clinical trials are yielding promising results with the short-lived isotope actinium-225, which delivers high-energy radiation to a cancer tumor without greatly affecting the surrounding tissue.

‘LA-UR-22–25259′

Genetic discovery could spell mosquitoes’ death knell

A UC Riverside genetic discovery could turn disease-carrying mosquitoes into insect Peter Pans, preventing them from ever maturing or multiplying.

In 2018, UCR entomologist Naoki Yamanaka found, contrary to accepted scientific wisdom, that an important steroid hormone requires to enter or exit fruit fly cells. The hormone, ecdysone, is called the “molting hormone.” Without it, flies will never mature, or reproduce.

Before his discovery, textbooks taught that ecdysone travels freely across cell membranes, slipping past them with ease. “We now know that’s not true,” Yamanaka said.

DNA evolves at different rates, depending on chromosome structure

The structure of how DNA is stored in archaea makes a significant difference to how quickly it evolves, according to a new study by Indiana University researchers.

The study, led by molecular biologist Stephen Bell, Distinguished Professor and chair of the College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry at Indiana University (IU) Bloomington, was recently published in Nature Microbiology. Its findings have the potential to impact research on the treatment of genetic diseases such as cancer.

“The most exciting thing we revealed is the idea that the shape of a DNA molecule can affect its ability to change,” Bell said. “In the early 20th century, modernist architecture had the idea that the form of a building should follow its function. But what we’re seeing in these organisms is that over time, form is actually affecting . How DNA is structured can change it, creating an evolutionary feedback loop.”

Dr. Jessica Whited, Ph.D. — Harvard University — Exploring The Biology Of Limb Regeneration

(https://hscrb.harvard.edu/labs/whited-lab/) is an Assistant Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at Harvard University where her lab focuses on limb regeneration in axolotl salamanders and where they develop tools to manipulate gene expression during limb regeneration, and explore signaling events following wound healing that initiate the regenerative process.

Dr. Whited earned a B.A. in Philosophy and a B.S. in Biological Sciences from the University of Missouri, and obtained her Ph.D. in Biology from MIT, where she studied in Dr. Paul Garrity’s laboratory.

Dr. Whited’s thesis focused on molecular mechanisms controlling the development and maintenance of cellular architectures in the Drosophila nervous system. During this work, Dr. Whited became interested in processes that may be required long after initial developmental events to ensure cells do not revert to immature behaviors, as well as processes that provoke such events in response to injury. She worked in the laboratory of Dr. Cliff Tabin (Harvard Medical School Department of Genetics) as a postdoc studying total limb regeneration in axolotl salamanders. During this time, Whited developed several molecular tools that can be used to interrogate regenerating axolotl limbs, which is one of the core focuses of her lab today.

Dr. Whited is also Co-Founder of Matice Biosciences, a company leveraging regenerative biology for the next generation of skincare and consumer scar products.

Meet The High-Tech Urban Farmer Growing Vegetables Inside Hong Kong’s Skyscrapers

Hong Kong, a densely populated city where agriculture space is limited, is almost totally dependent on the outside world for its food supply. More than 90% of the skyscraper-studded city’s food, especially fresh produce like vegetables, is imported, mostly from mainland China. “During the pandemic, we all noticed that the productivity of locally grown vegetables is very low,” says Gordon Tam, cofounder and CEO of vertical farming company Farm66 in Hong Kong. “The social impact was huge.”

Tam estimates that only about 1.5% of vegetables in the city are locally produced. But he believes vertical farms like Farm66, with the help of modern technologies, such as IoT sensors, LED lights and robots, can bolster Hong Kong’s local food production—and export its know-how to other cities. “Vertical farming is a good solution because vegetables can be planted in cities,” says Tam in an interview at the company’s vertical farm in an industrial estate. “We can grow vegetables ourselves so that we don’t have to rely on imports.”

Tam says he started Farm66 in 2013 with his cofounder Billy Lam, who is COO of the company, as a high-tech vertical farming pioneer in Hong Kong. “Our company was the first to use energy-saving LED lighting and wavelength technologies in a farm,” he says. “We found out that different colors on the light spectrum help plants grow in different ways. This was our technological breakthrough.” For example, red LED light will make the stems grow faster, while blue LED light encourages plants to grow larger leaves.