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Category: biotech/medical – Page 221

Abstract: Presenting a cutting-edge discovery on the mechanisms by which immune cells influence health and disease at the later stages of cerebral ischemic stroke

Here, Chuan Qin & team use complementary models in experimental ischemic stroke, showing early post-stroke stages in which microglia recruit B cells into ischemic lesions through MIF/CD74/CXCR4, while later stage post-stroke effects involve interferon signaling in B cells that drives neuroinflammation and brain injury:

The image shows B lymphocytes (Green) in mouse dura tissue colocalizing with CD31+ blood vessels (Red).

1Department of Neurology, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College and State Key Laboratory for Diagnosis and Treatment of Severe Zoonotic Infectious Diseases;

2Key Laboratory of Vascular Aging, Ministry of Education, Tongji Hospital of Tongji Medical College; and.

3Hubei Key Laboratory of Neural Injury and Functional Reconstruction, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China.

Basal progenitors as drivers of neocortical expansion

Neocortical expansion driven by basal progenitors.

The emergence of indirect neurogenesis, driven by highly proliferative basal progenitors, contributed to the significant enlargement of the mammalian neocortex during brain evolution.

In recent years, several human-specific genes and enhancers have been described that differentially affect the biology of progenitor cells and potentially contribute to the increased neocortical complexity and disease-susceptibility of the human brain.

Emerging research is uncovering multiple pathways that disrupt basal progenitor biology, emphasizing these pathways’ involvement not only in classical neurogenesis-related disorders such as microcephaly but also in neurodevelopmental conditions traditionally linked to impairments in neuronal connectivity. sciencenewshighlights ScienceMission https://sciencemission.com/Basal-progenitors

The diversification and expansion of distinct progenitor cell subtypes during embryogenesis are essential to form the sophisticated brain structures present in vertebrates. In particular, the emergence of highly proliferative basal progenitors contributed to the evolutionary enlargement of the mammalian neocortex. Basal progenitors are at the center of indirect neurogenesis and can be divided into two main subtypes: the classical TBR2-positive intermediate progenitor cells and the outer radial glial cells, which are especially abundant in gyrencephalic species. While the function of some transcriptomic regulators is conserved across the mammalian clade, recent studies have identified human-specific genes and enhancers that uniquely affect progenitor biology, possibly driving the increased neocortical complexity and disease-susceptibility of the human brain.

In search of a room-temperature superconductor, scientists present a research agenda

The search for materials that can conduct electricity at room temperature without losing energy is one of the greatest and most consequential challenges of modern physics: loss-free power transmission, more efficient motors and generators, more powerful quantum computers, cheaper MRI devices. Hardly any other material discovery has the potential to change so many areas of technology and everyday life at the same time.

An international research team, with the participation of Christoph Heil from the Institute of Theoretical and Computational Physics at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) is now presenting a systematic approach to finding such materials. In a perspective article in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a strategy paper that assesses the current state of research and sets out future directions, the 16 authors state that there are no fundamental physical laws that rule out superconductivity at ambient temperature.

‘Mesoscale’ swimmers could pave way for drug delivery robots inside the body

In physics, the mesoscale lies between the microscopic and the macroscopic. It is not just the domain of tiny living creatures like small larvae, shrimp, and jellyfish, but also where physics equations become extreme. While the macroscopic realm is governed by inertia and the microscopic by viscosity, the mesoscale is both and neither, requiring a new set of physics to describe it.

Now, physicists at Aalto University’s Department of Applied Physics have discovered how organisms swim in the mesoscale mix of viscosity and inertia. The study was recently published in the journal Communications Physics.

Led by Assistant Professor Matilda Backholm, the multidisciplinary team found the key to efficient swimming in this realm is not just moving faster or growing bigger, but a phenomenon of non-reciprocal motion known as time reversal symmetry breaking. The results help fill a knowledge gap in fundamental physics and could pave the way for applications such as mesorobotics; tiny robots injected inside a patient’s body for drug delivery or carrying out medical procedures.

Robotic microfluidic platform brings AI to lipid nanoparticle design

AI has designed candidate drugs for antibiotic-resistant infections and genetic diseases. But efforts to incorporate AI into the design of lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), the revolutionary delivery vehicles behind mRNA therapies like the COVID-19 vaccines, have been much more limited.

Designing LNPs is especially challenging: Each formulation combines multiple lipid components whose ratios influence how the particle delivers genetic instructions inside cells. Scientists still lack a clear map connecting those chemical inputs to biological outcomes.

The reason? There simply isn’t enough data.

Mapping 3D-super-enhancers with machine learning to pinpoint regulators of cell identity

Scientists usually study the molecular machinery that controls gene expression from the perspective of a linear, two-dimensional genome—even though DNA and its bound proteins function in three dimensions (3D). To better understand how key components of this machinery, such as super-enhancers, regulate genes in this 3D reality, scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital have developed a new algorithm called BOUQUET.

Using machine learning, BOUQUET reveals that sets of genes and their regulatory elements can interact within protein condensates, high-density membraneless droplets, in cells’ nuclei. The findings, which provide new insight into how cells regulate the genes that control their specialized identities, were published today in Nucleic Acids Research.

Cells express certain sets of genes to carry out specific functions; for example, a blood cell and a brain cell express different context-specific genes. There are 3 billion base pairs of human DNA, and the genes involved in cell identity are scattered throughout. Even more challenging, enhancers, DNA elements that activate gene expression, can be thousands of DNA bases away from their target genes.

Malicious npm Package Posing as OpenClaw Installer Deploys RAT, Steals macOS Credentials

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a malicious npm package that masquerades as an OpenClaw installer to deploy a remote access trojan (RAT) and steal sensitive data from compromised hosts.

The package, named “@openclaw-ai/openclawai,” was uploaded to the registry by a user named “openclaw-ai” on March 3, 2026. It has been downloaded 178 times to date. The library is still available for download as of writing.

JFrog, which discovered the package, said it’s designed to steal system credentials, browser data, crypto wallets, SSH keys, Apple Keychain databases, and iMessage history, as well as install a persistent RAT with remote access capabilities, SOCKS5 proxy, and live browser session cloning.

Chemistry in Pictures: Glowing with pride

“It looks like a tiny solar system. But instead of planets, it’s a snapshot of my research journey in the lab,” says Sadiya Tanga, a chemistry graduate student at Ashoka University. Tanga’s work has focused on a type of drug molecule called proteolysis-targeting chimeras, or PROTACs for short. PROTACs have two active ends, one that grabs a target protein and another that grabs a molecular flag that tells the cell to break down the whole assembly as waste. “Each glowing flask and sphere holds a different compound I worked hard to design and synthesize,” Tanga says. “The colors you see are from parts of the molecules that shine under UV light.”

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