By Nina Bai
Studying mice of different ages, Stanford Medicine scientists and colleagues found that neurons involved in spatial memory become less reliable later in life.
Category: biotech/medical – Page 51
Improved method offers broader, faster detection of protein-ligand interactions
EMBL scientists have improved a protein analysis technique, significantly expanding its use and making it 100 times faster.
Swedish chemist Jöns Jacob Berzelius, in a letter to a fellow chemist, first suggested the name “proteins” for a particular class of biological substances, deriving it from the Greek word proteios, meaning “primary” or “of first importance.” Although scientists in the 1830s knew very little about proteins, it was already clear how essential they were to living organisms.
Long-known as the “workhorses of the cell,” proteins are responsible for powering nearly every function in the body. Often critical to this is their interactions with other small molecules known as ligands. In a new study published in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, EMBL researchers introduce HT-PELSA, a high-throughput adaptation of an earlier tool that detects these interactions. This new tool can process samples at an unprecedented scale, a breakthrough that promises to accelerate drug discovery and our understanding of fundamental biological processes.
Research reveals shared genetic roots for psychiatric and neurological disorders
Researchers from the Center for Precision Psychiatry at the University of Oslo and Oslo University Hospital have discovered extensive genetic links between neurological disorders like migraine, stroke and epilepsy, and psychiatric illnesses such as schizophrenia and depression. Published in Nature Neuroscience, this research challenges longstanding boundaries between neurology and psychiatry and points to the need for more integrated approaches to brain disorders.
“We found that psychiatric and neurological disorders share genetic risk factors to a greater extent than previously recognized. This suggests that they may partly arise from the same underlying biology, contrasting the traditional view that they are separate disease entities. Importantly, the genetic risk was closely linked to brain biology,” states Olav Bjerkehagen Smeland, psychiatrist and first author.
Nonsurgical treatment shows promise for targeted seizure control
Rice University bioengineers have demonstrated a nonsurgical way to quiet a seizure-relevant brain circuit in an animal model. The team used low-intensity focused ultrasound to briefly open the blood-brain barrier (BBB) in the hippocampus, delivered an engineered gene therapy only to that region and later flipped an on-demand “dimmer switch” with an oral drug.
The research shows that a one-time, targeted procedure can modulate a specific brain region without impacting off-target areas of the brain. It is published in and featured on the cover of ACS Chemical Neuroscience.
“Many neurological diseases are driven by hyperactive cells at a particular location in the brain,” said study lead Jerzy Szablowski, assistant professor of bioengineering and a member of the Rice Neuroengineering Initiative. “Our approach aims the therapy where it is needed and lets you control it when you need it, without surgery and without a permanent implant.”
It’s not just in your head: Stress may lead to altered blood flow in the brain
While the exact causes of neurodegenerative brain diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia are still largely unknown, researchers have been able to identify a key characteristic in affected brains: reduced blood flow. Building upon this foundational understanding, a team at Penn State recently found that a rare neuron that is extremely vulnerable to anxiety-induced stress appears to be responsible for regulating blood flow and coordinating neural activity in mice.
The researchers found that eliminating type-one nNOS neurons—which make up less than 1% of the brain’s 80 billion neurons and die off when exposed to too much stress—resulted in a drop in both blood flow and electrical activity in mice’s brains, demonstrating the impact this neuron type has on the proper brain functions of animals, including humans.
The research appears in eLife.
Angstrom-level imaging and 2D surfaces allow real-time tracking and steering of DNA
Pictures of DNA often look very tidy—the strands of the double helix neatly wind around each other, making it seem like studying genetics should be relatively straightforward. In truth, these strands aren’t often so perfectly picturesque. They are constantly twisting, bending, and even being repaired by minuscule proteins. These are movements on the nanoscale, and capturing them for study is extremely challenging. Not only do they wriggle about, but the camera’s fidelity must be high enough to focus on the tiniest details.
Researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U. of I.) have been working on resolving a grand challenge for molecular biology, and more specifically, genetic research: how to take a high-resolution image of DNA to facilitate study.
Using a number of compute resources, including NCSA’s Delta, Aleksei Aksimentiev, a professor of physics at U. of I, and Dr. Kush Coshic, formerly a graduate research assistant in the Center for Biophysics and Quantitative Biology and the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at U. of I., and currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics, recently made significant contributions to solving this challenge. They did it by focusing on two specific problems: creating a “camera” that could capture the molecular movement of DNA, and by creating an environment in which they could predictably direct the movement of the DNA strands.
Nanorobots guide stem cells to become bone cells via precise pressure
For the first time, researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have succeeded in using nanorobots to stimulate stem cells with such precision that they are reliably transformed into bone cells. To achieve this, the robots exert external pressure on specific points in the cell wall. The new method offers opportunities for faster treatments in the future.
Prof. Berna Özkale Edelmann’s nanorobots consist of tiny gold rods and plastic chains. Several million of them are contained in a gel cushion measuring just 60 micrometers, together with a few human stem cells. Powered and controlled by laser light, the robots, which look like tiny balls, mechanically stimulate the cells by exerting pressure.
“We heat the gel locally and use our system to precisely determine the forces with which the nanorobots press on the cell—thereby stimulating it,” explains the professor of nano-and microrobotics at TUM. This mechanical stimulation triggers biochemical processes in the cell. Ion channels change their properties, and proteins are activated, including one that is particularly important for bone formation.
Can you really breathe through your butt? Inside Japan’s surprising medical experiment
It sounds like a strange online myth, but scientists in Japan have been studying whether mammals, including humans, can absorb oxygen through the gut. This phenomenon, often called butt breathing, is officially known as enteral ventilation. In a world where lung failure and ventilator shortages can quickly turn deadly, this idea could change how emergency oxygen therapy works. According to a peer-reviewed study published in Med (Cell Press), researchers at Tokyo Medical and Dental University successfully demonstrated gut-based oxygen absorption in mice and pigs, sparking global curiosity. You can read the full study. The experiment may sound unconventional, but it could one day save lives when traditional breathing support is unavailable…
…Respiratory failure remains one of the most difficult emergencies to manage in modern medicine. Mechanical ventilators save countless lives, but they can also cause lung damage and are not always accessible in low-resource settings. Enteral ventilation could provide an alternative when ventilators are unavailable or when lungs are too damaged to function effectively.
…Despite its promise, the approach still faces several obstacles before it can reach clinical use. The recent human study only confirmed safety, not effectiveness. Researchers now need to show that oxygen introduced through the colon can significantly raise blood oxygen levels.
Scientists in Japan are exploring a novel way to deliver oxygen through the gut. This method, called enteral ventilation, involves introducing oxygen-rich liquid rectally. Early animal trials show promise, and a human safety study found it well-tolerated. This could offer a vital backup for patients with severe breathing difficulties when ventilators are unavailable.
Engineering colloidal crystals molecule by molecule
Scientists built these tiny diamond crystals using a technique known as DNA origami, in which DNA molecules fold themselves into elaborate shapes.
Learn more in this 2024 Science Perspective on OrigamiDay.
DNA particles are programmed to assemble with precision into complex lattices.
Zhe Li and Chengde Mao Authors Info & Affiliations
Science
Vol 384, Issue 6697