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Category: biotech/medical – Page 776

DNA Doppelgängers: Scientists Develop Artificial Molecules With Life-Like Properties

DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the molecular system responsible for carrying genetic information in living organisms, utilizing its two helical strands to transcribe and amplify this information. Scientists are highly interested in developing artificial molecular systems that can match or even exceed the functionality of DNA. Double-helical foldamers represent one such promising molecular system.

Helical foldamers are a class of artificial molecules that fold into well-defined helical structures like helices found in proteins and nucleic acids. They have garnered considerable attention as stimuli-responsive switchable molecules, tuneable chiral materials, and cooperative supramolecular systems due to their chiral and conformational switching properties.

Double-helical foldamers exhibit not only even stronger chiral properties but also unique properties, such as the transcription of chiral information from one chiral strand to another without chiral properties, enabling potential applications in higher-order structural control related to replication, like nucleic acids. However, the artificial control of the chiral switching properties of such artificial molecules remains challenging due to the difficulty in balancing the dynamic properties required for switching and stability. Although various helical molecules have been developed in the past, reversal of twist direction in double-helix molecules and supramolecules has rarely been reported.

AI model 98% accurate in detecting diseases — just by looking at your tongue

“These results confirm that computerized tongue analysis is a secure, efficient, user-friendly and affordable method for disease screening that backs up modern methods with a centuries-old practice,”

This technology could be aah-mazing!

Researchers in Iraq and Australia say they have developed a computer algorithm that can analyze the color of a person’s tongue to detect their medical condition in real time — with 98% accuracy.

“Typically, people with diabetes have a yellow tongue; cancer patients a purple tongue with a thick greasy coating; and acute stroke patients present with an unusually shaped red tongue,” explained senior study author Ali Al-Naji, who teaches at Middle Technical University in Baghdad and the University of South Australia.

Protein reduces toxicity of drug-delivery material made of graphene oxide

A new publication has discovered ways to reduce the toxicity of graphene oxide (GO), an ultra-thin sheet of nanomaterial derived from graphite, laying the groundwork to use it as a drug delivery system.

Professor Khuloud Al-Jamal, who led the study, said: “Researchers have been incredibly excited in the potential medical applications of graphene since experiments into the nanomaterial were recognised with the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010. However, concerns around toxicity have remained a consistent obstacle.”

Graphene oxide (GO) is an ultra-thin sheet derived from graphite. It is similar to pencil lead but includes attached oxygen atoms, making it compatible with water. Its unique physical and chemical properties mean it has a high capacity for carrying antibiotics and anticancer drugs, among others, as well as targeting specific cells, making it a potentially effective drug delivery system.

Wobbly molecules get a closer look

While new technologies, including those powered by artificial intelligence, provide innovative solutions to a steadily growing range of problems, these tools are only as good as the data they’re trained on. In the world of molecular biology, getting high-quality data from tiny biological systems while they’re in motion – a critical step for building next-gen tools – is something like trying to take a clear picture of a spinning propeller. Just as you need precise equipment and conditions to photograph the propeller clearly, researchers need advanced techniques and careful calculations to measure the movement of molecules accurately.

Matthew Lew, associate professor in the Preston M. Green Department of Electrical & Systems Engineering in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, builds new imaging technologies to unravel the intricate workings of life at the nanoscale. Though they’re incredibly tiny – 1,000 to 100,000 times smaller than a human hair – nanoscale biomolecules like proteins and DNA strands are fundamental to virtually all biological processes.

Scientists rely on ever-advancing microscopy methods to gain insights into these systems work. Traditionally, these methods have relied on simplifying assumptions that overlook some complexities of molecular behavior, which can be wobbly and asymmetric. A new theoretical framework developed by Lew, however, is set to shake up how scientists measure and interpret wobbly molecular motion.

Prof. Dr. Alan Widgerow — Division Chief, Center for Tissue Engineering, UC Irvine / CSO, Galderma

Innovation At The Frontiers Of Aesthetic And Regenerative Medicine — Prof. Dr. Alan Widgerow — Division Chief, Center for Tissue Engineering, UCIrvine — Chief Scientific Officer, Galderma.

Prof. Dr. Alan Widgerow, MBBCh, FCS, MMed, FACS, is Division Chief, Research, Center for Tissue Engineering (https://sites.uci.edu/ctelab/team/) and Adjunct Professor Plastic Surgery, Dept of Plastic Surgery, University of California, Irvine (https://faculty.uci.edu/profile/?facu…) and Chief Scientific Officer and Head of Skin Science Center of Innovation at Galderma (https://www.galderma.com/).

Prof. Widgerow is a plastic surgeon who ran a solo private practice in South Africa for over 20 years.

Prof. Widgerow completed his undergraduate and post-graduate studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. He has held various positions in numerous academic and professional associations including that of President of the Association of Plastic and Reconstructive surgery of Southern Africa (APRSSA). He is author of over 190 plastic surgical related publications and 2 books. He was also the founder and medical director of 13 wound clinics in South Africa.

Prof. Widgerow relocated to Irvine California in Dec 2009 to pursue his interests in medical device innovations, cosmeceuticals and wound care, but he still plays an active role in academic medicine world-wide. In 2012 he was appointed to the Faculty of the University of California Irvine Plastic Surgery Dept as Full Adjunct Professor and Director of the Center for Tissue Engineering and in 2021 was appointed as its Division Chief of Research. He is involved in multiple projects related to adipose derived stem cell and adipose decellularized matrix, wound healing and transplantation. In 2018 he was awarded the Distinguished Faculty Mentor of the year Award by the Institute for Clinical and Translational Science, UCI.

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