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3D Molecular Maps of the Brain: Unveiling Complexity with Spatial Omics

“If you look at the brain chemically, it’s like a soup with a bunch of ingredients,” said Dr. Fan Lam.


Can we map the brain to show its behavior patterns when a patient is healthy and sick? This is what a recent study published in Nature Methods hopes to address as a team of researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign used a $3 million grant obtained from the National Institute of Aging to develop a novel approach to mapping brain behavior when a patient is both healthy and sick. This study holds the potential to help researchers, medical professionals, and patients better understand how to treat diseases.

“If you look at the brain chemically, it’s like a soup with a bunch of ingredients,” said Dr. Fan Lam, who is an assistant professor of bioengineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a co-author on the study. “Understanding the biochemistry of the brain, how it organizes spatiotemporally, and how those chemical reactions support computing is critical to having a better idea of how the brain functions in health as well as during disease.”

For the study, the researchers used a type of technology called spatial omics and combined this with deep learning to produce 3D datasets to unveil the brain’s myriad of characteristics down to the molecular level. Through this, the team has developed a novel method in monitoring brain activity when a patient is both healthy and sick, including the ability to identify complex neurological diseases.

New ‘Water Batteries’ Are Cheaper, Recyclable, And Won’t Explode

Water and electronics don’t usually mix, but as it turns out, batteries could benefit from some H2O.

By replacing the hazardous chemical electrolytes used in commercial batteries with water, scientists have developed a recyclable ‘water battery’ – and solved key issues with the emerging technology, which could be a safer and greener alternative.

‘Water batteries’ are formally known as aqueous metal-ion batteries. These devices use metals such as magnesium or zinc, which are cheaper to assemble and less toxic than the materials currently used in other kinds of batteries.

A Promising Novel Anti-Aging Compound GG — Geranylgeraniol Explained By It Discoverer Dr Barrie Tan

Here Dr Tan introduces geranylgeraniol (GG), talks about its discovery and its importance in human metabolism.

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Dr. Barrie Tan was formerly an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst (Chemistry, Food Science \& Nutrition). His mission at American River Nutrition is to deliver the highest quality nutritional products based on sound scientific research. Today, his research focuses on lipid-soluble nutrients that have the potential to slow chronic conditions.

Pancreatic Cancer Drug Candidate Targets Elusive, but Common, K-Ras Variant

K-Ras mutations are all too familiar as drivers of cancer. And until recently, they were considered all but undruggable. But ever since the arrival of sotorasib and adagrasib—two FDA-approved K-Ras-G12C inhibitors—K-Ras mutations have had the distinction of being somewhat druggable. Even better, K-Ras mutations may soon become yet more druggable. Scientists at the University of California, San Francisco, have found a way to target K-Ras-G12D mutations, which are especially prevalent in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.

The scientists were led by Kevan Shokat, PhD, a professor in the department of cellular and molecular pharmacology. Back in 2013, Shokat and colleagues developed the first K-Ras-G12C inhibitors. And today, in Nature Chemical Biology, they present a paper (“Strain-release alkylation of Asp12 enables mutant selective targeting of K-Ras-G12D”) describing how they designed a candidate drug that could help make pancreatic cancer, which is almost always fatal, a treatable and perhaps even curable condition.

“[Covalent] inhibition of G12D, the most frequent K-Ras mutation particularly prevalent in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, has remained elusive due to the lack of aspartate-targeting chemistry,” the article’s authors wrote. “Here we present a set of malolactone-based electrophiles that exploit ring strain to crosslink K-Ras-G12D at the mutant aspartate to form stable covalent complexes.”

Newly discovered protein prevents DNA triplication

Every time a cell divides, its DNA is duplicated so that the two daughter cells have the same genetic material as their parent. This means that, millions of times a day, a biochemical wonder takes place in the body: the copying of the DNA molecule. It is a high-precision job carried out by specific proteins and includes systems to protect against potential errors that could lead to diseases such as cancer.

One of these anti-failure systems has just been discovered by researchers in the DNA Replication Group at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), led by Juan Méndez. It is based on a protein that ensures that DNA is copied only once, as it should be, and not twice or more.

The work is published in The EMBO Journal.

Harmful ‘forever chemicals’ removed from water with new electrocatalysis method

Scientists from the University of Rochester have developed new electrochemical approaches to clean up pollution from “forever chemicals” found in clothing, food packaging, firefighting foams, and a wide array of other products. A new Journal of Catalysis study describes nanocatalysts developed to remediate per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances known as PFAS.

The researchers, led by assistant professor of chemical engineering Astrid Müller, focused on a specific type of PFAS called Perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), which was once widely used for stain-resistant products but is now banned in much of the world for its harm to human and animal health. PFOS is still widespread and persistent in the environment despite being phased out by US manufacturers in the early 2000s, continuing to show up in .

Novel Material Increases Efficiency and Stability of Perovskite Solar cells

In an article published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry C, Brazilian researchers describe a strategy to enhance the efficiency and stability of solar cells made of perovskite, a semiconductor material produced in the laboratory. The results of the project could be highly positive for the future of the solar power sector.

Developed by researchers at São Paulo State University (UNESP) in Bauru, Brazil, the method involves the use of a class of materials known as MXenes, a family of two-dimensional materials with a graphene-like structure combining transition metals, carbon and/or nitrogen, and surface functional groups such as fluoride, oxygen or hydroxyl. Their properties include high electrical conductivity, good thermal stability, and high transmittance (relating to the amount of light that passes through a substance without being reflected or absorbed).

In the study, the MXene Ti3C2Tx was added to polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) to form a passivation coating, which was spin-coated on top of the perovskite layer of inverted solar cells. Passivation coatings are designed to mitigate possible defects in polycrystalline solids (perovskite in this case) due to interaction with the environment or to their internal structure.

A key to the future of robots could be hiding in liquid crystals

Robots and cameras of the future could be made of liquid crystals, thanks to a new discovery that significantly expands the potential of the chemicals already common in computer displays and digital watches.

The findings, a simple and inexpensive way to manipulate the molecular properties of liquid crystals with , are now published in Advanced Materials.

“Using our method, any lab with a microscope and a set of lenses can arrange the liquid crystal alignment in any pattern they’d want,” said author Alvin Modin, a doctoral researcher studying physics at Johns Hopkins. “Industrial labs and manufacturers could probably adopt the method in a day.”

Sustainable Chemistry Achieved: Scientists Develop Organic Framework Material That Mimics Photosynthesis

Scientists at the National University of Singapore (NUS) have created a microporous covalent organic framework with dense donor–acceptor lattices and engineered linkages for the efficient and clean production of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) through the photosynthesis process with water and air.

Traditional industrial production of H2O2 via the anthraquinone process using hydrogen and oxygen, is highly energy-intensive. This approach employs toxic solvents and expensive noble-metal catalysts, and generates substantial waste from side reactions.

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