Lifeboat Foundation

Engineered vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) pseudotyping offers an essential method for exploring virus–cell interactions, particularly for viruses that require high biosafety levels. Although this approach has been employed effectively, the current methodologies for virus visualization and labeling can interfere with infectivity and lead to misinterpretation of results. In this study, we introduce an innovative approach combining genetic code expansion (GCE) and click chemistry with pseudotyped VSV to produce highly fluorescent and infectious pseudoviruses (clickVSVs). These clickVSVs enable robust and precise virus–cell interaction studies without compromising the biological function of the viral surface proteins. We evaluated this approach by generating VSVs bearing a unique chemical handle for click labeling and assessing the infectivity in relevant cell lines.

Epigenetics, the chemical mechanisms that controls the activity of genes, allows our cells, tissues and organs to adapt to the changing circumstances of the environment around us. This advantage can become a drawback, though, as this epigenetic regulation can be more easily altered by toxins than the more stable genetic sequence of the DNA.

An article recently published at Science with the collaboration of the groups of Dr. Manel Esteller, Director of the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute (IJC-CERCA), ICREA Research Professor and Chairman of Genetics at the University of Barcelona, and Dr. Lucas Pontel, Ramon y Cajal Fellow also of the Josep Carreras Institute, demonstrates that the substance called formaldehyde, commonly present in various household and cosmetic products, in polluted air, and widely used in construction, is a powerful modifier of normal epigenetic patterns.

The publication is led by Dr. Christopher J. Chang, of the University of California Berkeley in the United States, whose research group is pioneer in the study of the effects of various chemical products on cell metabolism. The research has focused on investigating the effects of high concentrations of formaldehyde in the body, a substance already been associated with an increased risk of developing cancer (nasopharyngeal tumours and leukaemia), hepatic degeneration due to fatty liver (steatosis) and asthma. Dr. Esteller points out that this is relevant because “formaldehyde enters our body mainly during our breathing and, because it dissolves well in an aqueous medium, it ends up reaching all the cells of our body”.

The Nobel Awards Season just ended, with the “Oscars of Science” awarded to some of the world’s brightest minds. The entire science world was watching, and just like with the Oscars, there was an element of suspense, drama, envy, celebration, and happiness. Most of the Nobel Laureates are also phenomenal speakers and communicators with decades of teaching experience, and thousands of people across the world are glued to their monitors to hear their inspiring stories. The Nobel Prizes are awarded in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, Peace, and Economic Sciences. Unfortunately, there is no Nobel Prize for Computer Science, Mathematics, or Engineering. So, it seems like it… More.

While there is no Nobel Prize for AI, Jumper and Hassabis may be the frontrunners for a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their discovery of AlphaFold.

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is a powerful fingerprint analysis and detection technique that plays an important role in the fields of food safety, environmental protection, bio-imaging and hazardous substance identification. Electromagnetic enhancement (EM) and chemical enhancement (CM) are the two recognized mechanisms of action for amplifying Raman signals.

EM originates from the localized surface plasmonic resonance effect of noble metal nanostructures such as gold, silver, and copper, while CM originates from the charge transfer between the substrate and the probe molecules. In principle, the charge transfer efficiency depends on the coupling of the incident laser energy to the energy levels of the substrate-molecule system.

Compared to EM-based SERS substrates, CM-based SERS substrates are usually made of two-dimensional materials including semiconductor oxides, metal carbides, and graphene and its evolutions, which have weaker signal enhancement capabilities. However, the advantages of CM-based SERS substrate, such as high specificity, homogeneity and biocompatibility, have attracted the attention of researchers.

The fact that nanoparticle and polymer hybrid materials can often combine the advantages of each has been demonstrated in several fields. Embedding PNCs into polymer is an effective strategy to enhance the PNCs stability and polymer can endow the PNCs with other positive effects based on different structure and functional groups.

The uniform distribution of PNCs in polymer matrix is critical to the properties of the nanocomposites and the aggregation of PNCs induced by high surface energy has a severe influence on the performance of related applications. As such, the loading fraction is limited owing to the phase separation between PNCs and polymer.

Chemical interaction between PNCs and polymer is necessary to suppress the phase separation. Meanwhile, most of the fabrication methods of PNCs/polymer nanocomposites are spin coating, swelling-shrinking and electrospinning based on the in-situ synthesis of PNCs in polymer matrix and physical mixing, but extremely few works can achieve the fabrication of PNCs/polymer nanocomposites by bulk polymerization.

Designing a heat engine capable of producing maximum power while maintaining maximum efficiency has long been a significant challenge in physics and engineering. Practical heat engines are constrained by a theoretical limit to their efficiency, known as the Carnot limit, which sets a cap on how much heat can be converted to useful work.

In a breakthrough, researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) have devised a novel “micro heat engine” that has overcome this limitation at the lab scale. The study was recently published in the journal Nature Communications

<em> Nature Communications </em> is a peer-reviewed, open-access, multidisciplinary, scientific journal published by Nature Portfolio. It covers the natural sciences, including physics, biology, chemistry, medicine, and earth sciences. It began publishing in 2010 and has editorial offices in London, Berlin, New York City, and Shanghai.

How are synapses formed, those points of contact that allow the transmission of information from one neuron to the other? Working with an international team, researchers from the Leibniz-Forschungsinstitut für Molekulare Pharmakologie (FMP) have now uncovered a crucial mechanism and elucidated the identity of the axonal transport vesicles that generates synapses. The findings provide an important basis for promoting the regeneration of nerve cells and counteracting the aging process in the future. The results have just been published in the journal Science.

Whether in the brain or in the muscles, wherever there are nerve cells, there are synapses. These contact points between neurons form the basis for the transmission of excitation, i.e. communication between neurons. As in any communication process, there is a sender and a receiver: Nerve cell processes called axons generate and transmit electrical signals thereby acting as signal senders. Synapses are points of contact between axonal nerve terminals (the pre-synapse) and post-synaptic neurons. At these synapses, the electrical impulse is converted into chemical messengers that are received and sensed by the post-synapses of the neighboring neuron. The messengers are released from special membrane sacs called synaptic vesicles.

Toxins high-cite paper🤩

Title: ☎Dr. Sara Ragucci and Dr. Antimo Di Maro.

Read this review to have an overview of Mushrooms:

Continue reading “An Updated Review of Bioactive Peptides from Mushrooms in a Well-Defined Molecular Weight Range” »

Emmett Short discusses these comments on this episode of Lifespan News.

But first, the mad scientist David Sinclair, this time with Peter Diamandis at Abundance 360, giving more details into human trials for the genetic engineering side of the technology versus the chemical and pill side of the technology. Which would you want more? We’ll also hear David’s thoughts on how AI will affect the advancement of this tech. Spoiler: A lot. I’m going to play the best parts and add my commentary along the way.