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Discovery of brain parasite’s unique control protein offers hope for better toxoplasmosis treatments

Rajshekhar Gaji was staring at something that should not exist. Under his microscope, parasites that should have been thriving were instead dying—completely unable to survive without a protein his lab had managed to switch off.

“It was an amazing day,” said Gaji, assistant professor of parasitology at the Virginia–Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine. That moment of discovery could eventually help the 40 million Americans walking around with a microscopic parasite permanently residing in their brains.

The findings are published in the journal mSphere.

Gene therapy delivers lasting immune protection in children with rare disorder

An experimental gene therapy developed by researchers at UCLA, University College London and Great Ormond Street Hospital has restored and maintained immune system function in 59 of 62 children born with ADA-SCID, a rare and deadly genetic immune disorder.

Severe combined immunodeficiency due to adenosine deaminase deficiency, or ADA-SCID, is caused by mutations in the ADA gene, which creates an enzyme essential for immune function. For children with the condition, day-to-day activities like going to school or playing with friends can lead to dangerous, life-threatening infections. If untreated, ADA-SCID can be fatal within the first two years of life.

The current standard treatments— from a matched donor or weekly enzyme injections—come with limitations and potential long-term risks.

New world record set for fastest human whole genome sequencing

Boston Children’s Hospital, along with Broad Clinical Labs and Roche Sequencing Solutions, has demonstrated that rapid genomic sequencing and interpretation are achievable in a matter of hours. This milestone not only sets a Guinness World Records for the fastest human whole genome sequencing to date but represents a significant clinical development that would expedite more precise treatments for critically ill babies in the NICU.

The team’s pilot data are published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Current clinically available rapid genomic sequencing options take days (from sample receipt to report) at best, yet many critical care decisions in the NICU need to occur within a matter of hours. While there have been prior demonstrations of genome-sequencing within hours, none up to now have been scalable or feasible for routine use.

Living brain tissue reveals unique RNA and protein patterns missed in postmortem studies

Two new research papers from the Living Brain Project at Mount Sinai present what is, by several metrics, the largest investigation ever performed of the biology of the living human brain. The papers present unequivocal evidence that brain tissue from living people has a distinct molecular character, an observation that until now was missed because brain tissue from living people is rarely studied.

The findings, which were recently published in Molecular Psychiatry and PLOS ONE, call for a re-evaluation of how scientists study the human brain.

Postmortem brain samples—tissue samples obtained from individuals who donate their brain to science after death—are currently the standard tissue source used by scientists to study how our brains work at the deepest level.

‘Jump-scare’ science: Study elucidates how the brain responds to fear

In haunted houses across the country this month, threatening figures will jump out of the shadows, prompting visitors—wide-eyed and heart racing—to instinctively freeze and flee.

Evolutionarily speaking, this “innate response” is key to survival, helping a wide variety of animal species escape predators. But when stuck in overdrive it can cause problems for humans.

A University of Colorado Boulder research team has identified a novel brain circuit responsible for orchestrating this threat response. Known as the interpeduncular nucleus (IPN), this dense cluster of specialized neurons not only jump-starts that freeze-and-flee reaction, but dials it down when animals learn there’s no real danger.

Undergrads uncover conserved copper-binding gene cluster in marine bacteria

This fall, 20 Georgia Tech students published a paper—the culmination of work done during a semester-long laboratory course. During the semester, students analyzed genomes sequenced from marine samples collected in Key West, Florida—doing hands-on original bioinformatics research on par with graduate students and working with bioinformatics tools to explore drug discovery potential.

The course, BIOS 4,590, is a research project lab for senior biology majors that provides an opportunity for professors to share their expertise with students in a hands-on environment. In his class, Associate Professor Vinayak (Vinny) Agarwal, who holds joint appointments in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and School of Biological Sciences, aimed to introduce undergraduates to advanced bioinformatics tools through applied research using new-to-science raw data.

The resulting paper, “Phylogenomic Identification of a Highly Conserved Copper-Binding RiPP Biosynthetic Gene Cluster in Marine Microbulbifer Bacteria,” which was recently published in ACS Chemical Biology, involves the historically understudied genus of Microbulbifer, a type of bacteria often associated with sponges and corals. These microbial communities are rich sources of natural products, small biological molecules often associated with medicine and drug discovery.

Framework models light-matter interactions in nonlinear optical microscopy to determine atomic structure

Materials scientists can learn a lot about a sample material by shooting lasers at it. With nonlinear optical microscopy—a specialized imaging technique that looks for a change in the color of intense laser light—researchers can collect data on how the light interacts with the sample, and through time-consuming and sometimes expensive analyses, characterize the material’s structure and other properties.

Now, researchers at Pennsylvania State University have developed a that can interpret the nonlinear optical microscopy images to characterize the material in microscopic detail.

The team has published its approach in the journal Optica.

Curved nanosheets in anode help prevent battery capacity loss during fast charging

As electric vehicles (EVs) and smartphones increasingly demand rapid charging, concerns over shortened battery lifespan have grown. Addressing this challenge, a team of Korean researchers has developed a novel anode material that maintains high performance even with frequent fast charging.

A collaborative effort by Professor Seok Ju Kang in the School of Energy and Chemical Engineering at UNIST, Professor Sang Kyu Kwak of Korea University, and Dr. Seokhoon Ahn of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) has resulted in a hybrid anode composed of graphite and organic nanomaterials. This innovative material effectively prevents capacity loss during repeated fast-charging cycles, promising longer-lasting batteries for various applications. The findings are published in Advanced Functional Materials.

During battery charging, lithium ions (Li-ions) move into the , storing energy as Li atoms. Under rapid charging conditions, excess Li can form so-called “dead lithium” deposits on the surface, which cannot be reused. This buildup reduces capacity and accelerates battery degradation.

Low-power MoS₂-based microwave transmitter could advance communications

To further advance wireless communication systems, electronics engineers have been trying to develop new electronic circuits that operate in the microwave frequency range (1–300 GHz), while also losing little energy while transmitting signals. Ideally, these circuits should also be more compact than existing solutions, as this would help to reduce the overall size of communication systems.

Most of the microwaves integrated in current communication systems are made of bulk materials, such as silicon or gallium arsenide. While these circuits have achieved good results so far, both their size and have proved to be difficult to reduce further.

Two-dimensional (2D) semiconducting materials, which are made up of a single atomic layer, could overcome the limitations of bulk materials, as they are both thinner and exhibit advantageous electrical properties. Among these materials, (MoS₂), has been found to be particularly promising for the development of circuits and other components for communication systems.

A new attempt to explain the accelerated expansion of the universe

Why is the universe expanding at an ever-increasing rate? This is one of the most exciting yet unresolved questions in modern physics. Because it cannot be fully answered using our current physical worldview, researchers assume the existence of a mysterious “dark energy.” However, its origin remains unclear to this day.

An international research team from the Center for Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM) at the University of Bremen and the Transylvanian University of Brașov in Romania has come to the conclusion that the expansion of the universe can be explained—at least in part—without dark energy.

In physics, the evolution of the universe has so far been described by the and the so-called Friedmann equations. However, in order to explain the observed expansion of the universe on this basis, an additional “dark energy term” must be manually added to the equations.

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