Lifeboat Foundation

A new tool that enables thousands of tiny experiments to run simultaneously on a single polymer chip will let scientists study enzymes faster and more comprehensively than ever before.

For much of human history, animals and plants were perceived to follow a different set of rules than rest of the universe. In the 18th and 19th centuries, this culminated in a belief that living organisms were infused by a non-physical energy or “life force” that allowed them to perform remarkable transformations that couldn’t be explained by conventional chemistry or physics alone.

Scientists now understand that these transformations are powered by enzymes – protein molecules comprised of chains of amino acids that act to speed up, or catalyze, the conversion of one kind of molecule (substrates) into another (products). In so doing, they enable reactions such as digestion and fermentation – and all of the chemical events that happen in every one of our cells – that, left alone, would happen extraordinarily slowly.

Scientists from the University at Buffalo have developed a rapid new 3D bioprinting method that could represent a significant step towards fully-printed human organs.

Using a novel vat-SLA-based approach, the team have been able to reduce the time it takes to create cell-laden hydrogel structures, from over 6 hours to just 19 minutes. The expedited biofabrication method also enables the production of embedded blood vessel networks, potentially making it a significant step towards the lifesaving 3D printed organs needed by those on transplant waiting lists.

“Our method allows for the rapid printing of centimeter-sized hydrogel models,” explained the study’s lead co-author, Chi Zhou. “It significantly reduces part deformation and cellular injuries caused by the prolonged exposure to the environmental stresses you commonly see in conventional 3D printing.”

Circa 2015

It’s no TIE fighter, but the Dawn probe is driven by the future of spacecraft propulsion: ion engines.

Continue reading “Dawn of a new era: the revolutionary ion engine that took spacecraft to Ceres” »

Bioprinting in seconds.

Biofabrication technologies, including stereolithography and extrusion-based printing, are revolutionizing the creation of complex engineered tissues. The current paradigm in bioprinting relies on the additive layer-by-layer deposition and assembly of repetitive building blocks, typically cell-laden hydrogel fibers or voxels, single cells, or cellular aggregates. The scalability of these additive manufacturing technologies is limited by their printing velocity, as lengthy biofabrication processes impair cell functionality. Overcoming such limitations, the volumetric bioprinting of clinically relevant sized, anatomically shaped constructs, in a time frame ranging from seconds to tens of seconds is described. An optical-tomography-inspired printing approach, based on visible light projection, is developed to generate cell-laden tissue constructs with high viability (85%) from gelatin-based photoresponsive hydrogels. Free-form architectures, difficult to reproduce with conventional printing, are obtained, including anatomically correct trabecular bone models with embedded angiogenic sprouts and meniscal grafts. The latter undergoes maturation in vitro as the bioprinted chondroprogenitor cells synthesize neo-fibrocartilage matrix. Moreover, free-floating structures are generated, as demonstrated by printing functional hydrogel-based ball-and-cage fluidic valves. Volumetric bioprinting permits the creation of geometrically complex, centimeter-scale constructs at an unprecedented printing velocity, opening new avenues for upscaling the production of hydrogel-based constructs and for their application in tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and soft robotics.

Circa 2012

Could biological systems have evolved to find the optimal quantum solutions to the problems thrown at them by nature? This Review presents an overview of the possible quantum effects seen in photosynthesis, avian magnetoreception and several other biological systems.

Circa 2011

Donations aren’t enough to sate the world’s need for red blood cells. So a UK firm is working to grow them in a lab.

We’d pictured the plant-fruit relationship as one-way, but new research reports that sometimes the fruit can talk back! And while cow burps are a widely cited contributor to climate change, it turns out that wild pigs might also be contributing with their eating habits.

Hosted by: Hank Green.

Continue reading “If Tomatoes Could Talk, Here’s What They’d Say | SciShow News” »

Mount Sinai researchers have developed a therapeutic agent that shows high effectiveness in vitro at disrupting a biological pathway that helps cancer survive, according to a paper published in Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, in July.

The therapy is an engineered molecule, named MS21, that causes the degradation of AKT, an enzyme that is overly active in many cancers. This study laid out evidence that pharmacological degradation of AKT is a viable treatment for cancers with mutations in certain genes.

AKT is a cancer gene that encodes an enzyme that is frequently abnormally activated in cancer cells to stimulate tumor growth. Degradation of AKT reverses these processes and inhibits tumor growth.

In the language of Morse code, the letter “S” is three short sounds and the letter “O” is three longer sounds. Put them together in the right order and you have a cry for help: S.O.S. Now an NIH-funded team of researchers has cracked a comparable code that specialized immune cells called macrophages use to signal and respond to a threat.

In fact, by “listening in” on thousands of macrophages over time, one by one, the researchers have identified not just a lone distress signal, or “word,” but a vocabulary of six words. Their studies show that macrophages use these six words at different times to launch an appropriate response. What’s more, they have evidence that autoimmune conditions can arise when immune cells misuse certain words in this vocabulary. This bad communication can cause them incorrectly to attack substances produced by the immune system itself as if they were a foreign invaders.

The findings, published recently in the journal Immunity, come from a University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) team led by Alexander Hoffmann and Adewunmi Adelaja. As an example of this language of immunity, the video above shows in both frames many immune macrophages (blue and red). You may need to watch the video four times to see what’s happening (I did). Each time you run the video, focus on one of the highlighted cells (outlined in white or green), and note how its nuclear signal intensity varies over time. That signal intensity is plotted in the rectangular box at the bottom.