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Blog – Page 843

For the last three years,…

A UWE Bristol researcher hopes to revolutionise the jewellery industry and its supply chains with the creation of unique gemstone and jewellery designs with ground-breaking properties — including the world’s first single stone glow-in-the-dark manmade crystal.

For the last three years, award-winning jewellery designer Sofie Boons, who’s a Crafts Council Research Fellow at the university’s Centre for Print Research (CFPR), has been undertaking tests on the viability, limitations and use of innovative and experimentally grown crystals in the production of contemporary jewellery.

Working in collaboration with Swiss company BREVALOR Sarl and using their new material ‘BRG’, Sofie has successfully facetted a single stone out of the material – offering jewellery designers a crystal which is not only brilliant when seen in daylight, but illuminates when seen in the dark.

Continue reading “Glow in the dark gemstones show the jewellery industry that laboratory-grown crystals can shine bright” | >

Adrenergic receptors (ARs) are preferentially expressed by innate lymphocytes such as natural killer (NK) cells.

Here, we study the effect of epinephrine-mediated stimulation of the β2-adrenergic receptor (β2AR) on the function of human NK cells.

β2-Adrenergic receptor stimulation inhibits NK cell activation. (A) β2-Adrenergic receptor expression analysis of PBMCs by flow cytometry (n = 8). Subsets were assigned according to the following markers: B cells (CD19+), NK cells (CD56+, CD3−), CD56 dim (CD56dim, CD3−), CD56 bright (CD56bright, CD3−), NK-T cells (CD56+, CD3+), T cells (CD3+), and monocytes (FSC/SSC). (B) Representative β2-adrenergic receptor (β2AR) expression histograms of freshly isolated or cultured NK cells. © IFNγ secretion of fresh NK cells (top) or cultured NK cells (bottom). NK cells were pretreated with epinephrine ± propranolol (each 1 µM) and stimulated for 5 h by plate-bound antibodies as indicated. Supernatant was analyzed by IFNγ ELISA (mean, n = 3). (D) Degranulation of fresh NK cells (top) or cultured NK cells (bottom) was analyzed by CD107a expression. NK cells were pretreated and stimulated (3 h) like in ©, (mean, n = 3). Statistical analysis in © and (D) was performed using two-way ANOVA test, **** p < 0.0001; *** p < 0.001; ** p < 0.01; control set to 100%).

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Inside every cell, inside every nucleus, your continued existence depends on an incredibly complicated dance. Proteins are constantly wrapping and unwrapping DNA, and even minor missteps can lead to cancer. A new study from the University of Chicago reveals a previously unknown part of this dance—one with significant implications for human health.

In the study, published Oct. 2 in Nature, a team of scientists led by UChicago Prof. Chuan He, in collaboration with University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio Prof. Mingjiang Xu, found that RNA plays a significant role in how DNA is packaged and stored in your cells, via a gene known as TET2. The paper is titled “RNA m5C oxidation by TET2 regulates chromatin state and leukaemogenesis.”

This pathway also appears to explain a long-standing puzzle about why so many cancers and other disorders involve TET2-related mutations—and suggests a set of new targets for treatments.

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Unlocking the complexities of the fruit fly brain is a crucial step toward understanding the human brain. Fruit flies share many genetic similarities with humans, making them a valuable model organism for studying brain functions as well as diseases.

“An estimated 75% of human genes related to diseases have homologs in the fly genome,” Sebastian Seung, co-leader of the research team, told Interesting Engineering (IE).

“We’ve long known about the molecular similarities between fly and human brains. We have been slower to realize that there are also similarities at the circuit level, revealed by examining patterns of connectivity. We now know that fly circuits for olfaction, vision, and navigation have architectural similarities with mammalian circuits for the same functions,” Seung added.

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