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Where does Everything come from?

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The universe is full of a seemingly unending number of different things, from subatomic particles to plants and animals to gas giants and supernovae. But where did all of this stuff (for lack of a better word) come from? Let’s take a look.

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From fullerenes to 2D structures: A unified design principle for boron nanostructures

Boron, a chemical element next to carbon in the periodic table, is known for its unique ability to form complex bond networks. Unlike carbon, which typically bonds with two or three neighboring atoms, boron can share electrons among several atoms. This leads to a wide variety of nanostructures. These include boron fullerenes, which are hollow, cage-like molecules, and borophenes, ultra-thin metallic sheets of boron atoms arranged in triangular and hexagonal patterns.

Dr. Nevill Gonzalez Szwacki has developed a model explaining the variety of boron nanostructures. The analysis, published in the journal 2D Materials, combines more than a dozen known boron nanostructures, including the experimentally observed B₄₀ and B₈₀ fullerenes.

Using first-principles quantum-mechanical calculations, the study shows that the structural, energetic, and electronic properties of these systems can be predicted by looking at the proportions of atoms with four, five, or six bonds. The results reveal clear links between finite and extended boron structures. The B₄₀ cage corresponds to the χ₃ borophene layer, while B₆₅, B₈₀, and B₉₂ connect with the β₁₂, α, and bt borophene sheets, respectively. These structural links suggest that new boron cages could be created by using known two-dimensional boron templates.

Plant hormone allows lifelong control of proteins in living animal for first time

Researchers have found a way to control protein levels inside different tissues of a whole, living animal for the first time. The method lets scientists dial protein levels up or down with great precision during the animal’s entire life, a technological advance which can help them study the molecular underpinnings of aging and disease.

Scientists at the Center for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona and the University of Cambridge successfully tested the technique by controlling how much protein was present in the intestines and neurons of the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans. Their findings are described in the journal Nature Communications.

Abstract: ZMIZ1 and estrogen receptor α form an essential partnership in endometrial biology:

This Commentary by Md Saidur Rahman, Kyeong A. So & Jae-Wook Jeong discusses Sylvia C. Hewitt et al.: https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI193212

1Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Women’s Health, University of Missouri School of Medicine, Columbia, Missouri, USA.

2Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Konkuk University School of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea.

Address correspondence to: Jae-Wook Jeong, 1,030 Hitt Street, NextGen Precision Health Building, Columbia, Missouri 65,211, USA. Phone: 573.884.1882; Email: [email protected].

Dr. Norman Putzki, MD — Novartis — Gene Therapy And A New Era Of Neuroscience

Gene Therapy And A New Era Of Neuroscience — Dr. Norman Putzki, MD — SVP, Global Clinical Development Head, and U.S. Development Site Head, Novartis.

Dr. Norman Putzki, MD is Senior Vice President, Global Clinical Development Head, and U.S. Development Site Head at Novartis (https://www.novartis.com/) where he oversees global teams working on next-generation gene therapies, RNA-based medicines, targeted biologics, and innovative small molecules.

Dr. Putzki most recently served as Global Head of Development for Neuroscience and Gene Therapy at Novartis, where he oversaw one of the world’s most ambitious pipelines aimed at transforming the lives of patients with neurological, neuromuscular, and rare genetic diseases.

A physician–scientist by training, with an MD from University of Duisburg Essen, Dr. Putzki has built a career at the intersection of clinical medicine, translational research, and large-scale drug development.

Before joining Novartis, Dr. Putzki led programs across multiple therapeutic areas at Biogen Idec and has played key roles in advancing clinical treatments for conditions long considered intractable including MS and Parkison’s disease.

Continue reading “Dr. Norman Putzki, MD — Novartis — Gene Therapy And A New Era Of Neuroscience” | >

How to build a genome: Scientists release troubleshooting manual for synthetic life

Leading synthetic biologists have shared hard-won lessons from their decade-long quest to build the world’s first synthetic eukaryotic genome in a Nature Biotechnology paper. Their insights could accelerate development of the next generation of engineered organisms, from climate-resilient crops to custom-built cell factories.

“We’ve assembled a comprehensive overview of the literature on how to build a lifeform where we review what went right—but also what went wrong,” says Dr. Paige Erpf, lead author of the paper and postdoctoral researcher at Macquarie University’s School of Natural Sciences and the Australian Research Council (ARC) Center of Excellence in Synthetic Biology.

The Synthetic Yeast Genome Project (Sc2.0) involved a large, evolving global consortium of 200-plus researchers from more than ten institutions, who jointly set out to redesign and chemically synthesize all 16 chromosomes of baker’s yeast from scratch. Macquarie University contributed to the synthesis of two of these chromosomes, comprising around 12% of the project overall.

Growth strategy enables coherent quantum transport in single-layer MoS₂ semiconductors

Two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors are thin materials (i.e., one-atom thick) with advantageous electronic properties. These materials have proved to be promising for the development of thinner, highly performing electronics, such as fitness trackers and portable devices.

A 2D semiconductor that has attracted particular interest within the electronics community is molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂), a transition-metal dichalcogenide made up of one metal atom and two chalcogen atoms. To build reliable large-area electronics based on MoS₂ layers, engineers need to uniformly grow this material over wafer-scale surfaces, minimizing defects that hinder the performance of devices.

Researchers at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS), Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) and other institutes recently introduced a new approach to grow single-layer MoS₂ on substrates while maintaining a uniform atomic arrangement. Their approach, outlined in a paper in Nature Electronics, entails a greater control of the process by which small crystal regions merge on a substrate, also known as coalescence.

Two-step method enables controllable WS₂ epitaxy growth

In a study published in Journal of the American Chemical Society, a team led by Prof. Song Li from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences synthesized monolayer WS2 lateral homojunctions via in situ domain engineering, and enabled controllable direct chemical vapor deposition (CVD) growth of these structures.

Two-dimensional (2D) are ideal candidates to replace silicon-based semiconductors due to their exceptional electrical properties at atomic scales. However, device applications require heterogeneous field-effect modulation behaviors across low-dimensional units. Van der Waals interactions or lateral atomic bonding allow damage-free integration into homojunctions/heterojunctions, but direct epitaxy growth remains challenging due to strict atomic species constraints.

In this study, researchers first determined optimal intrinsic defect configurations through theoretical simulations. Then they employed a two-step CVD method to achieve the in situ modulation of defect structures at the domain level, yielding homojunctions with tailored defect architectures.

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