Join us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/MichaelLustgartenPhDDiscount Links/Affiliates: Blood testing (where I get my labs): https://www.ultalabtests.com/…
The 2024 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience is awarded to three nanomedicine pioneers who laid the foundation of controlled release, biomedical imaging and diagnostics.
Scientists have sequenced the largest known animal genome — and it’s 30 times bigger than the human genome.
The genome belongs to the South American lungfish (Lepidosiren paradoxa), a primeval, air-breathing fish that “hops” onto land from the water using weird, limb-like fins. The fish’s DNA code expanded dramatically over the past 100 million years of evolutionary history, racking up the equivalent of one human genome every 10 million years, researchers found.
During the Cold War Era of the 1960s, Russian researchers were looking for ways to support the immune system in conditions running the gamut from cancer to bio-warfare agents. Eastern Europeans, with a cultural love of fermented milk products, logically looked to probiotics, or lactobacillus, for immune support because it was safe, cheap and effective.
A Bulgarian researcher and medical doctor, Dr. Ivan Bogdanov, researched lactobacillus bacteria in the 1960s. Bogdanov believed that specific strains of probiotics could have anti-tumor properties.
The doctor’s research team injected mice with a sarcoma cancer, then administered a crude mixture of cell fragments from a strain of Lactobacillus delbrukii. Bogdanov observed that the cancer disappeared within a few days. Subsequently, researchers attempted to re-grow cancer in the same mice, but without success — the mice seemed immune to the cancer cells.
Researchers have developed a new two-photon fluorescence microscope that captures high-speed images of neural activity at cellular resolution. By imaging much faster and with less harm to brain tissue than traditional two-photon microscopy, the new approach could provide a clearer view of how neurons communicate in real time, leading to new insights into brain function and neurological diseases.
Scientists have made a groundbreaking advancement in understanding light propagation through complex media, potentially revolutionizing fields like optical communication and medical imaging.
By introducing the concept of coherence entropy, a new metric for evaluating light behavior, they have provided a reliable tool for managing light fields in challenging environments. This research could significantly enhance the performance of systems that rely on light, particularly in situations where traditional methods fail due to media distortion.
Light technology is at the heart of many cutting-edge innovations, from high-speed internet to advanced medical imaging. However, transmitting light through challenging environments, such as turbulent atmospheres or deformed optical systems, has always posed a significant hurdle. These complexities can distort and disrupt the light field, making it difficult to achieve clear and reliable results. Scientists have long sought ways to overcome these limitations, and a new breakthrough may hold the key to advance practical applications.
Researchers from Western University have discovered a protein that has the never-before-seen ability to stop DNA damage in its tracks. The finding could provide the foundation for developing everything from vaccines against cancer, to crops that can withstand the increasingly harsh growing conditions brought on by climate change.
Although natural-killer-cell therapies are safer than T-cell therapies and offer other advantages, they require upgrades to overcome their limited lifespan and susceptibility to immunosuppression.
ABOVE: Researchers recapitulate electrical gradients in vitro to help guide stem cell differentiation for neural regeneration. ©istock, Cappan.
The dance of development is electric. Bioelectrical gradients choreograph embryonic growth, signaling to stem cells what cell types they should become, where they should travel, who their neighbors should be, and what structures they should form.1 The intensity and location of these signals serve as an electrical scaffold to map out anatomical features and guide development. Bioelectricity also shapes tissue regeneration.2 Tapping into these mechanisms is of special interest to researchers who grapple with the challenge of regenerating injured nerves.3
One such curious team from Stanford University and the University of Arizona recently reported a new approach using electrically conductive hydrogels to induce differentiation of human mesenchymal stem cells into neurons and oligodendrocytes in vitro.4 Their findings, published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry B, provide important proof of principle for future studies of biocompatible materials to electrically augment transplanted and endogenous cells after injury.
Organoids of mammary glands can help researchers more efficiently study lactation, with findings that could apply to fields ranging from agriculture to medicine.
