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Category: biotech/medical – Page 2,437

Scientists Identify Two Genes Key To Axolotl Limb Regeneration

The regenerative properties of axolotls has led to them become one of the most studied species of salamander in the world. In 2018 their genome, which is 10 times longer than that of humans, became the longest yet to be sequenced. However, understanding the functions of the genes associated with axolotl regeneration has proven a challenge for scientists, as they are contained within reams of repeated lengths of DNA.

Researchers at Yale University have developed a novel screening platform to potentially circumvent this problem, and bring the possibility of applying this regenerative process to humans a step closer. Their novel screening platform involved the creation of markers to track 25 of the genes suspected to be involved in axolotl limb regeneration.

“It regenerates almost anything after almost any injury that doesn’t kill it,” said Parker Flowers, co-author and Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at Yale University.

New Website Tracks Coronavirus Outbreak in Real Time

You’d have to be living under a very isolated rock to be unaware of the dangerous coronavirus outbreak centered on the city of Wuhan in China. The disease has infected several thousand people, and more than 100 have died. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have created a new tool to track and visualize the outbreak. In a world where it’s easy to spread incorrect information, having an authoritative and easily digestible source like this can be essential.

China allegedly sought to keep the epidemic under wraps, arresting people who posted about the virus on social media. However, the rapid spread of coronavirus infections soon made it impossible to hide. The Chinese government eventually sealed the city of Wuhan as it tries to get a handle on the situation, but many people left the city before that happened. Surrounding provinces have confirmed several dozen infections, and there are a handful of cases in other countries like Thailand, Japan, and the US.

Coronaviruses are a common cause of respiratory infections in humans — it’s one of the pathogens that can cause the “common cold.” However, some strains can be much more dangerous. For example, the 2003 SARS outbreak was a strain of coronavirus called SARS-CoV. The new strain doesn’t have a fancy acronym. It’s just known as the Novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV). Out of over 4,000 infections, 106 have died and only 79 have completely recovered.

Portable Biosensor Uses Light at Nanoscale to Detect Sepsis in Minutes

LAUSANNE, Switzerland, Jan. 28, 2020 — Time is critical when diagnosing sepsis, but the tests currently used to identify this disease can take up to 72 hours. Researchers at the Laboratory of Bionanophotonic Systems (BIOS) at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) have developed an optical biosensor that reduces sepsis diagnosis time from several days to a few minutes. The portable biosensor is based on nanoparticle-enhanced digital plasmonic imaging.

New Tech Will Disinfect Everything and Help Stop Infectious Diseases

Nanosafety researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health have developed a new intervention to fight infectious disease by more effectively disinfecting the air around us, our food, our hands, and whatever else harbors the microbes that make us sick.

They used a nano-enabled platform developed at the center to create and deliver tiny, aerosolized water nonodroplets containing non-toxic, nature-inspired disinfectants wherever desired.

ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng – Inactivation of Hand Hygiene-Related Pathogens Using Engineered Water Nanostructures.

CAR T treatments could have fewer side effects than other cancer immunotherapies

New cancer immunotherapies involve extracting a patient’s T cells and genetically engineering them so they will recognize and attack tumors. This technique is a true medical breakthrough, with an increasing number of leukemia and lymphoma patients experiencing complete remissions since CAR T therapy was FDA approved in 2017.

This type of therapy is not without challenges, however. Engineering a patient’s T is laborious and expensive. And when successful, the alterations to the immune system immediately make patients very sick for a short period of time, with symptoms including fever, nausea and neurological effects.

Now, University of Pennsylvania researchers have demonstrated a new engineering technique that, because it is less toxic to the T cells, could enable a different mechanism for altering the way they recognize cancer.

Microrobot system regenerates knee cartilage in rabbits

A team of researchers affiliated with multiple institutions in China and one in Korea has developed a micro-robot system that regenerated knee cartilage in rabbits. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the group describes their system and how well it worked.

In many developed countries, the population is growing older, which means aging-related health conditions are on the rise. One such ailment common in older people is degeneration of the in the knees and hips. When this happens, a common treatment is replacing the knee or hip joint with an artificial device. In this new effort, the researchers have found a better way to handle the problem—regrowing the cartilage.

Prior research has shown that found in and fat can be coaxed into growing into cartilage cells. And researchers have also found that stem cells can be used to repair damaged cartilage. The challenge is placing the cells in the body where they are needed and keeping them in place until they attach to the surrounding tissue. In this new effort, the researchers have created a system that was able to overcome these hurdles—at least in rabbits.

Researchers can reprogramme cells to original state for regenerative medicine

Early mammalian development is a highly complex process involving elaborate and highly coordinated biological processes. One such process is zygotic genome activation (ZGA) which occurs following the union of the sperm and egg, marking the beginning of life. The resultant early embryos, termed ‘zygotes’ are capable of generating the entire organism, a property known as totipotency.

Totipotent sit atop the developmental hierarchy and have the greatest potency of all cell types, giving it limitless therapeutic potential. Surpassing pluripotent embryonic stem cells, which are only able to differentiate into all within the embryo, the totipotent zygote loses its totipotency as it matures into pluripotency.

Scientists at the National University of Singapore’s Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine have now found a way to manipulate pluripotent cells into acquiring the totipotent capacity previously thought to exist only in the zygote. This not only provides key insights into how totipotency is formed and the earliest events in mammalian development, but opens new doors for potential cell therapies that were previously unexplored.

This skyscraper-sized air purifier is the world’s tallest

Circa 2018

It may look like just another giant smokestack, but a 200-foot tower in the central Chinese city of Xi’an was built to pull deadly pollutants from the air rather than add more. And preliminary research shows the tower — which some are calling the world’s largest air purifier — has cut air pollution significantly across a broad swath of the surrounding area.

Given those findings, the researchers behind the project say they hope to build an even taller air-purifying tower in Xi’an, and possibly in other cities around China.

“I like to tell my students that we don’t need to be medical doctors to save lives,” said Dr. David Pui, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Minnesota and one of the researchers. “If we can just reduce the air pollution in major metropolitan areas by 20 percent, for example, we can save tens of thousands of lives each year.”

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