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Category: biotech/medical – Page 48

These nanotweezers grab thousands of tiny cell packets in seconds and expose their hidden cargo

Justus Ndukaife, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and Chancellor Faculty Fellow, and his team have developed next generation nanotweezers that better analyze extracellular vesicles and aid in unraveling the mysteries of how cells package molecules and interact with one another. The research was published in Light: Science and Applications journal on March 20, 2026. Graduate student Ikjun Hong helped to perform the experimental characterization under Ndukaife’s direction.

Nanosized extracellular vesicles (EVs), though they vary in size and molecular cargo composition, are an important means for cells to communicate with each other. A significant research opportunity involves analyzing EVs individually to discern their biological roles in diverse diseases as well as leverage them for next generation therapeutics.

Studying single, intact EVs often relies on trapping individual particles, but existing methods face significant limitations. For example, optical tweezers —an approach recognized by the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics—use a tightly focused laser beam to trap microscopic objects. However, the process is slow, as particles must be captured sequentially, and it is difficult to ensure that a new particle is trapped for each measurement. These constraints severely limit throughput and scalability.

Quantum sensors get a precision boost as 2D defects reveal their hidden timing

A key factor for the performance of sensors is the speed at which the system returns to its initial state after a disturbance or measurement, similar to the taring of a balance. In the quantum sensor under investigation, this corresponds to the transition of electrons from an energetically excited state to the ground state. However, the electrons remain in a kind of metastable intermediate state for a short time. A team of physicists from Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) has now directly measured this waiting time in a two-dimensional material: It lasts exactly 24 billionths of a second.

This knowledge is particularly important for quantum technology. It can be used to significantly increase the accuracy of atomic sensors, paving the way for the medical diagnostics of the future, for example. Professor Vladimir Dyakonov, Head of the Chair of Experimental Physics VI (EPVI), was responsible for the study published in the journal Science Advances.

Record-breaking photonics approach traps light on a chip for millions of cycles

For years, scientists have dreamed of using atomically thin van der Waals (vdW) materials to build faster, more efficient photonic chips. These materials can be stacked and tuned with extraordinary precision, opening possibilities far beyond those of conventional technologies. The challenge is that they are extremely fragile, making them notoriously difficult to shape with standard nanofabrication tools.

Now, an international team of researchers including scientists from Aalto University has overcome this long-standing barrier. By developing a method for what can be described as nanoscale surgery, they were able to sculpt these delicate materials without destroying them, achieving record-breaking performance in the process.

Published in Nature Materials, the work marks an important step forward for vdW materials, shifting them from passive coatings toward becoming the active building blocks of future photonic and quantum devices.

A New Chapter in Chemistry? Scientists Uncover New Way Metals Bind Oxygen

Iron plays a central role in how the body uses oxygen. In hemoglobin, it binds dioxygen, a pair of oxygen atoms, allowing blood to carry oxygen to tissues. But this is only part of the story. Iron-oxo compounds, which contain iron bonded to oxygen in a highly reactive form, also drive critical chemistry in the liver, where enzymes rely on them to break down medications and toxins.

Rice University chemist Raúl Hernández Sánchez set out to explore whether oxygen could react with other metals, particularly those in the lowest region of the periodic table known as the f-block. This group includes lanthanides in the upper row and actinides below.

He proposed that if lanthanides could bond with oxygen, they might form reactive lanthanide-oxo compounds. These compounds could serve as synthetic alternatives to iron-oxo systems and give chemists new ways to study small-molecule reactions linked to biology.

Expanding the Genetic Landscape of ATXN2 VariantsInsights From a Biallelic Trinucleotide Repeat Expansion in an Acadian Family

This study describes a novel ATXN2 expansion within the classic pathogenic range for spinocerebellar ataxia 2 that manifests as an early-onset neurodegenerative disorder in the homozygous state, while being asymptomatic into late adulthood in the heterozygous state.

The length and content of ATXN2 trinucleotide repeat significantly influences disease development and clinical phenotype. ATXN2 alleles containing 13–31 CAG trinucleotide repeats are normal and commonly found in healthy individuals4 and over 90% of tested individuals possess an allele containing 22 CAG repeats.21 Spinocerebellar ataxia type 2 is caused by dominant alleles of 33 or more CAG trinucleotide repeats.11,22 Alleles containing 33–34 CAG repeats are considered reduced penetrance alleles, and carriers may or may not develop late onset ataxia.22 Fully penetrant alleles most commonly have 37–39 CAG repeats and are pathogenic for SCA2.11 While SCA2 alleles of 31 pure CAG repeats exhibit high instability on inheritance, it has been proposed that CAA interruptions confers meiotic stability.23 An anticipation phenomenon in SCA2 has also been described, consisting of earlier disease onset and increased clinical severity in subsequent generations which are mirrored by an increase in CAG repeat size.12 Patients with SCA2-related parkinsonism carry intermediate range alleles and possess alleles with CAA interruptions.24,25 Similarly, ATNX2 variants associated with ALS are CAA interrupted and are rarely in the pathogenic range of SCA2.26,27 Contrasting with trinucleotide expansion diseases, repeat size has no bearing on ALS AO but correlates with disease risk.28 ATXN2 has been identified as a disease modifier gene for a variety of neurologic conditions and similarly, various genes may influence the AO of SCA2, including long normal repeats in the CACNA1A and RAI1 genes.29 Nonetheless, the most important predictor of AO and clinical severity remains the polyglutamine repeat expansion size.30

Infantile and childhood forms of SCA2 are described, and these patients present with a multi-systematic neurodegenerative disorder including developmental delay, retinitis pigmentosa, optic atrophy, hypotonia, seizures, facial dysmorphism, dystonic features, and early mortality.21,31 Infantile cases all possess extreme length CAG repeats (range 69–884) in the heterozygous state, with clinical severity related to repeat size, and inherited with an anticipation phenomenon from parents within the fully penetrant range of SCA2 (range 39–47 CAG repeats).21,31

Homozygous cases of SCA2 are exceedingly rare.32,33 Notably, a patient with 31/31 CAG alleles developed late-onset cerebellar ataxia, suggesting that patients with homozygous variants may manifest signs of disease within a nonpathogenic variant range, that is not associated with disease development in the heterozygous state.18,32 Two homozygous cases from an Indian family with 35/37 and 36/39 CAG repeats alleles developed early onset, levodopa responsive Parkinson disease without ataxia,33 while several family members with heterozygous ATXN2 variants exhibited parkinsonism and/or ataxia with variable ages of onset ranging from adulthood to their sixties.33 Moreover, two homozygous cases with intermediate alleles of 32/3217 and 33/3327 displayed a pure ALS phenotype, without ataxia. These cases highlight the phenotypical variability of homozygous ATXN2 variants.

Proliferation and Apoptosis Adaptor Protein 15 (PEA15), a Potential Oncogenic Regulator of VHL and HIF1A Identified through Proteomic Analysis in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

JUST PUBLISHED:Click here to read the latest free, Open Access article from Cancer Communications.

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Table Of Contents Proliferation and Apoptosis Adaptor Protein 15 (PEA15), a Potential Oncogenic Regulator of VHL and HIF1A Identified through Proteomic Analysis in Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

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