Membrane proteins are crucial for numerous biological processes and serve as important drug targets. For decades, scientists have relied on detergents to extract membrane proteins from cell membranes for structural studies.
While detergent-based approaches have significantly advanced our understanding of membrane protein structures, they present certain limitations, such as resource-intensive detergent screening and the absence of native membrane lipids, which can hinder investigations into lipid-mediated regulation.
To address these challenges, a research team led by Prof. Dang Shangyu from the Division of Life Science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has developed a novel vesicle-based method that preserves the native lipid environment of membrane proteins, which can advance structural and functional studies.
Conquering aging via TRCS — the telomere DNA AND ribosomal DNA co-regulation model for cell senescence — bilu huang — CSO, fuzhuang therapeutics.
Bilu Huang (https://biluhuang.com/) is a visionary scientist dedicated to finding solutions to some of the most pressing challenges facing humanity. His interdisciplinary work spans multiple fields, including biological aging, dinosaur extinction theories, geoengineering for carbon removal, and controlled nuclear fusion technology.
Born in Sanming City, Fujian Province, Huang is an independent researcher whose knowledge is entirely self-taught. Driven by curiosity and a relentless pursuit of scientific exploration, he has achieved numerous research results through his dedication and passion for science.
As a talented theoretical gerontologist, he proposed the Telomere DNA and ribosomal DNA co-regulation model for cell senescence (TRCS) and he is now using this latest theory to develop biotechnology to rejuvenate cells which will be used to completely cure various age-related degenerative diseases and greatly extend human life at Fuzhuang Therapeutics (https://lab.fuzhuangtx.com/en/).
The health of patients—physical and financial, —depends on how swiftly and efficiently the industry responds to the danger of increasingly sophisticated cyber threats
MBA, PhD, is the Chief Executive Officer of The Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI — https://www.parkerici.org/), a 501c3 nonprofit organization driving the next generation of cancer treatment by accelerating the development of breakthrough immune therapies to turn all cancers into curable diseases.
Dr. Knudsen most recently served as the Chief Executive Officer of the American Cancer Society (ACS) and ACS Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN), where she led both organizations through a period of transformative growth, significantly expanding research investments, advocacy reach, and direct patient support initiatives. Under her leadership, ACS evolved into a unified, high-performing enterprise, increasing revenue by more than 30 percent and broadening its impact to serve over 55 million lives annually. Moreover, Dr. Knudsen developed and scaled innovative programs that included joint ventures and an impact innovation arm to accelerate progress against cancer.
Prior to ACS, Dr. Knudsen served as Executive Vice President of Oncology Services at Jefferson Health and Enterprise Director of the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, growing a multi-state oncology network and spearheading advancements in translational cancer research that increased early access to the most advanced cancer care.
A globally recognized expert in prostate cancer, Dr. Knudsen has authored over 200 scientific publications and generated practice-changing discoveries.
Dr. Knudsen held leadership roles with organizations including the National Cancer Institute Board of Scientific Advisors, the Association of American Cancer Institutes, and the American Association for Cancer Research. She currently serves on the boards of Exai Bio, Paradigm Health, and Research!America, and advises multiple biotech ventures including ArteraAI and Transcarent.
Dr. Knudsen holds numerous awards for her scientific and healthcare accomplishments, and this year will be honored with the Allen Lichter Visionary Leader Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), recognizing her lifetime achievement of outstanding contributions to the field of oncology.
A new clinical trial suggests stem cell therapy may restore vision in people with advanced dry age-related macular degeneration, a disease that currently has no cure.
Every time a eukaryotic cell divides, it faces a monumental challenge: It must carefully duplicate and divide its genetic material (chromosomes) equally, and then rebuild the nuclear envelope around the separated halves. If this process goes wrong, the resulting nuclei can be misshapen or disorganized—features often seen in cancer and aging-related diseases.
A new study from researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and Université Paris-Saclay reveals how a key enzyme called Aurora A helps cells pull off this feat. The findings are published in The EMBO Journal.
In dividing cells, structures called spindle poles (or centrosomes) grow in size to generate the microtubule ‘tracks’ that pull chromosomes apart. Once this job is done, the spindle poles must shrink and disassemble so that the nuclear envelope can reform around the separated chromosomes.
A number of clinical trials have been completed using green tea and black tea to investigate their effect in controlling weight in overweight adults. The results of these investigations, however, have often been contradictory, with some trials reporting positive effects of tea supplementation and some trials reporting no effect. As a result, the use of these teas for weight loss is controversial. Purple tea is a variety of green tea developed in Kenya (called TRFK306), which in addition to certain tea constituents found in green tea, also contains anthocyanins. The major constituents in the leaves of purple tea are caffeine, theobromine, epigallocatechin (ECG), epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) and 1,2-di-O-galloyl-4,6-O-(S)-hexahydroxydiphenoyl-β-D-glucose (GHG). We investigated the efficacy of purple tea extract (PTE) on diet-induced fat accumulation in mice. PTE administration (200 mg/kg) significantly suppressed body weight gain, liver weight, abdominal fat and triglycerides in serum and liver. Protein expression of carnitine palmitoyltransferase (CPT) 1A was also enhanced. In olive oil loaded mice, PTE (100 mg/kg) and caffeine (25 mg/kg) suppressed fat absorption. PTE (10 μg/mL) and GHG (10 μg/mL) also enhanced protein expression of CPT1A in HepG2 hepatoma. Moreover, 4-week daily consumption of purple tea drink in humans improved obesity parameters compared to baseline, including body weight (79.9 ± 3.1 kg vs 80.8 ± 3.2, p0.05), body mass index (BMI) (26.8 ± 0.6 vs 27.0 ± 0.6, p0.05) and body fat mass (21.0 ± 1.4 kg vs 21.8 ± 1.5, p0.01). In conclusion, PTE could control diet-induced weight gain by suppression of fat absorption and enhancement of hepatic fat metabolism.
Researchers have discovered a novel criterion for sorting particles in microfluidic channels, paving the way for advancements in disease diagnostics and liquid biopsies. Using the supercomputer “Fugaku,” a joint team from the University of Osaka, Kansai University and Okayama University revealed that soft particles, like biological cells, exhibit unique focusing patterns compared to rigid particles.
The outcomes, published in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics, pave the way for next-generation microfluidic devices leveraging cell and particle deformability, promising highly efficient cell sorting with biomedical applications such as early cancer detection.
Microfluidics involves manipulating fluids at a microscopic scale. Controlling particle movement within microchannels is crucial for cell sorting and diagnostics, expected to realize early cancer detection and treatment. While prior research focused on rigid particles, which typically focus near channel walls, the behavior of deformable particles remained largely unexplored.
The human brain can concurrently support a wide range of advanced mental functions, including attention, memory and the processing of sensory stimuli. While past neuroscience studies have gathered valuable insight into the neural underpinnings of each of these processes, the mechanisms that ensure that they are performed efficiently and in a timely fashion have not yet been fully elucidated.
Researchers at the University of Oxford and other institutes recently set out to explore how the activity of large-scale cortical functional networks, interconnected brain regions in the brain’s outermost layer, changes over time. Their findings, published in Nature Neuroscience, suggest that the overall order in which these networks become active follows an inherently cyclical pattern.
“This research was inspired by observations that transitions between large-scale brain networks are asymmetric: we have seen that in many cases it is much more likely that network X follows network Y than the other way around,” Dr. Mats W.J. van Es, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford and first author of the paper, told Medical Xpress.
See my Comment below for a link to David Orban’s 20 minute talk.
In this keynote, delivered at The Futurists X Summit, on September 22 in Dubai, David Orban maps how AI and humanoid robotics shift us from steady exponential progress to an acceleration of acceleration—what he calls the Jolting Technologies Hypothesis. He argues we’re not in a zero-sum economy; as capability compounds and doubling times shrink, we unlock new degrees of freedom for individuals, firms, and society. The challenge is to steer that power with clear narratives, robust safety, and deliberate design of work, value, and purpose.
You’ll hear: • Why narratives (optimism vs. doom) shape which futures become real. • How shortening doubling times in AI capabilities pull forward timelines once thought 20–30 years out. • Why trust in AI is task-relative: if +5% isn’t enough, aim for 10× reliability. • The coming phase transformation as intelligence becomes infrastructure (homes, mobility, industry). • Concrete social questions (e.g., organ donation post–road-death decline) that demand AI-assisted governance. • Why the nature of work will change: from jobs as status to human aspiration as value.
Key ideas: • Humanoid robots at scale: rapid iteration, non-fragile recovery, and human-complementary performance. • Designing agency: go from idea → action with near-instant execution; experiment, learn, and iterate fast. • From zombies to luminaries: use newfound freedom to architect lives worth living.
