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Plastic bottles transformed into Parkinson’s drug using bacteria

A drug to treat Parkinson’s disease can be made from waste plastic bottles using a pioneering method, a study shows. The approach harnesses the power of bacteria to transform post-consumer plastic into L-DOPA, a frontline medication for the neurological disorder. It is the first time a natural, biological process has been engineered to turn plastic waste into a therapeutic for a neurological disease, researchers say.

Scientists at the University of Edinburgh engineered E. coli bacteria to turn a type of plastic used widely in food and drink packaging—polyethylene terephthalate, or PET—into L-DOPA. The process involves first breaking down PET waste—some 50 million tonnes of which are produced annually—into chemical building blocks of terephthalic acid. Molecules of terephthalic acid are then transformed into L-DOPA by the engineered bacteria through a series of biological reactions.

Using the new technique to produce L-DOPA is more sustainable than traditional methods of making pharmaceuticals, which rely on the use of finite fossil fuels, the team says.

Ultrasound-based technology to deliver large therapeutics into cancer cells

In the study, the authors equipped these microbubbles with synthetic nucleic acid strands designed to bind with specific biochemical receptors that appear on the cell membranes of cancer cells but not healthy cells. They then tried several combinations of ultrasound frequencies and intensities to find the perfect pairing for opening pores in the cell membranes to allow the PROTACs to enter.

Once the optimal settings were identified, the researchers validated the platform by attaching fluorescent molecules to the PROTACs. They conducted separate experiments on cancer cells and healthy cells to compare the delivery efficiency. After a minute of ultrasound exposure, the cells treated with SonoPIN glowed seven times brighter than those treated with traditional PROTAC delivery methods, indicating that they were taking in many PROTACs. This resulted in half of the cancer cells self-destructing, while 99% of the healthy cells remained viable.

Moving forward, the researchers plan to test this approach in mouse models and have already applied for a patent covering the work. By injecting the PROTACs and cancer-seeking microbubbles into their veins and focusing the ultrasound waves on tumor locations, they believe SonoPIN could form a highly potent cancer-killing technology with few side effects. sciencenewshighlights ScienceMission.

Engineers have demonstrated a technique that uses microbubbles and ultrasound to help relatively large cancer drugs enter tumor cells and cause them to self-destruct.

Dubbed “Sonoporation-assisted Precise Intracellular Nanodelivery”—or SonoPIN for short—the technology caused 50% of targeted cancer cells in a benchtop experiment to self-destruct, while leaving 99% of non-targeted cells healthy. The results show promise for precisely delivering a wide variety of large-molecule therapeutics to cells with few off-target effects.

The research appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Continue reading “Ultrasound-based technology to deliver large therapeutics into cancer cells” | >

A new class of molten planet stores abundant sulfur in a perpetual magma ocean

A study led by the University of Oxford has identified a new type of planet beyond our solar system—one that stores large amounts of sulfur deep within a permanent ocean of magma. The findings have been published in Nature Astronomy.

The exoplanet (a planet that orbits a star outside the solar system), known as L 98–59 d, orbits a small red star about 35 light-years from Earth. Recent observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and ground-based observatories suggest something unusual: the planet has an especially low density, given its size (which is about 1.6 times that of Earth) and contains significant amounts of hydrogen sulfide in its atmosphere.

Until now, astronomers would have placed a planet like this into one of two familiar categories, either a rocky “gas-dwarf” with an atmosphere of hydrogen, or a water-rich world made of deep oceans and ice. But these new findings reveal that L 98–59 d fits neither description—instead, it appears to belong to an entirely different class of planet containing heavy sulfur molecules.

Frontiers: Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death in the world

This is partly due to the low regenerative capacity of adult hearts. mRNA therapy is a promising approach under development for cardiac diseases. In mRNA therapy, expression of the target protein is modulated by delivering synthetic mRNA therapy benefits cardiac regeneration by increasing cardiomyocyte proliferation, reducing fibrosis, and promoting angiogenesis. Because mRNA is translated in the cytoplasm, the delivery efficiency of mRNA into the cytoplasm and nucleus significantly affects its therapeutic efficacy. To improve delivery efficiency, non-viral vehicles such as lipid nanoparticles have been developed. Non-viral vehicles can protect mRNA from enzymatic degradation and facilitate the cellular internalization of mRNA. In addition to non-viral vehicles, viral vectors have been designed to deliver mRNA templates into cardiac cells. This article reviews lipid nanoparticles, polymer nanoparticles, and viral vectors that have been utilized to deliver mRNA into the heart. Because of the growing interest in lipid nanoparticles, recent advances in lipid nanoparticles designed for cardiac mRNA delivery are discussed. Besides, potential targets of mRNA therapy for myocardial infarction are discussed. Gene therapies that have been investigated in patients with cardiac diseases are analyzed. Reviewing mRNA therapy from a clinically relevant perspective can reveal needs for future investigations.

Cardiovascular diseases are a group of diseases related to heart muscles, blood vessels, and valves. The death caused by cardiovascular diseases worldwide in 2019 was 17.9 million, which accounts for approximately 30% of total death in the year (DofE and SAPD, 2019; World Heath Organization, 2021). Myocardial infarction and strokes result in over 80% of deaths from cardiovascular diseases. Percutaneous coronary intervention treatment has significantly lowered mortality after acute myocardial infarction. However, the cardiac function will be permanently impaired. Newborn mammals can regenerate the injured heart, but this regenerative capacity disappears in adults (Porrello et al., 2011; Ye et al., 2018). The declined regenerative capacity in aged hearts is partly due to decreased cardiomyocyte proliferation, lowered angiogenesis, and increased fibrosis (Rivard et al., 1999; Senyo et al., 2012; Notari et al., 2018).

TY2 is protective in a rat model of MI and in a model of cecal ligation and puncture–induced sepsis

This Research Letter offers a creative approach to sepsis based on a naturally occurring efferocytosis-enhancing RNA

Small noncoding RNA TY2 enhances efferocytosis and improves outcomes in a mouse model of sepsis by Alessandra Ciullo & team: https://doi.org/10.1172/jci.insight.

The image shows exposure to TY2 increases E. coli clearance by bone-marrow derived macrophages as indicated by fluorophore as a reporter of efferocytosis (green).

Address correspondence to: Alessandra Ciullo, Smidt Heart Institute, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, 8,700 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, California 90,048, USA. Email: [email protected].

Find articles by Ciullo, A. in: | Google Scholar

Smidt heart institute, cedars-sinai medical center, los angeles, california, USA.

Continue reading “TY2 is protective in a rat model of MI and in a model of cecal ligation and puncture–induced sepsis” | >

Association of Brain Network Perturbations With Response to Vagus Nerve Stimulation in Children With Drug-Resistant Focal Epilepsy

This study investigated whether preimplantation functional network perturbations in relation to interictal epileptiform discharges are associated with vagus nerve stimulation response in children with focal drug-resistant epilepsy.

Background and Objectives.

THOR AI solves a 100-year-old physics problem in seconds

A new AI framework called THOR is transforming how scientists calculate the behavior of atoms inside materials. Instead of relying on slow simulations that take weeks of supercomputer time, the system uses tensor network mathematics and machine-learning models to solve the problem directly. The approach can compute key thermodynamic properties hundreds of times faster while preserving accuracy. Researchers say this could accelerate discoveries in materials science, physics, and chemistry.

Study Reveals a ‘Turning Point’ in US Life Expectancy

A worrying health pattern for some of the Gen X and Millennial crowd has been highlighted by a new study: people born between 1970 and 1985 are experiencing worse mortality rates than the generations before them, across multiple causes.

The international team of researchers analyzed cause-of-death records over more than 40 years, between 1979 and 2023, to examine changes in life expectancy and the underlying reasons that could be shaping it.

What stands out is that being born in the 1950s – the middle of the Baby Boomer generation – marks a turning point: from steadily decreasing mortality rates and better health outcomes compared with earlier groups, to the opposite.

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