One of the great biological mysteries of the human body is how hundreds of complex, origami-like proteins, many of which are crucial for normal body function, come to assume their final, correct shape.
Category: biotech/medical – Page 24
New all-silicon computer vision hardware advances in-sensor visual processing technology
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have pushed forward the development of computer vision with new, silicon-based hardware that can both capture and process visual data in the analog domain. Their work, described in the journal Nature Communications, could ultimately add to large-scale, data-intensive and latency-sensitive computer vision tasks.
“This is very powerful retinomorphic hardware,” says Guangyu Xu, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and adjunct associate professor of biomedical engineering at UMass Amherst. “The idea of fusing the sensing unit and the processing unit at the device level, instead of physically separating them apart, is very similar to the way that human eyes process the visual world.”
Existing computer vision systems often involve exchanging redundant data between physically separated sensing and computing units.
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New strategy for the treatment of severe childhood cancer
Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Lund University have identified a new treatment strategy for neuroblastoma, an aggressive form of childhood cancer. By combining two antioxidant enzyme inhibitors, they have converted cancer cells in mice into healthy nerve cells. The study is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Palm-sized device detects disease markers in under 45 minutes without additional lab equipment
Scientists from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed NAPTUNE (Nucleic Acids and Protein biomarkers Testing via Ultra-sensitive Nucleases Escalation), a point-of-care assay that identifies trace amounts of disease-related genetic material, including nucleic acid and protein markers, in less than 45 minutes. Importantly, it accomplished this without the need for laboratory equipment or complex procedures.
Lying at the heart of many modern diagnostics, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and real-time immunoassays provide high accuracy. However, they are hindered by lengthy processing time, the need for specialized thermal cyclers and skilled personnel. These constraints hamper rapid outbreak management, early cancer screening and bedside decision-making, especially in low-resource settings.
NAPTUNE tackles these challenges by replacing bulky amplification steps with a tandem nuclease cascade that converts biological signals directly into readily detectable DNA fragments, streamlining the diagnostic process.
Study reveals ‘switch-like’ behavior for hundreds of genes with links to human disease
Gene expression, where cells use the genetic information encoded in DNA to produce proteins, has been thought of as a dimmer light.
How much a particular gene gets expressed continually rises and falls, depending on the needs of a cell at any given time. It’s like adjusting the lighting of a room until it’s just right for your mood.
But University at Buffalo researchers have shown that a considerable portion of a human’s roughly 20,000 genes express more like your standard light switch—fully on or fully off.
Scientists discover a materials maze that prevents bacterial infections
Scientists at the University of Nottingham have discovered surface patterns that can drastically reduce bacteria’s ability to multiply on plastics, which means that infections on medical devices, such as catheters, could be prevented.
The findings of the study, which are published in Nature Communications, show that when bacterial cells encounter patterned grooves on a surface, they lose their ability to form biofilms.
Biofilms are surface-associated slime-cities which help protect the bacteria from the body’s natural defenses against infection. This, in turn, means the infection is effectively prevented before it can become fully established and would also positively activate the immune system to get rid of any individual bacteria that were there.
Excessive oleic acid, found in olive oil, shown to drive fat cell growth
Eating a high-fat diet containing a large amount of oleic acid—a type of fatty acid commonly found in olive oil—could drive obesity more than other types of dietary fats, according to a study published in the journal Cell Reports.
The study found that oleic acid, a monounsaturated fat associated with obesity, causes the body to make more fat cells. By boosting a signaling protein called AKT2 and reducing the activity of a regulating protein called LXR, high levels of oleic acid resulted in faster growth of the precursor cells that form new fat cells.
“We know that the types of fat that people eat have changed during the obesity epidemic. We wanted to know whether simply overeating a diet rich in fat causes obesity, or whether the composition of these fatty acids that make up the oils in the diet is important. Do specific fat molecules trigger responses in the cells?” said Michael Rudolph, Ph.D., assistant professor of biochemistry and physiology at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine and member of OU Health Harold Hamm Diabetes Center.