#DNA nanoswitches reveal how life's molecules connect Now a new approach developed by researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering Boston Children's Hospital
and Harvard Medical school promises a much faster and more affordable way to examine biomolecular behavior opening the door for scientists in virtually any laboratory worldwide to join the quest for creating better drugs.
The findings are published in February's issue of Nature Methods. Biomolecular interaction analysis a cornerstone of biomedical research is accomplished traditionally using equipment that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars said Wyss Associate Faculty member Wesley P. Wong Ph d. senior author
of study. Rather than develop a new instrument we've created a nanoscale tool made from strands of DNA that can detect
and report how molecules behave enabling biological measurements to be made by almost anyone using only common and inexpensive laboratory reagents.
Wong who is also Assistant professor at Harvard Medical school in the Departments of Biological Chemistry & Molecular Pharmacology and Pediatrics and Investigator at the Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine at Boston Children's Hospital calls the new
tools DNA nanoswitches. Nanoswitches comprise strands of DNA onto which molecules of interest can be attached strategically at various locations along the strand.
and measure the ratio of open DNA nanoswitches vs. their closed counterparts through gel electrophoresis a simple lab procedure already in use in most laboratories that uses electrical currents to push DNA strands
Institute at University of Albany. All of these supplies are commonly available and the experiments can be performed for pennies per sample
which is a staggering comparison to the cost of conventional equipment used to test biomolecular interactions.
or classrooms said co-first author Mounir Koussa a Ph d. candidate in neurobiology at Harvard Medical school.
Wesley and his team are committed to making an impact on the way biomolecular research is done at a fundamental level as is evidenced by their efforts to make this technology accessible to labs everywhere said Wyss Institute Founding Director Donald Ingber M d. Ph d. who is also the Judah Folkman
Professor of Vascular Biology at Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical school and a Professor of Bioengineering at Harvard SEAS.
Biomedical researchers all over the world can start using this new method right away to investigate how biological compounds interact with their targets using commonly-available supplies at very low cost t
Distinguished Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at the MU School of medicine.""The benefit to patients is that more graft material will be available
This will allow us as surgeons to provide a more natural joint repair option for our patients."
"The technology, called the Missouri Osteochondral Allograft Preservation System, or MOPS, more than doubles the storage life of bone
and cartilage grafts from organ donors compared to the current preservation method used by tissue banks.
In traditional preservation methods, donated tissues are stored within a medical-grade refrigeration unit in sealed bags filled with a standard preservation solution.
"said study co-author James Cook, director of MU's Comparative Orthopaedic Laboratory and the Missouri Orthopaedic Institute's Division of Research."
Most of this 28-day window of time is used for testing the tissues to ensure they are safe for use.
schedule surgery and get the graft to the surgeon for implantation.""Stannard, who also serves as chair of MU's Department of Orthopaedic Surgery
and medical director of the Missouri Orthopaedic Institute, said that patients with metal and plastic implants often are forced to give up many of the activities they previously enjoyed
in order to extend the life of their new mechanical joints.""For patients with joint problems caused by degenerative conditions,
metal and plastic implants are still a very good option, "Stannard said.""When the end of a bone that forms a joint is destroyed over time,
However, for patients who experience trauma to a joint that was otherwise healthy before the injury,
However, the method of preserving the grafts themselves has limited the amounts of quality donor tissue available to surgeons.
Cook, who also serves as the William and Kathryn Allen Distinguished Professor in Orthopaedic Surgery at the MU School of medicine,
#Novel compound switches off epilepsy development In temporal lobe epilepsy seizures arise in the hippocampus and other structures of the limbic system located in the temporal lobe when a cascade of molecular and cellular events results in aberrant brain wiring.
The period between a brain injury and the onset of seizures called epileptogenesis is a silent period
because this brain abnormality cannot be detected by current neurological exams or electroencephalography (EEG). Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) or limbic epilepsy is a common adult epileptic disorder characterized by spontaneous recurrent seizures that may also spread to other brain regions triggering secondary severe generalized seizures.
Aside from neurosurgery which benefits only a small population of TLE patients there are no other effective treatments or preventive strategies.
Working in a mouse model the research team led by Drs. Nicolas Bazan Boyd Professor and Director of the LSU Health New orleans Neuroscience Center of Excellence and Alberto Musto Assistant professor of Research Neurosurgery and Neuroscience found that brief small electrical microbursts
or microseizures occur before the onset of clinical recurrent seizures. When they systemically administered Neuroprotectin D-1 (NPD1) the researchers discovered that NPD1 regulated these bursts of brain electrical activity that not only reduced the aberrant brain cell signaling leading to severe generalized seizures but also spontaneous recurrent seizures.
Neuroprotectin D-1 discovered in the Bazan lab is derived from docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) an essential omega 3 fatty acid found in fish oil.
Epilepsy is a chronic neurological disorder characterized by recurrent seizures. It's estimated that 66 million people in the world have epilepsy.
In the US 1 in 26 people will develop epilepsy at some time during their lifetime.
The incidence of epilepsy is higher in young children and older adults. Although the cause of epilepsy is unknown there are some types of epilepsy associated with previous brain injury.
Recurrent seizures might cause brain damage. According to the Epilepsy Foundation temporal lobe epilepsy is the most common form of partial or localization related epilepsy.
It accounts for approximately 60%of all patients with epilepsy. The medial form accounts for almost 80%of all temporal lobe seizures.
While medial temporal lobe epilepsy is a very common form of epilepsy it is also frequently resistant to medications.
The overall prognosis for patients with drug-resistant medial temporal lobe epilepsy includes a higher risk for memory and mood difficulties.
This in turn leads to impairments in quality of life and an increased risk for death as observed in patients who have frequent seizures failing to respond to treatment.
These observations will contribute to our ability to predict epileptic events define key modulators of brain circuits especially after a brain injury
and provide potential biomarkers and therapeutic approaches for epileptogenesis says Dr. Musto o
#Researchers use sound to slow down speed up and block light Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have demonstrated experimentally for the first time the phenomenon of Brillouin Scattering Induced Transparency (BSIT)
which can be used to slow down speed up and block light in an optical waveguide. The BSIT phenomenon permits light to travel in the forward direction while light traveling in the backward direction is absorbed strongly.
This nonreciprocal behavior is essential for building isolators and circulators that are indispensible tools in an optical designer's toolkit.
In this study the researchers demonstrated the BSIT phenomenon using nothing more complicated than a glass micro-fiber and a glass sphere adjacent to it.
Light at certain wavelengths can be absorbed out of a thin optical waveguide by a microresonator
--which is essentially a tiny glass sphere --when they are brought very close explained Gaurav Bahl an assistant professor of mechanical science
and engineering at Illinois. Through the BSIT phenomenon we can eliminate this opacity i e. we can make this system transparent again by adding another laser at a specially chosen wavelength nearby.
The effect occurs due to the interaction of the light with sound waves present in the material
and is a new physical process that has never been seen before. The most significant aspect of our discovery is the observation that BSIT is a nonreciprocal phenomenon--the transparency is generated only one way.
This method uses magnetic fields to break the time-reversal symmetry with certain specialized garnet and ferrite materials.
However these materials are challenging to obtain at the chip-scale through conventional foundry processes.
Magnetic fields are also sources of interference in many applications such as cold atom microsystems. These constraints have deterred availability of Faraday effect isolators for on-chip optical systems till date.
We have demonstrated a method of obtaining linear optical non-reciprocity that requires no magnets can be implemented in any common optical material system without needing ferrites
and could be implemented today in any commercial optical foundry Bahl added. Brillouin isolators do already exist
Brillouin-Mandelstam scattering originally discovered in the early 1920s is the coupling of light waves and sound waves through electrostrictive optical forces and acousto-optic scattering.
and even plasmas stated Junhwan Kim a graduate student at Illinois and first author of the paper Nonreciprocal Brillouin Scattering Induced Transparency appearing in the journal Nature Physics.
However we must sacrifice bandwidth to obtain such performance Kim added. In their studies Bahl's research group uses the extremely minute forces exerted by light to generate
and control mechanical vibrations of microscale and nanoscale devices--a field called optomechanics. In resonant microcavities these miniscule forces can be enhanced by many orders of magnitude.
#'Healthy'fat tissue could be key to reversing type 2 diabetes Researchers from Melbourne's Walter
and Eliza Hall Institute with colleagues from the RIKEN Institute Japan found they could'reverse'type 2 diabetes in laboratory models by dampening the inflammatory response in fat tissue.
The findings were published in the journal Nature Immunology. More than 850000 Australians are estimated to have type 2 diabetes
which is the most common type of diabetes and its prevalence is rising. The disease is linked strongly with'lifestyle'factors such as being overweight
or having high blood pressure. Long-term complications of type 2 diabetes include kidney eye and heart disease and there is no cure.
People with type 2 diabetes have reduced sensitivity to insulin a hormone that normally triggers uptake of glucose by cells
and their cells no longer respond to insulin appropriately. This decrease in insulin sensitivity is thought to be a result of long-term low-level inflammation of fat tissue in people who are obese.
Dr Vasanthakumar said Tregs acted as the guardians of the immune system preventing the immune response from getting out of hand-hand
and attacking the body's own tissues. When Treg numbers are reduced inflammatory diseases such as diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis can occur he said.
Recent studies have shown that fat tissue has its own unique type of Tregs which disappear from fat tissue during obesity.
and high blood glucose levels a classic hallmark of type 2 diabetes. The research team discovered a key hormone called IL-33 (interleukin-33) was able to selectively boost Treg populations in fat tissue effectively halting the development of type 2 diabetes
or even reversing the disease in preclinical models. Treating fat tissues with IL-33 restored normal Treg cell levels
which reduced inflammation and decreased blood glucose levels Dr Vasanthakumar said. Treatments that mimic IL-33 could have the potential to reduce obesity-related inflammation and type 2 diabetes.
Dr Kallies said the research underscored the importance of'healthy'fat tissue in maintaining a healthy body.
and our research highlights the important role it plays in preventing disease e
#From bacterium to biofactory Research team including Dr. Stefan Schiller, his assistants Dr. Matthias Huber and Dr. Andreas Schreiber,
and further groups from Freiburg and Hungary has refuted a long-held assumption in biology: The scientists have shown that it is not only possible to extend the functions of organelles--organs of the cell
Mitochondria, for instance, provide energy, while the lysosomes of animal cells and the vacuoles of plant cells are responsible for breaking down substances.
which there is no direct blueprint in the genome. Instead, however, the scientists developed an approach using amphiphilic proteins.
The biosynthesis of proteins can be controlled by a blueprint in the form of plasmid DNA.
The approach opens up new possibilities for the study of biomedical processes as well as for applications in biotechnology, chemistry, and pharmacy."
and equipping it with functions on the basis of rationally designed protein building blocks. This is a fundamentally new approach for biology, biotechnology,
and medicine,"says Schiller. With the help of chemical reactions that were previously impossible in the cell,
scientists now have new means at their disposal for producing biotechnological products. The chemical industry in particular could utilize the functional extension of bacterial cells to produce important starting materials for
Schilller was awarded the research prize"Next Generation of Biotechnological Methods--Biotechnology 2020+"from the Federal Ministry of Education
He heads a research group at the Center for Systems Biology (ZBSA) of the University of Freiburg that combines chemical biology, organic synthesis, synthetic biology,
and new biomaterials with technical systems like microreactors and with modern analytical methods. The team is collaborating with further research groups at the ZBSA, the Faculty of chemistry and Pharmacy, the Faculty of biology, the Department of Microsystems Engineering (IMTEK),
and the Cluster of Excellence BIOSS Centre for Biological Signalling Studies of the University of Freiburg
The European union hopes that it will actively combat one of the greatest threats to biodiversity and thus the functioning of ecosystems.
The EU DAISIE project undertook important preliminary work in this field Between 2005 and 2008 researchers created a database,
which now contains detailed information on 12,122 species and 2, 440 experts on biological invasions in Europe.
when assessing the health, economic and ecological hazards,"estimates the biologist Dr. Stefan Klotz of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research.
and elimination measures where this is possible with reasonable effort and expenditure,"states the environmental lawyer Prof.
"It was planned originally to limit the list of species to be combated actively to 50,"reports Professor of Biology Ingolf Kühn from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research."
It simply does not make sense to impose an arbitrary number before the Member States have provided their data.
"Prevention is cheaper than cure The new legislation is intended not purely as a regulation to combat invasive species,
as it is hard to combat species that have just become established or only to do so at great expense.
Experts therefore do not believe that the infamous giant hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum) or the allergy-inducing ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia) will end up on the"Union List",
"as the cost of eliminating them would be too high.""Promising candidates"are to a greater extent the species included in an earlier nature conservation regulation
Nature conservation authorities will be faced with a lot of work: within 18 months they have to determine the routes along which the reviled species are introduced into the EU,
At the same time, it is hoped that this work will improve the exchange of information and establish a kind of"early warning system
The new EU regulation thus represents a core element of the EU strategy for the conservation of biodiversity passed in 2011.
#Key discovery to preventing blindness stroke devastation Studying the eye and the brain might hold the key to creating therapeutic solutions for blindness stroke
and other seemingly unrelated conditions associated with the central nervous system notes Dr. Bazan. The eye is a window to the brain.
Dr. Bazan and his research team discovered Neuroprotectin D1 (NPD1) which is made from the essential fatty acid docosahexaenoic acid (DHA).
Previous work showed that while it protected cells the molecular principles underlying this protection were known not.
or die when threatened with disease onset. The gene mechanism that we discovered is the interplay of two genes turned on by the messenger Neuroprotectin D1.
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a devastating disease that targets the retina of the elderly
The causal mechanisms of this disease remain elusive. The retinal pigment epithelium (RPE is a single layer of cells that accomplishes multiple functions such as providing survival molecules that prevent photoreceptors from dying.
The research team worked with human RPE cells and an experimental model of ischemic stroke.
They showed that NDP1 bioactivity governs key gene interactions decisive in cell survival when threatened by disease or injury.
but it also promotes remarkable neurological recovery from the most frequent form of stroke in humans s
#Using 3-D printing clinicians repair tracheal damage Mr. Goldstein a Phd candidate at the Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of medicine has been working with a team of surgeons at the North Shore
Tracheal damage can be caused by tumor endotracheal intubation blunt trauma and other injuries. Narrowing and weakness of the trachea can occur
Lee Smith MD chief of pediatric otolaryngology at Cohen Children's Medical center and David Zeltsman MD chief of thoracic surgery at Long island Jewish Medical center both part of
and Daniel A. Grande Phd director of the Orthopedic Research Laboratory at the Feinstein Institute and asked
Tissue engineering is like other kinds of engineering except instead of using steel or computer code to make things living cells from skin muscle
or cartilage are the raw material. Researchers at the Feinstein Institute know how to make cartilage from a mixture of cells called chondrocytes nutrients to feed them and collagen
With 3d printing we were able to construct 3d printed scaffolding that the surgeons could immediately examine
We actually found designs to modify the printer on Makerbot's Thingiverse website to print PLA with one extruder and the biomaterial with the other extruder.
We 3d printed the needed parts with our other Makerbot Replicator Desktop 3d printer and used them to modify the Makerbot Replicator 2x Experimental 3d printer
If we had to send out these designs to a commercial printer far away and get the designs back several weeks later we'd never be where we are today.
One special bio printer cost $180000 an amount that the Institute would not allocate. They wanted to test their concept
and is a size that fits on a desktop. Originally Mr. Goldstein thought that he would need special PLA to maintain sterility
The advantage of PLA is that it's used in all kinds of surgical implant devices says Dr. Smith.
and fills in gaps in the PLA scaffolding then cures into a gel on the heated build plate of the Makerbot Replicator 2x.
Once the bio-ink adheres to the scaffolding it goes into a bioreactor an appliance like a rotisserie oven that keeps the cells warm
A new bioreactor costs between $50000 and $150000 so Mr. Goldstein customized an incubator for his needs making gears
and other parts on their Makerbot Replicator Desktop 3d printer to produce a brand new bioreactor.
and Dr. Zeltsman at The Society of Thoracic Surgeons illustrate how the 3d printed windpipe or trachea segments held up for four weeks in an incubator.
The Feinstein Institute describes this work as a proof of concept. The team still has work to do before establishing a new protocol for repairing damaged windpipes.
Medical research can take years to move from bench to bedside as can US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval.
However if there is no approved treatment for an ailment the FDA has a compassionate therapy exception that allows the patient to agree to try an experimental approach.
When speaking about his work with 3d printing and this research Mr. Goldstein notes It's completely changed the trajectory of my academic career.
Mr. Goldstein originally came to the Feinstein Institute as a molecular biologist working with cells chemicals and drugs.
Now he is the Feinstein Institute's 3d printing specialist printing models of organs for preoperative planning
and tools to improve the lab. He is the presenting author on a paper being presented to thousands of surgeons
Makerbot has supplied also the Feinstein Institute with early samples of its just-announced Makerbot PLA Composite Filaments in Limestone (calcium carbonate) and Iron
which will be available commercially later this year so the Feinstein Institute can start investigating how to engineer other kinds of tissue like bone or 3d print custom-made shields for cancer and radiation treatment.
Do you remember the Six Million Dollar Man? asks Dr. Grande. The Bionic man is not the future it's the present.
#Modular disability aids for world's poorest Inspiration hit Cara O'sullivan 21 from Battle East Sussex after a year's placement with the Medical Engineering Resource Unit (MERU
The changes that MERU products can make to the lives of children with disabilities inspired
which offers support to young people with disabilities and their families living in poverty in Peru and Tanzania.
and walkers--to design core interchangeable components which work together like Meccano and just like the toy can be easily
By being so adaptable the walking aid will be able to meet the user's exact needs
because the walking aid will gradually evolve with the user rather than having to get an entirely new aid each time their condition changes.
and mechanics who keep cars trucks and bikes running with little or no access to spare parts.
and fits in with the ethos of helping build long-term local economies rather than simply donating finished goods. Just weeks into the project
which will form part of the Made in Brunel Exhibition on London's South Bank in Summer 2015 Cara is already coming across unexpected challenges.
and crutch tips or ferrules from old car tyres she said. While you have to admire the skill involved it's very time-consuming
and simply mimicking what works best in developed areas of the world where both inside
In the poorest parts of the world paved roads and pavements are a rarity and most homes have beaten floors of earth.
which works best in the West is not necessarily the best solution. Cara's work has attracted already a great deal of interest
and her project is being sponsored by the Dave Granshaw Foundation e-platorm Aspaday and the James Dyson Foundation has awarded just her a bursary.
#Probiotic helps treat diabetes in rats could lead to human remedy In the study published Jan 27 in the journal Diabetes the researchers engineered a strain of lactobacillus a human probiotic common in the gut to secrete a Glucagen-like peptide
(GPL-1). They then administered it orally to diabetic rats for 90 days and found the rats receiving the engineered probiotic had up to 30 percent lower high blood glucose a hallmark of diabetes.
The study was a proof of principle and future work will test higher doses to see
if a complete treatment can be achieved said John March professor of biological and environmental engineering at Cornell University and the paper's senior author.
The researchers found that upper intestinal epithelial cells in diabetic rats were converted into cells that acted very much like pancreatic beta cells
Also though it replaces the insulin capacity in diabetic rats the researchers found no change in blood glucose levels
This technology was licensed by the Biopancreate a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cortendo AB a biopharmaceutical company incorporated in Sweden
. which is working to get the therapy into production for human use. Human patients would likely take a pill each morning to help control their diabetes March said d
#Unique aortic aneurysm repair shows promise A novel, minimally invasive approach appears safe for treating life-threatening aneurysms that occur in the deepest part of the aorta,
making it easier for surgeons to repair the aorta without opening the chest and easier for patients to recover.
The approach was described today at the 51st Annual Meeting of The Society of Thoracic Surgeons.
The aorta is the major vessel that carries blood from the heart to the body and has branches that reach all organs in the body.
An aneurysm occurs when the wall of the vessel weakens, and if an aneurysm in the aorta bursts, it can lead to death in a matter of minutes."
"Currently, thoracic aortic aneurysms that reach into the aortic arch are very difficult to treat with minimally invasive endovascular methods
because critical blood vessels branch emanate off the aorta in the arch and supply blood to the arms, head,
and brain,"said Himanshu J. Patel, MD, from the University of Michigan Health System in Ann arbor.
The surgeons performed the entire procedure using only a small incision in the groin (inner thigh.
"said co-author Joseph E. Bavaria, MD, from the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia."
While our study only addressed aneurysms, the results have implications for cardiothoracic surgeons who perform procedures to repair tears in the ascending aorta (type A dissection),
whether this treatment will be safe and effective in aneurysms that extend a little closer to the heart within the aorta,
#'Bulletproof'Battery: Kevlar Membrane for Safer Thinner Lithium Rechargeables New battery technology from the University of Michigan should be able to prevent the kind of fires that grounded Boeing 787 Dreamliners in 2013.
The innovation is advanced an barrier between the electrodes in a lithium-ion battery. Made with nanofibers extracted from Kevlar, the tough material in bulletproof vests,
the barrier stifles the growth of metal tendrils that can become unwanted pathways for electrical current.
A U-M team of researchers also founded Ann arbor-based Elegus Technologies to bring this research from the lab to market.
"Unlike other ultra strong materials such as carbon nanotubes, Kevlar is said an insulator Nicholas Kotov, the Joseph B. and Florence V. Cejka Professor of Engineering."
"This property is perfect for separators that need to prevent shorting between two electrodes.""Lithium-ion batteries work by shuttling lithium ions from one electrode to the other.
This creates a charge imbalance, and since electrons can't go through the membrane between the electrodes,
they go through a circuit instead and do something useful on the way. But if the holes in the membrane are too big,
the lithium atoms can build themselves into fernlike structures, called dendrites, which eventually poke through the membrane.
If they reach the other electrode, the electrons have a path within the battery, shorting out the circuit.
This is how the battery fires on the Boeing 787 are thought to have started.""The fern shape is particularly difficult to stop because of its nanoscale tip,
"said Siu On Tung, a graduate student in Kotov's lab, as well as chief technology officer at Elegus."
"It was very important that the fibers formed smaller pores than the tip size.""While the widths of pores in other membranes are a few hundred nanometers,
or a few hundred-thousandths of a centimeter, the pores in the membrane developed at U-M are 15-to-20 nanometers across.
They are large enough to let individual lithium ions pass, but small enough to block the 20-to-50-nanometer tips of the fern-structures.
The researchers made the membrane by layering the fibers on top of each other in thin sheets. This method keeps the chainlike molecules in the plastic stretched out,
which is important for good lithium-ion conductivity between the electrodes, Tung said.""The special feature of this material is we can make it very thin,
so we can get more energy into the same battery cell size, or we can shrink the cell size,
"said Dan Vanderley, an engineer who helped found Elegus through U-M's Master of Entrepreneurship program."
"We've seen a lot of interest from people looking to make thinner products.""Thirty companies have requested samples of the material.
Kevlar's heat resistance could also lead to safer batteries as the membrane stands a better chance of surviving a fire than most membranes currently in use.
While the team is satisfied with the membrane's ability to block the lithium dendrites, they are currently looking for ways to improve the flow of loose lithium ions
so that batteries can charge and release their energy more quickly. The study,"A dendrite-suppressing solid ion conductor from aramid nanofibers,
"will appear online Jan 27 in Nature Communications. The research was funded primarily by the National Science Foundation under its Chemical
Bioengineering, Environmental and Transport systems and its Innovation Corp. Partial funding also came from Office of Naval Research and Air force Office Scientific research.
Kotov is a professor of chemical engineering, biomedical engineering, materials science and engineering and macromolecular science and engineering g
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