Breakthrough medical technology like mRNA vaccines rely on tiny nanoparticles to deliver medicine to cells. A new device will help drug manufacturers and evaluators like the FDA more precisely measure genetic payloads to evaluate drug effectiveness. An important component of the vaccines protecting people against SARS-CoV-2 virus and its variants are lipid nanoparticles, or [...]
A Brazilian study published in the journal PNAS describes some of the effects infection by SARS-CoV-2 can have on the central nervous system. A preliminary version (not yet peer-reviewed) posted in 2020 was one of the first to show that the virus that causes COVID-19 can infect brain cells, especially astrocytes. It also broke new ground [...]
A new drug designed by scientists at Scripps Research can turn the COVID-19 virus into a harbinger of its own doom. The drug, NMT5, described in Nature Chemical Biology on September 29, 2022, coats SARS-CoV-2 with chemicals that can temporarily alter the human ACE2 receptor—the molecule the virus normally latches onto to infect cells. That means [...]
Brain stimulation paired with a nose spray comprised of nanoparticles can increase recovery after ischemic stroke in an animal model, according to scientists from Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University and other universities in China. The nasal spray is a non-invasive means of delivering magnetic nanoparticles into the brain that, according to the research, can enhance the effects of [...]
Increasing drug resistance could leave us powerless to fight infections we now consider routine, and scientists are urgently searching for answers. It was just a urinary tract infection (UTI). Helen Osment, a fundraiser from Hertfordshire, had had them before and she knew the symptoms. When she called the doctor with pain, a burning sensation and blood [...]
Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science & Technology (DGIST, President Yang Kook) Professor Hongsoo Choi’s team of the Department of Robotics and Mechatronics Engineering collaborated with Professor Sung-Won Kim’s team at Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital, Catholic University of Korea, and Professor Bradley J. Nelson’s team at ETH Zurich to develop a technology that produces more [...]
Tiny nets woven from DNA strands can ensnare the spike protein of the virus that causes COVID-19, lighting up the virus for a fast-yet-sensitive diagnostic test—and also impeding the virus from infecting cells, opening a new possible route to antiviral treatment, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and [...]
Roughly two decades ago, a strategy called optogenetics emerged to control brain activity with lasers. It uses viruses to insert genes into cells that make them sensitive to light. Optogenetics has revolutionized neuroscience by giving researchers a precise way to excite or suppress brain circuits and shed light on what role they play in the brain. [...]
Shigella bacteria, which causes Shigellosis, is the primary cause of bacterial diarrhea and diarrheal death among juveniles under five years of age. Because of the antibiotic resistance of Shigella strains, no commercial vaccines are available to date. An article published in Molecular Pharmaceutics presented an extension of a previous work that demonstrated the stabilization of “invasion plasmid antigen C” [...]
Scientists have built microscopic robots equipped with electronic “brains” that are capable of walking autonomously. A team from Cornell University in the US developed the solar-powered bots as part of research into a new generation of tiny devices that can perform roles ranging from performing microsurgery, to cleaning the inside of arteries. The microrobots measure just [...]
