Life Science

Viruses are probably the most peculiar “life forms” known to us, with each species having unique characteristics. One thing common to all viruses is that they attack a “host” cell and hijack its machinery, using it for its own replication. A type of large virus, called “giant virus,” has interesting ways of attacking its host…

“Agricultural fertilizer runoff is contaminating ground and surface water, which causes ecological effects such as algae blooms as well as significant adverse effects for humans, including cancer, hypertension, and developmental issues in babies,” said Wong, professor and chair of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in Rice’s Brown School of Engineering. “I’ve been very…

Eight of the top 10 selling drugs in the United States are biologics, which are produced from living organisms or certain components of living organisms. Subcutaneous injection – where the drug is injected into the tissue layer between the skin and the muscle – is emerging as an effective delivery route alternative to intravenous infusion…

Written by Peter Christey, PhD, co-founder and CEO of General Automation Lab Technologies Inc.   Thanks to exciting new insights into the nature and importance of microbiomes, the field of microbiology is being reinvigorated. Indeed, significant R&D resources are being committed to realizing the promise of microbiome-based diagnostics and therapeutics. Scientific papers consistently report advances…

Eli Lilly and Company and Strateos today unveiled a new robotic laboratory in San Diego designed to accelerate the drug discovery process. The Lilly Life Sciences Studio lab was conceptualized and designed by Lilly as part of a $90 million investment made in 2017 to expand Lilly’s research footprint in San Diego. Strateos will utilize…

For most people, getting an ultrasound is a relatively easy procedure: As a technician gently presses a probe against a patient’s skin, sound waves generated by the probe travel through the skin, bouncing off muscle, fat, and other soft tissues before reflecting back to the probe, which detects and translates the waves into an image…

A wearable monitoring device to make treatments easier and more affordable for the millions of people with swallowing disorders is about to be released into the market. Georgia A. Malandraki, an associate professor of speech, language, and hearing sciences in Purdue University’s College of Health and Human Sciences, and Chi Hwan Lee, an assistant professor…

JUA Technologies International, a Purdue University-affiliated startup developing solar-powered crop-drying devices, is partnering with BrazAgro Ltd., a supplier of Brazilian farm machinery, to distribute its solar-drying tray. Dehytray is a solar-drying solution for small and mid-size growers and food processors and home gardeners. Its convenient size and ease of use are backed by years of…

Mountaineers and winter sports enthusiasts know the dangers of frostbite –– the tissue damage that can occur when extremities, such as the nose, ears, fingers, and toes are exposed to very cold temperatures. However, it can be difficult to get treated quickly in remote, snowbound areas. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering…

What do bones and 3D-printed buildings have in common? They both have columns and beams on the inside that determine how long they last. Now, the discovery of how a “beam” in human bone material handles a lifetime’s worth of wear and tear could translate to the development of 3D-printed lightweight materials that last long…

MIT researchers have devised a method that accelerates the process for creating and customizing templates used in medical-image analysis, to guide disease diagnosis. One use of medical image analysis is to crunch datasets of patients’ medical images and capture structural relationships that may indicate the progression of diseases. In many cases, analysis requires use of…

BioCity, the pioneering life science incubator and business collective recently released its biennial publication, the UK Life Science Start-Up Report, an in-depth analysis of emerging businesses within the life sciences across the UK. The report has collected, analyzed, and interpreted data for nearly a decade and a half and is a key publication for the…

Refeyn Ltd., a spinout from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Oxford, has been recognized by two prestigious science and innovation awards for its revolutionary mass photometry technology. Refeyn’s first instrument, the Refeyn OneMP, enables users to measure the mass of single molecules in solution – quickly, simply and accurately. The company’s proprietary…

Animal model operations to be transferred to Envigo ownership Divestment in line with Horizon’s corporate strategy to focus on its core markets Envigo, a leading global research model supplier, enters the gene-edited research model field with the addition of Horizon’s business Horizon and Envigo to collaborate on providing CRISPR screening services Horizon Discovery Group plc (LSE:…

Our physical and mental state influences our eating habits. But scientists are still trying to understand how one biological process affects how we eat. Warning: Learning more could kill your appetite. “For flavor, spit and nasal mucus are the media in which all of those reactions occur, and that’s disgusting. But at the same time,…

Founder Mike Wenger to Join Staff as Vice President of Patient Engagement TrialScope, the global leader in transparency and disclosure compliance solutions, has acquired Clinical Trial Connect, a platform used by disease foundations and advocacy groups that connects their community members to relevant clinical trials. As part of the acquisition, founder Mike Wenger will share…

“When I found out, I took off running across the lab.” That’s how Kevin Cox, a postdoctoral associate at the Danforth Center, describes the moment he found out that he had received the Hanna H. Gray Fellowship from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. “It was definitely emotional. I had applied to this same fellowship a…

University of California, Irvine biologists have made a major finding with new approaches to studying Alzheimer’s disease on combating inflammation linked to the disease. The School of Biological Sciences researchers’ discovery about the role of a protein called TOM-1 heralds a shift toward examining the molecular underpinnings of Alzheimer’s processes. “Scientists have known for a…

Like fishermen, Rice University bioengineers are angling for their daily catch. But their bait, biomolecules in a hydrogel scaffold, lures microscopic stem cells instead of fish. These, they say, will seed the growth of new tissue to heal wounds. The team led by Brown School of Engineering bioengineer Antonios Mikos and graduate student Jason Guo…

Heart failure after a heart attack is a global epidemic leading to chronic heart failure pathology. About 6 million people in the United States and 23 million worldwide suffer from this end-stage disease that involves dysfunction of the heart, a change that clinicians call cardiac remodeling. Despite medical advances, 2 to 17 percent of patients…

A new compound developed by University of Sheffield experts has killed antibiotic resistant gram-negative bacteria, including E. coli, during tests New treatments for gram-negative bacteria are vital as they are rapidly becoming immune to current drugs Antimicrobial resistance is already responsible for 25,000 deaths in the EU each year The research could pave the way…

In a new study from the University of Illinois at Chicago, researchers examining post-mortem brain tissue from people ages 79 to 99 found that new neurons continue to form well into old age. The study provides evidence that this occurs even in people with cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease, although neurogenesis is significantly reduced in…

An open-source RNA analysis platform has been successfully used on plant cells for the first time – a breakthrough that could herald a new era of fundamental research and bolster efforts to engineer more efficient food and biofuel crop plants. The technology, called Drop-seq, is a method for measuring the RNA present in individual cells,…