What is new in Biotech
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Scientists grow perfect human blood vessels in a petri dish
16.1.2019 | Press monitoring
Scientists have managed to grow perfect human blood vessels as organoids in a petri dish for the first time. The breakthrough engineering technology, outlined in a new study published today in Nature, dramatically advances research of vascular diseases like diabetes, identifying a key pathway to potentially prevent changes to blood vessels - a...
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Cartilage could be key to safe structural batteries
14.1.2019 | Press monitoring
Your knees and your smartphone battery have some surprisingly similar needs, a University of Michigan professor has discovered, and that new insight has led to a "structural battery" prototype that incorporates a cartilage-like material to make the batteries highly durable and easy to shape. The idea behind structural batteries is to store...
Gene-editing tool CRISPR repurposed to develop better antibiotics
11.1.2019 | Press monitoring
A University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher and his collaborators at the University of California, San Francisco have repurposed the gene-editing tool CRISPR to study which genes are targeted by particular antibiotics, providing clues on how to improve existing antibiotics or develop new ones. Resistance to current antibiotics by disease-causing...
Turbocharger for the cell machinery
9.1.2019 | Press monitoring
Researchers of the University of Bern have discovered a new molecular regulatory mechanism in unicellular parasites which has never before been observed. RNA fragments do not act as brakes in the cell apparatus, but on the contrary as "stimulants": they boost protein production after periods of stress. Today, it is assumed that in many living...
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Science races against tick-borne virus
7.1.2019 | Press monitoring
Two groundbreaking discoveries by USC researchers could lead to medications and a vaccine to treat or prevent a hemorrhagic fever transmitted by a new tick species before it spreads across the United States. In the Jan. 7 Nature Microbiology, researchers describe the molecular mechanisms used by the virus to infect and sicken humans, a puzzle...
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DNA design that anyone can do
4.1.2019 | Press monitoring
Researchers at MIT and Arizona State University have designed a computer program that allows users to translate any free-form drawing into a two-dimensional, nanoscale structure made of DNA. Until now, designing such structures has required technical expertise that puts the process out of reach of most people. Using the new program, anyone can...
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This Womans Lung Transplant Gave Her A Peanut Allerg
2.1.2019 | Press monitoring
In terms of the effort-to-smugness ratio, becoming an organ donor is probably just about the best thing you can do with your time. But sometimes, in very rare cases, organ donation can have some unintended consequences. And for one patient in 2018, a life-saving lung transplant came with an unexpected price: a brand-new nut allergy. “Two weeks...
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A French Teenager Turned the Bible and Quran into DNA and Injected Them into His Body
31.12.2018 | Press monitoring
A kid in France transcribed parts of the Hebrew book of Genesis and the Arabic-language Quran, into DNA and injected them into his body — one text into each thigh. Adrien Locatelli, a 16-year-old high school student, posted a paper Dec. 3 on the preprint server OS, in which he claimed, "It is the first time that someone injects himself...
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Modified ivy uses synthetic rabbit gene to clean the air
28.12.2018 | Press monitoring
While it's true that houseplants do help clean the air within a home, it is estimated that over 20 plants per room would be required to make an appreciable difference. That likely wouldn't be the case with a new genetically-modified ivy, however, which has proven to be highly effective at removing toxic chloroform and benzene from the air. A...
Growing bio-inspired shapes with hundreds of tiny robots
21.12.2018 | Press monitoring
Hundreds of small robots can work in a team to create biology-inspired shapes without an underlying master plan, purely based on local communication and movement. To achieve this, researchers from EMBL, CRG and Bristol Robotics Laboratory introduced the biological principles of self-organisation to swarm robotics. The results have been published...
