News by Subject Technology & Engineering

From energy materials to disease diagnostics, new microscopy techniques can provide more nuanced insight. Researchers first need to understand the effects of radiation on samples, which is possible with a new device developed for holding tightly sealed liquid cell samples for transmission electron microscopy.

A team led by Columbia University Biomedical Engineering Professor Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic has designed a creative new approach to help injured hearts regenerate by applying extracellular vesicles secreted by cardiomyocytes rather than implanting the cells. The study shows that the cardiomyocytes derived from human pluripotent stem cells (derived in turn from a small sample of blood) could be a powerful, untapped source of therapeutic microvesicles that could lead to safe and effective treatments of damaged hearts.

A team of Russian scientists together with foreign colleagues found out that the venom of crab spider Heriaeus melloteei may be used as a basis for developing treatment against hypokalemic periodic paralysis.

A multidisciplinary team of scientists share recent advancements in innovative in-vitro cancer biology methods for screening drug-like molecules in cancer tissue relevant models in a new report published online ahead-of-print at SLAS Discovery. Entitled Advanced Development of Primary Pancreatic Organoid Tumor Models for High-Throughput Phenotypic Drug Screening, the report can be accessed for free.

Cancer immune cell therapy has made headlines with astounding successes like saving former US President Jimmy Carter from brain cancer. But immunotherapy has also had many tragic flops. Georgia Tech researchers working to optimize the innovative treatment have implanted a genetic switch that activates T-cells when they are inside of tumors. Remote-control light waves resembling those used in a TV remote combine with gold nanorods to flip the switch.

Getting the results of a cancer biopsy can take up to two weeks. What if it could happen in 10 minutes? In two new papers, a team of chemists and engineers from Michigan Technological University lay the groundwork for cancer detection and diagnostics based on a fluorescent GLUT5 probe. Documented in the new research, a cancer's type and malignancy changes the GLUT5 activity in a cell, creating a detectable 'fingerprint' of cancer.

A silk hybrid material attacks bacteria when illuminated by a green light, thanks to a far-red fluorescent protein researchers transferred to its genetic makeup.

Merging lattice light sheet microscopy with adaptive optics reveals the most detailed picture yet of subcellular dynamics in multicellular organisms.