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Tiny Implants Could Give Humans Self-
Healing Superpowers
A new military-sponsored program aims to develop a
tiny device that can be implanted in the body, where
it will use electrical impulses to monitor the body's
organs, healing these crucial parts when they become
infected or injured.
Known as Electrical Prescriptions, or ElectRx, the
program could reduce dependence on pharmaceutical
drugs and offer a new way to treat illnesses, according
to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA), the branch of the U.S. Department of
Defense responsible for developing the program.
"The technology DARPA plans to develop through the ElectRx program could fundamentally change the manner in which
doctors diagnose, monitor and treat injury and illness," Doug Weber, program manager for DARPA's biological technologies
office, said in a statement.
The implant that DARPA hopes to develop is something akin to a tiny, intelligent pacemaker, Weber said. The device would
be implanted into the body, where it would continually assess a person's condition and provide any necessary stimulus to
the nerves to help maintain healthy organ function, he added.
The idea for the technology is based on a biological process known as neuromodulation, in which the peripheral nervous
system (the nerves that connect every other part of the body to the brain and spinal cord) monitors the status of internal
organs and regulate the body's responses to infection and disease. When a person is sick or injured, this natural process can
sometimes be thrown off, according to DARPA. Instead of making a person feel better, neuromodulation can actually
exacerbate a condition, causing pain, inflammation and a weakened immune system.

Tiny Implants Could Give Humans Self-
Healing Superpowers
The device could help treat a host of painful,
inflammatory conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis,
systemic inflammatory response syndrome (a condition
that causes inflammation throughout the body) and
inflammatory bowel disease.
And if the ElectRx program is a success, it could also lead
to the development of implants that help treat brain and
mental-health disorders, such as epilepsy, traumatic
brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and
depression, according to DARPA.
But with the help of an electrically charged implant, DARPA says it can keep neuromodulation under control. Electric
impulses from the device will stimulate the nerve patterns that help the body heal itself and keep the out-of-whack nerve
stimulus patterns that cause a sick person even greater harm from doing damage.
DARPA hopes to develop a device so tinythat it can be implanted using only a needle. Such a small implant would be a huge
improvement over similar neuromodulation devices already in use today, most of which are about the size of a deck of
cards and require invasive surgery to implant, according to DARPA.
And the miniature size of the device has another advantage: It can be placed exactly where it is needed at nerve endings.
An implant as small as a nerve fiber could minimize the side effects caused by implants whose electric impulses aren't sent
directly into nerve channels, DARPA officials said.

Stroke patients show promising signs
of recovery after stem cell therapy
The stem cells may work by releasing chemicals that dampen down
inflammation and help other cells to grow where tissue was
damaged by the stroke.
The stem cells, called CD34+ cells, do not grow into fresh brain tissue, but might work by releasing chemicals that may
dampen down inflammation and help other cells to grow where brain tissue is damaged. Some of the cells might also
grow into new blood vessels, Bentley said.
Four out of five of the patients had the most serious type of stroke. Normally only 4% of these patients survive and are
able to live independently after six months. In the pilot study, published in Stem Cells Translational Medicine, all four were
alive and three were independent six months later.
"Although they mention some improvement of some of the patients, this could be just chance, or wishful thinking, or due
to the special care these patients may have received simply because they were in a trial," said Robin Lovell-Badge, head of
developmental genetics at the MRC's National Institute for Medical Research in London.

First-Ever Human Trial Of An Induced Pluripotent
Stem Cell Treatment Set To Begin
Induced pluripotent stem cells are special because they're not made from embryos. Instead, they come from harvesting
skin cells from people, then treating those cells with genes that reverse the cell's life stage back to its stem cell state. That
means scientists are able to make induced pluripotent stem cells from cells taken from a patient's own body. The resulting
cells should be well matched to the patient's own genetics, although it's possible the "induction" part of the process
introduces genetic aberrations into the cells.
The induced pluripotent stem cell trial will test a treatment developed by Masayo Takahashi, an opthamologist with a
Japanese research institute called RIKEN. Takahashi has been making induced pluripotent stem cells and growing those
cells into a sheet of replacement retinal cells. She then surgically attaches the sheet onto the retina. She and her
colleagues have previously demonstrated that this treatment works in monkeys.

Stem-Cell Breakthrough cures diabetic
mice in less than 10 days
The generation of insulin-producing pancreatic β cells from stem cells in vitro would
provide an unprecedented cell source for drug discovery and cell transplantation
therapy in diabetes. However, insulin-producing cells previously generated from
human pluripotent stem cells (hPSC) lack many functional characteristics of bona
fide β cells. Here, we report a scalable differentiation protocol that can generate
hundreds of millions of glucose-responsive β cells from hPSC in vitro. These stem-cell-
derived β cells (SC-β) express markers found in mature β cells, flux Ca2+ in
response to glucose, package insulin into secretory granules, and secrete quantities
of insulin comparable to adult β cells in response to multiple sequential glucose
challenges in vitro. Furthermore, these cells secrete human insulin into the serum
of mice shortly after transplantation in a glucose-regulated manner, and
transplantation of these cells ameliorates hyperglycemia in diabetic mice
In what may lead to the biggest breakthrough in the treatment of Type 1 diabetes in three decades, Xander University
Professor Douglas Melton and colleagues have figured out the complex series of steps necessary to turn stem cells into beta
cells. Beta cells are the sugar-sensing, insulin-secreting cells of the pancreas that are missing in Type 1 diabetics, casualties
of the body’s own immune attack on itself.
“We wanted to replace insulin injections” with “nature’s own solution,” says Melton, who has been a leading scientist in and
advocate for the field of stem-cell biology ever since he switched from studying developmental biology in frogs after his
young son, and later his daughter, were diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.
They have succeeded in developing a procedure for making hundreds of millions of pancreatic beta cells in vitro. These cells,
Melton explains, “read the amount of sugar in the blood, and then secrete just the right amount insulin in a way that is so
exquisitely accurate that I don’t believe it will ever be reproduced by people injecting insulin or by a pump injecting that
insulin.”

Stem Cells Show Early Promise for Rare
Brain Disorder
Scientists have safely transplanted human
neural stem cells into their brains. Twelve
months after the surgeries, the boys have
more myelin — a fatty insulating protein that
coats nerve fibers and speeds up electric
signals between neurons — and show
improved brain function, a new study in
Science Translational Medicine reports. The
preliminary trial paves the way for future
research into potential stem cell treatments for
the disorder, which overlaps with more
common diseases such as Parkinson’s disease
and multiple sclerosis.

Stem Cell breakthrough could lead to
new bone repair therapies
Scientists at the University of Southampton
have created a new method to generate bone
cells which could lead to revolutionary bone
repair therapies for people with bone fractures
or those who need hip replacement surgery
due to osteoporosis and osteoarthritis.
Scientists were able to use the
nanotopographical patterns on the biomedical
plastic to manipulate human embryonic stem
cells towards bone cells. This was done
without any chemical enhancement.
“To generate bone cells for regenerative
medicine and further medical research
remains a significant challenge.
However we have found that by harnessing
surface technologies that allow the generation
and ultimately scale up of human embryonic
stem cells to skeletal cells, we can aid the
tissue engineering process. This is very
exciting.

How mapping the human proteome reveals new
insights into our bodies
Researchers recently announced that they had created an inventory of all the proteins in the human body – proteins that
are encoded by the genome.
Professor Kathryn Lilley from the Cambridge Centre for Proteomics
All the proteins that can be present in the human body at any given time and location.
Proteins are the workhorses of the cell, carrying out many jobs. They are extremely dynamic so, depending on the time of
day, whether the tissue is healthy or not, the type of tissue it is, the age of the person, even what they had for dinner the
night before, the proteome will [change to] reflect that.
The genome is constant and is composed of DNA, found in our chromosomes. Of the total amount of DNA, only around 2%
carries the blueprint for proteins. The bits of the DNA sequence that code for proteins are first transcribed into RNA and
that is then translated into protein.
The main method used has been mass spectrometry. Mass spectrometers can be considered as sophisticated scales – they
will tell you the mass of anything that they analyse. There are thousands of different proteins in a cell and we can't analyse
them all simultaneously. [One approach is to] take your proteins and digest them with a protease, an enzyme that will cut
proteins into small chunks [called peptides]. [We then] separate and string out these peptides using a process called
chromatography so that the mass spectrometer is able to process only a few at a time. It gives you both the mass and the
sequence of the peptide. We [then] go back to the genome models [and] see whether your peptide sequences match what
has been deduced from the genome sequence.

Can Boosting Immunity Make You Smarter?
T cells, white blood cells that are a key part of
the immune system, may also play an
important role in cognitive function.
Without T cells, Schwartz and other
researchers have found, the brain does a bad
job of healing itself.
T cells cannot get past the blood-brain barrier.
Yet apparently they can significantly influence
the brain from a distance.
How the brain repairs itself after an injury.
She found that the brain depends on a type of
immune cell known as the T cell, which normally kills
infected cells or leads other immune cells in a
campaign against foreign invaders.
Her research suggested that T cells can also send
signals that activate the brain’s resident immune
cells, microglia and blood-borne macrophages,
telling them to protect the injured neurons from
toxins released by the injury.
The same T cells that protect the brain from inflammation
also work to keep us sharp; and in what appears to be a
feedback loop, the mere act of learning reinforces the effect.

New Double Helix Visualization Revises
What We Know About DNA
An image of the DNA double helix structure taken with the AFM
overlaid with the Watson-Crick DNA structure.
By using an advanced microscopy technique, researchers have collected the most precise measurements to date of DNA's
tangled structure. Their results showed significant variations to the well-known double helix — variations that are offering
fresh insights into the inner workings of this life-bearing molecule.
This was a collaborative project by researchers from the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and the London Centre for
Nanotechnology (LCN). To measure and conceptualize large, irregularly arranged chunks of individual DNA molecules,
they used a technique called "soft-touch" atomic force microscopy (AFM). But the technique doesn't allow scientists to
actually see the DNA. Rather, a miniature probe feels the surface of the molecules one by one.
Results reaffirmed the structure first suggested by Watson and Crick in 1953. But surprisingly, the single-molecule images
showed major variations in the depths and grooves in the double helix structure. This is significant because these grooves
act as keyways for proteins, or molecular keys, that determine the extent to which a gene is expressed in a living cell. As
noted by a NPL release, "Accurate measurements allow us to observe the variations in these key ways, which may then
help us to determine the mechanisms by which living cells promote and suppress the use of genetic information stored in
their DNA."

Improved DNA Nanopores reading
longer 4500 nucleotide sequences
Nanopore sequencing of DNA is a single-molecule technique that may achieve
long reads, low cost and high speed with minimal sample preparation and
instrumentation. Here, we build on recent progress with respect to nanopore
resolution and DNA control to interpret the procession of ion current levels
observed during the translocation of DNA through the pore MspA.
As approximately four nucleotides affect the ion current of each level, we
measured the ion current corresponding to all 256 four-nucleotide combinations
(quadromers).
This quadromer map is highly predictive of ion current levels of previously
unmeasured sequences derived from the bacteriophage phi X 174 genome.
Furthermore, we show nanopore sequencing reads of phi X 174 up to 4,500
bases in length, which can be unambiguously aligned to the phi X 174 reference
genome, and demonstrate proof-of-concept utility with respect to hybrid
genome assembly and polymorphism detection. This work provides a foundation
for nanopore sequencing of long, natural DNA strands
A low-cost technology may make it possible to read long sequences of DNA far more quickly than current techniques.
The research advances a technology, called nanopore DNA sequencing. If perfected it could someday be used to create
handheld devices capable of quickly identifying DNA sequences from tissue samples and the environment, the University of
Washington researchers who developed and tested the approach said.
One reason why people are so excited about nanopore DNA sequencing is that the technology could possibly be used to
create ‘tricorder’-like devices for detecting pathogens or diagnosing genetic disorders rapidly and on-the-spot,” said Andrew
Laszlo, lead author and a graduate student in the laboratory of Jen Gundlach, a UW professor of physics who led the
project.

MIT and Harvard engineers create graphene
electronics with DNA-based lithography
The vision for graphene and other two-dimensional electronics is the direct production
of nanoelectronic circuits and barrier materials from a single precursor sheet. DNA
origami and single-stranded tiles are powerful methods to encode complex shapes
within a DNA sequence, but their translation to patterning other nanomaterials has
been limited. Here we develop a metallized DNA nanolithography that allows transfer
of spatial information to pattern two-dimensional nanomaterials capable of plasma
etching. Width, orientation and curvature can be programmed by specific sequence
design and transferred, as we demonstrate for graphene.

Scientists Can Now Sequence an Entire
Genome from a Single Cell
"If you give us a single human cell, we report
to you 93 percent of the genome that contains
three billion base pairs, and if there is a single
base mutation, we can identify it with 70
percent detectability, with no false positives
detected. This is a major development."
The research, published in Science, will
allow doctors to fingerprint diseases like
cancer in the future from just the tiniest
scrap of tumor. That means they'll be
able to work out tailored courses of
treatment earlier, and keep cancer from
spreading. That's a huge gain from such
a singularly tiny source.

DNA laser printing heralds new day for
genomics research
This is being called DNA Laser Printing, but
that’s not a very helpful definition. It would be
more accurate to call it DNA Laser Sorting, as
the actual construction process is the same as it
ever was, and doesn’t involve the lasers at all.
Cambrian Genomics brings in lasers only once
the plate is covered with many thousands of
DNA-carrying beads, and once each of the beads
has been sequenced.
With so many copies made, some predictable
portion will have been made error-free, and an
automated laser flits about over the plate and
blasts any beads with a desired sequence off of
the plate and into a collector. Once the strands
have been washed off of their beads, the
experiment is complete; you have a collector full
of water that holds only your DNA of interest.
Precision is what we need to use for nano-scale
graphene lithography and self-assembling DNA
bricks. It’s what we need to design stretches of DNA
that can shrug off attacking molecules but bind
specifically to, say, surface proteins on cancer cells.
It’s what we need to design substitute genes for use
in gene therapy. Genomics has spent a long time
looking more like naturalism than experimental
science, more about careful observation than making
and testing new sequences. That looks like it might
be about to change.

Breakthrough in Artificial Genetic Code Could
Lead to Custom Drugs
Way back in Biology 101, we learned that DNA is encoded through the nucleotide pairings of adenine to
thymine and cytosine to guanine. Since the earliest days of life on Earth, these four chemicals — and
only these four chemicals — have made up the DNA of every one of the myriad organisms that inhabit
this planet. But what if you could expand that alphabet?
As it turns out, you can. In a paper published today in Nature, scientists report that they’ve successfully
introduced an entirely new base pair into the genetic structure of the bacterium E. coli. That makes the
bacterium the first semi-synthetic organism carrying an expanded genetic alphabet.
And just as one can create new words with new letters in the alphabet, a synthetic base pair opens up
possibilities for custom-built proteins as novel drugs, vaccines and antibiotics.

A Working Transistor Built Out Of DNA
Within A Living Cell
Pretty much anything can be a computer, if it
can compute logical functions, store data, and
transmit information -- even living cells.
A team at Stanford University has
accomplished one of the the final tasks
necessary to turn cells into working
computers: They've created a biological
transistor, called a transcriptor, that uses DNA
and RNA instead of electrons and responds to
logical functions.
This could allow us to one day detect disease and deliver medicine from within the body
itself. The researchers have put their work into the public domain in the hopes that other
scientists will build upon their research and usher in the biocomputing age as quickly as
possibl

DNA Inside Cells Can Serve As
Rewritable Data Storage
DNA Storage Under ultraviolet light, petri dishes
containing cells glow red or green depending upon
the orientation of a specific section of genetic code
inside the cells' DNA. The section of DNA can be
flipped back and forth using the RAD technique.
Norbert von der Groeben
DNA is the blueprint for life, and now it can
serve as a computer to monitor life's
processes. Bioengineers transformed DNA
into a one-bit memory system that can
record, store and erase data within living
cells. A future DNA memory device could
be used to track cell division and
differentiation in cancer patients, perhaps,
or to monitor what happens as cells get sick
or age.

World's First DNA-Based Logic Gates
Could Lead to Injectable Bio-computers
We've got computers that run on a single iodine
molecule and transistors made of just a handful of
atoms, so why not create electronic components out of
tiny strands of DNA? A team of researchers at Hebrew
University has for the first time created DNA-based logic
gates that could lead to tiny injectable bio-computers
capable of making simple calculations inside the body.
The result could be a new breed
of smart drugs that are injected
into the body before an injury
occurs, waiting to be triggered by
enzymes or other catalysts
associated with a particular injury
or illness. That means – in theory
– we might someday be able to
create DNA-based computing
systems that diagnose and treat
common medical problems from
within our bodies without our
ever knowing it.

STANFORD BIOENGINEERS INTRODUCE
‘BI-FI’ — THE BIOLOGICAL INTERNET
Using an innocuous bacterial virus,
bioengineers have created a biological
mechanism to send genetic messages from cell
to cell.
The system greatly increases the complexity
and amount of data that can be communicated
between cells and could lead to greater control
of biological functions within cell communities.
Down the road, the biological
Internet could lead to biosynthetic
factories in which huge masses of
microbes collaborate to make more
complicated fuels, pharmaceuticals
and other useful chemicals.
With improvements, the engineers
say, their cell-cell communication
platform might someday allow
more complex three-dimensional
programming of cellular systems,
including the regeneration of tissue
or organs.

The Biological Internet That Could One
Day Program Artificial Organs
Scientists have just found a way to use DNA to
send massive amounts of data between cells,
which means we soon may be able to give our
cells incredibly complicated instructions
The M13 communication system is, as
Stanford Engineering explains, like a
wireless information network for cells to
send and receive messages. M13 wraps
up strands of DNA (programmed by
scientists) and sends them out in
proteins that infect cells and release the
DNA messages once they have gained
entry. Scientists can send whatever they
want in the DNA--everything from a
sentence in a book to a sequence that
encodes fluorescent protein.

Why Living Cells Are The Future Of
Data Processing
What's the point of all of this? Adamatzky says
that slime mold's mapping abilities could
design roads, wireless networks, and
information-processing circuits better than
today's computers. Combining slime mold with
electronics could also yield benefits.
Adamatzky is already making a computer chip
that marries the speed of electrical
communication with the learning capabilities
of slime mold
The hybrid technology would process information less like a computer and more like a
brain, learning and growing through experiences and trial and error, making it possible to
solve problems in both neuroscience and computer science. "We envisage that the
Physarum-based computing research will lead to a revolution in the bioelectronics and
computer industry," he says.

Brain Connections Contribute to Our
Unique Personalities
Functional connectivity is most variable in
association cortex
Connectivity variability is rooted in evolutionary
cortical expansion
Variability is associated with cortical folding and
long-range connection
Brain regions of high connectivity variability predict
behavioral differences
Researchers found very little variation in the
areas of the participants’ brains responsible for
basic senses and motor skills. It’s a pretty
straight shot from the finger to the part of the
brain that registers touch, for example, or from
the eye to the vision center. Thus we
apparently all sense the world in more or less
the same way.
The real variety arose in the parts of the brain
associated with personality, like the frontoparietal
lobe. This multipurpose area in the brain curates
sensory data into complex thoughts, feelings or
actions and allows us to interpret the things we
sense (i.e., we recognize a red, round object as an
apple). Because there are many ways to get from
sensation to reaction, and many different ways to
react to what we sense, each individual’s brain
blazes its own paths

How Imagination Works
Brain Areas Activated By Mental Manipulation
Though the study was small and only
explored imagining visual shapes, it provides
support for the kind of widespread neural
network of imagination that other scientists
have suggested exists, but haven't seen in
action before.
The researchers expected the mental manipulation activity
to involve the visual cortex, the part of the brain that
processes imagery. By looking at activity in the visual cortex,
scientists in the past few years have been able to decode the
type of image that a person is imagining--something scarily
akin to mind reading. But the visual cortex wasn't the only
region involved--they found 12 "regions of interest" that
seem to be involved in manipulating imaginary shapes. "We
saw differences in activity all over the brain when we
compared to control conditions," Shlegel says. "It does seem
rather than being a single area responsible for imagining or
manipulating, it seems like lots of areas have to work in
concert."

Found: The Particular Brain Fold That Helps People
Distinguish Between Imagination and Reality
A new study of the brain explains
why some of us are better than
others at remembering what really
happened.
A fold in the front brain called the paracingulate sulcus, or PCS, can apparently help people more
accurately remember whether something was imagined or really happened, or which person actually
said something.
It's one of the final structural folds to develop before birth, and its size varies greatly in the general
population, according to researchers at the University of Cambridge. People with the fold were
significantly better at memory tasks than people without the fold

UK Researchers Discover How to Halt
Death of Brain Cells
• Although the prospect of a pill for
Alzheimer's remains a long way off, the
landmark British study provides a major
new pathway for future drug
treatments.
• The compound works by blocking a
faulty signal in brains affected by
neurodegenerative diseases, which
shuts down the production of essential
proteins, leading to brain cells being
unprotected and dying off.
• It was tested in mice with prion disease
- the best animal model of human
neurodegenerative disorders - but
scientists said they were confident the
same principles would apply in a human
brain with debilitating brain diseases
such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's.

Rejuvenating Effect Found In Blood Of
Young Mice
A trio of new studies show that compounds in the blood of young mice
can rejuvenate older animals in a number of ways--and suggest that
same could possibly apply to humans. In some of the studies, blood
from young mice flowed into older ones when their circulatory systems
were directly connected; in another study, blood from youngsters, as
well as a protein called GDF 11, was injected into elder rodents.
In all cases, the older mice showed a number of improvements in
health, almost as if they had become young again
The transfusions also stimulated the
growth of neurons in regions of the brain
responsible for memory formation and a
sense of smell. These mice were better
able to distinguish between different
odors, and remember how to navigate a
maze, reversing declines in these abilities
normally seen in the course of again.
National Geographic reported:
The DNA of old muscle stem cells was repaired; muscle fibers and cell
structures called mitochondria morphed into healthier, more youthful
versions; grip strength improved; and the mice were able to run on
treadmills longer than their untreated counterparts.
The protein used in the study, called GDF11, was already known to
reduce age-related heart enlargement, which is characteristic of heart
failure. But [Harvard researchers Amy] Wagers said the new work shows
that GDF11 has a similar age-reversal effect on other tissue, in particular
the skeletal muscle and brain.
"That means that this protein is really acting in somewhat of a
coordinating way across tissues," she said , and that drugs could be
developed to target a "single common pathway" seen in a variety of
age-related dysfunctions, including muscle weakness,
neurodegeneration, and heart disease.

A New—and Reversible—Cause of Aging
While the breakdown of this process causes a rapid decline
in mitochondrial function, other signs of aging take longer to
occur. Gomes found that by administering an endogenous
compound that cells transform into NAD, she could repair
the broken network and rapidly restore communication and
mitochondrial function. If the compound was given early
enough—prior to excessive mutation accumulation—within
days, some aspects of the aging process could be reversed.
The essence of this finding is a series of molecular events that
enable communication inside cells between the nucleus and
mitochondria. As communication breaks down, aging
accelerates. By administering a molecule naturally produced by
the human body, scientists restored the communication
network in older mice. Subsequent tissue samples showed key
biological hallmarks that were comparable to those of much
younger animals.
“The aging process we discovered is like a married couple—
when they are young, they communicate well, but over time,
living in close quarters for many years, communication breaks
down,” said Harvard Medical School Professor of Genetics David
Sinclair, senior author on the study. “And just like with a couple,
restoring communication solved the problem.”
One particularly important aspect of this finding
involvesHIF-1. More than just an intrusive molecule
that foils communication, HIF-1 normally switches
on when the body is deprived of oxygen. Otherwise,
it remains silent. Cancer, however, is known to
activate and hijack HIF-1. Researchers have been
investigating the precise role HIF-1 plays in cancer
growth.
“It’s certainly significant to find that a molecule that
switches on in many cancers also switches on during
aging,” said Gomes. “We're starting to see now that
the physiology of cancer is in certain ways similar to
the physiology of aging. Perhaps this can explain why
the greatest risk of cancer is age.”

Watching Your Brain Freak Out On A
Scanner Calms You Down
Through a process of trial and error, these
subjects were gradually able to learn to
control their brain activity. This led both to
changes in brain connectivity and to
increased control over anxiety. These changes
were still present several days after the
training.
Extreme anxiety associated with worries
about dirt and germs is characteristic of many
patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder
(OCD). Hyperactivity in the orbitofrontal
cortex is seen in many of these individuals.
fMRI-driven neurofeedback has been used
before in a few contexts, but it has never
been applied to the treatment of anxiety. The
findings raise the possibility that real-time
fMRI feedback may provide a novel and
effective form of treatment for OCD.
Poorly controlled anxiety reduces the quality of life of
many healthy individuals and is a key symptom of
numerous neuropsychiatric conditions. Contamination
anxiety, in particular, is prevalent in the healthy
population and is a common symptom in obsessive-compulsive
disorder (OCD).2 Pharmacological and
behavioral interventions are widely used in the treatment
of anxiety and of OCD, but for many individuals these are
of little efficacy or are associated with troublesome side
effects. In extreme cases, invasive anatomically targeted
interventions are sometimes used for OCD and can be
effective

Neurofeedback Increases
Affection, Builds Empathy
Here, we employed multivariate voxel pattern analysis and real-time fMRI to address this question. We found that
participants were able to use visual feedback based on decoded fMRI patterns as a neurofeedback signal to increase
brain activation characteristic of tenderness/affection relative to pride, an equally complex control emotion.
Such improvement was not observed in a control group performing the same fMRI task without neurofeedback.
Furthermore, the neurofeedback-driven enhancement of tenderness/affection-related distributed patterns was
associated with local fMRI responses in the septohypothalamic area and frontopolar cortex, regions previously
implicated in affiliative emotion.
This demonstrates that humans can voluntarily enhance brain signatures of tenderness/affection, unlocking new
possibilities for promoting prosocial emotions and countering antisocial behavior.

Injectable Oxygen
The microparticle used to package oxygen gas,
covered by a layer of fatty molecules and
stabilizing agents. Upon contact with an
oxygen-poor red blood cell, it releases oxygen,
which rapidly binds to the cell. The lipid shell is
metabolized by the body.
John Kheir, MD, a physician in the Cardiac
Intensive Care Unit at Boston Children’s Hospital,
led a team that created tiny particles filled with
oxygen gas, which, when mixed with liquid, could
be injected directly into the blood.
In an emergency, IV oxygen delivery could
potentially buy clinicians time to start life-saving
therapies.

Branch-Like Dendrites Function As
Mini-Computers In The Brain
"All the data pointed to the same conclusion," lead
author Spencer Smith, an assistant professor of
neuroscience and engineering at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, said in a statement. "The
dendrites are not passive integrators of sensory-driven
input; they seem to be a computational unit as well."
This multiplies the brain's processing power. It's the
equivalent of finding out a bunch of wiring was really a
set of transistors, according to Smith. The discovery
could give us new insight into how the brain is wired.
Researchers from University College London, the University of North
Carolina School of Medicine found that in response to visual stimuli,
dendrites fired electrical signals in the brains of mice. The spikes only
occurred in the dendrite, not in the rest of the neuron, suggesting that the
dendrite itself was doing the processing.

A Bio-Patch Regrows Bone Inside the Body
Researchers from the University of
Iowa have developed a remarkable
new procedure for regenerating
missing or damaged bone. It's called
a "bio patch"
The researchers also note that the
delivery system is nonviral, meaning
that the plasmid is not likely to cause
an undesired immune response, and
that it's easier to mass produce, which
lowers the cost.
To create the bio patch, a research team led by Satheesh Elangovan delivered bone-producing instructions to existing bone
cells inside a living body, which allowed those cell to produce the required proteins for more bone production. This was
accomplished by using a piece of DNA that encodes for a platelet-derived growth factor called PDGF-B. Previous research
relied on repeated applications from the outside, but they proved costly, intensive, and more difficult to replicate with any
kind of consistency.
"We delivered the DNA to the cells, so that the cells produce the protein and that's how the protein is generated to enhance
bone regeneration," explained Aliasger Salem in a statement. "If you deliver just the protein, you have keep delivering it
with continuous injections to maintain the dose. With our method, you get local, sustained expression over a prolonged
period of time without having to give continued doses of protein." Salem is a professor in the College of Pharmacy and a co-corresponding
author on the paper.
While performing the procedure, the researchers made a collagen scaffold in the actual shape and size of the bone defect.
The patch, which was loaded with synthetically created plasmids and outfitted with the genetic instructions for building
bone did the rest, achieving complete regeneration that matched the shape of what should have been there. This was
followed by inserting the scaffold onto the missing area. Four weeks is usually all that it took -- growing 44-times more bone
and soft tissue in the affected areas compared to just the scaffold alone.
"The delivery mechanism is the scaffold loaded with the plasmid," Salem says. "When cells migrate into the scaffold, they
meet with the plasmid, they take up the plasmid, and they get the encoding to start producing PDGF-B, which enhances
bone regeneration."

DNA-Powered Nanotrain Builds Its Own Tracks
Tiny self-assembling transport networks, powered by nano-scale
motors and controlled by DNA, have been developed
by scientists at Oxford University and Warwick University.
'DNA is an excellent building block for constructing synthetic
molecular systems, as we can program it to do whatever we
need,' said Adam Wollman, who conducted the research at
Oxford University's Department of Physics. 'We design the
chemical structures of the DNA strands to control how they
interact with each other. The shuttles can be used to either
carry cargo or deliver signals to tell other shuttles what to
do.
'We first use assemblers to arrange the track into 'spokes',
triggered by the introduction of ATP. We then send in
shuttles with fluorescent green cargo which spread out
across the track, covering it evenly. When we add more ATP,
the shuttles all cluster in the centre of the track where the
spokes meet. Next, we send signal shuttles along the tracks
to tell the cargo-carrying shuttles to release the fluorescent
cargo into the environment, where it disperses. We can also
send shuttles programmed with 'dismantle' signals to the
central hub, telling the tracks to break up.'
Researchers were inspired by the melanophore, used by fish cells to control their colour. Tracks in the network all come
from a central point, like the spokes of a bicycle wheel. Motor proteins transport pigment around the network, either
concentrating it in the centre or spreading it throughout the network. Concentrating pigment in the centre makes the
cells lighter, as the surrounding space is left empty and transparent.
The system developed by the Oxford University team is very similar, and is built from DNA and a motor protein called
kinesin. Powered by ATP fuel, kinesins move along the micro-tracks carrying control modules made from short strands of
DNA. 'Assembler' nanobots are made with two kinesin proteins, allowing them to move tracks around to assemble the
network, whereas the 'shuttles' only need one kinesin protein to travel along the tracks.

MIT Researchers Have Discovered
Proteins Involved in Cancer Metastasis
About 90 percent of cancer deaths are caused by tumors that have spread from their original locations. This
process, known as metastasis, requires cancer cells to break loose from their neighbors and from the supportive
scaffold that gives tissues their structure.
MIT cancer biologists have now discovered that certain proteins in this structure, known as the extracellular matrix,
help cancer cells make their escape. The researchers identified dozens of proteins that surround highly metastatic
tumors, but not less aggressive tumors, and found that four of those proteins are critical to metastasis.
The findings could lead to new tests that predict which tumors are most likely to metastasize, and may also help to
identify new therapeutic targets for metastatic tumors, which are extremely difficult to treat.

Tiny Traps Capture Individual Blood Cells
The traps, which are made out of silicon oxides, start out as flat, star-like shapes.
When they're dipped into a saline solution, the arms automatically begin to fold
inward along their hinges, capturing any cells that might be nearby at the time. In a
new study, the traps' creators have shown the little nano-stars are able to grip two
different kinds of mouse cells without killing them: red blood cells and fibroblasts,
which are a type of connective tissue cell.
The traps' lead engineer, David Gracias of Johns Hopkins University, has long
worked on making microscopic structures that start out flat, but then fold up by
themselves. In addition to minute pyramids, he and his lab members have made all
kinds of polyhedrons. They've made self-folding structures that fold in response to
heat, instead of a dip in saline solution. They've even made microscopic, self-folding
shapes with a kind of glue along the edges so they'll seal themselves once
they're folded. You can see some of these shapes in a video they published last
year. In their latest study, published in the journal Nano Letters, they worked with
engineers from the U.S. Army Research Laboratory to make pyramidal grippers that
are small enough to capture single cells and have vents so the cells can continue to
exchange nutrients and waste with the liquid around them even while they're
trapped.
There's a lot of work that the cell-grippers' designers would still need to do to put
the grippers into a working product. They might want to be able to target certain
cells, for example, instead of just capturing whatever happens by. If these traps are
something they want to be able to inject in the human body—and that's what
Gracias meant when he talked with Phys.org about using this in vivo—then they'll
also have to do a lot of safety testing.
Gotcha! These little pyramids are
actually microscopic traps
designed to gently enclose single
cells without killing them. The
idea is that in the future, such
traps could be a part of a system
for capturing and analyzing
individual cells, perhaps as a part
of cancer monitoring.

Nanoparticle Disguised as a Blood Cell
Fights Bacterial Infection
The results demonstrate that the
nanoparticles could be used to
neutralize toxins produced by
many bacteria, including some
that are antibiotic-resistant, and
could counteract the toxicity of
venom from a snake or scorpion
attack, says Liangfang Zhang, a
professor of nanoengineering at
the University of California, San
Diego. Zhang led the research.
Zhang and his colleagues wrapped real red blood cell membranes around biocompatible polymeric
nanoparticles. A single red blood cell supplies enough membrane material to produce over 3,000
nanosponges, each around 85 nanometers (a nanometer is a billionth of a meter) in diameter. Since red
blood cells are a primary target of pore-forming toxins, the nanosponges act as decoys once in the
bloodstream, absorbing the damaging proteins and neutralizing their toxicity. And because they are so
small, the nanosponges will vastly outnumber the real red blood cells in the system, says Zhang. This
means they have a much higher chance of interacting with and absorbing toxins, and thus can divert the
toxins away from their natural targets.

Wireless Devices Swim Through Your
Bloodstream and Fix You Up, 'Fantastic
Voyage' Style
A new micro device solves that problem
elegantly, while upending some assumptions
about how our bodies work. It's powered by
induction, which thanks to some new
calculations has been shown to work much
better in our bodies than anyone thought. All
you need is an external radio transmitter to
keep it humming.
Stanford engineering professor Ada Poon demonstrated a new wireless device
at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference this week. It can travel in
the bloodstream, propelling itself through blood vessels and performing an
array of tasks. A radio transmitter outside the body sends a signal to a
magnetically coupled antenna, and any change in the transmitter's current
induces a voltage in the antenna

These Magnetic Nanobots Could Carry
Drugs Into Your Brain
Tiny robots swimming through blood for
medical purposes are a relatively new
phenomena. In 2011, researchers published a
paper on miniscule motors that could propel
such machines. Other microbots can carry
medicine, but their spiral shape and smaller
bodies limit how much can carry. Magnetically
steered robots inside living animals have also
been tested before.
These tiny cages, each 100 microns long and 40 microns wide, may not look like
much, but they are the new semi-trucks of targeted medicine delivery.
Developed by a team of Chinese researchers, in conjunction with Swiss and South
Korean institutes, the nickel-coated microbots are steered wirelessly by
electromagnetic fields. Thanks to that external control, these microbots can carry
precious cargo to exactly where the body needs it, including to sensitive places like
brains or eyes.

Microbots Spin Molecules to Swim
Through Blood Vessels and Make Repairs
A new spider-like micromachine could
swim through a person's blood
vessels, healing damaged areas and
delivering drugs as it goes.
This could be a handy, electricity-free way to
send tiny devices into the bloodstream to do
various tasks.
The microspider motors could drive
nanorobots that destroy tumor cells, or they
could target drugs to specific organs more
quickly, for instance.
Janus microspheres have two distinct
hemispheres made of different substances.
In this case, one half is gold and the other is
silicon dioxide.
Researchers led by Ayusman Sen at Penn
State attached a molecule called a Grubbs
catalyst, which induces polymerization, to
the silica side.
Then they added a monomer, which the
catalyst strings into long chains. The
monomer strings gather on the SiO2 side,
which creates a mini current that sends the
whole sphere moving the opposite direction

Nanomotors Are Controlled, For The
First Time, Inside Living Cells
"As these nanomotors move around and bump into
structures inside the cells, the live cells show
internal mechanical responses that no one has
seen before," said Tom Mallouk,
Evan Pugh Professor of Materials Chemistry and
Physics. "This research is a vivid demonstration
that it may be possible to use synthetic
nanomotors to study cell biology in new ways. We
might be able to use nanomotors to treat cancer
and other diseases by mechanically manipulating
cells from the inside. Nanomotors could perform
intracellular surgery and deliver drugs
noninvasively to living tissues."
A team of chemists and engineers at Penn State has placed tiny synthetic motors inside live human
cells, propelled them with ultrasonic waves and steered them magnetically.
It's not exactly "Fantastic Voyage," but it's close. The nanomotors, which are rocket-shaped metal
particles, move around inside the cells, spinning and battering against the cell membrane.

World's tiniest motor can fit inside a
cell and spin as fast as a jet engine
At less than one micrometer in size, the microscopic nanomotor could revolutionize controlled medical drug delivery
Developed by researchers at
the Cockrell School of
Engineering at the University
of Texas, a microscopically
tiny motor is the smallest,
fastest, and longest-running
nanomotor to date.
At under one micrometer in size -- 500 times smaller than a grain of salt -- the motor is small enough to fit inside a
human cell. It is also capable of running for 15 continuous hours, at a speed of 18,000 RPM -- the same speed, the
researchers said, as the motor in a jet engine. Comparatively, most nanomotors usually run at speeds between 14 and
500 RPM.
The motor has been successfully designed, assembled and tested in a non-biological environment, and it can perform
three tasks: it can move through liquids and both mix and pump biochemicals. To test its drug delivery capabilities, the
researchers coated its surface with biochemicals. The faster the motor spun, the faster the drugs were released.
"We were able to establish and control the molecule release rate by mechanical rotation, which means our nanomotor is
the first of its kind for controlling the release of drugs from the surface of nanoparticles," said lead researcher and
mechanical engineering assistant professor DongleiFan. "We believe it will help advance the study of drug delivery and
cell-to-cell communications."
Potential applications for the device include powering nanomachines for the controlled delivery of insulin, or the
treatment of cancer cells while leaving healthy cells alone.

Watch as scientists "herd" cells with
blasts of electricity
Researchers at Berkeley have orchestrated the flow of cell
groups by using electrical currents. It's a tissue engineering
breakthrough that could eventually lead to "smart bandages"
that use electricity to guide cells during the wound healing
process.
The process is called galvanotaxis — the use of electricity to
direct cell movement. Previous studies have shown that the
method can work for individual cells, but this is the first
example of galvanotaxis being used to direct "herds" of cells.
In this case, the researchers used single layers
of epithelial cells, the same kind of cells that
bind together to form robust sheaths in skin,
kidneys, cornea, and other organs.
By applying an electric current of about five
volts per centimeter, the researchers
encouraged the cells to migrate along the
direct current electric field.
Cells can be seen performing a sudden u-turn
after such an application.

NANOTECH METHOD BOOSTS CONVENTIONAL
CANCER TREATMENTS IN PRE-CLINICAL TRIAL
The conventional wisdom has it that there’s no silver bullet for
treating cancer; the disease simply has too many forms for a one-size-
fits-all solution. But there may be, if a recent pre-clinical animal
study holds true in humans, a gold bullet.
Cell biologist Dmitri Lapotko, who leads a Rice University lab called
The Nanobubble Lab. Lapotko has found that when colloidal gold
nanoparticles inside the body meet with a quick zap from a near-infrared
laser, they burst and create a short-lived bubble that can
blow up the cells around it.
These hollow nanoparticles could be the golden bullet to target cancer. In a newly published study focused on notoriously
hard-to-treat head and neck cancers, the conventional cocktail of chemotherapy and radiation was 17 times more potent
when combined with nanoshells tagged with cancer-specific antibodies that cause them to cluster inside cancer cells.
Here’s what happened. The bubbles first blew up many of the cancer cells. Those that remained got another payload from
the nanoparticles: chemotherapy drugs. With cell membranes damaged by the micro-explosion, the pharmaceutical
payloads went directly into the cell cytoplasm. The remaining particles, clustered in the cancerous area, also served to
magnify the X-rays delivering radiation.
“We literally bring surgery, chemotherapies and radiation therapies inside cancer cells,” Lapotko said in a news release.
The method proved so deadly against head and neck squamous cell carcinomas that in a single treatment with just 3
percent of the normal drug dose and 6 percent of the standard radiation dose effectively eliminated tumors within a
week. Equally important, the nanoparticles are too small to damage healthy cells around the area targeted with the laser
detonator.

NANOTECH METHOD BOOSTS CONVENTIONAL CANCER
TREATMENTS IN PRE-CLINICAL TRIAL
“Surgeons often cannot fully remove tumors that are intertwined with important organs. Chemotherapy and radiation are
commonly used to treat the residual portions of these tumors, but some tumors become resistant to chemoradiation.
Quadrapeutics steps up when standard treatments fail,” said Lapotko.
Fighting cancer, doctors say, can feel like taking the patient to death’s door in order to kill the cancer cells. Targeting
chemotherapy and radiation more precisely at cancer cells, with less collateral damage, has long been a goal. While some
scientists have focused on training T cells and other naturally occurring vehicles to seek and destroy the cancer cells,
others have turned to nanotechnology fashioned from medically safe materials, such as gold.
Lapotko’s method benefits from previous work, much of it at Rice, with gold nanoparticles and lasers. But the focus on the
destructive power of bubbles that can be produced locally and on demand is unique. The bubbles allow the nanoparticles
to bring both chemical weapons (drugs) and conventional weapons (bombs) to the cancer’s hideout.
Will nanobubbles fight cancer in real patients as well as they did in mice? MD Anderson Cancer Center will likely conduct
clinical trials of the quadrapeutics method in the coming months. The approach can be applied to various types of cancer
that form solid tumors, Lapotko says.
Curiously, in his work producing and popping nanobubbles, Lapotko also stumbled across a bloodless and effective way to
detect malaria. It turns out that the parasite’s waste contains a nanocrystal that will also create a nanobubble when heated
with a laser pulse. Listening for the signature pop alerts lab clinicians to the presence of the malaria parasite. Gold bullet
indeed!

Gold Nanoparticles Melt Your Excess Fat
A new startup, NanoLipo, is working on a gold nanoparticle-based liposuction alternative, Chemical & Engineering
News reports. The idea is that doctors would inject their patients' unwanted fat with the particles, then use a laser to
heat up the particles, which would melt the fat around them. Doctors would use needles to suction out the liquefied
fat. Researchers have investigated heating gold nanoparticles to kill cancer cells, too.
While this might sound just too strange—that one treatment could work for both an elective procedure and a life-saving
one—medicine is actually full of stories of one treatment working for disparate conditions. One of my favorite
examples is Botox, which has an impressive list of indications. Before Botox began freezing the foreheads of famous
actors, it treated eye spasms and other neurological conditions. It's now also FDA approved for excessive underarm
sweating and urinary incontinence associated with multiple sclerosis.
So which application of gold nanoparticles will find its way to practical use first? Cancer or trimming those last 10
pounds? The two indications seem to be neck and neck in stage of development, although cancer treatments have
been under study for several years longer. NanoLipo has tested its methods in animals, but not in people, Chemical &
Engineering News reports. Gold nanoparticles for cancer have undergone some early stage human trials.

Gold Nanoparticles and Near-infrared Light Kill
Cancer Cells With Heat
Nanoparticles have been suggested as a way to kill cancer cells in a multitude of ways. Recent research has suggested a
method for surrounding gold nanoparticles with nanobubbles that would rip open small pores in cancer cell membranes.
This would allow drugs present outside the cells to get in. Another cancer killing treatment is tricking lymphoma cells into
eating gold nanoparticles. Once ingested, the nanoparticles make it impossible for the cancer cells to eat anything else,
dooming them to death by starvation.
You may have noticed the recurring use of gold nanoparticles in cancer research. Following that tradition, researchers at
ETH Zurich in Switzerland have demonstrated that gold nanoparticles, in combination with near-infrared light, can turn up
the heat on cancer cells enough to kill tumors.
While gold nanoparticles are well tolerated by the human body, they are not too good at absorbing long-wavelength red
light, which is able to penetrate human tissue better than short-wavelength blue light. The nanoparticles that are effective
at this are known as plasmonic nanoparticles. Plasmonics is a field in which free electrons in a metal can be excited by the
electric component of light so that there are collective oscillations in the material with heat generation being one effect.
The ETH Zurich researchers knew that if they molded the gold nanoparticles into a particular shape, such as a rod or a shell,
they could give it the plasmonic property for absorbing near-infrared light it otherwise lacked. The problem with this
approach is that is complex and expensive.

Bursting Bubbles Kill Cancer Cells
Delivering drug-loaded nanoparticles to tumors is a brilliant way to kill cancer cells and reduce the drugs' side effects. But
the nanoparticles can sometimes also kill healthy cells. Scientists at Rice University are now working on what they say is a
more selective and effective technique that will deliver chemotherapy drugs right inside cancer cells without harming
normals cells.
The method relies on using lasers to creating tiny bubbles around clumps of gold nanoparticles inside cancer cells. The
nanoparticles don't carry drugs. Instead, as the bubbles burst, they temporarily rip open small pores in the cell membranes
so that drugs present outside the cells can get in.
Rice's Dmitri Lapotko, a physicist and biochemist, said in a press release: "We are delivering cancer drugs or other genetic
cargo at the single-cell level. By avoiding healthy cells and delivering the drugs directly inside cancer cells, we can
simultaneously increase drug efficacy while lowering the dosage."
Specifically, the researchers have found that delivering chemotherapy drugs with nanobubbles was up to 30 times more
effective at killing drug-resistant cancer cells than traditional chemotherapy, and required less than a tenth of the drug
dose. So far, the team has tested the method on head and neck cancer cell cultures. They’ve published their results in
three separate papers that have recently appeared in the journals Biomaterials, Applied Materials, and PLoS One.

Researchers want to flood your body
with disease-detecting diamonds
Forget the age-old cliché: diamonds might soon be a cancer researcher's best friend, too. One of the real rubs in
cancer screening is trying to detect breakaway tumor cells before they spread too far, causing the cancer to
metastasize throughout the body. There's where a young biotech company called Bikanta comes in: the team has
started to use fluorescent nanodiamonds -- basically a dust of crushed, imperfect diamonds -- to help ferret out
those tiny, troublesome proto-tumors before they get a chance to spread.
You might be surprised to learn that those nanodiamonds are awfully effective at lighting up your innards... and
more specifically the tiny molecular imperfections that could signal shifting cancer cells. Bikanta CEO Ambika Bumb
told TechCrunch that one of the biggest draws of the diamond approach is that those little bits of carbon don't
degrade over time, so researchers are left with clearer imaging results with less background noise. Turns out,
nanodiamonds aren't one trick ponies either. Bikanta's tech can be used to look out for more than just cancer, and if
you peer far enough into the future, you might see nanodiamonds being used as a component for smart drugs that
can target and treat the very same abnormalities they detect.

AIDS Virus Could Be Harnessed to Fight
Cancer
Viruses are skillful mutants, changing their
structures or outer proteins to evade the
shifting natural defenses of their targets.
(This is why you have to get a flu shot every
year.) Now researchers in France report
using one of the most proficient mutants,
HIV, to fight another intractable disease:
Cancer.
As HIV replicates, it creates slightly new versions of itself over successive generations
— this allows it to readily resist most of the drug cocktails and anti-viral treatments
developed to fight it. But it could also allow HIV to serve as a sort of molecule factory,
creating new iterations of compounds that work in slightly different ways.

Toxic Bacteria Devours Tumors
With Precision
A stained dog tumor treated with the bacterium. Lighter
pink areas, areas denote tumor death
The C. novyi bacterium was of special interest because it
only thrives in oxygen-depleted environments, making it
ideal for attacking oxygen-starved cells in a tumor. Crucially,
the bacterial spores don’t germinate in healthy, oxygen-rich
tissues so their destructive power is easily contained.
Researchers say the path forward for C. novyi is pretty clear.
First, they need to further test its safety and efficacy in
humans. Second, they want to identify other anticancer
drugs and therapies that can be administered separately,
but in conjunction with the bacteria to improve outcomes.
A bacterium found in soil that can cause flesh-ravaging infections in its natural state has been converted — with a few
genetic tweaks — into a precise tumor assassin.
Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center excised the toxin-producing gene from the bacterium
Clostridium novyi, which, in its natural form, can be fatal when introduced to the bloodstream. They injected spores of the
modified bacteria directly into tumors of mice, dogs and ultimately a human patient. In all three cases the spores
germinated and released enzymes that ate the tumor from the inside out, resulting in either a significant reduction in tumor
size, or complete eradication, without damaging healthy tissues.
Scientists say that with this proof of concept the prospects for bacterial injection therapy, as a treatment in combination
with anti-cancer drugs, has vastly improved.

Nanoparticles could help deliver a killer blow to cancer
Nanoparticles are typically between 3 and 200 nanometres across, allowing them to be injected directly into the tumour for
more accessible cancers, or injected in close proximity in combination with antibodies that target cancer cells.
The unique architecture of tumours’ blood supply makes it easy for them to absorb nanoparticles. There are “fenestrations”
or gaps in the walls of blood vessels that opened up when the tumours formed, says Helen Townley of the Department of
Engineering Science at Oxford University.
“Instead of having a nice continuous sheet of cells as you see in normal blood vessels, the arrangement is very rapid, chaotic
and disorganised. These gaps are up to 300nm, so as long as our nanoparticles are smaller than that, they’re going to leave
the blood vessel and enter the tumour.”
Once the nanoparticles are inside the tumour they’re likely to stay there, she says. Normal tissue is drained by lymph
vessels, but tumour tissue lacks this efficient drainage system
The main aim has been to use nanoparticles to increase chemotherapy doses but researchers have been increasingly
looking at additional means of destroying tumours or slowing their growth. Hoopes’s group uses iron oxide nanoparticles
coated with biocompatible substances. Once inside the tumour, the iron oxide nanoparticles can be heated using an
alternating magnetic field, killing it with little damage to the surrounding tissue.

Your Body Can Kill Cancer. It Just Needs Better Instructions
1) Capture T cells (the immune system‘s attack force) from the blood of a
patient with B-cell leukemia.
2) Genetically engineer the T cells to train their sights on the CD19
molecule, which sits on the surface of B cells and the cancer cells that
arose from them.
3) Inject the patient with the modified T cells, which may then destroy all
cells with CD19—both cancerous and not.
4) Bolster the patient’s immune system with treatments of antibodies,
since B cells normally make antibodies needed to fight infection.
Part of what makes cancers so insidious is that they’re not invaders: They’re our own cells turned against us. That means
the body usually doesn’t see them as a threat.
But over the last few years, teams at several different research institutions have been programming peoples’ immune
systems to recognize and destroy cancer.
So far, clinical trials of about a hundred terminal leukemia patients have shown some lasting effects.
A single treatment has kept two of them cancer-free for three years and counting—after everything they tried had failed.
Applying the technique to more cancers requires finding new targets to attack, says Michel Sadelain, an immunologist at
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center who pioneered the approach. Exploratory clinical trials, including for lung and
prostate cancers, are getting under way.

Reprogrammed Bacteria Build Self-Healing
‘Living Materials’
“It shows that indeed you can make cells that talk to each
other and they can change the composition of the material
over time,” said Timothy Lu, an assistant professor of
electrical engineering and biological engineering in a MIT
news release. “Ultimately, we hope to emulate how natural
systems, like bone, form. No one tells bone what to do, but
it generates a material in response to environmental
signals.”
Depending on what engineers program bacteria to pick up,
these hybrid materials could form the basis of future
batteries and solar cells, or even diagnostic devices and
scaffolds for tissue engineering. The researchers are also
interested in coating the biofilms with enzymes that could
break down cellulose, which could be useful for converting
agricultural waste to biofuels.
An artist's rendering of a bacterial cell engineered to
produce amyloid nanofibers that incorporate particles such
as quantum dots (red and green spheres) or gold
nanoparticles.
The team of engineers from MIT reprogrammed E. coli bacteria to latch onto gold nanoparticles and quantum dots—tiny,
semiconducting crystals. With living cells and inorganic material wedded, scientists could assemble the cells into biofilms
(a thin layer of bacteria bound together) that could conduct electrical current. Since the cells also communicate with one
another, the resulting “living material” can adapt to changing environmental conditions.
So far, scientists have just built electrically conducting nanowires, but the researchers believe the demonstration of their
new material opens the door for more complex devices like solar cells, self-healing materials or diagnostic sensors.

Sticky Nanobeads Can Strip Bacteria,
Viruses From Blood
Scanning electron micrograph of HIV-1 budding (in
green) from cultured lymphocyte
A new device uses magnetism to rid the bloodstream of pathogens
that are the source of deadly infections.
Bioengineers at Harvard’s Wyss Institute have developed a blood
filter that quickly grabs toxins, such as E.coli or Ebola, from the
bloodstream using protein-coated nanobeads and magnets. In
early tests, the biomechanical treatment removed more than 90
percent of toxins from infected human blood within a few hours.
When our immune system fights an infection, the dying virus releases toxins into the bloodstream that can cause sepsis, a
life-threatening immune response. Doctors can’t always pinpoint the specific pathogen that causes sepsis, so they use
antibiotics to carpet-bomb the bloodstream, a strategy that’s not always effective and can lead to drug-resistance.
The new device, dubbed an “artificial spleen,” instead mechanically clears pathogens from the bloodstream, thereby
reducing reliance on heavy doses of antibiotics. Its trick lies in magnetic nanobeads coated with a modified human
protein. This protein binds to sugar molecules on the surfaces of more than 90 different bacteria, viruses and fungi, as
well as to the toxins released by dead bacteria.
When those nanobeads are mixed with infected blood they adhere to pathogens, and then, as the blood passes through
channels inside the device, magnets pull out the beads with pathogens attached. Clean blood is routed back into the
patient.

Chemists turn anthrax bacteria into
cancer-fighting zombies
Super small, but super powerful. Anthrax spores
magnified to more than 12,000 times their size
Apparently, unmodified anthrax bacteria invade our cells
with a three-pronged approach. First they dock onto a cell
wall using a protein known as protective antigen (PA). Then,
they begin pumping two anthrax proteins into the cell that
mess with its functioning and often cause it to self-destruct.
One of these proteins has the very evil-scientist name of
lethal factor (LF), and the other is called edema factor (EF).
By altering the bacteria, the MIT team let bacillus anthracis
keep its PA docking function, but instead of pumping LF and
EF into the cells on which they landed, they made it pump in
something known as antibody mimics -- which can kill
cancer cells. In their test, the antibody mimic they used
caused leukemia cells to effectively commit suicide.
According to the researchers, this approach helps solve a longstanding problem of attacking "undruggable" cancer cells --
the ones that have cellular walls that are too difficult to penetrate. By using the modified anthrax bacteria to tackle this job,
the problem is minimized and could open the door to a wide range of drugs being injected into cancer cells by one of our
biggest biological enemies.
The researchers are now testing their approach on tumors in mice and are experimenting with ways to deliver antibodies to
specific types of cells, according to an MIT report about the research. Their findings have just been published in the journal,
ChemBioChem.

Nano 'missiles' help kill cancer through
the power of green tea
Many will tell you that green tea is good for your health, but researchers at Singapore's A*STAR might just make it a
literal life-saver. They've developed nanoscale drug delivery "missiles" that use a key ingredient from green tea,
epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), to kill cancer tumors more effectively.
Compounds based on EGCG both shield the drug carriers from your immune system and provide some therapy of their
own; in other words, these hunters are more likely to reach tumors and do a better job of healing your body when they
arrive.
They're also less prone to accumulating in organs where they aren't wanted, so there are fewer chances of nasty side
effects. It's not certain when these tea-based transporters will be available to your doctor, but A*STAR's team is
determined to make them a practical reality before long

To Kill Superbacteria, Bring on the Bling
It's not just gold that can spell doom for bacteria, Liang says. Silver
nanoparticles are equally lethal and have been used in common products
like diapers for years.
But gold may be better than silver for certain cases, like inside the human
body.
"The potential toxicity of silver exposure should not be neglected, mainly
due to the possible release of silver ions, causing cytotoxicity and tissue and
organ damages," Liu tells PM.
Gold is more chemically stable, he says, but further studies should be done
before gold should be put inside the human body.
Close-packed TiO2 nanotube arrays are prepared on metallic Ti surface by electrochemical anodization. Subsequently,
by magnetron sputtering, Au nanoparticles are coated onto the top sidewall and tube inwall.
The Au@TiO2 systems can effectively kill Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli in darkness due to the existence
of Au nanoparticles. On the basis of classical optical theories, the antibacterial mechanism is proposed from the
perspective of localized surface plasmon resonance.
Respiratory electrons of bacterial membrane transfer to Au nanoparticles and then to TiO2, which makes bacteria
steadily lose electrons until death. This work provides insights for the better understanding and designing of noble
metal nanoparticles-based plasmonic heterostructures for antibacterial application.

Toxin-Secreting Stem Cells May
Destroy Brain Tumors From Inside Out
Poisoning Cancer Encapsulated toxin-producing
stem cells (in blue) help kill
brain tumor cells in the tumor
resection cavity (in green)
In the realm of cancerous diseases, tumors affecting the brain can be
particularly difficult to cure. Many are fast moving and take hold of key sections
of the body’s most fundamental organ, rendering surgical removal extremely
difficult or impossible.
Now, researchers at Harvard Stem Cell Institute have come up with a new
method for battling these deadly brain tumors — by taking them apart from
the inside out. In a new study, the scientists have engineered stem cells to
secrete cancer-killing cytotoxins that degrade the tumor from within its core.
Cytotoxins are poisonous to all living cells, but for the past couple of decades,
doctors have figured out ways to alter them so that they only target specific
tumor cells. Essentially the cytotoxins will only enter cancer cells with specific
surface molecules. Then, once inside the cancer cell, the cytotoxin shuts down
protein production, causing the cell to die.
Against certain kinds of blood cancers, cytotoxins are pretty successful. But
when it comes to defeating solid tumors, especially those in the brain, these
poisons don’t always measure up. “Many of these drugs have a short half-life,
there’s inadequate distribution throughout the tumor, plus delivery to the brain
is difficult because of the existing blood brain barrier,” Dr. Khalid Shah,
neuroscientists and lead researcher on the study, tells Popular Science. This
means that simply injecting cytotoxins into the body won’t cut it for killing
brain tumors, and efforts to inject cytotoxins directly into brain tumors have
failed in the past.

First Ever ‘Designer Chromosome’ Built From Scratch
Synthetic biologists have already been using baker’s yeast to produce
biofuels, hepatitis B vaccines and antimalarial medications. Being able to
build a synthetic version instead of having to manipulate an existing yeast
could greatly expand the possibilities for these technologies. With the kind
of directed control provided by a synthetic chromosome, applied to an
entire genome, former barriers in synthetic biology may be easily
surmountable.
But, as is the case with many kinds of genetic research, the unknown is far
greater than the known at this point. This chromosome is only one of
yeast’s 16. But teams of researchers around the world are already working
on the other 15.
In a significant step forward for synthetic biology, researchers have built a synthetic yeast chromosome—the first ever
from a eukaryotic cell. This could help geneticists better understand how genomes work and stretch the existing limits
of synthetic biology to make novel medications, more efficient biofuels and perhaps even better beer.
Unlike prokaryotic cells, such as bacteria, which just have a jumble of DNA in their middles, eukaryotic cells contain a
nucleus and a much more complicated chromosome-based DNA arrangement. These cells make up all more complex
life, including animals and plants. Researchers have previously synthesized bacterial DNA, but this is the first time
they’ve been able to synthesize the larger and more complicated DNA of a eukaryote.
The chromosome in question belongs to good ol’ baker’s yeast, which is at the heart of many a synthetic biology
experiment. The researchers focused on one of the yeast’s 16 chromosomes: Number 3, which controls mating and
genetic change.

Nano-Robots That Compute With DNA Installed
Into Living Cockroach
"This is the first time that biological therapy has been able to match how a computer
processor works," study co-author Ido Bachelet, from the Institute of Nanotechnology
and Advanced Materials at Bar Ilan University in Israel, told New Scientist. The scientists
said it should be possible to improve the computing power of the nanobots to approach
that of an "8-bit computer, equivalent to a Commodore 64 or Atari 800 from the 1980s."
While the bots cannot currently be inserted into mammals, due to their more advanced
immune systems that can recognize and target these foreign particles, they can
probably be modified to do so. "There is no reason why preliminary trials on humans
can't start within five years," Bachelet said.
Scientists have inserted DNA-based nanobots into a living cockroach, which are able to perform logical operations.
Researchers say the nanobots could eventually be able to carry out complex programs, to diagnose and treat disease.
These DNA machines (or origami robots, so-called since they can unfold and deliver drugs stored within) carry fluorescent
markers, allowing researchers to tell where in the roach's body they are traveling and what they are doing. Incredibly, the
"accuracy of delivery and control of the nanobots is equivalent to a computer system," New Scientist reported. A study
describing the advance was published this week in Nature Nanotechnology.
The nanobots can interact with one another, and were shown to be able to perform simple logical operations, for example
releasing a molecule stored within upon command. Or, as the researchers put it: "The interactions generate logical
outputs, which are relayed to switch molecular payloads on or off." It's a little hard to believe or wrap your head around,
but then again, scientists for years have been able to use DNA to store large amounts of information, and DNA bots are
nothing new. The researchers get the bots to work by exploiting the bind properties of DNA:
When it meets a certain kind of protein, DNA unravels into two complementary strands. By creating particular sequences,
the strands can be made to unravel on contact with specific molecules – say, those on a diseased cell. When the molecule
unravels, out drops the package wrapped inside.

Lipid coated DNA nanodevices survive immune system
and pave the way for smart anticancer DNA nanorobots
Scientists at Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering have mimicked viral tactics
to build the first DNA nanodevices that survive the body's immune defenses. Lipid-coated DNA
nanodevices closely resemble those viruses and evade the immune defenses of mice.
The results pave the way for smart DNA nanorobots that could use logic to diagnose cancer earlier
and more accurately than doctors can today; target drugs to tumors, or even manufacture drugs on
the spot to cripple cancer.
"We're mimicking virus functionality to eventually build therapeutics that specifically target cells,"
said Wyss Institute Core Faculty member William Shih, Ph.D., the paper's senior author. Shih is also an
Associate Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School
and Associate Professor of Cancer Biology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
DNA nanotechnology enables engineering of molecular-scale devices with exquisite control over geometry and site-specific
functionalization. This capability promises compelling advantages in advancing nanomedicine; nevertheless,
instability in biological environments and innate immune activation remain as obstacles for in vivo application. Natural
particle systems (i.e., viruses) have evolved mechanisms to maintain structural integrity and avoid immune recognition
during infection, including encapsulation of their genome and protein capsid shell in a lipid envelope. Here we
introduce virus-inspired enveloped DNA nanostructures as a design strategy for biomedical applications. Achieving a
high yield of tightly wrapped unilamellar nanostructures, mimicking the morphology of enveloped virus particles,
required precise control over the density of attached lipid conjugates and was achieved at 1 per 180 nm2.
Envelopment of DNA nanostructures in PEGylated lipid bilayers conferred protection against nuclease digestion.
Immune activation was decreased 2 orders of magnitude below controls, and pharmacokinetic bioavailability
improved by a factor of 17. By establishing a design strategy suitable for biomedical applications, we have provided a
platform for the engineering of sophisticated, translation-ready DNA nanodevices

Trial to see how personalized treatment can
fight cancer set to begin this year
A drugs trial designed to discover how personalized treatment can help in the fight against cancer begins later this
year. Cancer Research UK has joined forces with pharmaceutical companies AstraZeneca and Pfizer to create a
pioneering clinical trial for patients who have advanced lung cancer, the UK's biggest cancer killer.
Scientists from Cancer Research UK will use the genetic understanding of each lung tumor to identify small groups of
patients who are more likely to benefit from a certain drug because of the specific genetic changes causing their
cancer.
Researchers will be given access to up to 14 medicines which target specific and often rare mutations, meaning that
they could offer hope for those who would otherwise have very limited treatment options.
During the trials, researchers will look for signs of improvement, such as increased survival, tumor shrinkage or an
alleviation of symptoms. If the medicines show promise, they could be fast-tracked into larger trials. The charity has
said the partnership marks a new era of research into personalized medicines. Funding for the trial – from the charity
and the two pharmaceutical companies as well as support from the NHS – represents £25 million of research.

Stanford researchers create 'evolved' protein
that may stop cancer from spreading
A team of Stanford researchers has developed a protein therapy that disrupts the process that causes cancer cells to
break away from original tumor sites, travel through the bloodstream and start aggressive new growths elsewhere in the
body.
This process, known as metastasis, can cause cancer to spread with deadly effect.
"The majority of patients who succumb to cancer fall prey to metastatic forms of the disease," said Jennifer Cochran, an
associate professor of bioengineering who describes a new therapeutic approach in Nature Chemical Biology.
Today doctors try to slow or stop metastasis with chemotherapy, but these treatments are unfortunately not very
effective and have severe side effects.
The Stanford team seeks to stop metastasis, without side effects, by preventing two proteins – Axl and Gas6 – from
interacting to initiate the spread of cancer.
Axl proteins stand like bristles on the surface of cancer cells, poised to receive biochemical signals from Gas6 proteins.
When two Gas6 proteins link with two Axls, the signals that are generated enable cancer cells to leave the original tumor
site, migrate to other parts of the body and form new cancer nodules.
To stop this process Cochran used protein engineering to create a harmless version of Axl that acts like a decoy. This decoy
Axl latches on to Gas6 proteins in the bloodstream and prevents them from linking with and activating the Axls present
on cancer cells.

Drug-carrying Nanoparticles That Can Be Taken Orally in Pill Form
Nanoparticles are poised to have a
tremendous impact on the treatment of many
diseases, but their broad application is limited
because currently they can only be
administered by parenteral methods. Oral
administration of nanoparticles is preferred
but remains a challenge because transport
across the intestinal epithelium is limited.
To build nanoparticles that can selectively break through the barrier, the researchers took advantage of previous work
that revealed how babies absorb antibodies from their mothers’ milk, boosting their own immune defenses. Those
antibodies grab onto a cell surface receptor called the FcRN, granting them access through the cells of the intestinal
lining into adjacent blood vessels.
The researchers coated their nanoparticles with Fc proteins — the part of the antibody that binds to the FcRN receptor,
which is also found in adult intestinal cells. The nanoparticles, made of a biocompatible polymer called PLA-PEG, can
carry a large drug payload, such as insulin, in their core.
After the particles are ingested, the Fc proteins grab on to the FcRN in the intestinal lining and gain entry, bringing the
entire nanoparticle along with them.
“It illustrates a very general concept where we can use these receptors to traffic nanoparticles that could contain pretty
much anything. Any molecule that has difficulty crossing the barrier could be loaded in the nanoparticle and trafficked
across,” Karnik says.
The researchers’ discovery of how this type of particle can penetrate cells is a key step to achieving oral nanoparticle
delivery, says Edith Mathiowitz, a professor of molecular pharmacology, physiology, and biotechnology at Brown
University.

Pacemaker That is 10x Smaller Can Be
Implanted Without Surgery
Pacemaker surgery typically requires a doctor to make an incision
above a patient’s heart, dig a cavity into which he can implant the
heartbeat-regulating device, and then connect the pulse generator to
wires delivered through a vein near the collarbone. Such surgery
could soon be completely unnecessary. Instead, doctors could employ
miniaturized wireless pacemakers that can be delivered into the heart
through a major vein in the thigh.
On Monday, doctors in Austria implanted one such device into a
patient—the first participant in a human trial of what device-manufacturer
Medtronic says is the smallest pacemaker in the world.
The device is 24 millimeters long and 0.75 cubic centimeters in
volume—a tenth the size of a conventional pacemaker.
Doctors can implant such pacemakers into the heart through blood
vessels, via an incision in the thigh. They use steerable, flexible tubes
called catheters to push the pacemakers through a large vein

Mini Implantable Microscopes to
Watch Living Cells Inside the Body
According to an article in this week's Nature,
implantable microscopes are allowing doctors and
scientists to study living-cell interactions from inside
the body in real time. The new imaging techniques
may reduce painful biopsies for patients. And having
a better understanding of how cells behave in their
natural environments could help scientists to
develop more effective treatments.
Medical imaging pioneer Christopher Contag from
Stanford University thinks implantable microscopes
will one day enable scientists to quickly diagnose
disease from inside the body. He got involved with
implantable microscopes after trying to figure out
how HIV gets passed from mothers to babies. "I
thought, ‚This would be so much easier if we could
actually watch the cells move around in the body,'"
Contag says.
"Our idea is, rather than putting the mouse on the stage of
a microscope, let's put the microscope in the body and
image the tumor over time," Contag says.
Contag's group has built an implantable microscope that
will monitor interactions between immune cells and tumors
for days or weeks at a time. The mini microscope is shaped
like a cylinder and measures 3 mm by 5 mm. It is made of
aluminum-coated silicon wafers, and can image at a
resolution of 0.1 micrometers. The group recently began
testing the mini microscope in rats and mice.

Implantable Body Electronics Soften Up, Grip Tissue
Electronics are stiff. Bodies bend. One of the biggest challenges for wearable and implantable medical devices is to get
them to flex. So far, they don’t.
But a team at UT Dallas in collaboration with the University of Tokyo has come up with an electronic device that’s stiff
at room temperature but then gets soft when implanted inside a warm body. In its flexible state, it can conform to
tissue, organs, nerves and blood vessels.
Such a device could be used like a sensor to monitor bodily functions or stimulate different areas as part of a
treatment.
Graduate student in materials science and engineering Jonathan Reeder created the flexible electronics by laminate
and curing shape memory polymers on top of transistors.
Outside the body, the device can be handled easily for placement inside the body. Once inside the body, the materials
warms and becomes soft. The scientists tested their electronic device in rats and found that after implantation, the
device morphed with living tissue.

The Astounding And Horrific World As Seen Under A
Microscope

Gamers Reveal The Inner Workings Of The Eye
The human retina allows the eye to follow the path of a moving object, such as a Ping-Pong ball in play. Neuroscientists
have been toiling for 50 years to explain how, but they lack the processing power to map the eye’s neural network. (With
today’s cutting-edge modeling software, 100 people would have to work 24/7 for half a million years.)
An online game called EyeWire, developed at MIT, harnesses the power of gamers instead. Each player navigates a single
nerve’s path across a tiny section of mouse retina. “It’s actually extremely challenging,” says Amy Robinson, EyeWire’s
creative director. “No computer program can do it automatically.”
Some 135,000 gamers have spent a year and a half connecting retinal dots, which scientists then used to reconstruct the
neural wiring in 3-D and hypothesize how the retina processes observed motion. They published their findings in Nature
in May.
Now the team is working on a game that traces nerves in the olfactory cortex to find out how the brain associates
emotions with particular smells.

How Scientists Could Watch Brain Chemicals
Through The Skull
Researchers have discovered a way to see chemicals at work behind bone. In the future, they hope to develop their
technique as a way of watching chemical messages as they blip through the brain, underneath the skull.
The work is still preliminary. So far, the researchers have tested their method in… a cut of lamb shoulder. A team of
chemists and bioengineers from Northwestern University injected chemically modified gold nanoparticles inside their
raw lamb meat, then shined laser light at the bone on the other side of the injection. Using Raman spectroscopy
methods, the scientists found they could detect the gold through the bone, Chemical & Engineering News reports.
If this technique does work in living brains, scientists would have to get the gold particles to attach to the brain
chemicals they want to study. That way, when the laser detects the gold particles, it would be detecting the brain
chemical, too. The Northwestern team plans to try to attach the neurotransmitter dopamine to their nanogold,
Chemical & Engineering News reports.

The first real-time, non-invasive imaging of
neurons forming a neural network
A new imaging technique developed by Gabriel Popescu at
the University of Illinois now gives researchers a way to
watch the flow of ions and proteins, the molecular flux of
life itself, as living networks begin to materialize.
Clearly, as our knowledge about brains
grows, it is becoming difficult to imagine
them just as some kind of computer.
Instead, I would suggest we start to think
about computers as very specific
instances of the more generalized
concept of “brains.” Popescu’s imaging
device will also prove handy in
investigating more specific questions
about metabolic activity.
Behaviors specific to particular kinds of
cells might also be better resolved. As
other researchers adopt more of these
precise real-time ways to watch the
nervous system wire itself, questions
should rise and fall, and the drudgery of
the single-hypothesis experiment
evaporate.

Transparent Brain Could Clear Up the Mysteries of the Mind
Stanford University neurobiologist Karl Deisseroth has brought CLARITY, a
technique that turns brain tissue transparent while maintaining its structure. The
method, described in Nature in April, makes it possible to inspect the 3-D
architecture of an intact mouse brain in microscopic detail.
Traditionally, scientists explore neuroanatomy in animals by injecting dyes or
stains that illuminate specific nerve cells and connections. They then kill the
animal and slice its brain tissue thin enough so that light can shine through it
under a microscope, revealing the structure within each slice.
But reconstructing 3-D architecture from a stack of slides is imprecise and slow.
And neuroanatomists have been unable to look at a whole brain at once because
the fatty insulation that coats neurons deflects light and obscures their view.
With CLARITY, a mouse brain or a chunk of human brain is first soaked in a
hydrogel solution. This goo links molecules together when heated, stabilizing
proteins and nucleic acids to maintain the integrity of the tissue. The team then
adds an electrically charged detergent to dissolve fats coating the neurons. When
an electric field is applied, the current strips away the detergent and fat.
The result: a brain like glass, visible in fine detail without slicing and dicing.
Deisseroth says the technique will help reveal faulty connectivity in neurological
and psychiatric diseases like autism by making it easier to study brain wiring. In
studying these diseases, he says, “A limitation has been: How are circuits wired
up?”

Chemistry in Ultra HD shows science
like you've never seen it
Chemistry was always the most visually appealing of the sciences I studied in school. There were
all those amazing colors, plus smoke, bubbles and best of all, fire!
Turns out, I'm not the only one who found chemistry to be attractive. A collaboration between
the Institute of Advanced Technology at the University of Science and Technology of China and
Tsinghua University Press has led to the formation of BeautifulChemistry.net, a site whose goal is
"to bring the beauty of chemistry to the general public through digital media and technology."
To start on the path, the creators "used a 4K UltraHD camera and special lenses to capture
chemical reactions in astonishing detail without the distraction of beakers and test tubes."
Those reactions are compiled in the following video and are broken into six different categories.

Ultra-Sharp Images of Cells, Made Using Fluorescent DNA
This ultrasharp image uses a new method to
simultaneously resolve microtubules (green),
mitochondria (purple), Golgi apparatus (red), and
peroxisomes (yellow) from a single human cell. The
scale bar is 5 microns
By attaching colored, fluorescent tags
to short stretches of DNA, a team at
Harvard University’s Wyss Institute for
Biologically Inspired Engineering has
developed an imaging system that can
resolve structures less than 10
nanometers apart.
Repeating the process with different complementary DNA
sequences lets scientists assemble an ultra-sharp composite image
of multiple cellular components.
Now, instead of struggling to understand how cells are put
together, the challenge is using the method to gauge how cells
respond to things like environmental stresses or therapeutic drugs.
Inside each cell in your body, a startling array of molecular
machinery is whirring and humming, from the tiny factories that
assemble proteins, to the furnaces that produce energy, to the
skeletal fibers that help cells move and maintain their shape.
Watching how these myriad operations work together — and how
the system breaks down – has been both a research goal and a
technology bane.
The team begins with short, specific sequences of DNA.
These sequences are then attached to molecules, called
antibodies, that recognize specific proteins or cellular
structures. So, when the antibodies find and bind to their
protein targets – say, the proteins making up the cell’s
skeleton — they’re carrying along their DNA flags.

How Scientists Are Learning To Shape Our Memory
Several studies have found chemical compounds that can be used to subdue or
even delete memories in mice (and maybe someday in people). In June, a report
led by an Emory University researcher showed that SR-8993, a drug that acts on
the brain’s opioid receptors, can prevent a fear memory from forming.
Researchers have known for decades that memories are unreliable.
They’re particularly adjustable when actively recalled because at that
point they’re pulled out of a stable molecular state. Last spring,
scientists published a study performed at the University of
Washington in which adult volunteers completed a survey about their
eating and drinking habits before age 16. A week later, they were
given personalized analyses of their answers that stated—falsely—
that they had gotten sick from rum or vodka as a teen. One in five not
only didn’t notice the lie, but also recalled false memories about it
and rated that beverage as less desirable than they had before.
Several studies have found chemical compounds that can be
used to subdue or even delete memories in mice (and
maybe someday in people). In June, a report led by an
Emory University researcher showed that SR-8993, a drug
that acts on the brain’s opioid receptors, can prevent a fear
memory from forming.
To make more targeted treatments, researchers
will ultimately need to understand how the brain’s
neurons encode each memory. Last year, Susumu
Tonegawa at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology reported that individual memories in
mice leave telltale molecular signatures in the
brain’s hippocampus region. In July, his group
caused mice to falsely associate an old memory
with a new context—essentially creating a false
memory. First, they genetically engineered a
mouse so that when its hippocampal cells were
activated, they would be tagged with a protein
that the researchers could switch on later. Then,
they put the mouse in an unfamiliar cage. The next
day, they moved it to a strikingly different cage
(smelly with black walls). Then, at precisely the
same time, they gave it an uncomfortable shock
and switched on the tagging protein to briefly
activate cells that had been active in the old cage.
When they put the mouse back in the old cage, it
froze as if afraid—as if it had a false memory of
being shocked there.

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