Category Biology/Biotechnology

Northwestern University researchers have developed a first-of-its-kind small, flexible, stretchable bandage that accelerates healing by delivering electrotherapy directly to the wound site.

In an animal study, the new bandage healed diabetic ulcers 30% faster than in mice without the bandage.

The bandage also actively monitors the healing process and then harmlessly dissolves—electrodes and all—into the body after it is no longer needed. The new device could provide a powerful tool for patients with diabetes, whose ulcers can lead to various complications, including amputated limbs or even death.

The research will be published online in the Feb. 22 issue of the journal Science Advances...

Elevated levels of air pollutants are associated with bone damage among postmenopausal women, according to new research led by scientists at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. The effects were most evident on the lumbar spine, with nitrous oxides twice as damaging to the area as in normal aging.

The research findings appear in the journal eClinicalMedicine.

Previous studies on individual pollutants have suggested adverse effects on bone mineral density, osteoporosis risk, and fractures in older individuals...

Once thought incapable of encoding proteins due to their simple monotonous repetitions of DNA, tiny telomeres at the tips of our chromosomes seem to hold a potent biological function that’s potentially relevant to our understanding of cancer and aging.

Reporting in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, UNC School of Medicine researchers Taghreed Al-Turki, Ph.D., and Jack Griffith, Ph.D...

Scientists at the University of East Anglia are a step closer to creating a new generation of light-activated cancer treatments. The futuristic sounding treatment would work by switching on LED lights embedded close to a tumour, which would then activate biotherapeutic drugs.

These new treatments would be highly targeted and more effective than current state-of-the-art cancer immunotherapies.

New research published today reveals the science behind this innovative idea.

It shows how the UEA team have engineered antibody fragments – which not only ‘fuse’ with their target but are also light activated.

It means that in future, immunotherapy treatments could be engineered to attack tumours more precisely than ever before.

The principal scientist for this study, ...