Category Biology/Biotechnology

Machine learning helps some of the best microscopes to see better, work faster, and process more data. Collaboration between deep learning experts and microscopy experts leads to an significantly improved data-intensive light-field microscopy method by using AI and ground-truthing it with light-sheet microscopy. The result is the power of light-field microscopy available to biologists in near real time vs. days or weeks, AND the expansion of biologists’ ability to use this microscopy for many things more things requiring the most detailed observation.

To observe the swift neuronal signals in a fish brain, scientists have started to use a technique calle...

Latest advance in targeted delivery of therapeutic proteins. A team of researchers at the Center for Bioactive Delivery at the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Institute for Applied Life Sciences has engineered a nanoparticle that has the potential to revolutionize disease treatment, including for cancer. This new research, which appears today in Angewandte Chemie, combines two different approaches to more precisely and effectively deliver treatment to the specific cells affected by cancer.

Two of the most promising new treatments involve delivery of cancer-fighting drugs via biologics or antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs). Each has its own advantages and limitations...

Alzheimer’s disease is caused by protein deposits in the brain and the rapid loss of brain matter. But a Mediterranean diet rich in fish, vegetables and olive oil might protect the brain from these disease triggers. In Alzheimer’s disease, neurons in the brain die. Largely responsible for the death of neurons are certain protein deposits in the brains of affected individuals: So-called beta-amyloid proteins, which form clumps (plaques) between neurons, and tau proteins, which stick together the inside of neurons. The causes of these deposits are as yet unclear. In addition, a rapidly progressive atrophy, i.e. a shrinking of the brain volume, can be observed in affected persons...

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) developed a breakthrough in energy-efficient phototransistors. Such devices could eventually help computers process visual information more like the human brain and be used as sensors in things like self-driving vehicles.

The structures rely on a new type of semiconductor — metal-halide perovskites — which have proven to be highly efficient at converting sunlight into electrical energy and shown tremendous promise in a range of other technologies.

“In general, these perovskite semiconductors are a really unique functional system with potential benefits for a number of different technologies,” said Jeffrey Blackb...