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    Category Biology/Biotechnology

    Personalized Microrobots Swim through Biological Barriers, deliver Drugs to 570Cells

    April 8, 2020, Categories  Biology/Biotechnology, Physics, Technology/Electronics

    Illustration (top) and scanning electron microscopy image (bottom) of biohybrid bacterial microswimmers, which were fabricated by combining genetically engineered E. coli MG1655 and nanoerythrosomes made from red blood cells. A biotin-streptavidin interaction was used to attach nanoerythrosomes to the bacterial membrane. CREDIT:
    Image courtesy of the authors

    Tiny biohybrid robots on the micrometer scale can swim through the body and deliver drugs to tumors or provide other cargo-carrying functions. The natural environmental sensing tendencies of bacteria mean they can navigate toward certain chemicals or be remotely controlled using magnetic or sound signals.

    To be successful, these tiny biological robots must consist of materials that can pass clearance through the body’s immune res...

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    Brown Fat can Burn Energy in an unexpected way

    April 7, 2020, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    FGF6 and FGF9 regulate UCP1 expression independent of brown adipogenesis. Nature Communications, 2020; 11 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-15055-9

    Researchers have discovered an unexpected biological pathway by which brown fat cells can translate energy into heat. When we are exposed to sufficient cold or exercise, small clusters of brown fat cells in our bodies begin to burn up energy. Since 2009, when researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center and other institutions discovered that this helpful form of fat can be active in adults, scientists have sought to turn up the heat from these cells to treat obesity, diabetes and other metabolic conditions.

    Researchers in the lab of Joslin’s Yu-Hua Tseng, PhD, a Senior Investigator in the Section on Integrative Physiology and Metabolism, now have dis...

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    Vermont team invents Emergency Ventilator

    April 7, 2020, Categories  Technology/Electronics, Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    A commercial ventilator can have 1500 parts supplied from more than a dozen countries. UVM engineer Carl Silver built the first prototype of an emergency ventilator in one day with parts he found in his house and UVM’s IMF Lab. He’s part of a Vermont team seeking emergency review from the FDA to make the ventilator available for hospitals overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients. They’ll be sharing the innovative design—and looking for support and manufacturing partners. Credit: Ian Thomas Jansen-Lonnquist

    Over the last three weeks, a team of scientists, engineers and doctors at the University of Vermont have developed a new design—and built a working model—for a simple, inexpensive ventilator.

    “We think these could be rolled out very quickly and be effective on an emergency b...

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    Natural Sunscreen Gene influences how we make Vitamin D

    April 6, 2020, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    Genetic variations in the skin can create a natural sunscreen, according to University of Queensland researchers investigating the genes linked with vitamin D.

    Professor John McGrath from UQ’s Queensland Brain Institute said this was one of a number of ways vitamin D affected the body in a collaborative study that looked at the genomes of more than half a million people from the United Kingdom.

    “This study has implicated several new skin-related genes that impact on our vitamin D status – distinct from skin colour which affects our ability to make vitamin D depending on the concentration of the pigment melanin in the skin,” Professor McGrath said.

    “Vitamin D is the sunshine hormone and we need bright sunshine on the skin to make it, but variations in our genes also influence ...

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