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    Category Biology/Biotechnology

    Empowering Mucosal Healing with an Engineered Probiotic

    December 11, 2019, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    Inflammatory lesions destroy epithelial cells that function as a barrier between the inside of the gut (lumen) and the rest of the body (left). This loss of barrier function leads to a feedback cycle of worsening inflammation fueled by bacteria and other particles crossing the barrier. PATCH is a bioactive material synthesized by engineered probiotic bacteria that helps to maintain gut barrier function even in the presence of inflammatory insults, thereby helping to keep bacteria and other particulates in the lumen and ameliorating the symptoms of inflammation (right). Credit: Wyss Institute at Harvard University

    Researchers developed a living material approach that uses a strain of genetically engineered E.coli Nissle bacteria as a locally acting probiotic...

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    Storing Data in Everyday Objects

    December 9, 2019, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics, Health/Medical, Chemistry/Nanotechnology, Biology/Biotechnology

    3D-printed plastic rabbit
    A 3D-​printed plastic rabbit. The plastic contains DNA molecules in which the printing instructions have been encoded. (Photograph: ETH Zurich / Julian Koch)

    Researchers and an Israeli scientist have discovered a new method for turning nearly any object into a data storage unit. This makes it possible to save extensive data in, say, shirt buttons, water bottles or even the lenses of glasses, and then retrieve it years later. The technique also allows users to hide information and store it for later generations. It uses DNA as the storage medium.

    Living beings contain their own assembly and operating instructions in the form of DNA. That’s not the case with inanimate objects: anyone wishing to 3D print an object also requires a set of instructions...

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    First Long-Term Estimates suggest Link between Cholesterol Levels and Risk of Heart Disease and Stroke

    December 9, 2019, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    Figure thumbnail gr4
    Model of long-term cardiovascular disease risk prediction and the benefit of lipid reduction
    Individual risk of fatal or non-fatal cardiovascular disease in women (A) and men (B) according to age, non-HDL cholesterol concentration, and the number of additional cardiovascular risk factors (daily smoking, arterial hypertension, diabetes, and obesity; white circle). The red circle represents the probability (%) of cardiovascular disease by the age of 75 years. The hypothetically achievable probability (%) for cardiovascular disease by the age of 75 years after 50% reduction of non-HDL cholesterol is given in the green circle. 

    The most comprehensive analysis of its kind suggests that there is a strong link between non-HDL cholesterol levels and long-term risk for cardiovascular disease in...

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    Chip-based Optical Sensor Detects Cancer Biomarker in Urine

    December 8, 2019, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

     Pump light coupled to the device produced lasing in a microring resonator. The surface of the resonator holds probes (red anchor molecules on the ring) that capture the analytes of interest. The laser light in the ring extends into the fluid. When analytes of interest (blue triangles) attach to the capture probes, this is sensed by the field outside the microring laser, shifting the frequency of the laser emission. This shift can be very precisely measured permitting the detection of minute amounts of analytes flowing over the sensor in a “specific” manner (i.e., the pink particles do not bind to the capture layer and are therefore not detected)...
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