Category Biology/Biotechnology

This image shows the selective response of a subplate neuron to sounds of different frequencies (horizontal axis) and volume levels (vertical axis). Warmer colors indicate a stronger response. Subplate neurons are among the first neurons to form in the cerebral cortex and were previously thought to serve a primarily structural role in brain development. A new study suggests that these neurons do, in fact, transmit sensory information. This cell only responded to higher frequencies, especially at low volume levels; increased volume expanded the cell’s frequency range of response. Prior to this study, the ability of the cortex to selectively respond to certain sounds was thought to emerge later in brain development. Credit: Patrick Kanold

Brain cells that support early structural development...

Chloroquine is used to overcome the liver, a major problem in nanomedicine. Credit: Houston Methodist

A new study shows that a 70-year-old malaria drug can block immune cells in the liver so nanoparticles can arrive at their intended tumor site, overcoming a significant hurdle of targeted drug delivery, according to a team of researchers led by Houston Methodist. Many cancer patients do not respond to chemotherapies because the drugs never reach the cancer cells. Even in nanomedicine, which is one of the best new methods for delivering drugs to a tumor, only about 1% of a dose of nanoparticles will successfully arrive at the intended tumor site, while the rest are filtered out by the immune cells of the liver and spleen.

Using chloroquine, the researchers not only increased the circulation...

Diamidophosphate (DAP)

Chemists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found a compound that may have been a crucial factor in the origins of life on Earth. Origins-of-life researchers have hypothesized that a chemical reaction called phosphorylation may have been crucial for the assembly of three key ingredients in early life forms: short strands of nucleotides to store genetic information, short chains of amino acids (peptides) to do the main work of cells, and lipids to form encapsulating structures such as cell walls. Yet, no one has ever found a phosphorylating agent that was plausibly present on early Earth and could have produced these three classes of molecules side-by-side under the same realistic conditions.

TSRI chemists have now identified just such a compound: diamidoph...

The Burton lab studies tiny, plastic particles as a model for more complex systems. The particles are suspended in a vacuum chamber filled with a plasma — ionized argon gas. Credit: Justin Burton, Emory University

Complex behavior emerges from a simple system in a fixed environment. Physicists at Emory University have shown how a system of lifeless particles can become “life-like” by collectively switching back and forth between crystalline and fluid states – even when the environment remains stable. “We’ve discovered perhaps the simplest physical system that can consistently keep changing behavior over time in a fixed environment,” says Justin Burton, Emory assistant professor of physics. “In fact, the system is so simple we never expected to see such a complex property emerge from it.”

M...