Category Biology/Biotechnology

The illustration shows a minute fraction of a fly brain. The automated analysis partitions a three-dimensional image stack into individual nerve cells, depicted here with arbitrary colors. Twenty of such images side by side approximate the diameter of a human hair. Credit: Thorsten Beier, IWR

Precise knowledge of the connections in the brain – the links between all the nerve cells – is a prerequisite for better understanding this most complex of organs. Researchers from Heidelberg University have now developed a new algorithm that can extract this connectivity pattern with far greater precision than previously possible from microscopic images of the brain. Prof. Dr Fred Hamprecht expects such automated image data analysis to bring about great strides in the neurosciences...

A schematic representation of the experimental design. Credit: Image courtesy of Northwestern University

Procedure could potentially treat patients with injuries to the skull. A team repaired a hole in a mouse’s skull by regrowing “quality bone,” a breakthrough that could drastically improve the care of people who suffer severe trauma to the skull or face. The work by a joint team of Northwestern University and University of Chicago researchers showed that a potent combination of technologies was able to regenerate the skull bone with supporting blood vessels in just the discrete area needed without developing scar tissue – and more rapidly than with previous methods.

Injuries or defects in the skull or facial bones are very challenging to treat, often requiring the surgeon to graft bone f...

MC4R-dependent suppression of appetite by bone-derived lipocalin 2. Nature, 2017; DOI:

Scientists discover new mechanism that regulates food intake and blood sugar. Lipocalin 2 turns on neurons in the brain that have been previously linked to appetite suppression. The findings reveal a previously unknown mechanism for regulating the body’s energy balance and could lead to new targeted therapies for the treatment of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and other metabolic disorders.

“In recent years, studies at CUMC and elsewhere have shown that bone is an endocrine organ and produces hormones that affect brain development, glucose balance, kidney function, and male fertility,” says Stavroula Kousteni, PhD, associate professor of physiology and cellular biophysics (in medicine) at CUMC...

(A) An image of the nanobiodevice (left), an SEM image of the hybrid structure of nanopillars and nanoslits (middle), and the magnified SEM image (right). (B) Schematic of the hybrid structure of nanopillars and nanoslits around the cross injector. (C) Diagram showing the scheme of sample injection. Figure panels C-a to C-e are arranged by time in ascending order. Sample of nucleic acids and direction of electrophoretic migration are depicted in green diagonal and blue arrows, respectively. Suggested dominant mechanisms for each process are shown at the bottom.

A nanobiodevice that can quickly and effectively separate microRNA from mixtures of nucleic acids has been developed...