Category Biology/Biotechnology

Most of us know pectin as a key ingredient for making delicious jellies and jams, not as a component for a complex hybrid device that links biological and electronic systems. But a team of Italian scientists have built on previous work using pectin with a high degree of methylation as the medium to create a new architecture of hybrid device with a double-layered polyelectrolyte that alone drives memristive behavior. A memristive device is a synapse analogue, a device that has a memory. Its behavior in a certain moment depends on its previous activity, similar to the way information in the human brain is transmitted from one neuron to another.

“In this research, we applied materials generally used in the pharmaceutical and food industries in our electrochemical devices,” said Angelica Cifa...

Researchers have discovered that the intestinal parasite Tritrichomonas muris (pictured) increases the susceptibility of its host to colitis. Credit: Escalante et al., 2016

Researchers from University of Toronto have discovered that mice infected with the common gut parasite Tritrichomonas muris are at an increased risk of developing inflammatory colitis. Their findings expand the type of gut-resident microorganism that can affect the health of their host and suggest that related parasites may cause gastrointestinal disease in humans. Though some protozoan species, which are part of the protist kingdom of life, cause diseases like malaria and leishmaniasis, the protozoa that commonly live in the gut are generally thought to be harmless.

While studying the inflammatory mechanisms underlying...

Propionibacterium acnes. Credit: Matthias Mörgelin, Lund University

Rolf Lood from Lund University in Sweden has shown that the most common bacteria on human skin, Propionibacterium acnes secrete a protein which protects us from the reactive oxygen species thought to contribute to several skin diseases. The protein has an equally strong effect on dangerous oxygen species as known antioxidants eg vitamin C and E.

“The name originates from the fact that the bacterium was first discovered on a patient with severe acne. But whether it causes acne is uncertain – it may have been present merely because it is so common,” says Rolf Lood, Lund. He has discovered that the “acne bacterium” secretes a proteinm RoxP...

In thyroid eye disease (TED), orbital fibroblasts form contractile myofibroblasts that secrete high levels of collagen and lead to destructive tissue remodeling. Fluorescent staining shows the myofibroblast morphology of orbital fibroblasts from a TED patient. Cells were stained with the actin binding molecule, phalloidin (red) and nucleic acid stain, DAPI (blue). Credit: The American Journal of Pathology

Aryl hydrocarbon receptor ligands that block myofibroblast formation and collagen production in thyroid eye disease may be the key, according to a new report in The American Journal of Pathology. A new class of therapies may be on the horizon for thyroid eye disease (TED) and other destructive scarring conditions...