Category Biology/Biotechnology

This photograph shows high throughput bioprinting of cells into microwells. Credit: Ozbolat Lab at Penn State

Now that 3D printing has made it easier to generate custom-made prosthetics, bioengineers are looking ahead at manufacturing actual cellular material. Such technology could be the basis for personalized biomedical devices; tissue-engineered skin, cartilage, and bone; or even working bladders. In a Trends in Biotechnology special issue on biofabrication, publishing August 17, researchers review and consider the progress made in 3D bioprinting and what might be possible in the decades — or years — ahead.

1. Made-to-Order Organs-on-a-Chip: inexpensive and efficient personalized medicine...

High Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol

Commonly touted as “good cholesterol” for helping to reduce risk of stroke and heart attack, both high and low levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol may increase a person’s risk of premature death, according to new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System. Conversely, intermediate HDL cholesterol levels may increase longevity.

“The findings surprised us,” said Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, an assistant professor of medicine at Washington University and the study’s senior author. “Previously it was thought that raised levels of the good cholesterol were beneficial...

Postdoc Jinsen Chen, left, and chemistry professor Shiyue Fang in the lab where Fang’s group discovered a new way to synthesize DNA. Credit: Michigan Tech

Michigan Technological University scientists have developed a process that could lead to stickier and better gene therapy drugs. The drugs, called antisense DNA, are made from short, single strands of synthetic DNA. They work by blocking cells from making harmful proteins, which can cause maladies ranging from cancer to Ebola to HIV-AIDS. Only a couple of these synthetic DNA drugs are on the market, but a number are in clinical trials, including a potential treatment for ALS.

Disease organisms can inject harmful proteins into our bodies, and so can mutations in our own genetic material...

Transmission electron microscope image of negative-stained, Fortaleza-strain Zika virus (red), isolated from a microcephaly case in Brazil. (Microscopy/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health)

First study to examine Zika infection in human neural stem cells from second-trimester fetuses. USC researchers have tracked down 2 Zika proteins potentially responsible for thousands of microcephaly cases in Brazil and elsewhere – taking one small step toward preventing Zika-infected mothers from birthing babies with abnormally small heads.The Zika virus contains 10 proteins, but only NS4A and NS4B matter when it comes to microcephaly...