Category Biology/Biotechnology

This diagram depicts the way a mid-infrared laser (red cylinder, left) can send a beam through the atmosphere that generates filaments of ionized air molecules (multicolored beam, center, shown with magnified view). These filaments, which can be kilometers long, help to keep the beam concentrated enough to generate mid-infrared light in air (blue cloud, right) that can reveal detailed chemical composition through spectral analysis (chart at right) of the light picked up by a mid-infrared detector (bottom). Credit: Diagram courtesy of the researchers

Researchers have found a new way of using mid-infrared lasers to turn regions of molecules in the open air into glowing filaments of electrically charged gas, or plasma...

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis are using a locust’s sense of smell to develop new biorobotic sensing devices.

Washington Uni engineers in St. Louis are looking to capitalize on the sense of smell in locusts to create new biorobotic sensing systems that could be used in homeland security applications. A/Prof B. Raman et al are using the sensitive locust olfactory system to develop a bio-hybrid nose. Biological sensing systems are far more complex than their engineered counterparts, including the chemical sensing system responsible for our sense of smell. Although the sense of smell is a primitive sense, it is conserved across many vertebrate and invertebrate species.

For several years and with prior funding from ONR, Raman has been studying how sensory signals are receive...

Cancerous tumor cells.

New treatment, requiring only a single dose and a beam of light, can kill up to 95% of cancer cells in 2 hours. A/Prof Matthew Gdovin, UTSA Department of Biology, has developed a newly patented method to kill cancer cells. It may tremendously help people with inoperable or hard-to-reach tumors, as well as young children stricken with cancer.

Gdovin’s top-tier research involves injecting a chemical compound, nitrobenzaldehyde, into the tumor and allowing it to diffuse into the tissue. He then aims a beam of light at the tissue, causing the cells to become very acidic inside and, essentially, commit suicide. Gdovin tested his method against triple negative breast cancer, one of the most aggressive types of cancer and one of the hardest to treat...

Clumps of the protein a-synuclein in a Parkinsonian brain. Credit: Donghoon Kim/Johns Hopkins Medicine

Researchers at Johns Hopkins say they have gleaned 2 important new clues in the fight against Parkinson’s disease: that blocking an enzyme called c-Abl prevents the disease in specially bred mice, and that a chemical tag on a second protein may signal the disorder’s presence and progression. Their work, suggests a promising target for drug research and a tool that could speed Parkinson’s disease research more broadly.

“There were indications that c-Abl activity leads to Parkinson’s disease, and our experiments show there is indeed a connection,” says Prof. Ted Dawson, M.D., Ph.D...