Recent Comments

    Category Health/Medical

    Researchers Decode Molecule that Gives Living Tissues their Flexibility

    June 28, 2018, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    This diagram depicts the configuration of the complex tropoelastin molecule, which forms the basis for the elastin that gives tissues like skin and blood vessels their elasticity. The molecule’s atom-by-atom structure was decoded by a team of researchers from MIT, Australia and the UK. Credit: Courtesy of the researchers

    Study reveals atomic structure of tropoelastin, showing what goes wrong in some diseases. The stretchiness that allows living tissues to expand, contract, stretch, and bend throughout a lifetime is the result of a protein molecule called tropoelastin. Remarkably, this molecule can be stretched to 8X its length and always returns back to its original size.

    Now, for the first time, researchers have decoded the molecular structure of this complex molecule, as well as the details of what can go wrong with its structure in various genetically driven diseases. Tropoelastin is the precursor molecule of elastin, which along with structures called microfibrils is the key to flexibility of tissues including skin, lungs, and blood vessels...

    Read More

    Faster, more precise Lab-on-a-Chip holds promise of Early Cancer Diagnosis

    June 28, 2018, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    Squeezing light into nano-size volumes is enabled by surface plasmon resonance, a phenomenon that causes molecules to be trapped near the film, making them available for study under powerful microscopes. Credit: Justus Ndukaife/Vanderbilt University

    An award-winning Vanderbilt University researcher used plasmonics to develop a new kind of nanotweezers that can rapidly trap and detect molecules, viruses and DNA – a device transformative for medicine that also has color printing applications. Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering Justus Ndukaife and his Purdue University collaborators poked holes in gold film smaller than the wavelength of light...

    Read More

    The Na/K-ATPase Oxidant Amplification Loop Regulates Aging

    June 27, 2018, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    Effects of pNaKtide on adipocyte phenotype, senescence, and apoptosis in C57Bl6 aging mice. (A) H&E staining in visceral adipose tissue. Images taken with 40X objective lens; scale bar represents 100 µm. Arrows mark “crown like structures” indicative of inflammation. (B) Quantitative analysis of adipocytes area in visceral adipose tissue. (C) Representative images of TUNEL assay with quantification in C57B16 aging mice. Images taken with 40X objective lens; scale bar represents 25 µm. (D–F) qRT-PCR analysis of ApoJ, p21 and PPARγ in C57Bl6 aging mice with GAPDH as a loading control. Y, young; Y + P, young + pNaKtide; OB, old baseline; O, old; O + P, old + pNaKtide; O + WD, old + western diet; O + WD + P, old + western diet + pNaKtide. N = 8/group, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01 vs Y, #p < 0.05, ##p < 0.01 vs O, &p < 0.05, &&p < 0.01 vs O + WD.

    Effects of pNaKtide on adipocyte phenotype, senescence, and apoptosis in C57Bl6 aging mice. (A) H&E staining in visceral adipose tissue. Images taken with 40X objective lens; scale bar represents 100 µm. Arrows mark “crown like structures” indicative of inflammation. (B) Quantitative analysis of adipocytes area in visceral adipose tissue. (C) Representative images of TUNEL assay with quantification in C57B16 aging mice. Images taken with 40X objective lens; scale bar represents 25 µm. (D–F) qRT-PCR analysis of ApoJ, p21 and PPARγ in C57Bl6 aging mice with GAPDH as a loading control. Y, young; Y + P, young + pNaKtide; OB, old baseline; O, old; O + P, old + pNaKtide; O + WD, old + western diet; O + WD + P, old + western diet + pNaKtide. N = 8/group, *p < 0.05, **p < 0...

    Read More

    Delivering Insulin in a Pill

    June 26, 2018, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    Oral delivery method could dramatically transform the way in which diabetics keep their blood sugar levels in check. Credit: Harvard SEAS

    Oral delivery method could dramatically transform the way in which diabetics keep their blood sugar levels in check. Credit: Harvard SEAS

    Technique could replace daily injections for diabetics. For millions of people living with type 1 diabetes, a painful needle prick once or twice daily is currently the only option for delivering the insulin that their bodies cannot produce on their own. Now, researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have developed an oral delivery method that could dramatically transform the way in which diabetics keep their blood sugar levels in check.

    Not only does oral delivery of insulin promise to improve the quality of life for up to 40 million people with type 1 diabetes worldwide, it could also mitigate many of t...

    Read More