Category Health/Medical

Exploiting biased reptation for continuous flow preparative DNA fractionation in a versatile microfluidic platform. Microsystems & Nanoengineering, 2017; 3: 17001 DOI: 10.1038/micronano.2017.1

University of Twente researchers in The Netherlands developed a glass microchip for ultrafast separation and purification of DNA fragments. The chip, moreover, is easy to produce and cheap. The new chip is capable of fractionating DNA fragments within just a few minutes, while conventional approaches take hours. The chip does this in high resolution and also purifies the fragments; it removes the other salts in the DNA sample. Tiny amounts of DNA, like in medical diagnostics or in forensics, will be sufficient...

Medical resident Jarod Roland, MD, tries out a device that detects electrical activity in his brain and causes his hand to open and close in response to brain signals. A new study shows that this device can help chronic stroke patients recover some control over their paralyzed limbs. Credit: Leuthardt lab

Device reads brain signals, converts them into motion. Stroke patients who learned to use their minds to open and close a device fitted over their paralyzed hands gained some control over their hands, according to a new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis...

Researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas have found that two types of non-small cell lung cancer metabolize glucose — a type of sugar — differently. A glucose transporter called GLUT1, shown in green, is much more prevalent in lung squamous cell carcinoma cells (right) in comparison to lung adenocarcinoma cells (left). The findings, published in the online journal Nature Communications, may aid the development of new lung cancer therapies targeted at inhibiting GLUT1. Credit: University of Texas at Dallas

In a new study, The University of Texas at Dallas scientists have found that some types of cancers have more of a sweet tooth than others...

How bioelectricity strengthens the innate immune response (Credit: Jean-Francois Pare/Tufts University)

Drugs already approved for other uses in people help frogs survive deadly E. coli by changing their cells’ electrical charge. Changing the natural electrical signaling that exists in cells outside the nervous system can improve resistance to life-threatening bacterial infections, according to new research from Tufts University biologists. The researchers found that administering drugs, including those already used in humans for other purposes, to make the cell interior more negatively charged strengthens tadpoles’innate immune response to E. coli infection and injury...