Lab engineers 3D-functional Bone Tissues

Dr. Akhilesh K. Gaharwar, associate professor, has developed a highly printable bioink as a platform to generate anatomical-scale functional tissues. This study was recently published in the American Chemical Society’s Applied Materials and Interfaces.

Bioprinting is an emerging additive manufacturing approach that takes biomaterials such as hydrogels and combines them with cells and growth factors, which are then printed to create tissue-like structures that imitate natural tissues.

One application of this technology could be designing patient-specific bone grafts, an area that is gaining interest from researchers and clinicians. Managing bone defects and injuries through traditional treatments tends to be slow and expensive...

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Scientists Eliminate Drug Side Effects by Manipulating Molecular chirality

Dr Jeffery Huang Zhifeng, Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at HKBU, has developed a novel approach to manipulating the chirality of drug molecules.
Dr Jeffery Huang Zhifeng, Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at HKBU, has developed a novel approach to manipulating the chirality of drug molecules.

Scientists from Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) have developed a novel technique that can produce pure therapeutic drugs without the associated side effects.

The approach, which uses a nanostructure fabrication device, can manipulate the chirality of drug molecules by controlling the direction a substrate is rotated within the device, thus eliminating the possible side effects that can arise when people take drugs containing molecules with the incorrect chirality.

Published in the international scientific journal Nature Chemistry, the research findings pave the way towards the mass production of purer, cheaper and ...

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ALMA Discovers Massive Rotating Disk in Early Universe

Artist impression of the Wolfe Disk, a massive rotating disk galaxy in the early, dusty universe. The galaxy was initially discovered when ALMA examined the light from a more distant quasar (top left).
Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF, S. Dagnello

In our 13.8 billion-year-old universe, most galaxies like our Milky Way form gradually, reaching their large mass relatively late. But a new discovery made with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) of a massive rotating disk galaxy, seen when the universe was only ten percent of its current age, challenges the traditional models of galaxy formation. This research appears on 20 May 2020 in the journal Nature.

Galaxy DLA0817g, nicknamed the Wolfe Disk after the late astronomer Arthur M...

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Brain-to-Gut Connections traced

Neuroscientists at the University of Pittsburgh Brain Institute have traced neural pathways that connect the brain to the stomach, providing a biological mechanism to explain how stress can foster ulcer development.

The findings, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, build a scientific basis for the brain’s influence over organ function and emphasize the importance of the brain-body connection.

Until now, research exploring the gut-brain interaction has largely focused on the influence of the gut and its microbiome on the brain. But it’s not a one-way street – the brain also influences stomach function.

“Pavlov demonstrated many years ago that the central nervous system uses environmental signals and past experience to generate anti...

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