Scientists use copper nanowires to combat the spread of diseases

Left: Scanning electron microscopy image of the CuNW network on a copper-sprayed surface. Right: Up-close image of CuNW nanowire, which is about 60 nm in diameter, approximately 100x smaller than a human hair.
Resized Image using AI by SFLORG
Credit: Ames National Laboratory

An ancient metal used for its microbial properties is the basis for a materials-based solution to disinfection. A team of scientists from Ames National Laboratory, Iowa State University, and University at Buffalo developed an antimicrobial spray that deposits a layer of copper nanowires onto high-touch surfaces in public spaces. The spray contains copper nanowires (CuNWs) or copper-zinc nanowires (CuZnNWs) and can form an antimicrobial coating on a variety of surfaces. This research was initiated by the COVID-19 pandemic, but the findings have wider-reaching applications.

People have taken advantage of copper’s antimicrobial properties since 2400 B.C. to treat and prevent infections and diseases. It has been proven effective for inactivating viruses, bacteria, fungi, and yeasts when they are directly in contact with the metal. According to Jun Cui, a scientist at Ames Lab and one of the lead researchers on the project, “copper ion can penetrate the membrane of a virus and then insert itself into the RNA chain, and completely disable the virus from duplicating itself.”

Amidst the pandemic, “The DOE asked researchers, what can you do to help to mitigate this COVID situation?” Cui said. Ames Lab is known for work in materials science, not a field that often intersects with disease research. However, Cui’s team came up with the idea to apply copper’s antimicrobial properties to help reduce the spread of COVID.

Cui explained their idea came from a separate project they were working on, which is a copper ink designed for printing copper nanowires used in flexible electronic devices. “So, the thinking is, this is ink, and I can dilute it with water or even ethanol, and then just spray it. Whatever the surface, I spray it once and coat it with a very light layer of copper nanowire,” he said.

NIST Develops Genetic Material for Validating Monkeypox Tests

A vial of the positive control material from NIST that can be used to help ensure the accuracy of tests for monkeypox.   
Credit: R. Press/NIST

In an effort to help speed the expansion of monkeypox testing in the U.S., the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has produced a material that can help ensure the accuracy of tests for the disease. NIST is making the material, which contains gene fragments from the virus that causes the disease but is noninfectious and safe to handle, freely available for use by test manufacturers and testing laboratories.

Monkeypox is spread by close contact and can cause fever, flu-like symptoms and skin lesions. More than 3,500 cases of monkeypox have been confirmed in the United States since the outbreak began in late May, and the World Health Organization has declared monkeypox to be a global health emergency.

Testing is necessary to identify the extent of an outbreak and contain it, and to properly care for people who have caught the disease and those who may have been exposed. The monkeypox test, like the most sensitive test for COVID-19, uses a technique called polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, to detect genetic sequences from the virus that causes the disease.

Because the material from NIST contains those genetic sequences, laboratories can use it as a positive control — that is, a sample that should cause a positive result if their test is working properly. As the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) works to expand the nation’s testing capacity, the material from NIST will fill a growing need.

What bats can teach us about stopping the next pandemic

Tulane researcher Hannah Frank was part of a team of scientists looking at the complex connections between bats and coronaviruses, and how they evolved together.
Credit: Rusty Costanza

Why are bats often linked to incubating coronaviruses such as those behind COVID-19, SARS and other highly contagious respiratory diseases?

A new Tulane University study suggests that the link between bats and coronaviruses is likely due to a long-shared history, and that their genetic information can help us prevent and manage future pandemics.

Hannah Frank, PhD, a bat expert in the Tulane University School of Science and Engineering, led the effort in collaboration with David Enard (University of Arizona) and Scott Boyd (Stanford University).

“This study gives us greater insight into how mammals, particularly bats, have evolved with coronaviruses. It also highlights broad patterns in susceptibility that may prove useful for managing this and future pandemics.”

Tulane assistant professor Hannah Frank, PhD

“We found that bats have been under unusual pressure from coronaviruses compared to other mammals, supporting the idea that bats are rich sources of coronaviruses and may yield insights for future prevention or treatment,” said Frank, an assistant professor in the Tulane Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

Oldest DNA from domesticated American horse lends credence to shipwreck folklore

This tooth is all that remains from one of the first horses introduced to the Americas, and its DNA is helping rewrite the history of one of the best-known horse breeds in the United States: The Chincoteague pony.
Credit: Jeff Gage

An abandoned Caribbean colony unearthed centuries after it had been forgotten and a case of mistaken identity in the archaeological record have conspired to rewrite the history of a barrier island off the Virginia and Maryland coasts.

These seemingly unrelated threads were woven together when Nicolas Delsol, a postdoctoral researcher at the Florida Museum of Natural History, set out to analyze ancient DNA recovered from cow bones found in archaeological sites. Delsol wanted to understand how cattle were domesticated in the Americas, and the genetic information preserved in centuries-old teeth held the answer. But they also held a surprise.

“It was a serendipitous finding,” he said. “I was sequencing mitochondrial DNA from fossil cow teeth for my Ph.D. and realized something was very different with one of the specimens when I analyzed the sequences.”

That’s because the specimen in question, a fragment of an adult molar, wasn’t a cow tooth at all but instead once belonged to a horse. According to a study published this Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE, the DNA obtained from the tooth is also the oldest ever sequenced for a domesticated horse from the Americas.

Scientists develop effective intranasal mumps-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate

Researchers used a modified live attenuated mumps virus, illustrated above, to develop a COVID-19 vaccine candidate.
Credit: Alissa Eckert | CDC

New research has advanced COVID-19 vaccine work in several ways: using a modified live attenuated mumps virus for delivery, showing that a more stable coronavirus spike protein stimulates a stronger immune response, and suggesting a dose up the nose has an advantage over a shot.

Based on these combined findings in rodent experiments, Ohio State University scientists envision one day incorporating a coronavirus antigen into the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine as a way to produce COVID-19 immunity in kids.

“We were pushing to make a vaccine for infants and children with the idea that if we could incorporate the mumps COVID vaccine into the MMR vaccine, you’d have protection against four pathogens – measles, mumps, rubella and SARS-CoV-2 – in a single immunization program,” said Jianrong Li, senior author of the study and a professor of virology in Ohio State’s Department of Veterinary Biosciences and Infectious Diseases Institute.

“If infants and children could develop immunity against COVID infection with the MMR vaccine, that would be great – no extra immunization needed.”

The research is published today (July 27, 2022) in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

To create the antigen that stimulates immunity in this vaccine candidate, researchers used a prefusion version of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein – the shape it is in on the surface of the virus before the virus infects a cell. The spike was locked into this form by changing six of its amino acids to prolines, an inflexible amino acid.

100000 and Counting Atomic Modeling Silicon

Jim Chelikowsky and recent Oden Institute PhD graduate, Kai-Hsin Liou, sitting in the Professor's Oden Institute office.
Credit: Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences

A new record has been set by the Oden Institute’s Center for Computational Materials for calculating the energy distribution function, or “density of states,” for over 100,000 silicon atoms, a first in computational materials science. Calculations of this kind enable greater understanding of both the optical and electronic properties of materials.

Jim Chelikowsky leads the Center for Computational Materials, which set a new standard for the number of atoms that can be modeled. They didn’t just raise the bar though. They smashed it – multiplying the previously held record number by a factor of 10.

Chelikowsky along with Oden Institute PhD graduate, Kai-Hsin Liou and postdoctoral fellow, Mehmet Dogan, led the team behind this significant technical advancement in atomic modeling. Working with silicon atoms, they increased the number that could be modeled simultaneously from around 10,000 to over 100,000.

One mathematical way to approach such complex systems is by describing solutions in sines and cosines. This is useful for crystalline matter because it is periodic and we know that the properties of a little piece of a crystal will inform the whole crystal.

Parasites may take a heavier toll on mammal populations than previously thought

Tapeworm infection is caused by ingesting food or water contaminated with tapeworm eggs or larvae.
 Credit: University of Alberta

A new study looking at research on parasitic worms suggests the pesky but pervasive creatures have a far greater impact on the health of mammal populations than previously known.

“Parasites don't have to kill the animal to control a population,” says Kyle Shanebeck, a PhD student in the Faculty of Science’s Department of Biological Sciences who led the research review.

Shanebeck’s analysis shows that helminths — large parasites such as tapeworms, flatworms and flukes — have negative effects on the energetic condition, or total body health, of their mammal hosts that can impair systemic functioning, repair, growth, environmental adaptability and reproduction.

“They can affect the animal’s ability to absorb nutrients, which can affect digestive health and behavior, making them more aggressive and even changing where they forage,” notes Shanebeck, whose research is supervised by assistant professor Stephanie Green. “Helminth parasites also suppress immune action or weaken it, as the body spends energy to mount an immune response to fight them which can make a secondary infection worse.”

As Shanebeck explains, assessing population health in wildlife typically focuses on pathogenic diseases — the often-fatal illnesses that can spread between species, and potentially from animals to humans. Parasites, on the other hand, don’t kill their hosts so they tend to be ignored in conservation and management models.

Scientists develop greener, more efficient method for producing next-generation antibiotics

With the addition of a murine-derived biocatalyst (green), this engineered protein can add a fluoride atom to create macrolide analogs (structure, right). This approach offers a greener, more efficient method for creating new antibiotics.
Credit: Martin Grininger and Rajani Arora

An international team of researchers has developed a method for altering one class of antibiotics, using microscopic organisms that produce these compounds naturally.

The findings, published in Nature Chemistry, could lead to more efficient production of antibiotics that are effective against drug-resistant bacteria.

The team started with a microorganism that is genetically programmed to produce the antibiotic erythromycin. Scientists from the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Chemical

Biology at Germany’s Goethe University wondered if the system could be genetically altered to assemble the antibiotic with one additional fluorine atom, which can often improve pharmaceutical properties.

“We had been analyzing fatty acid synthesis for several years when we identified a part of a mouse protein that we believed could be used for directed biosynthesis of these modified antibiotics, if added to a biological system that can already make the native compound,” said Martin Grininger, professor for biomolecular chemistry at Goethe University.

Model developed to predict landslides along wildfire burn scars

Drought, wildfires and intensified precipitation can lead to debris flows, a fast-moving, highly destructive landslide.
Credit: Tierney Acott/Institute for Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern

A wildfire followed by an intense rainstorm is often a recipe for disaster. Without vegetation to cushion rainfall, water runoff can turn into a fast-moving, highly destructive landslide, called a “debris flow,” which often has the power to wipe out cars, homes and highways — sometimes resulting in casualties.

Northwestern University researchers have augmented a physics-based numerical model to investigate and predict areas susceptible to debris flows. This augmented model eventually could be used in an early warning system for people living in high-risk areas, enabling them to evacuate before it’s too late. Information from model simulations also could be used to design new infrastructure — such as diversion bars that deflect fast-moving water away from homes and roads — for high hazard zones.

The research was published today (July 27) in the journal Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences.

“People want to know about their immediate and future risk,” said Northwestern’s Daniel Horton, the study’s senior author. “Although it’s not yet to operational standards, this modelling framework could one day be instrumental in forecasting where debris flows are likely to occur and deciding who needs to be evacuated.”

Horton is an assistant professor of Earth and planetary sciences in Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, where he also leads the Climate Change Research Group. Chuxuan Li, a Ph.D. candidate in Horton’s laboratory, is the paper’s first author.

Viruses help combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria

Prof. Gil Westmeyer (l.) and his research team, in collaboration with Kilian Vogele (r.) and the start-up Invitris, have developed a new controlled production method to create bacteriophages for therapeutic use.
Credit: A. Heddergott / TUM

More and more bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotics. Bacteriophages are one alternative in the fight against bacteria: These viruses attack very particular bacteria in a highly specific way. Now a Munich research team has developed a new way to produce bacteriophages efficiently and without risk.

The World Health Organization (WHO) regards multi-resistant germs as among the largest threats to health. In the European Union alone, 33,000 people die each year as the result of bacterial infections which cannot be treated with antibiotics. Alternative treatments or drugs are therefore urgently needed.

Bacteriophages, the natural enemies of bacteria, are one promising solution. There are millions of different types of these viruses on earth, each of which specializes in certain bacteria. In nature, the viruses use the bacteria to reproduce; they insert their DNA into the bacteria, where the viruses quickly multiply. Ultimately, they kill off the cell and move on to infect new cells. Bacteriophages work as a specific antibiotic by attacking and destroying a particular type of bacterium.

"Bacteriophages offer an enormous potential for the highly effective, personalized therapy of infectious bacterial diseases," observes Gil Westmeyer, Professor of Neurobiological Engineering at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and Director of the Institute for Synthetic Biomedicine at Helmholtz Munich. "However, in the past, it wasn't possible to produce bacteriophages in a targeted, reproducible, safe and efficient manner – although these are exactly the decisive criteria for the successful production of pharmaceuticals."