Molecular machines could treat fungal infections

Schematic representation of the mechanisms by which light-activated molecular machines kill fungi. Molecular machines bind to fungal mitochondria, decreasing adenosine triphosphate (ATP) production and impairing the function of energy-dependent transporters that control the movement of ions, such as calcium. This leads to the influx of water, which causes the organelles to swell and eventually the cells to burst.
Image Credit: Tour Group/Rice University

That stubborn athlete’s foot infection an estimated 70% of people get at some point in their life could become much easier to get rid of thanks to nanoscale drills activated by visible light.

Proven effective against antibiotic-resistant infectious bacteria and cancer cells, the molecular machines developed by Rice University chemist James Tour and collaborators are just as good at combating infectious fungi, according to a new study published in Advanced Science.

Based on the work of Nobel laureate Bernard Feringa, the Tour group’s molecular machines are nanoscale compounds whose paddlelike chain of atoms moves in a single direction when exposed to visible light. This causes a drilling motion that allows the machines to bore into the surface of cells, killing them.

Researchers Develop New Method to Improve Burn Assessment

The handheld THz Scanner is shown in operation.
Photo Credit: Terahertz Biophotonics Laboratory, Stony Brook University

Stony Brook Engineers Employ New Device and Neural Networks with Terahertz Spectroscopy

An important component to a more successful treatment course for burns is correctly assessing them, and current methods are not accurate enough. A team of Stony Brook University researchers believe they created a new method to significantly improve burn assessment. They are employing a physics-based neural network model that uses terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) data for non-invasive burn assessment. The team combines the approach with a handheld imaging device that they developed specifically for fast THz-TDS imaging of burn injuries. Details of their method are published in a paper in Biomedical Optics Express.

Studies have shown that the accuracy of burn diagnosis is only about 60 to 75 percent when trying to decide which one of the burns needs surgical intervention (skin grafting) or which burns can heal spontaneously. The Stony Brook team has found with their method using THz-TDS — broadly defined as detecting and measuring properties of matter with picosecond short pulses of electromagnetic fields — that THz spectroscopic imaging can increase the accuracy rate of burn diagnosis and classification to approximately 93 percent.

DARPA Selects Performer Teams for Liberty Lifter X-Plane Program

Liberty Lifter
Illustration Credit: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

Two teams -- General Atomics working with Maritime Applied Physics Corporation and Aurora Flight Sciences working with Gibbs & Cox and ReconCraft -- will develop designs for DARPA’s Liberty Lifter Seaplane Wing-in-Ground Effect full-scale demonstrator. The Liberty Lifter program aims to demonstrate a leap-ahead in operational capability by designing, building, floating, and flying a long-range, low-cost X-Plane capable of seaborne strategic and tactical heavy lift.

The planned Liberty Lifter demonstrator will be a large flying boat similar in size and capacity to the C-17 Globemaster III transport aircraft. Goals include takeoff and land in Sea State 4, sustained on-water operation up to Sea State 5, and extended flight close to the water in ground effect with the capability to fly out of ground effect at altitudes up to 10,000 feet above sea level.

“We are excited to kick off this program and looking forward to working closely with both performer teams as they mature their point-of-departure design concepts through Phase 1,” said DARPA Liberty Lifter Program Manager Christopher Kent. “The two teams have taken distinctly different design approaches that will enable us to explore a relatively large design space during Phase 1.”

Genes decide the willow warbler’s migration routes

A young willow warbler
Photo Credit: sharkolot

Since antiquity, humans have been fascinated by birds’ intercontinental migratory journeys. A new study from Lund University in Sweden shows that two areas in their genome decide whether a willow warbler flies across the Iberian Peninsula to western Africa, or across the Balkans to eastern and southern Africa.

Researchers have long known that the behavior that causes songbirds to migrate in a specific direction towards a remote winter location is something they are born with. The recent study aims to further understanding of the genetics behind this behavior. With the help of modern technology, and 20 years of research into the genetics of songbirds and their migration routes, the researchers managed to identify which parts of the genome that determine the songbirds’ routes.

“The songbirds’ direction of travel is determined by two areas in the genome. Genes from the southern subspecies take the bird towards the southwest, across the Iberian peninsula to their wintering grounds in western Africa. Genes belonging to the northern subspecies instead lead the willow warblers towards the southeast, over the Balkans, to locations in eastern and southern Africa,” says Staffan Bensch, biology researcher at Lund University.

Reading out RNA structures in real time

The fluorescent blinking of cyanine dye (Alexa Fluor 647, pink star) bound to RNA changes depending on the structure of the RNA. When the RNA is folded like a hairpin, the fluorescent blinking is fast, and when the RNA switches to a G-quadruplex, the blinking is slow
Illustration Credit: Akira Kitamura

A new microscopic technique allows for the real-time study of RNA G-quadruplexes in living cells, with implications for the fight against amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease and Stephen Hawking’s disease, is a neurodegenerative disease that results in the gradual loss of control over the muscles in the body. It is currently incurable and the cause of the disease is unknown in over 90% of all cases — although both genetic and environmental factors are believed to be involved.

The research groups of Dr. Akira Kitamura at the Faculty of Advanced Life Science, Hokkaido University, and Prof. Jerker Widengren at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, have developed a novel technique that is able to detect a characteristic structure of RNA in real time in live cells. The technique, which is based on fluorescence-microscopic spectroscopy, was published in the journal Nucleic Acids Research.

Combined steroid and statin treatment could reduce ‘accelerated ageing’ in preterm babies, study in rats suggests

Potentially life-saving steroids commonly given to preterm babies also increase the risk of long-term cardiovascular problems, but a new study in rats has found that if given in conjunction with statins, their positive effects remain while the potential negative side-effects are ‘weeded out’.
Photo Credit: Hush Naidoo Jade Photography

Cambridge scientists gave new-born rats, which are naturally born prematurely, combined glucocorticoid steroids and statin therapy. The results, published today in Hypertension, show that the combined treatment led to the elimination of negative effects of steroids on the cardiovascular system while retaining their positive effects on the developing respiratory system.

Preterm birth (before 37 weeks) is one of the greatest killers in perinatal medicine today. One in ten babies are born preterm in high-income countries; this can increase to almost 40% in low- and middle-income countries.

Preterm babies are extremely vulnerable because they miss out on a crucial final developmental stage in which the hormone cortisol is produced and released exponentially into the unborn baby’s blood. Cortisol is vital to the maturation of organs and systems that are needed to keep the baby alive once born.

For example, in the lungs, cortisol ensures that they become more elastic. This allows the lungs to expand so the baby can take its first breath. Without cortisol the new-born lungs would be too stiff, which leads to respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) and could be fatal.

More multi-resistant germs since the beginning of the Ukraine war

Martina Cremadus, Hans-Jörg Berthold and Niels Pfennigwerth (from left) monitor the occurrence of multi-resistant bacteria in the National Reference Center for Gram-negative Hospital Pathogens.
Photo Credit: RUB, Marquard

The pathogens reach German hospitals with refugees and war injuries. Researchers recommend clinics to screen as a precaution.

Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, certain hospital pathogens that are resistant to many antibiotics have been detected much more frequently in German hospitals. The pathogen Klebsiella pneumoniae is also resistant to the reserve antibiotics of carbapenems due to a combination of two enzymes. Together with the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the National Reference Center (NRZ) for gram-negative hospital pathogens located at the Ruhr University Bochum has been able to demonstrate that many of the reported cases are related to patients from Ukraine. The researchers therefore recommend that this group be examined for the germ before being admitted to the hospital. They report in the journal Eurosurveillance.

Avoiding burnout of white blood cells

The immune system (T cell) attacks a human tumor cell.
Image Credit: M. Oeggerli (Micronaut 2019), Marcel Philipp Trefny, and Prof. Alfred Zippelius, Translational Oncology, University Hospital Basel, supported by Pathology University Hospital Basel, and C-CINA, Biozentrum, University of Basel

A research group at the University of Basel has identified a gene that drives T lymphocytes to exhaustion. This finding opens up new approaches for more effective immunotherapies.

A tough battle requires endurance. This is also true for white blood cells as they tackle cancer – or more specifically for T lymphocytes or T cells, a group of white blood cells involved in the immune system’s fight against cancer cells. However, T cells can become exhausted during this fight.

Researchers from the Department of Biomedicine at the University of Basel and University Hospital Basel recently identified a gene that seems to contribute to this exhaustion. The findings of their research project, which was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, were published in the journal Nature Communications.

Smart Contact Lens that Diagnoses and Treats Glaucoma

Schematic illustration of a theranostic smart contact lens for glaucoma treatment.
Illustration Credit: Pohang University of Science and Technology

POSTECH research team led by Professor Sei Kwang Hahn proposes a new paradigm for monitoring and control of intraocular pressure in glaucoma patients.

Glaucoma is a common ocular disease in which the optic nerve malfunctions due to the increased intraocular pressure (IOP) caused by drainage canal blocking in the eye. This condition narrows the peripheral vision and can lead to vision loss in severe cases. Glaucoma patients have to manage IOP levels for their lifetime. Automatic monitoring and control of the IOP in these patients would significantly improve their quality of life.

Recently, a research team at POSTECH has developed a smart contact lens by combining an IOP sensor and a flexible drug delivery system to manage IOP measurement and medication administration.

Researchers take a step toward novel quantum simulators

A scanning electron microscope image of the "two-island" device, which researchers hope will pave the way toward a quantum simulator. 
Image Credit: Winston Pouse/Stanford University

Some of the most exciting topics in modern physics, such as high-temperature superconductors and some proposals for quantum computers, come down to the exotic things that happen when these systems hover between two quantum states.

Unfortunately, understanding what's happening at those points, known as quantum critical points, has proved challenging. The math is frequently too hard to solve, and today's computers are not always up to the task of simulating what happens, especially in systems with any appreciable number of atoms involved.

Now, researchers at Stanford University and the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and their colleagues have taken a step toward building an alternative approach, known as a quantum simulator. Although the new device, for now, only simulates the interactions between two quantum objects, the researchers argue in a paper published in Nature Physics that it could be scaled up relatively easily. If so, researchers could use it to simulate more complicated systems and begin answering some of the most tantalizing questions in physics.