Lifeboat Foundation

Materials scientists and bioengineers at the intersection of regenerative medicine and bioinspired materials seek to develop shape-programmable artificial muscles with self-sensing capabilities for applications in medicine. In a new report now published in Science Advances, Haoran Liu and a team of researchers in systems and communications engineering at the Frontier Institute of Science and Technology, Jiaotong University, China, were inspired by the coupled behavior of muscles, bones, and nerve systems of mammals and other living organisms to create a multifunctional artificial muscle in the lab. The construct contained polydopamine-coated liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) and low-melting point alloys (LMPA) in a concentric tube or rod. While the team adopted the outer liquid crystal-elastomer to mimic reversible contraction and recovery, they implemented the inner low-melting point alloy for deformation locking and to detect resistance mechanics, much like bone and nerve functions, respectively. The artificial muscle demonstrated a range of performances, including regulated bending and deformation to support heavy objects, and is a direct and effective approach to the design of biomimetic soft devices.

Soft robotics inspired by the skeleton–muscle–nerve system

Scientists aim to implement biocompatibility between soft robotic elements and human beings for assisted movement and high load-bearing capacity; however, such efforts are challenging. Most traditional robots are still in use in industrial, agricultural and aerospace settings for high-precision sensor-based, load-bearing applications. Several functional soft robots contrastingly depend on materials to improve the security of human-machine interactions. Soft robots are therefore complementary to hard robots and have tremendous potential for applications. Biomimetic constructs have also provided alternative inspiration to emulate the skeleton-muscle-nerve system to facilitate agile movement and quick reaction or thinking, with a unique body shape to fit tasks and perform diverse physiological functions. In this work, Liu et al were inspired by the fascinating idea of biomimicry to develop multifunctional artificial muscles for smart applications.

When something goes wrong in mitochondria, the tiny organelles that power cells, it can cause a bewildering variety of symptoms such as poor growth, fatigue and weakness, seizures, developmental and cognitive disabilities, and vision problems. The culprit could be a defect in any of the 1,300 or so proteins that make up mitochondria, but scientists have very little idea what many of those proteins do, making it difficult to identify the faulty protein and treat the condition.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of Wisconsin–Madison systematically analyzed dozens of mitochondrial proteins of unknown function and suggested functions for many of them. Using these data as a starting point, they identified the genetic causes of three mitochondrial diseases and proposed another 20 possibilities for further investigation. The findings, published May 25 in Nature, indicate that understanding how mitochondria’s hundreds of proteins work together to generate power and perform the organelles’ other functions could be a promising path to finding better ways to diagnose and treat such conditions.

“We have a parts list for mitochondria, but we don’t know what many of the parts do,” said co-senior author David J. Pagliarini, Ph.D., the Hugo F. and Ina C. Urbauer Professor and a BJC Investigator at Washington University. “It’s similar to if you had a problem with your car, and you brought it to a mechanic, and upon opening the hood they said, ‘We’ve never seen half of these parts before.’ They wouldn’t know how to fix it. This study is an attempt to define the functions of as many of those mitochondrial parts as we can so we have a better understanding of what happens when they don’t work and, ultimately, a better chance at devising therapeutics to rectify those problems.”

When people with metastatic breast cancer close their eyes at night, their cancer awakes and starts to spread.

That’s the striking finding from a paper published in Nature this week that overturns the assumption that breast cancer metastasis happens at the same rate around the clock.

The result may change the way that doctors collect blood samples from people with cancer in the future, the researchers say.

Prostate cancer growth is driven by male sex hormones called androgens. And so, lowering levels of these hormones can help slow the growth of cancer.

Hormone therapy has been successful in keeping metastatic, or advanced prostate cancer, under control. Patients with metastatic prostate cancer often receive treatment with anti-hormonal therapy, which inhibits the signal sent out by testosterone that stimulates tumor growth.

But eventually, the tumor cells could become resistant to it. An international team of researchers led by the Netherlands Cancer Institute has now unveiled an “unexpected potential” solution, not designed to fight cancer but to target proteins that regulate a cell’s circadian rhythm.

If you look different to your close relatives, you may have felt separate from your family. As a child, during particularly stormy fall outs you might have even hoped it was a sign that you were adopted.

As our new research shows, appearances can be deceptive when it comes to family. New DNA technology is shaking up the family trees of many plants and animals.

Continue reading “New DNA Technology Is Shaking Up The Branches of The Evolutionary Tree” »

What if an already-Food and Drug Administration-approved drug could help treat a particularly troublesome disorder? Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found just such a use for one drug, according to a press release by the institution published earlier this month.

An old drug with a new purpose

The condition is neurofibromatosis type 1 (Nf1) and the drug is lamotrigine, an epilepsy drug. People suffering from Nf1 develop tumors on nerves throughout their bodies that are usually benign but can still cause serious medical issues such as blindness.

Scientists are testing an injectable gene therapy that may be able to block production of a lipoprotein(a) in people whose levels are dangerously high, a new study suggests.

‘Barcoding’ studies discovered two independent sources for blood cells in mice. If confirmed in humans, our understanding of blood cancers, bone marrow transplants, and the aging immune system will change.

The origins of our blood may not be quite what we thought. Using cellular “barcoding” in mice, groundbreaking research finds that blood cells originate not from one type of mother cell, but two, with potential implications for blood cancers, bone marrow transplant, and immunology. Fernando Camargo, PhD, of the Stem Cell Program at Boston Children’s Hospital led the study, published in the journal Nature on June 15, 2022.

“Historically, people have believed that most of our blood comes from a very small number of cells that eventually become blood stem cells, also known as hematopoietic stem cells,” says Camargo, who is also a member of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and a professor at Harvard University. “We were surprised to find another group of progenitor cells that do not come from stem cells. They make most of the blood in fetal life until young adulthood, and then gradually start decreasing.”

Merging COVID-19 + MonkeyFox +????

Martin Chartrand https://www.nbcnews.com/…/who-monkeypox-public-health…

Scientists have recently reported discovering what they believe is the most massive black hole ever discovered in the early Universe.

Continue reading “Scientists Find One of the Most Massive Black Holes With 34 Billion Times The Mass of Our Sun” »