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Category: chemistry – Page 162

Developing Novel DNA-Based Mechano-Technologies For Human Health — Dr. Khalid Salaita, Ph.D. — Emory University

Dr. Khalid Salaita, Ph.D. (https://www.salaitalab.com/salaita) is a Professor of Chemistry at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia (USA), program faculty in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory, program member of Cancer Cell Biology at Winship Cancer Institute, and most recently is the recent winner Future Insight Prize given by Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany (https://www.emdgroup.com/en/research/open-innovation/futurei…aming.html) for his cutting edge work in the area of mechanobiology.

Dr. Salaita earned his B.S. in Chemistry, from Old Dominion University, his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Northwestern University, completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, and then started his own lab at Emory University, investigating the interface between living systems and engineered nanoscale materials. To achieve this goal, his group has pioneered the development of tools like molecular force sensors, DNA mechano-technology, smart therapeutics, and nanoscale mechanical actuators to help manipulate living cells.

In recognition of his work, Dr. Salaita has received a number of awards, most notably: the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, the Camille-Dreyfus Teacher Scholar award, the National Science Foundation Early CAREER award, and the Kavli Fellowship.

Dr. Salaita is currently a member of the Enabling Bioanalytical and Imaging Technologies (EBIT) study Section and an Associate Editor of Smart Materials. His program has been supported by NSF, NIH, and DARPA.

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Objective: This study describes the expression profiles and roles of cardiac pigment epithelium-derived factor (PEDF) during cardiac development.

Methods: Gene datasets from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database were used to analyze the correlation between cardiac PEDF expression and heart disease. Western blotting.

Immunohistochemistry, histological staining and echocardiography were used to assess the expression patterns and functions of PEDF during cardiac development.

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When asked how this model can cover such a broad scale, Xie says, that it “is rooted in the integration of mechanistic modeling and ML statistical methods, which allows the model to provide a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of various aspects of RNA and related processes, while quantifying uncertainties due to limited knowledge.”

For example, she explains that, “The mechanistic aspect of the model captures intricate physical and chemical properties at the atomic level, which supports a deep understanding of the underlying biological processes, and the machine-learning element can effectively capture patterns in complex datasets—such as molecular simulations and single-molecule fluorescence microscopy time-course data—and learn relationships that might not be explicitly described in existing mechanistic models.”

In addition to helping scientists better understand the fundamental biology of RNA, the Northeastern team’s hybrid model promises many commercial benefits in the production of monoclonal antibodies, cell and gene therapies, and mRNA vaccines. As Xie says, “It can advance the knowledge of RNA manufacturing mechanisms and guide simultaneous design/control strategies at different levels, such as RNA sequence selection and specifications of critical quality attributes, with less experiments.”

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A new study by researchers at the University of Cambridge reveals a surprising discovery that could transform the future of electrochemical devices. The findings offer new opportunities for the development of advanced materials and improved performance in fields such as energy storage, brain-like computing, and bioelectronics.

Electrochemical devices rely on the movement of charged particles, both ions and electrons, to function properly. However, understanding how these charged particles move together has presented a significant challenge, hindering progress in creating new materials for these devices.

In the rapidly evolving field of bioelectronics, soft conductive materials known as conjugated polymers are used for developing that can be used outside of traditional clinical settings. For example, this type of materials can be used to make wearable sensors that monitor patients’ health remotely or implantable devices that actively treat disease.

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Scientists have created an innovative model membrane electrode with hollow giant carbon nanotubes and a wide range of nanopore dimensions. The invention aids in understanding electrochemical behaviors and could significantly advance our knowledge of porous carbon materials in electrochemical systems.

Researchers at Tohoku University and Tsinghua University have introduced a next-generation model membrane electrode that promises to revolutionize fundamental electrochemical research. This innovative electrode, fabricated through a meticulous process, showcases an ordered array of hollow giant carbon nanotubes (gCNTs) within a nanoporous membrane, unlocking new possibilities for energy storage and electrochemical studies.

The key breakthrough lies in the construction of this novel electrode. The researchers developed a uniform carbon coating technique on anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) formed on an aluminum substrate, with the barrier layer eliminated. The resulting conformally carbon-coated layer exhibits vertically aligned gCNTs with nanopores ranging from 10 to 200 nm in diameter and 2 μm to 90 μm in length, covering small electrolyte molecules to bio-related large matters such as enzymes and exosomes. Unlike traditional composite electrodes, this self-standing model electrode eliminates inter-particle contact, ensuring minimal contact resistance — something essential for interpreting the corresponding electrochemical behaviors.

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Gas accidents such as toxic gas leakage in factories, carbon monoxide leakage of boilers, or toxic gas suffocation during manhole cleaning continue to claim lives and cause injuries. Developing a sensor that can quickly detect toxic gases or biochemicals is still an important issue in public health, environmental monitoring, and military sectors. Recently, a research team at POSTECH has developed an inexpensive, ultra-compact wearable hologram sensor that immediately notifies the user of volatile gas detection.

[Professor Junsuk Rho’s research team at POSTECH develops wearable gas sensors that display instantaneous visual holographic alarm.].

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This benefits customers by accelerating access to future vehicles that feature the latest technology while also enabling their current vehicles to be eligible to receive updates and improvements over time—unlocking additional value beyond the initial point of purchase. And for large enterprises, shorter development cycles with less ground-up engineering can equate to significant cost savings and allow more investment in innovation.

Beyond vehicles themselves, the tools, techniques and processes that are required to engineer and manufacture at scale are also benefitting from developments in the latest hardware technology. Advancements in raw material chemistry and processing, fabrication and physical sciences are leading to lighter, stronger and better-performing vehicle applications in parallel with greater connectivity.

As advancements in transportation technology continue to evolve, it’s important for companies to balance their focus on the continual development of both hardware and software technologies. Forgoing advancements in one without investing in the development of the other can lead to significant risks and missed opportunities for long-term success.

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Synthetic cells are a versatile technology with the potential to serve as smart delivery devices or as chassis for creating life from scratch. Despite the development of new tools and improvements in synthetic cell assembly methods, the biological parts used to regulate their activity have limited their reach to highly controlled laboratory environments12. In the field’s preliminary work, well-established arabinose and IPTG-inducible transcription factors and theophylline-responsive riboswitches were used to control in situ gene expression5,6. Still, each performed poorly in vitro and represented a leaky, insensitive route of transcription/translation control. Later, the transition to AHSL-sensitive transcription factors afforded synthetic cells the ability to sense and produce more biologically useful QS molecules, which are central to coordinating collective bacterial behaviors. Although this marked considerable progress toward integrating synthetic cells with living cells, the most frequently adopted QS systems used to date, LuxR/LuxI and EsaR/EsaI, recognize and synthesize the same AHSL (3OC6-HSL), limiting the variety of synthetic cell activators that work orthogonally5,7,10,11.

In this work, we diverged from using naturally derived parts to control gene expression, instead utilizing chemically modified LA-DNA templates to tightly and precisely control the location of synthetic cell activation with UV light. This LA-DNA approach was subsequently implemented to regulate communication with E. coli cells using the BjaI/BjaR QS system, adding this unique branched AHSL into the synthetic cell communication toolbox. We believe this system is ideally suited to synthetic cell communication. It couples an acyl-CoA-dependent synthase, BjaI, which efficiently synthesizes IV-HSL from its commercially available substrates, IV-CoA and SAM, with a highly sensitive IV-HSL-dependent transcription factor, BjaR, that activates gene expression at picomolar concentrations of IV-HSL.

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Almost half of the tap water in the US is contaminated with chemicals known as “forever chemicals,” according to a new study from the US Geological Survey.

The number of people drinking contaminated water may be even higher than what the study found, however, because the researchers weren’t able to test for all of these per-and polyfluorinated alkyl substances, or PFAS, chemicals that are considered dangerous to human health. There are more than 12,000 types of PFAS, according to the National Institutes of Health, but this study looked at only 32 of the compounds.

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