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Researchers at the University of Melbourne have developed a fast, inexpensive and scalable method for engineering blood vessels from natural tissue.

A paper published today in Nature Metabolism has described a method of genetically engineering cells to respond to electrical stimuli, allowing for on-demand gene expression.

Despite its futuristic outlook, this line of research is built upon previous work. The idea of an implantable gene switch to command cells in order to deliver valuable compounds into the human body is not new. The authors of this paper cite longstanding work showing that gene switches can be developed to respond to antibiotics [1] or other drugs, and the antibiotic doxycycline is used regularly for this purpose in mouse models. More recently, researchers have worked on cells that control their output based on green light [2], radio waves [3], or heat [4].

However, these mechanisms have their problems. A gene trigger that operates in response to a chemical compound requires that compound to have stable, controllable biological availability [5]. If it relies on any wavelength of electromagnetic radiation, that process may be triggered by mistake or require intense energy to function [3].

New breakthrough in material design will help football players, car occupants, and hospital patients.

A significant breakthrough in the field of protective gear has been made with the discovery that football players were unknowingly acquiring permanent brain damage from repeated head impacts throughout their professional careers. This realization triggered an urgent search for better head protection solutions. Among these innovations is nanofoam, a material found inside football helmets.

Thanks to mechanical and aerospace engineering associate professor Baoxing Xu at the University of Virginia and his research team, nanofoam just received a big upgrade and protective sports equipment could, too. This newly invented design integrates nanofoam with “non-wetting ionized liquid,” a form of water that Xu and his research team now know blends perfectly with nanofoam to create a liquid cushion. This versatile and responsive material will give better protection to athletes and is promising for use in protecting car occupants and aiding hospital patients using wearable medical devices.

Mature fields of engineering use physics-based models to design systems that work reliably the first time. Here the authors show how a similar approach can be used to design and build a cellular-scale system, protein synthesis, from scratch.

In-cell engineering can be a powerful tool for synthesizing functional protein crystals with promising catalytic properties, show researchers at Tokyo Tech. Using genetically modified bacteria as an environmentally friendly synthesis platform, the researchers produced hybrid solid catalysts for artificial photosynthesis. These catalysts exhibit high activity, stability, and durability, highlighting the potential of the proposed innovative approach.

Protein crystals, like regular crystals, are well-ordered molecular structures with diverse properties and a huge potential for customization. They can assemble naturally from materials found within cells, which not only greatly reduces the synthesis costs but also lessens their environmental impact.

Although protein crystals are promising as catalysts because they can host various functional molecules, current techniques only enable the attachment of small molecules and simple proteins. Thus, it is imperative to find ways to produce protein crystals bearing both natural enzymes and synthetic functional molecules to tap their full potential for enzyme immobilization.

Photonic systems are quickly gaining traction in many emerging applications, including optical communications, lidar sensing, and medical imaging. However, the widespread adoption of photonics in future engineering solutions hinges on the cost of manufacturing photodetectors, which, in turn, largely depends on the kind of semiconductor utilized for the purpose.

Traditionally, silicon (Si) has been the most prevalent semiconductor in the electronics industry, so much so that most of the industry has matured around this material. Unfortunately, Si has a relatively weak light absorption coefficient in the near-infrared (NIR) spectrum compared to those of other semiconductors such as gallium arsenide (GaAs).

Because of this, GaAs and related alloys thrive in photonic applications, but are incompatible with the traditional complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) processes used in the production of most electronics. This leads to a drastic increase in their manufacturing costs.

Raman spectroscopy—a chemical analysis method that shines monochromatic light onto a sample and records the scattered light that emerges—has caused frustration among biomedical researchers for more than half a century. Due to the heat generated by the light, live proteins are nearly destroyed during the optical measurements, leading to diminishing and non-reproducible results. As of recently, however, those frustrations may now be a thing of the past.

A group of researchers with the Institute for Quantum Sciences and Engineering at Texas A&M University and the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) have developed a new technique that allows low-concentration and low-dose screenings of protein-to-ligand interactions in physiologically relevant conditions.

Titled thermostable-Raman-interaction-profiling (TRIP), this new approach is a paradigm-shifting answer to a long-standing problem that provides label-free, highly reproducible Raman spectroscopy measurements. The researchers published their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

MIT scientists and colleagues have created a simple superconducting device that could transfer current through electronic devices much more efficiently than is possible today. As a result, the new diode, a kind of switch, could dramatically cut the amount of energy used in high-power computing systems, a major problem that is estimated to become much worse.

Even though it is in the early stages of development, the diode is more than twice as efficient as similar ones reported by others. It could even be integral to emerging quantum computing technologies. The work, which is reported in the July 13 online issue of Physical Review Letters, is also the subject of a news story in Physics Magazine.

“This paper showcases that the superconducting diode is an entirely solved problem from an engineering perspective,” says Philip Moll, Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter in Germany. Moll was not involved in the work. “The beauty of [this] work is that [Moodera and colleagues] obtained record efficiencies without even trying [and] their structures are far from optimized yet.”

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Arm and its industry partners have announced a new global initiative dubbed the Semiconductor Education Alliance.

The effort includes partners across industry, academia and research in an effort to combat the world’s shortage of semiconductor engineers and other tech talent, Gary Campbell, executive vice president of central engineering at Arm, said in an interview with VentureBeat.