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Category: biotech/medical – Page 2

Quantum batteries could quadruple qubit capacity while reducing energy infrastructure requirements

Scientists have unveiled a new approach to powering quantum computers using quantum batteries—a breakthrough that could make future computers faster, more reliable, and more energy efficient.

Quantum computers rely on the rules of quantum physics to solve problems that could transform computing, medicine, energy, finance, communications, and many other fields in the years ahead.

But sustaining their delicate quantum states typically requires room-sized, energy-intensive cryogenic cooling systems, as well as a system of room-temperature electronics.

10,000 Brain Scans Reveal Why Your Memory Gets Worse With Age

Our episodic memory – the ability to recall past events and experiences – is known to decline as we age. Exactly how and why has remained something of a mystery, and a recent study goes some way towards solving it.

Researchers led by a team from the University of Oslo in Norway wanted to see whether this memory loss affects everyone equally, or if it might be driven by individual risk factors, such as the APOE ε4 gene linked to Alzheimer’s disease.

The scale of their analysis is impressive. The scientists combined data from 3,737 cognitively healthy participants, tracked over several years, including 10,343 MRI scans and 13,460 memory assessments, from multiple long-running studies.

Deep-learning algorithms enhance mutation detection in cancer and RNA sequencing

Researchers from the Faculty of Engineering at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) have developed two innovative deep-learning algorithms, ClairS-TO and Clair3-RNA, that significantly advance genetic mutation detection in cancer diagnostics and RNA-based genomic studies.

The pioneering research team, led by Professor Ruibang Luo from the School of Computing and Data Science, Faculty of Engineering, has unveiled two groundbreaking deep-learning algorithms—ClairS-TO and Clair3-RNA—set to revolutionize genetic analysis in both clinical and research settings.

Leveraging long-read sequencing technologies, these tools significantly improve the accuracy of detecting genetic mutations in complex samples, opening new horizons for precision medicine and genomic discovery. Both research articles have been published in Nature Communications.

Brewing possibilities: Using caffeine to edit gene expression

What if a cup of coffee could help treat cancer? Researchers at the Texas A&M Health Institute of Biosciences and Technology believe it’s possible. By combining caffeine with the use of CRISPR—a gene-editing tool known as clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats—scientists are unlocking new treatments for long-term diseases, like cancer and diabetes, using a strategy known as chemogenetics.

The work is published in the journal Chemical Science.

Yubin Zhou, professor and director of the Center for Translational Cancer Research at the Institute of Biosciences and Technology, specializes in utilizing groundbreaking tools and technology to study medicine at the cellular, epigenetic and genetic levels. Throughout his career and over 180 publications, he has sought answers to medical questions by using highly advanced tools like CRISPR and chemogenetic control systems.

Immune checkpoint inhibitor therapies for cancer can induce unintended immune related adverse events (irAEs)

Here, Deepak A. Rao & team use mass cytometry immune profiling to identify T cell features in pre-treatment blood samples from patients that are associated with irAEs after ICI therapy.

1Division of Rheumatology, Inflammation, Immunity, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

2Division of Rheumatology, Hospital for Special Surgery and Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, New York, USA.

3Memorial Sloan Kettering Center and Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, New York, USA.

Capturing the moment of organelle handoff inside living cells

For the first time, researchers have directly visualized how newly formed cellular organelles leave the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and transition onto microtubule tracks inside living cells. This new finding reveals that the ER plays an active and dynamic role in steering intracellular traffic rather than serving as a passive factory. The study is published in the journal ACS Nano.

For the study led by Director Cho Minhaeng at the Center for Molecular Spectroscopy and Dynamics within the Institute for Basic Science and Professor Hong Seok-Cheol at Korea University, the research team captured in real time the moment an autophagosome—an organelle responsible for cellular recycling—moves from the ER onto a neighboring microtubule. This long-sought observation provides direct experimental evidence for how intracellular transport is coordinated at nanoscopic contact sites within the crowded environment of living cells.

Autophagy is an essential cellular process in which damaged proteins and aged organelles are enclosed by double-membrane structures and delivered for degradation and recycling. The importance of autophagy was recognized by the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine awarded to Yoshinori Ohsumi. Although scientists have long proposed that autophagosomes are transferred from the ER to microtubules at specialized contact sites, direct real-time experimental evidence of this cellular “handoff” had remained out of reach—until now.

Novel nanomaterial uses oxidative stress to kill cancer cells

Scientists at Oregon State University have developed a new nanomaterial that triggers a pair of chemical reactions inside cancer cells, killing the cells via oxidative stress while leaving healthy tissues alone. The study led by Oleh and Olena Taratula and Chao Wang of the OSU College of Pharmacy appears in Advanced Functional Materials.

The findings advance the field of chemodynamic therapy (CDT), an emerging treatment approach based on the distinctive biochemical environment found in cancer cells. Compared to healthy tissues, malignant tumors are more acidic and have elevated concentrations of hydrogen peroxide, the scientists explain.

Conventional CDT works by using the tumor microenvironment to trigger the chemical production of hydroxyl radicals—molecules, made up of oxygen and hydrogen—with an unpaired electron. These reactive oxygen species are able to damage cells through oxidation by stealing electrons from molecules like lipids, proteins, and DNA.

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