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In research that could one day lead to advances against neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, University of Michigan engineering researchers have demonstrated a technique for precisely measuring the properties of individual protein molecules floating in a liquid.

Proteins are essential to the function of every cell. Measuring their properties in blood and other body fluids could unlock valuable information, as the molecules are a vital building block in the body. The body manufactures them in a variety of complex shapes that can transmit messages between cells, carry oxygen and perform other important functions.

Continue reading “‘5-D protein fingerprinting’ with nanopores could give insights into Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s” »

It was not so long ago that sequencing even tiny snippets of DNA was a costly, cumbersome process that required access to a state-the-art lab. Today, we are inching close to putting a DNA sequencer in every pocket.

A small study conducted by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, the Kresge Eye Institute at Wayne State University in Detroit, and the L.V. Prasad Eye Institute in India was published in the journal Ophthalmology. The research included 20 patients who had surgery for Terson syndrome, a specific type of hemorrhage caused mostly by traumatic injury, such as vehicular collisions. Some of the patients experienced this hemorrhaging in both eyes, thus allowing for the study of 28 eyes.

The procedure used to restore sight in these patients is known as a vitrectomy. The surgery removes the jellylike tissue behind the lens of the eye and replaces it with a saline solution. The patients were split into groups who had the surgery within three months of the hemorrhage and those who received it after the three month mark.

— longer synthetic DNA accelerates customer discoveries —

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – January 10, 2017 – Twist Bioscience, a company accelerating science and innovation through rapid, high-quality DNA synthesis on silicon, today announced that it is now shipping genes up to 3,200 base pairs (3.2 kilobase or kB) in length to Ginkgo Bioworks under their existing supply agreement.

“Twist Bioscience continues to deliver record volumes of the highest-quality DNA to advance our organism engineering efforts, meeting or exceeding our aggressive timelines,” said Jason Kelly, CEO and co-founder of Ginkgo Bioworks. “With the availability of synthetic genes up to 3.2kB from Twist, we are able to expedite the rapid prototyping of organism designs to generate cosmetics, nutritional ingredients, flavors, fragrances and other important ingredients.”

Continue reading “Twist Bioscience Supplying 3.2kB Genes to Ginkgo Bioworks” »

Exercise is one of the best ways to slow down aging and its free too!

(Boston) — Older adults who experience good cardiac fitness may be also keeping their brains in good shape as well.

In what is believed to be the first study of its kind, older adults who scored high on cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) tests performed better on memory tasks than those who had low CRF. Further, the more fit older adults were, the more active their brain was during learning. These findings appear in the journal Cortex. Difficulty remembering new information represents one of the most common complaints in aging and decreased memory performance is one of the hallmark impairments in Alzheimer’s disease.

Continue reading “Older, fitter adults experience greater brain activity while learning” »

Every time there’s a new technology, criminals immediately take advantage of it, explains Steven Kotler. It’s only a matter of time before they find new, nefarious uses for 3D printing and synthetic biology.

The TeraStructure algorithm can analyze genome sets much larger than current systems can efficiently handle, including those as big as 100,000 or 1 million genomes. Finding an efficient way to analyze genome databases would allow for personalized healthcare that takes into account any genetic mutations that could exist in a person’s DNA.

Last year, doctors in the United States were unable to treat a patient infected with a bacterial strain that was resistant to 26 different antibiotics. After subjecting the bacteria to multiple tests, the doctors found it to be “resistant to all available antimicrobial drugs”, and the 70-year-old patient unfortunately died from the infection.

Detailed in a newly released Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report, the case highlights the significant threat that the emergence of highly resistant bacteria is becoming to global public health. The woman in the report was initially admitted to a hospital in Reno, Nevada, after she had returned from an extended trip to India with an infected swelling in her right hip.

After doctors conducted tests, they found she was infected with a form of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae known as Klebsiella pneumoniae. Normally living in the gut without causing any issues, K. pneumoniae is opportunistic in its infection. It seems that in the case of the woman in this latest report, the infection entered the bone after a femur fracture in India, and then subsequently spread to her hip.

Continue reading “Woman In The US Dies After Infection From Bacteria Resistant To 26 Antibiotic Drugs” »

(Phys.org) —Tufts University biologists using new, automated training and testing techniques have found that planarian flatworms store memory outside their brains and, if their heads are removed, can apparently imprint these memories on their new brains during regeneration.

The work, published online in the Journal of Experimental Biology, can help unlock the secrets of how memories can be encoded in living tissues, noted Michael Levin, Ph.D., Vannevar Bush professor of biology at Tufts and senior author on the paper.

“As bioengineering and biomedicine advance, there’s a great need to better understand the dynamics of memory and the brain-body interface. For example, what will happen to stored memory if we replace big portions of aging brains with the progeny of fresh stem cells?” said Levin, who directs the Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology in Tufts’ School of Arts and Sciences.