News by Subject Technology & Engineering

Researchers at the University of Toronto Engineering have developed a tiny 'heater' -- about the size of a pill -- that could allow resource-limited regions around the world to test for infectious diseases without the need for specialized training or costly lab equipment.

A team of researchers has verified that it is possible to engineer two-layered nanofibers consisting of an ordered row of alternating peptides, and has also determined what makes these peptides automatically assemble into this pattern. The fundamental discovery raises the possibility of creating tailored "ABAB" peptide nanofibers with a variety of biomedical applications.

Applying bioinformatics to resolve biological problems. This is the objective of the research group of the University of Malaga "BI4NEXT", which, in one of its latest studies, developed in the Supercomputing and Bioinnovation Center (SCBI) based on biobank samples, has identified new biomarkers for the diagnosis, prognosis and even treatment of lung cancer.

Scientists from the groups of Hans Clevers (Hubrecht Institute) and Jeffrey Beekman (UMC Utrecht) show for the first time that a newer type of CRISPR, called base-editing, can safely cure cystic fibrosis in stem cells derived from patients. The results of this study were published in Cell Stem Cell on the 20th of February.

Fresh produce is a major vehicle for noroviruses, a group of viruses that are the most common cause of gastroenteritis in developed countries. However, the viruses are quite resistant to cold pasteurization treatments such as irradiation, which are used to destroy bacteria, moulds, parasites, and insects. The irradiation process uses gamma rays or X-rays to destroy these viruses but at the dose needed to eliminate them, it can affect the physicochemical properties of fresh produce.