Pioneering research by experts at the University of Sydney, the Baird Institute and the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney has shown that heart muscle cells regrow after a heart attack, opening up the possibility of new regenerative treatments for cardiovascular disease.  

A collaborative team led by Prof. Yi Xiong from Wuhan Textile University, Prof. Wei Zeng from Anhui University, and Prof. Shuo Jin from the Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has proposed a hierarchically converged defect-engineering restoration strategy. By implementing this approach, the researchers constructed a multidimensional ZnO/Bi₂O₃/BiOCl/BP/MXene heterojunction photoelectrode framework, achieving highly sensitive photoelectrochemical-electrostatic dual-mode sensing. The work, entitled “Hierarchically Converged Defect Engineering with Sequential 2D Black Phosphorus/MXene Heterostructures for Sensitive Photoelectrochemical–Electrostatic Coupled Sensors”, was published in Research (2025, Volume 8).

Sum-frequency generation (SFG) is a powerful vibrational spectroscopy that can selectively probe molecular structures at surfaces and interfaces, but its spatial resolution has been limited to the micrometer scale by the diffraction limit of light. Here, we overcame this limitation by utilizing a highly confined near field within a plasmonic nanogap and successfully extended the SFG spectroscopy into nanoscopic regime with ~10-nm spatial resolution. We also established a comprehensive theoretical framework that accurately describes the microscopic mechanisms of this near-field SFG process. These experimental and theoretical achievements collectively represent a groundbreaking advancement in near-field second-order nonlinear nanospectroscopy, enabling direct access to correlated chemical and topographic information of interfacial molecular systems at the nanoscale.

A research team has uncovered and reconstructed the complete biosynthetic pathway of polyphyllin II—a potent anticancer steroidal saponin—by identifying and engineering a key glycosyltransferase and transferring the optimized pathway into yeast.

A research team has engineered a common industrial yeast to produce chondroitin sulfate A (CSA)—a widely used joint-health and pharmaceutical ingredient—at record levels, offering a safe, sustainable alternative to animal-derived sources.