News by Subject Biology

OIST researchers develop turbines to convert the power of ocean waves into clean, renewable energy.

A partnership between QUT, the NSW Government and farmers could lead to the eventual eradication of the highly invasive African lovegrass threatening pastures and native grasslands Australia-wide. What they discovered is that local knowledge is the key to a successful management approach.

While football-related concussions have been top of mind in recent years, people have struggled to create technology to accurately measure them in real time. BYU mechanical engineering Ph.D. student Jake Merrell and a team of researchers across three BYU departments have developed and tested a nano composite smartfoam that can be placed inside a football helmet (and pads) to more accurately test the impact and power of hits.

A potent and long-lasting gene immunotherapy approach prevents and reverses symptoms of multiple sclerosis in mice, according to a study published Sept. 21 in the journal Molecular Therapy. The researchers used a viral vector to deliver a gene encoding a myelin sheath protein to the liver, thereby inducing robust and durable immune tolerance in mice by preventing T cells from attacking the myelin sheath.

Detailed study of how domains within the Cas9 protein move when the molecule binds to DNA has allowed UC Berkeley, Harvard and Massachusettes General Hospital scientists to locate the protein that monitors the fidelity of binding between the Cas9 single-guide RNA and its DNA target. The researchers then tweaked this domain to boost specificity, creating the highest fidelity Cas9 protein to date.

The answer to the question of why some organisms can regenerate major body parts while others, such as humans, cannot may lie with the body's innate immune system, according to a new study of heart regeneration in the Mexican salamander by James Godwin, Ph.D., of the MDI Biological Laboratory. Godwin found that formation of new heart muscle tissue after a heart attack is dependent on the presence of macrophages, a type of white blood cell.