Programmable proteins use logic to improve targeted drug delivery
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 7-Jan-2026 19:11 ET (8-Jan-2026 00:11 GMT/UTC)
Targeted drug delivery is a powerful and promising area of medicine. Therapies that pinpoint precise areas of the body can reduce the medicine dosage and avoid potentially harmful “off target” effects. Researchers at the UW took a significant step toward that goal by designing proteins with autonomous decision-making capabilities. By adding smart tail structures to therapeutic proteins, the team demonstrated that the proteins could be “programmed” to act based on the presence of specific environmental cues.
Engineered polymers hold promise for use in next generation technologies such as light-harvesting devices and implantable electronics that interact with the nervous system – but creating polymers with the right combination of chemical, physical and electronic properties poses a significant challenge. New research offers insights into how polymers can be engineered to fine-tune their electronic properties in order to meet the demands of such specific applications.
Michigan State University research illuminates a key regulatory pathway between cyanobacteria’s light-harvesting systems and the inner compartments where carbon fixation happens. It’s an important step toward better understanding how cyanobacteria balance their energy demands — and how their productivity might be ramped up to support better biotechnologies.
According to theory, massive red supergiant stars should cause most supernovae, yet they are rarely observed. New James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observations indicate these supernovae likely can occur but are hidden in dust. Star’s dust was unusually carbon-rich, suggesting atypical chemical mixing during its death throes. Study marks first time JWST identified a supernova’s source star and first time supernova was imaged in mid-infrared wavelengths.
Tiny ocean organisms living in oxygen-poor waters turn nutrients into nitrous oxide—a greenhouse gas far more powerful than carbon dioxide—via complex chemical pathways.
Penn’s Xin Sun and collaborators identified the how and why behind these chemical reactions, showing that microbial competition, not just chemistry, determines how much N₂O is produced.
Their findings pave the way for more reliable climate models, making global greenhouse gas estimates more effective, predictable, and easier to understand in response to natural and man-made climate change.