Malonic acid is a high-value dicarboxylic acid with strong industrial demand, used in diverse products including automotive coatings, flavor and fragrances, biodegradable polymers, and anodic oxide films in batteries. Yet its current production heavily relies on petrochemical feedstocks. In a new paper, researchers at the Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation (CABBI) report the first systematic study for sustainable production of malonic acid via oxidation of the precursor chemical 3-hydroxypropionic acid (3-HP) with a Pd/Carbon catalyst.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden have developed an improved method for creating insulin-producing cells from human stem cells. The results, published in Stem Cell Reports, demonstrate that these cells effectively regulate blood sugar levels in laboratory tests and can reverse diabetes in mice.

An interdisciplinary, multi-institution team of researchers from the University of California, Irvine, Caltech, and the Keck School of Medicine of USC is the first to use a bidirectional brain-computer interface to control the gait of a walking exoskeleton. The system enables patients suffering spinal cord impairments to regain both the ability to walk and the associated sensation, which results in safer, more realistic movement. The project was funded by the National Science Foundation.