Designer Microbes Can Now Reduce Mercury Poisoning
May 2, 2025
A new probiotic could soon tackle the burden of heavy-metal-contaminated fish.
A new probiotic could soon tackle the burden of heavy-metal-contaminated fish.
The future of electroencephalography (EEG) monitoring may soon look like a strand of hair. In place of the traditional metal electrodes, a web of wires and sticky adhesives, a team of researchers from Penn State created a hairlike device for long-term, non-invasive monitoring of the brain’s electrical activity. The lightweight and flexible electrode attaches directly to the scalp and delivers stable, high-quality recordings of the brain’s signals.
The research team, led by Professor Minee L. Choi from the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, in collaboration with University College London (UCL) and the Francis Crick Institute, discovered that the RNA-editing enzyme ADAR1 plays an important role in controlling immune responses in astrocytes, glial cells that trigger protective reactions in the brain, and demonstrated that this mechanism is critically involved in the progression of Parkinson’s disease.
In Nature Communications, the laboratory of Professor Jan Terje Andersen and collaborators report on a novel vaccine technology platform, in which the subunit antigen is genetically fused to albumin.
During the early teen years, many new strains of C. acnes colonize the skin on our faces. This could be an optimal time for probiotic treatment.
With the increasing demand for underwater and implantable medical electronics, a stable and continuous power supply is essential. However, conventional wireless charging methods (such as electromagnetic induction and radio frequency-based charging) used in smartphones and wireless earphones suffer from short transmission distances, low energy transfer efficiency in biological tissues, and electromagnetic interference.
Urinary stents and catheters are implanted medical tubes that are widely used in human and veterinary medicine to drain urine to/from the bladder. Ureteral stents are used when the ureter, the duct between the kidney and bladder, is blocked by tumors, pregnancy, stones or anatomical narrowing.
The circuits could help researchers develop new treatments for fragile X syndrome and other diseases caused by mutations of a single gene.
Indiana University School of Medicine scientists have developed a powerful new imaging technique to study bone marrow in mouse models. By overcoming key challenges unique to imaging this complex tissue, this advancement could support future drug development and therapies for conditions involving bone marrow, including cancers, autoimmune diseases and musculoskeletal disorders.
Scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have leveraged artificial intelligence to transform a device designed to see tissues in the back of the eye into one sharp enough to make out individual cells. The technique provides imaging resolution that rivals the most advanced devices available and is cheaper, faster, and doesn’t require specialized equipment or expertise. The strategy has implications for early detection of disease and for the monitoring of treatment response by making what was once invisible now visible.