Wah Chiu, a professor at SLAC and Stanford, Grigore Pintilie, a computational scientist in Chius group, and colleagues devised the new measures, known as Q-scores, to address that issue. To compute Q-scores, scientists start by building and adjusting an atomic model until it best matches the corresponding cryo-EM derived 3D map. Then, they compare the map to an idealized version in which each atom is well-resolved, revealing to what degree the map truly resolves the atoms in the atomic model.

The researchers validated their approach on large molecules, including a protein called apoferritin that they studied in theStanford-SLAC Cryo-EM Facilities.Kaiming Zhang, another research scientist in Chius group, produced 3D maps close to the highest resolution reached to date up to 1.75 angstrom, less than a fifth of a nanometer. Using such maps,they showed how Q-scores varied in predictable ways based on overall resolution and on which parts of a moleculethey were studying. Pintilie and Chiu say they hope Q-scores will help biologists and others using cryo-EM better understand and interpret the 3D maps and resulting atomic models.

The study was performed in collaboration with researchers from Stanfords Department of Bioengineering. Molecular graphics and analysis were performed using the University of California, San Franciscos Chimera software package. The project was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Citation: Grigore Pintilie et al.,Nature Methods, February 10, 2020 (10.1038/s41592-020-0731-1)

For questions or comments, contact the SLAC Office of Communications atcommunications@slac.stanford.edu.

SLAC is a vibrant multiprogram laboratory that explores how the universe works at the biggest, smallest and fastest scales and invents powerful tools used by scientists around the globe. With research spanning particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology, materials, chemistry, bio- and energy sciences and scientific computing, we help solve real-world problems and advance the interests of the nation.

SLAC is operated by Stanford University for theU.S. Department of Energys Office of Science.The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time.

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After gaining approval from the Board of Regents education committee last Friday, a new major in biocomputational engineering is set to roll out next fall.

The University of Maryland will become one of the first universities to offer such a degree which combines the fundamentals of bioengineering, including biology, physics and chemistry, with a foundation in data science.

An increased interest from companies looking for bioengineering students with computer science backgrounds prompted the majors development, said Ian White, the associate chair and director of undergraduate studies for this universitys bioengineering department. The program will aim to prepare students for a field that relies on data science more than ever before, he said.

A lot of our graduates and senior students over the last few years have been pushing for more opportunities to study data science and computation alongside bioengineering, White said. Data science has really emerged and woven its way into all fields.

Knowledge of computer programming helps students to analyze biological data sets and create new diagnostic technologies for the treatment and prevention of disease, according to the proposal for the major.

This process, known as biological modeling, allows scientists to analyze past studies on the bodys response to certain medical treatments and create a coding program that simulates the results of that study. It can lead, for instance, to new methods for the repair or construction of tissue and organs or new treatments for specific diseases.

[Read more:Board of Regents OKs new major at UMD focused on virtual reality design]

The major was spurred in part by the development of new engineering facilities at the Universities at Shady Grove in Rockville, White said.

It is mainly geared toward Shady Grove students from Montgomery College and other community colleges, who will be able to transfer into upper-level courses taught by University of Maryland instructors.

Montgomery County, where a lot of the employers we target [are], theyre really invested in seeing these community college students have a good pathway towards a career, White said.

Students at this university will also be able to complete a four-year degree in the program.

Combining data science and bioengineering into one major is a recent development for higher education, not seen 10 years ago, White said. Recently, more colleges and universities have joined this trend, though only a handful offer programs similar to this major.

Bill Churma, the associate director of academic and student affairs for the bioengineering department, said he and White looked into Stanford Universitys biomedical computation degree while creating the new major.

I wouldnt be surprised if we see more programs going in this direction, just because of the way so much research is happening, Churma said.

Enrollment is expected to start at around 20 students in the first year, and expand to a steady enrollment of about 80 students once the major gains more traction.

The first classes wont be offered for another year and a half, and in the meantime, the bioengineering department will conduct a marketing campaign to bring in student interest. Much of that will require reaching out to community college students and creating an academic path with them, Churma said.

[Read more:There is a place for you: This UMD club seeks to build community for women in comp sci]

It will also include strategies to make biocomputational engineering more digestible for students unsure of what this obscure field entails, he said.

Julia Zhiteneva, a sophomore bioengineering major, was first drawn to her major because of its diverse career options. Expanding the bioengineering skill set to encompass data science, she said, would only increase those opportunities.

Those are really valuable skills, and Im glad that Maryland is taking initiative to cater to the needs in this industry and make that a whole separate major, Zhiteneva said.

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Life is rife with patterns. Its common for living things to create a repeating series of similar features as they grow: think of feathers that vary slightly in length on a birds wing or shorter and longer petals on a rose.

Stanford researchers used advanced microscopy and mathematical modeling to discover a pattern that governs the growth of neurons in the flatworm brain, shown here. Using this technique, they hope to find patterns that guide the growth of cells in other parts of the body in order to pave the way to bioengineer artificial tissues and organs. (Image credit: Courtesy of Wang Lab)

It turns out the brain is no different. By employing advanced microscopy and mathematical modeling, Stanford researchers have discovered a pattern that governs the growth of brain cells or neurons. Similar rules could guide the development of other cells within the body, and understanding them could be important for successfully bioengineering artificial tissues and organs.

Their study, published in Nature Physics, builds on the fact that the brain contains many different types of neurons and that it takes several types working in concert to perform any tasks. The researchers wanted to uncover the invisible growth patterns that enable the right kinds of neurons to arrange themselves into the right positions to build a brain.

How do cells with complementary functions arrange themselves to construct a functioning tissue? said study co-author Bo Wang, an assistant professor of Bioengineering. We chose to answer that question by studying a brain because it had been commonly assumed that the brain was too complex to have a simple patterning rule. We surprised ourselves when we discovered there was, in fact, such a rule.

The brain they chose to examine belonged to a planarian, a millimeter-long flatworm that can regrow a new head every time after amputation. First, Wang and Margarita Khariton, a graduate student in his lab, used fluorescent stains to mark different types of neurons in the flatworm. They then used high-resolution microscopes to capture images of the whole brain glowing neurons and all and analyzed the patterns to see if they could extract from them the mathematical rules guiding their construction.

What they found was that each neuron is surrounded by roughly a dozen neighbors similar to itself, but that interspersed among them are other kinds of neurons. This unique arrangement means that no single neuron sits flush against its twin, while still allowing different types of complementary neurons to be close enough to work together to complete tasks.

The researchers found that this pattern repeats over and over across the entire flatworm brain to form a continuous neural network. Study co-authors Jian Qin, an assistant professor of chemical engineering, and postdoctoral scholar Xian Kong developed a computational model to show that this complex network of functional neighborhoods stems from the tendency of neurons to pack together as closely as possible without being too close to other neurons of the same type.

While neuroscientists might someday adapt this methodology to study neuronal patterning in the human brain, the Stanford researchers believe the technique could be more usefully applied to the emerging field of tissue engineering.

The basic idea is simple: tissue engineers hope to induce stem cells, the powerful, general-purpose cells from which all cell types derive, to grow into the various specialized cells that form a liver, kidney or heart. But scientists will need to arrange those diverse cells into the right patterns if they want the heart to beat.

The question of how organisms grow into forms that carry out useful functions has fascinated scientists for centuries, Wang said. In our technological era, we are not limited to understanding these growth patterns at the cellular level but can also find ways to implement these rules for bioengineering applications.

This work was supported by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund.

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Grants Invest in Interdisciplinary Work That May Produce Bigger, Federally Funded Projects

Nov. 21, 2019

The first year of The University of Texas at Dallas seed grant initiative has provided $2.2 million to a diverse range of research and scholarly projects with the aim of providing faculty a springboard to earning larger, highly competitive grants.

The Office of Research program, announced last fall, was conceived by Dr. Joseph Pancrazio, vice president for research, who described it as among the largest such programs in the state.

Research, scholarship and creativity play a key role in our growth as an institution, said Pancrazio, who is also a professor of bioengineering in theErik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science. These programs build upon the interdisciplinary work that is a hallmark of the UTDallas experience for our faculty and students. The hope is that this seed funding leads to new ideas that then become the source for new grant proposals and projects.

Distributions to UTDallas from the National Research University Fund (NRUF), a source of state research funding that the University first qualified for in 2018, freed up resources to create the seed grants.

By investing in our faculty while incentivizing collaboration, we are reinforcing a research culture that will encourage prospective investigators to join our academic community as well as earn a return-on-investment relative to federally sponsored research, Pancrazio said.

The seed grants fall into seven categories and will fund work in seven of the Universitys schools.

The program is overseen by Dr. Nicole Leeper Piquero, Robert E. Holmes Jr. Professor of Criminology, who said the program is an exciting way to invest in faculty and encourage interdisciplinary collaboration.

We offer 10 different ways to support researchers from all across our campus, including opportunities for them to showcase their work with workshops both here at UTDallas as well as in Washington, D.C., said Piquero, who is also associate vice president for research development.

Among the seven programs is the Collaborative Biomedical Research Award (CoBRA), which was specifically designed to stimulate interdisciplinary research between faculty at UTDallas and UTSouthwestern Medical Center. Three projects led by Dr. Danieli Rodrigues, associate professor of bioengineering; Dr. Lloyd Lumata, assistant professor of physics; and Dr. Lawrence Reitzer, professor of biological sciences, each received $250,000.

Lumatas grant supports research to develop biomedical imaging techniques, and Reitzers work focuses on combating urinary tract infections.

Rodrigues said the CoBRA award will enable her team to expand the application of an immune-interactive coating she is developing for titanium orthopedic implants that may reduce the implantation failure rate for diabetic patients.

This initiative will give us the opportunity to generate data that will support development and feasibility demonstrations, helping our team to pursue larger grant opportunities in the future, Rodrigues said. It will also promote interdisciplinary training by enabling UTD graduate students and residents from UTSouthwestern to work together on new ways to boost implant healing in immune-compromised cases.

Another program, called the Major Extramural Grant Award (MEGA), assists researchers who are gathering preliminary data to support their pursuit of individual external grant opportunities of at least $6 million. The two MEGA recipients, Dr. Roderick Heelis, director of the William B. Hanson Center for Space Sciences, and Dr. Bart Rypma, the Meadows Foundation Chair in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, each received $200,000 for their proposals.

The Office of Research invites potential applicants to Proposers Day on Friday, Nov. 22, to learn more about the internal funding opportunities available in the next cycle of seed grant initiatives. Registration is required.

Rypmais investigating brain-imaging techniques, while Heelis work aims to better understand Earths space environment and how it affects areas such as communication, navigation and the reentry of space vehicles. His MEGA project seeks to develop innovative techniques to measure the dynamics of particles and gases in the environment around orbiting satellites.

The experiments we do in space are really expensive. Sponsors like NASA and the Air Force wont give you all the money for a project just based on one proposal, said Heelis, Distinguished Chair in Natural Sciences and Mathematics.

Backing from the University allows us to turn our experiments and our conceptual ideas into real things: Heres the prototype device; here are the results from testing it in the lab, Heelis said. And we can put those forward in our second-phase grant proposal. This gives us a much more competitive chance of winning.

The Office of Research awarded seed grants in seven programs:

Media Contact: Stephen Fontenot, UT Dallas, (972) 883-4405,[emailprotected]or the Office of Media Relations, UT Dallas, (972) 883-2155, [emailprotected]

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The Miss Auburn and Miss Auburn Outstanding Teen Scholarship program is the strongest community-based scholarship competition of its kind in the state, according to the program website. An official preliminary to the Miss Washington and Miss America Pageants, this competition boasts of dynamic, talented and intelligent contestants competing for scholarships and the title of Miss Auburn or Miss Auburn Outstanding Teen.

This years class includes eight Miss contestants and 13 Teen contestants. The competition, sponsored by The Auburn Noon Lions Club, is scheduled for Saturday, January 25, 2020, at the Auburn Performing Arts Center.

In addition to crowing the 2020 titleholders, January 25th will be the final time our current title holders, Amanda Enz and Austin Douglas will wear the crown.

The 2020 Miss Auburn class includes young women from Auburn High School, multiple contestants with social impact platforms related to mental health, a Bioengineering Major.

The 2020 Miss candidates are Aaliyah Coley, Cami Werden, Caylee Collins, Katie Storm, Kimberly Santos, Marissa Modestowicz, Natalie Myers and Soleil Lewis.

The 2020 Miss Auburn Outstanding Teen class is equally as well rounded, with contestants from schools all over the Auburn Area. These contestants proudly share platforms related to bullying, self-image and heart health, to name just a few.

The 2020 Teen candidates are Brandi Ridge, Cassidy Collins, Christine Wang, Farrell Sessler, Jasmyn Burger, Jessica Tuggey, Kaitlyn Gallo, Kerry Everett, Madison Lindsey, Medison Zantello, Reilly Mahoney, Rosalinda Tomich, and Taylor-Olsen-Dement.

Like the Miss candidates, the Teen contestants are ready to shine with a variety of talents.

Over the next several weeks we will be introducing these stellar young women to you through individual profiles each contestant has filled out.

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Kidney glomerulus-on-a-chip Nature.com In vitro models that mimic the glomerulus could aid understanding of glomerular disease processes and potentially guide therapeutic discovery. Researchers now report a method for directing the efficient differentiation of human induced pluripotent stem ...

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Kidney glomerulus-on-a-chip - Nature.com

Two UCLA professors have been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, a private, nonprofit institution which advises on issues concerning science, technology and health.

Denise Aberle, a radiology and bioengineering professor, and Carol Mangione, a professor of medicine and public health, were recognized by the academy on Oct. 21, according to a university press release.

NAM is one of three academies which make up the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. Consisting of health and medical professionals, the NAMs mission is to improve health for all by advancing science, advancing health equity and providing insight into national and global policy, according to the NAM website.

Membership is given to those who have demonstrated achievement and service in their careers, as well as contributed to developments in medicine and health care.

Aberle, who is the vice chair of the department of radiological sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine, was elected for leading the National Lung Screening Trial, which was sponsored by the American College of Radiology Imaging Network in the National Cancer Institute.

The trial found that low-dose CT screening uses lesser amounts of radiation, reducing lung cancer mortality by 20% compared to chest radiographic or X-Ray screenings, according to the press release.

Mangione, who is also the division chief of general internal medicine and health services research at the School of Medicine, was chosen for her experience with how certain aspects of the health care system affect quality of care and treatment for low-income individuals with diabetes, the press release stated.

Mangione also serves as the director for the National Institutes of Healthfunded Resource Center for Minority Aging Research at UCLA.

Aberle and Magione join 37 other UCLA faculty who have been recognized by NAM, including current School of Medicine Dean Kelsey Martin.

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American Oriental Bioengineering, Inc. (AOBI) Upgraded at ValuEngine Sports Perspectives American Oriental Bioengineering, Inc. (OTCMKTS:AOBI) was upgraded by equities researchers at ValuEngine from a sell rating to a hold rating in a note issued to investors on Wednesday, May 24th. Shares of American Oriental Bioengineering (AOBI) ...

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American Oriental Bioengineering, Inc. (AOBI) Upgraded at ValuEngine - Sports Perspectives

More Than Bread and Beer

Humans have found a friend in yeast. The single-celled eukaryotes are used by humans for a wide variety of applications, such as making alcoholic beverages and baking, among others. Scientists are heading toward a breakthrough in bioengineering that could create synthetic organisms that will help make new kinds of drugs and fuels.

An international team of researchers has been able to devise a way to synthesize a large part of yeasts genetic code. Prior to this announcement, the team had been able to completely synthesize one of yeasts 16 chromosomes. Now, the team has published a series of papers in the journal Scienceshowing that they have been able to add another five chromosomes, thus bringing their total to six. They say theyre on track to finish the remaining ten chromosomes to form a completely synthetic genome by the end of this year.

While the scientific community remains leery of synthetic genome creation, many have united in praising this projects work. In an article accompanying the research, Daniel Gibson, vice president of DNA technologies at Synthetic Genomics, stated, This is really going to allow us to understand how to design cells from the bottom up that can be reprogrammed for many applications.

Some of those many applications are what worry bioethicists, biologists, and environmentalists, among others. Todd Kuiken from North Carolina State Universitys Genetic Engineering and Society Center compares the potential accidental orpurposeful release of synthetic organisms to the introduction of invasive species. You can think of it of like introducing an invasive species into a different environment. It will have some type of impact to the system.

The yeast project is operating under conditions emphasizing safety as well as ethics. This is a whole new era where were moving beyond little edits on single genes to being able to write whatever we want throughout the genome, says George Church, a prominent Harvard University geneticist. The goal is to be able to change it as radically as our understanding permits.

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Scientists Are Close to Creating a Fully Synthetic Genome - Futurism

For millions of sufferers, there is nothing more debilitating than chronic back or joint pain. It can feel like a lifetime of misery.

But researchers led by University of Utah bioengineering assistant professor Robby Bowles have discovered a way to curb chronic pain by modulating genes that reduce tissue- and cell-damaging inflammation.

"This has applications for many inflammatory-driven diseases," Bowles says. "It could be applied for arthritis or to therapeutic cells that are being delivered to inflammatory environments that need to be protected from inflammation."

The team's discovery was published in a new paper this month, "CRISPR-Based Epigenome Editing of Cytokine Receptors for the Promotion of Cell Survival and Tissue Deposition in Inflammatory Environments," in a special issue of Tissue Engineering. University of Utah bioengineering doctoral student, Niloofar Farhang, co-authored the study, which is a collaborative project between the University of Utah, Duke University and Washington University in St. Louis.

In chronic back pain, for example, slipped or herniated discs are a result of damaged tissue when inflammation causes cells to create molecules that break down tissue. Typically, inflammation is nature's way of alerting the immune system to repair tissue or tackle infection. But chronic inflammation can instead lead to tissue degeneration and pain.

Bowles' team is using the CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat) system -- new technology of modifying human genetics -- to stop cell death and keep the cells from producing molecules that damage tissue and result in chronic pain. But it doesn't do this by editing or replacing genes, which is what CRISPR tools are typically used for. Instead, it modulates the way genes turn on and off in order to protect cells from inflammation and thus breaking down tissue.

"So they won't respond to inflammation. It disrupts this chronic inflammation pattern that leads to tissue degeneration and pain," Bowles says. "We're not changing what is in your genetic code. We're altering what is expressed. Normally, cells do this themselves, but we are taking engineering control over these cells to tell them what to turn on and turn off."

Now that researchers know they can do this, doctors will be able to modify the genes via an injection directly to the affected area and delay the degeneration of tissue. In the case of back pain, a patient may get a discectomy to remove part of a herniated disc to relieve the pain, but tissue near the spinal cord may continue to breakdown, leading to future pain. This method could stave off additional surgeries by stopping the tissue damage.

"The hope is that this stops degeneration in its tracks, and the patient could avoid any future surgeries," Bowles says. "But it's patient to patient. Some might still need surgery, but it could delay it."

So far, the team has developed a virus that can deliver the gene therapy and has filed a patent on the system. They hope to proceed to human trials after collecting initial data, but Bowles believes it could be about 10 years before this method is used in patients.

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SALT LAKE CITY Relief for chronic back and neck pain may be on the horizon, thanks to emerging science technology under development at the University of Utah.

Bioengineering researchers have discovered a technique to control chronic pain by regulating genes that reduce tissue- and cell-damaging inflammation.

This has applications for many inflammatory-driven diseases, said assistant professor Robby Bowles, who led the research. It could be applied for arthritis or to therapeutic cells that are being delivered to inflammatory environments that need to be protected from inflammation.

In laymens terms, the therapy has the potential to treat chronic pain by relieving swelling in affected areas and healing the tissue, he said.

For instance, chronic pain in slipped or herniated discs result from damaged tissue when swelling causes cells to create molecules that break down tissue, he explained. Inflammation is natures way of alerting the immune system to repair tissue or fight infection, but chronic inflammation can lead to tissue degeneration and pain, he said.

Bowles team uses the Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat system known as CRISPR a new technology that modifies human genetics to halt cell death and keep cells from producing molecules that damage tissue and result in chronic pain, he said.

This is something that could be injected into your (damaged) discs to stop the signaling that is driving disc degeneration and the painful signaling, Bowles said. It would keep you from getting worse and it would stop the pain.

But Bowles said the therapy does not edit or replace genes, which is what CRISPR tools are typically used for. Instead, the therapy modulates the way genes turn on and off in order to protect cells from inflammation.

So they wont respond to inflammation. It disrupts this chronic inflammation pattern that leads to tissue degeneration and pain, he said. Were not changing what is in your genetic code. Were altering what is expressed. Normally, cells do this themselves, but we are taking engineering control over these cells to tell them what to turn on and turn off.

He said now that researchers know they can do this, doctors would be able to modify the genes using direct injection into the affected area which delays tissue degeneration. In the case of back pain, a patient may get a discectomy to remove part of a herniated disc to relieve the pain, but tissue near the spinal cord may continue to break down, leading to future pain, he said. This method could stave off additional surgeries by stopping the tissue damage, he noted.

The hope is that this stops degeneration in its tracks, and the patient could avoid any future surgeries, Bowles said. But its patient to patient. Some might still need surgery, but it could delay it.

So far, the team has developed a virus that can deliver the gene therapy and has filed for a patent on the system with the hope of moving to human trials after collecting initial data. One caveat Bowles noted was that there are currently no gene therapies approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, so it may take some time to receive necessary acceptance.

So long term there are technological and regulatory hurdles to (overcome), he said. It could be about 10 years before this method is ready for use in patients.

Despite the regulatory issues, Bowles was optimistic about the long-range prospects for treating pain using this new therapy.

The CRISPR systems give us control that would allow us to begin treating these diseases in ways we couldnt treat them before, Bowles said. Over the next 10 to 15 years, were going to see a lot of these CRISPR technologies change these debilitating conditions.

The teams discovery was published in a new paper this month in a special issue of Tissue Engineering. The study was co-authored by University of Utah bioengineering doctoral student Niloofar Farhang and several other researchers in a collaborative project between the U., Duke University and Washington University in St. Louis.

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Anthony Alessi For The Bulletin

Bioengineering is the term best used to describe the utilization of multiple disciplines to solve a health-related problem. The incorporated disciplines involved often include medicine, life sciences, mathematics and engineering.

Most recently, bioengineering has emerged as a potential solution for many orthopedic injuries, including those related to sports. Some of the most promising research has been in the area of tendon and ligament regeneration.

Anterior cruciate ligament injuries are among the most common and disabling sports-related injuries. According to the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine, there are approximately 150,000 ACL tears each year. These injuries account for approximately $500 million in health care costs annually in the United States.

The knee is a hinged joint where the femur and tibia articulate. The bony surfaces are cushioned by cartilage. Four main ligaments hold the entire joint together: the ACL, posterior cruciate ligament, medial collateral ligament and the lateral collateral ligament.

ACL injuries are most common in high-intensity sports, including soccer, football and basketball. Damage can result from sudden changes in direction, landing awkwardly after jumping or direct impact from a collision.

Bioengineering is being used to build new ligaments by applying stem cells to a scaffold and allowing the cells to generate a new ligament or through the application of stem cells to allow a ligament to be repaired.

The use of stem cells, osteobiologics and biodegradable synthetic polymers is the frontier of sports medicine surgery and surgical augmentation, said Dr. Cory Edgar, assistant professor of orthopedic surgery and UConn team physician. These approaches will significantly impact surgery success rates, recovery times and return-to-play timelines.

The routine use of bioengineered tendon repair may not be far off.

Dr. Alessi is a neurologist in Norwich and serves as an on-air contributor for ESPN. He is director of UConn NeuroSport and can be reached at agalessi@uchc.edu

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A UCLA professor is working to develop a treatment for spinal cord injuries, which are currently incurable.

Stephanie Seidlits, assistant professor of bioengineering, will attempt to use biomaterial made out of hyaluronic acid a long chain of sugars in the body to create a treatment that can be injected into spinal cords. Seidlits will conduct the research with students using a $500,000 grant she won March 1.

The prestigious CAREER award, granted by the National Science Foundation, aims to support scholars who effectively integrate research with education. Seidlits plans to use her research as a project for students in Bioengineering 177: Bioengineering Capstone Design next fall.

Alongside Seidlits, students will be able to investigate the effects of hyaluronic acid on spinal cord cell regeneration using an in vitro device. Using the device, researchers will be able to replicate the cell environment of an injured spinal cord and analyze how HA reacts to that environment.

When the spinal cord is injured, HA, a polymer composed of long sugar chains that support tissue structure, breaks down into smaller fragments to initiate healing. The short fragments are supposed to be replaced by longer ones, but sometimes they stay in the spinal cord, causing inflammation that prevents healing, Seidlits said.

Past research has examined whether HA as a biomaterial can reduce scarring from spinal cord injuries, with mixed results. Seidlits said she thinks the difference in fragment lengths could be a cause for the different outcomes. Her research will determine whether she can control how the cells react to short and long fragments of HA to prevent inflammation.

A big problem is that the people doing the chemistry dont account for the fact that the short fragments act differently than long fragments, Seidlits said. They just put them all together.

Seidlits and students will use the engineered device to test the biomaterials effectiveness before eventually testing it in mices spinal cord tissue.

Observing the cells through the device is better than observing them in a petri dish, which is unable to fully predict how the biomaterial impacts spinal cord cell regeneration in humans, she said. This also minimizes use of mice in experiments.

Arshia Ehsanipour, a graduate student researcher in Seidlits lab, said one of the challenges of engineering a biomaterial is integrating the HA gel material with the native spinal cord tissue.

Its a gel consistency, (so) cells have nowhere to crawl in (the spinal cord), Ehsanipour said. My goal is to get it to be more of a sponge so cells can crawl in and interact with the tissue more easily.

Despite these difficulties, Josh Karam, also a graduate student researcher in Seidlits lab, said he hopes their research will be successful.

The research were doing in the lab, the work were aiming for, is impactful because spinal cord injury is a neurodegenerative condition that affects a lot of people, Karam said. Ideally, we create a treatment that helps people to make paralysis a phase rather than a lifestyle.

Seidlits said that if the device they will use to observe the HA chains works well, students in Bioengineering 177 will help publish the research and patent the device.

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UCLA professor developing potential treatment for spinal cord injuries - Daily Bruin

SINGAPORE Researchers here have come up with a new way to test a patients reaction to a drug even before it is administered.

By first testing a drug on stem cells made from from the patients blood, scientists from the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN) of A*STAR and the National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS) have found that doctors may screen for possible side effects to drugs..

This, the IBN said, can help create personalised medicine for every individual and improve healthcare and treatment outcome.

Revealing its research findings on Tuesday (Feb 28), A*STAR said it had tested this concept on five kidney cancer patients who had previously been exposed to the cancer drug pazopanib.

Based on their medical history, three of the five patients had displayed adverse reactions to pazopanib in the past.

The researchers used stem cells from the five patients to create liver cells that were then exposed to pazopanib. The study found that the effects of pazopanib on the newly created liver cells tallied with how each of them had previously reacted to the drug.

Furthermore, for those who suffered adverse reactions, the researchers were also able to analyse how pazopanib caused liver damage to them, which was previously unknown to doctors even after many years of using the drug.

This study is the first proof-of-concept that our approach can predict drug-induced liver damage for an individual, said principal research scientist Dr Tan Min-Han. Now that we know how the drug work, we can introduce another agent/drug to combat the side effect. Its like selecting the correct antidote. Thats the next step, to be tested in clinical trials at NCCS.

Fellow researcher Dr Ravindran Kanesvaran said: We are very excited that this study demonstrates an approach that could transform how drug toxicities are evaluated. It also sheds light on the mechanism of a particular side effect of pazopanib, which may lead to ways to overcome it.

The research team said it will conduct further studies on drugs that affect other types of organs, and hope to work with industry partners to commercialise the technology.

IBNs executive director Jackie Y Ying said: Adverse side effects from drugs are a major clinical concern, which could and should be preventable... We are confident that our personalised stem cell technology will be of significant clinical value, said.

According to a study published in 2016, 8.1 per cent of all hospital admissions in Singapore are caused by adverse drug reactions. The study also found that patients suffering from adverse drug reactions also tend to be hospitalised longer than others, while the most common drugs causing adverse reactions were cardiovascular drugs.

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Lifeboat Foundation

Computing with biochemical circuits made easy -- ScienceDaily Science Daily A software tool and a systematic wet-lab procedure proven in practice are an advance in the design and construction of circuits made of DNA. Computing with biochemical circuits made easy - Lifeboat News ...Lifeboat Foundation (blog) all 2 news articles »

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Decoding the genome's cryptic language: New tool to map RNA ... Science Daily Bioengineers have developed a new tool to identify RNA-DNA interactions. The tool can provide a full account of all the RNA molecules that interact with a ... and more »

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The Columbus Idea Foundry provides a glimpse of the future of manufacturing. The Idea Foundry is an expression of the maker movement, a renewed interest in things and objects, in making and manufacture, and in the skilled trades, which have been in decline over the past two generations.

Manufacturing at the Idea Foundry is smaller scale, based on batch processing, and on customizable, bespoke goods, not on the model of a giant factory with thousands of workers. In many ways, the Idea Foundry is a post-industrial enterprise that harkens back to pre-industrial patterns of manufacturing.

Where students now study computer science or software design, we could begin to see college students take the route toward manufacturing and making. That route, however, will not be the one that existed in the U.S. in the 1950s, where an 18-year old might graduate high school and the next day begin work in a factory. Todays manufacturing is hi-tech: look at the 3-D printers and other technologies found at the Idea Foundry. To operate such tools requires advanced skills.

The Massachusetts Department of Higher Education is already looking ahead to the workforce development needs for this advanced manufacturing. They announced their Advanced Manufacturing Workforce Plan in the Spring of 2015, which stated that [We must] look beyond the requirements of todays advanced manufacturing workforce to new and possibly higher-level competencies that will be required of the next generation workforce. While the current focus of workforce demand is centered on todays definition of the production manufacturing worker, accelerating advances in materials, technologies and supply chain processes will require a workforce with substantially new and different knowledge, skills and abilities to build the products of the future.

This means that four-year universities, not only technical and community colleges, must be geared up to train workers in advanced manufacturing skills.

As a measure of the high tech nature of manufacturing, much of what occurs in a factory is done by robots, machines and other forms of automation. Fewer workers monitor the technology that actually does the manufacturing.

Automation has always been the driving force in manufacturing after the Industrial Revolution: the historical trajectory has been the substitution of machines (capital) for human labor, and there is every reason to believe that long-term trend will continue unabated.

According to a McKinsey report, some 59 percent of all manufacturing activities could be automated, given technical considerationsWithin manufacturing, 90 percent of what welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers do, for example, has the technical potential for automation.

Returning manufacturing jobs from China and Mexico was a central feature of the Trump campaign, and indeed the President has taken some executive actions to reverse this and to bring some of these manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. But many economists have noted that job loss in manufacturing has been less the result of overseas outsourcing as it has from automation.

It is possible that President Trump will realize this reality, and if he remains committed to restoring manufacturing jobs, he might begin to institute policies to regulate automation. Might Trump insist that manufacturing be conducted by human laborers, else the companies using robots and other such technologies will be subject to taxes or other forms of retribution? Might consumers also begin to demand that the products they buy not only be Made in the USA but also Made by Human Hands? I think these are unlikely scenarios: it has been a truism of the Industrial Revolution that machines replace human labor, and I see no real challenge to that economic logic. But by the same token, some consumers have been demanding that foodstuffs not contain GMOs, and so it is possible that a similar sort of grass roots rejection of automated-manufactured goods could emerge.

We have long associated manufacturing with mechanical things: the production of automobiles, consumer goods, industrial materials. There is every reason to believe that the next phase of the Industrial Revolution will involve not only mechanical things but also the manufacture of biological objects.

Bioprinting is still in the experimental stage, but the technology promises the ability to print out living tissue, even human organs, through a process similar to the 3-D printers. Rather than printing off plastic objects, bioprinting involves spraying layer upon layer of cells in a manner similar to an ink-jet printer, thereby additively manufacturing living organs.

The initial uses for such biological objects will be for organic matter that will be used for drug testing. Rather than using lab animals, living human organsmanufactured organscan be tested instead. Some experiments have already produced manufactured arteries, and very soon manufactured liver cells might be injected into patients who are suffering from liver disease.

Ultimately, the goal is to be able to print an entirely new liver for a patient in need of a replacement. To work in this form of biological manufacturing will require advanced degrees in biology, chemistry and biological engineering.

All of this is by way of saying that manufacturing jobs in the future might just as likely involve the production of living, squishy, pulsating biological objects.

David Staley is president of Columbus Futuristsand a professor of history, design and educational studies at The Ohio State University. He is the host of CreativeMornings Columbus.

The next Columbus Futurists monthly forum will beThursday February 23 at 6:30 PMat the Panera Bread community room (875 Betel Rd.) Our topic for the evening will be Blockchain and the Future of the Internet.

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NEXT: The Future of Manufacturing will be Driven by Automation and Bioengineering - columbusunderground

Currently, there is no cure or vaccine that provides immunity against SARS-CoV-2. Scientists, however, are still on the hunt to find the best treatments for the disease, says anarticle.

Currently, the broad approaches that scientists are trying to study include antibodies, malaria drugs, and, of course, a vaccine.

Another approach being looked at by scientists is the harvesting of antibodies from the blood plasma of people who survived the illness.

However, this approach is a slow process, and there is no assurance that it can work. Also, there is a need to recruit former patients of the illness to donate plasma.

Then, the next step is to process that plasma and transform it to be used therapeutically.

According to one of the Netflix documentary 'Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak' researcher, Doctor Jacob Glanville, he believes that he had found a shortcut.

Doctor Glanville is the leader of Distributed Bio, a computational immune engineering organization that centers on creating antibody therapeutics and vaccines. For weeks, Glanville and his team had spent a lot of time on their laboratory to engineer a potential treatment for COVID-19.

On April 1, he announced through social media that their team had made a breakthrough.

He revealed that in the last nine weeks, his team had been working had to create an antibody therapy to neutralize and cure COVID-19 patients.

Antibodies are proteins produced by a person's immune system. It helps the body fight against intruders and pathogens, such as the novel coronavirus. It helps keep a person from getting sick.

According to Doctor Glanville, his team had engineered specific antibodies that are good at the task of blocking the deadly novel coronavirus.

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Answers from the Past

Doctor Glanville shared that to save time and get immediate results, he looked back at the antibodies that were proven to be effective at fighting the 2003 SARS virus.

According to Glanville, the 2003 SARS virus is related to the novel coronavirus. It is why his team studied the antibodies that bound SARS. The antibodies are known to have the ability to neutralize the SARS virus. This means that those antibodies will be useful medicine if the2003 SARS viruscame back, the doctor added.

Distributed Bio was able to locate five SARS antibodies successfully. Theseantibodieswere then modified to allow it to bind to receptors of the novel coronavirus.

According to Doctor Glanville, the 2003 SARS virus antibodies were capable of cross-neutralizing antibodies.

The concept used is that the modified antibodies can attach themselves to receptors of the novel coronavirus. This helps prevent the SARS-CoV-2 from invading and infecting healthy human cells.

The COVID-19 treatment that Doctor Glanville and his team are proposing is not a vaccine. According to a coronavirus expert Doctor Anthony Fauci, the discovery of Glanville and his team will become a "game-changer" for a virus that may make a return.

Doctor Glanville and his team's research is similar to the COVID-19 convalescent plasma, which is currently under testing status.

Tagsbioengineering, COVID-19 cure, COVID-19 Treatment, 2003 SARS Virus Antibodies

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Synthetic Antibodies: Bioengineering 2003 SARS Virus Antibodies to Provide Immunity to COVID-19 - Latin Post

Screening and obtaining a novel high activity cellulase and its producing microbe strain is the most important and essential way to improve the utilization of crop straw. In this paper, we devoted our efforts to isolating a novel microbe strain which could produce high activity cellulase. A novel strain Trichoderma virens ZY-01 was isolated from a cropland where straw is rich and decomposed, by using the soil dilution plate method with cellulose and Congo red. The strain has been licensed with a patent numbered ZL 201210295819.6. The cellulase activity in the cultivation broth could reach up to 7.4 IU/mL at a non-optimized fermentation condition with the newly isolated T. virens ZY-01. The cellulase was separated and purified from the T. virens culture broth through (NH4)2SO4 fractional precipitation, anion-exchange chromatography and gel filtration chromatography. With the separation process, the CMC specific activity increased from 0.88 IU/mg to 31.5 IU/mg with 35.8 purification fold and 47.04% yield. Furthermore, the enzymatic properties of the cellulase were investigated. The optimum temperature and pH is 50 C and pH 5.0 and it has good thermal stability. Zn2+, Ca2+ and Mn2+ could remarkably promote the enzyme activity. Conversely, Cu2+ and Co2+ could inhibit the enzymatic activity. This work provides a new highly efficient T. virens strain for cellulase production and shows good prospects in practical application. Full article

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Bioengineering | An Open Access Journal from MDPI

Financing will support i20 Therapeutics growth and R&D of platform for oral delivery of injectable biologic drugs

i2O Therapeutics, an innovative biotech company developing a platform for oral delivery of traditionally injectable biological drugs, announced today it has raised a $4 million seed funding round led by Sanofi Ventures and JDRF T1D Fund.

Founded by a team of researchers from Harvard University, i2O Therapeutics is focused on the development of safe and effective oral formulations of therapies that are conventionally limited to injections, e.g. biologics, large molecules, and peptide-based pharmaceuticals such as insulin. The foundational technology has been exclusively licensed to i2O by Harvards Office of Technology Development. The companys innovative platform enables drugs that traditionally wouldnt survive the hostile environment of the digestive system to pass through safely by utilizing a unique coating that dissolves in the small intestine, thereby releasing the active drug. I2Os initial focus is on developing a novel oral formulation for GLP-1 analogs.

The technology was initially developed in the Harvard lab of Samir Mitragotri, PhD, who is Hiller Professor of Bioengineering and Hansjorg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and a Core Faculty member at Harvards Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.

"Our technology has the potential to enable the oral delivery of high-value drugs in a safer, more effective and patient-friendly way and also by easing the treatment burden for dozens of therapeutics that were previously restricted to intravenous or subcutaneous delivery," commented Mitragotri, Co-founder of i2O Therapeutics.

"The support and partnership of Sanofi Ventures and JDRF T1D Fund marks a major milestone for i2O, and potentially millions of people around the world. This round of financing will enable us to rapidly expand our team and ramp up research and development at i2O as we seek to create the next generation of oral peptide and protein-based therapies," commented Ravi Srinivasan, PhD, Co-founder of i2O Therapeutics.

"i2O Therapeutics is developing an extremely promising new platform for oral biologics with the potential to significantly ease treatment burden for countless patients who rely on drugs that can only be administered via injection," said Christopher Gagliardi, PhD, Director of Investments at Sanofi Ventures.

"We are excited to partner with i2O Therapeutics, whose platform has the potential to revolutionize the way people with diabetes manage their disease," commented Katie Ellias, Managing Director of the JDRF T1D Fund. "The possibility of an oral insulin product, among other exciting applications of the i2O platform, represents a significant commercial opportunity and more importantly, has the potential to improve glycemic management and decrease hypoglycemia risk over todays injectable insulins."

Both Christopher Gagliardi and Katie Ellias will join the i2O Board of Directors.

About i2O Therapeutics

i2O Therapeutics is a biotechnology company developing safe and effective oral formulations of therapies traditionally limited to injections. Using an innovative ionic liquid technology, this platform leverages the benefits of protecting the drug cargo while also transiently enhancing permeation across the epithelial lining when administered orally. i2O is focused on creating the next generation of oral peptide and protein-based therapies. Visit us at http://www.i2OBio.com.

About JDRF T1D Fund

The JDRF T1D Fund (https://t1dfund.org/) is a venture philanthropy fund accelerating life-changing solutions to cure, prevent and treat type 1 diabetes (T1D) through catalytic equity investments. Through its investments in partnership with private capital, including venture capital, corporations and foundations, the T1D Fund seeks to attract the private investment necessary to advance therapeutics, devices, diagnostics, and vaccines into the hands of those living with T1D. The T1D Fund invests in areas strategically aligned with JDRF, the leading global organization funding T1D research, with an exclusive focus on supporting the best commercial opportunities. The T1D Fund reinvests any realized gains into new investments to further its mission.

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About Sanofi Ventures

Sanofi Ventures is the corporate venture capital arm of Sanofi. Sanofi Ventures invests in early-stage biotech and digital health companies with innovative ideas and transformative new products and technologies of strategic interest to Sanofi. Among these areas are oncology, immunology, rare diseases, vaccines, potential cures in other core areas of Sanofis business footprint, and digital health solutions. For more information, visit http://www.sanofiventures.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200409005121/en/

Contacts

Gregory Johnson, PhDMacDougallGjohnson@macbiocom.com

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i2O Therapeutics Raises $4 million in Seed Funding Co-led by Sanofi Ventures and JDRF T1D Fund - Yahoo Finance