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Innovative Tool to Unlock the Immune System Developed

Innovative Tool to Unlock the Immune System Developed

New York, NY (Scicasts) - Developing a drug or vaccine requires a delicate balancing act with the immune system. On one hand, medications need to escape detection by the immune...

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The El Yunque National Forest in Puerto Rico is a tropical rainforest where a strain of the microbe Enterobacter lignolyticus was found that can tolerate an ionic liquid used to dissolve cellulosic biomass for microbial-based biofuel production. Image: Photo by Kristen DeAngelis

Rainforest Microbe That Can Handle Ionic Liquids

Environment 713 views

Berkeley, CA (Scicasts) – In the search for technology by which economically competitive biofuels can be produced from cellulosic biomass, the combination of sugar-fermenting microbes and ionic liquid solvents looks to be a winner save for one major problem: the ionic liquids used to make cellulosic biomass more digestible for microbes can also be toxic to them. A solution to this conundrum, however, may be in the offing.

Berkeley Lab scientists observed phosphorylation in living PC12 cells stimulated by nerve growth factor as they differentiated and sent out neuron-like neurites. The researchers imaged individual cells and simultaneously obtained absorption spectra using synchrotron radiation from the Advanced Light Source. Cells not stimulated with nerve growth factor did not differentiate and showed different infrared absorption spectra. Image: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Tracking Molecular Changes in Living Mammalian Cells

Imaging & Simulation 905 views

Berkeley, CA (Scicasts) – Knowing how a living cell works means knowing how the chemistry inside the cell changes as the functions of the cell change. Protein phosphorylation, for example, controls everything from cell proliferation to differentiation to metabolism to signalling, and even programmed cell death (apoptosis), in cells from bacteria to humans. It's a chemical process that has long been intensively studied, not least in hopes of treating or eliminating a wide range of diseases.

Gold particles modified with chemical residues interact with immune cells. Image: Professor Vincent Rotello, University of Massachusetts at Amherst

Innovative Tool to Unlock the Immune System Developed

Nanotechnology 990 views

New York, NY (Scicasts) - Developing a drug or vaccine requires a delicate balancing act with the immune system. On one hand, medications need to escape detection by the immune system in order to perform their function. But vaccinations ― de-activated versions of a disease or virus ― need to do the reverse.