EPFL researchers have developed a way to use holograms to guide laser light for ultra-efficient, fast, and precise volumetric 3D printing. The innovation enables cell-compatible, high-resolution 3D printing at scales suitable for biomedical applications.

Researchers in the lab of Mary Gehring at Whitehead Institute, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) affiliate, have developed a gene expression “map” of seed development in the model plant, Arabidopsis thaliana. Their findings reveal in which tissues and cell types genes that determine agriculturally significant traits, such as seed size and nutritional composition, are expressed. The work could guide future efforts to improve crop yield, nutrition, and resilience.

IBD, which comprises the inflammatory conditions Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, affects about 1.6 million Americans, many of whom cannot be effectively treated. This mostly is due to a lack in understanding of what exactly causes the increased inflammation, fibrosis, and compromised intestinal barrier that underlie this disease and its manifold symptoms. 

 

A new study, published in Nature Biomedical Engineering and led by Wyss Founding Director Donald Ingber, developed donor-specific microfluidic Organ Chip models of colon that replicate major hallmarks of IBD in vitroin an unprecedented way. Their approach pinpointed new drivers of IBD progression and, for the first time, demonstrated a direct impact of pregnancy hormones on IBD severity in female IBD patient chips and recapitulated the enhanced initiation of cancer formation in IBD tissues.

A study led by researchers from the Department of Microbiology at the University of Malaga has revealed how organic farming –the one that uses natural substances and processes, avoiding the use of synthetic chemicals– can, in the long term, help crops become more resistant to drought in a natural way.