Virginia Tech researchers have created an engineered model of the supportive tissue found within a lymph node to study human health. Working with scientists at the University of Virginia, the researchers are building a bioengineered model of a human lymph node, which performs essential roles in the immune system throughout the body. 

With support from a three-year, $1.85 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense (“Role of TBX2 in the establishment of the Prostate Cancer Pre-Metastatic Niche (PMN) in the Bone”), Srinivas Nandana, Ph.D., and Manisha Tripathi, Ph.D., from the Department of Cell Biology and Biochemistry at the TTUHSC School of Medicine seek to advance the understanding of prostate cancer metastasis by investigating the role of TBX2 in establishing the prostate cancer premetastatic niche in bone.

A new study reveals that probiotic Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. Lactis A6 alleviates depression symptoms in patients with comorbid constipation and depression, while also uncovering its role in regulating gut-brain interactions through tryptophan metabolism.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST)-led research team has adopted gyromagnetic double-zero-index metamaterials (GDZIMs) - a new optical extreme-parameter material – and developed a groundbreaking method to control light using GDZIMs. This discovery could revolutionize fields like optical communications, biomedical imaging, and nanotechnology, enabling advances in integrated photonic chips, high-fidelity optical communication, and quantum light sources.

Published in Nature, the study was co-led by Prof. CHAN Che-Ting, Interim Director of the HKUST Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study and Chair Professor in the Department of Physics, and Dr. ZHANG Ruoyang, Visiting Scholar in the Department of Physics at HKUST.

Genetic changes can occur naturally through evolution or can be initiated with the help of genetic engineering. The bacterium Thermoanaerobacter kivui (T. kivui) was manipulated by a research team led by Stefan Pflügl from the Institute of Chemical, Environmental and Bioscience Engineering at TU Wien in such a way that it can metabolize carbon monoxide. When used in bioreactors, it can contribute to converting synthesis gas, which consists of carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO₂) and hydrogen (H₂), into valuable products.

Stefan Pflügl and his team recently reported in the renowned journal Nature Communications how T. kivui can be brought to use CO as its sole energy source. In the journal Biotechnology for Biofuels and Bioproducts, the team also reported on their method of genetically modifying T. kivui within twelve days so that it shows the desired characteristic.

This study presents a novel CuO/MgO catalyst for electrochemical CO₂ methanation, achieving high activity, selectivity, and stability. The catalyst exhibits a Faradaic efficiency of 82.3 % and a current density of 568.2 mA cm^-2 at -1.0 V vs. RHE. In-situ characterizations and theoretical calculations reveal that strong electronic metal-support interactions stabilize Cu²⁺ sites and optimize the adsorption of key intermediates, promoting methane production while suppressing C-C coupling pathways.