Biotechnology News – Latest Headlines

A fungus, an antibiotic, a parasite, and a cure

Researchers engineer a cost-effective treatment for neglected tropical disease.

April 10, 2019 Read more

Everyday enzymes, now grown in plants

Myriad industrial processes rely on enzymes, from making orange juice to manufacturing denim jeans. Emerging research is transforming how these enzymes get made.

April 9, 2019 Read more

'Stained glass' technique kills deadly hospital bacteria

Scientists have discovered a technique similar to medieval stained glass-making that can completely eradicate the deadliest hospital infections within hours.

April 9, 2019 Read more

Designer organelles in cells produce synthetic proteins (w/video)

Scientists create membraneless organelles to build proteins in living cells / Incorporation of synthetic amino acids allows completely new chemical functionality.

March 29, 2019 Read more

Engineers grow prevascularized tissue for cardiac patches

Patching up a heart needs the help of tiny blood vessels. Aligning dense vascular structures in engineered cardiac patches can help patients recover from a heart attack.

March 28, 2019 Read more

Engineered vessels evolve into living tissue

In one of the longest follow-up studies of its kind, researchers found that their specially bioengineered blood vessels evolved into living tissue after human implantation.

March 28, 2019 Read more

Adhesive formed from bee spit and flower oil could form basis of new glues

Researchers are looking to a bee 'glue' as a model for a bioinspired adhesive because of its unique properties and ability to remain sticky through a range of conditions.

March 27, 2019 Read more

Microgels let medical implants fight off bacteria

Implants coated in microgel flecks could be key to reducing surgical infections.

March 26, 2019 Read more

Wearable sensors mimic skin to help with wound healing process

Researchers have developed skin-inspired electronics to conform to the skin, allowing for long-term, high-performance, real-time wound monitoring in users.

March 26, 2019 Read more

Scientist constructs artificial photosynthetic cells

New system paves the way to construct energetically-independent artificial cells.

March 25, 2019 Read more

Traffic control of cells

Researchers develop a hydrogel whose stiffness and permeability to cells can be controlled with light.

March 25, 2019 Read more

Revealing the rules behind virus scaffold construction

New insights into epistasis could impact future drug delivery and therapeutic strategies.

March 19, 2019 Read more

Snaring bacteria in DNA-based nets the way white blood cells do

Today's antibiotics are not particularly engineered to coordinate their fight against bacteria with white blood cells, the body's own first line of defense against infectors, but a new study gives hope that that could change.

March 18, 2019 Read more

Sweat holds most promise for noninvasive testing

Researchers created the world's first continuous-monitoring device that tests sweat as effectively as blood but in a noninvasive way and over many hours.

March 15, 2019 Read more

Researchers create a hydrogel contact lens to treat serious eye disease

Researchers have created a hydrogel that could one day be made into a contact lens to more effectively treat corneal melting, a condition that is a significant cause for blindness world-wide.

March 12, 2019 Read more

Increasingly complex mini-brains

Scientists produce brain organoids with primitive eyes using computational fluid dynamics.

March 7, 2019 Read more

New squid study brings bio-inspired engineers ever closer to building smart skin (w/video)

Marine biologists report a paradigm-shifting discovery in how specialized organs in squid skin, called chromatophores, contribute to the squid's camouflage via an elegant interplay of pigmentary action and structural coloration.

March 7, 2019 Read more

Engineered microbe may be key to producing plastic from plants

With a few genetic tweaks, a type of soil bacteria with an appetite for hydrocarbons shows promise as a biological factory for converting a renewable -- but frustratingly untapped -- bounty into a replacement for ubiquitous plastics.

March 6, 2019 Read more