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CAMBRIDGE, MA Boron, a metalloid element that sits next to carbon in the periodic table, has many traits that make it potentially useful as a drug component. Nonetheless, only five FDA-approved drugs contain boron, largely because molecules that contain boron are unstable in the presence of molecular oxygen.
MIT chemists have now designed a boron-containing chemical group that is 10,000 times more stable than its predecessors. This could make it possible to incorporate boron into drugs and potentially improve the drugs ability to bind their targets, the researchers say. It s an entity that medicinal chemists can add to compounds they re interested in, to provide desirable attributes that no other molecule will have, says Ron Raines, the Firmenich Professor of Chemistry at MIT and the senior author of the new study.
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IMAGE: Kytai Nguyen, the lead investigator and a professor of bioengineering, received a three-year, $442,549 grant from the National Institutes of Health for the project. With these funds, she will be. view more
Credit: UT Arlington
A University of Texas at Arlington bioengineer is designing a nanoparticle delivery system that will take needed plasmids to arteries in patients who are suffering from peripheral artery disease (PAD) in their arms and legs.
A plasmid is the genetic structure in a cell that can replicate independently of chromosomes and often is used in the laboratory for the manipulation of genes.
Kytai Nguyen, the lead investigator and a professor of bioengineering, received a three-year, $442,549 grant from the National Institutes of Health for the project. With these funds, she will be able to provide for two doctoral students and four undergraduates, who will gain experiences on cell studies and the fabrication and characterization of nano
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IMAGE: Rose-tinted contact lenses (about 10 mm in diameter) containing gold nanoparticles filter out problematic colors for people with red-green color blindness. view more
Credit: Adapted from
2021, DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.0c09657
Imagine seeing the world in muted shades gray sky, gray grass. Some people with color blindness see everything this way, though most can t see specific colors. Tinted glasses can help, but they can t be used to correct blurry vision. And dyed contact lenses currently in development for the condition are potentially harmful and unstable. Now, in
ACS Nano, researchers report infusing contact lenses with gold nanoparticles to create a safer way to see colors.
Credit: Epic MegaGrant
Interventions on fetuses can treat potentially very serious conditions for unborn babies and are among the most challenging to perform due to difficulty of access, reduced vision and manoeuvrability, a lack of information about what to expect once inside the patient, and the patient s extreme fragility.
In recent years, to achieve a realistic simulation of the patient, major breakthroughs have been achieved in medical imaging techniques, AI and mixed reality. These advances are of paramount importance to surgeons as they enable them to plan surgery well in advance and train all of the most challenging steps of their interventions before entering the operating room.