University of Houston biomedical researcher Sheeren Majd is reporting the development and testing of a new nano-carrier as a potential treatment to deliver highly toxic medicine to glioblastomas, the most common and aggressive form of primary brain tumors.
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IMAGE: At an old explosives storehouse on Monogram Mesa just east of the Utah border, home to numerous different uranium and vanadium mines. view more
Credit: Isabel Barton
Anyone who s seen an old cartoon or film about mining knows the image of a sooty man making his way through a dark tunnel. When his lantern lights upon a brilliant diamond or a hunk of gold, he hacks away at the rock until the precious mineral is free.
In today s world, of course, it s a lot more complicated than that. Minerals hosting important metals like cobalt, copper, uranium and vanadium are thoroughly embedded in less valuable rock, and extracting the metals requires knowing the properties of the minerals and surrounding rock, as well as a long list of tools and processes. As the world moves toward sustainable technologies ranging from solar panels and windmills to electric vehicles, mining the material to build these technologies is more important than ever.
Credit: NYU Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi, UAE, February 22: By engineering common filter papers, similar to coffee filters, a team of NYU Abu Dhabi researchers have created high throughput arrays of miniaturized 3D tumor models to replicate key aspects of tumor physiology, which are absent in traditional drug testing platforms. With the new paper-based technology, the formed tumor models can be safely cryopreserved and stored for prolonged periods for on-demand drug testing use. These cryopreservable tumor models could provide the pharmaceutical industry with an easy and low cost method for investigating the outcomes of drug efficacy, potentially bolstering personalized medicine. The developed technology can be transferred to other trending therapeutic applications such as measuring tumor response to drug concentration gradients, studying cancer cell signaling pathways, and investigations of invasive tumors.
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IMAGE: Smaller, more uniformly-sized pores are made in the PDMS membrane by mixing PDMS, toluene, citric acid, and ethanol. Toluene dilutes PDMS so it can easily mix with the other two. view more
Credit: Professor Young-Ho Cho, KAIST
- A silicone membrane for wearable devices is more comfortable and breathable thanks to better-sized pores made with the help of citric acid crystals. -
A new preparation technique fabricates thin, silicone-based patches that rapidly wick water away from the skin. The technique could reduce the redness and itching caused by wearable biosensors that trap sweat beneath them. The technique was developed by bioengineer and professor Young-Ho Cho and his colleagues at KAIST and reported in the journal
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In civil engineering, flexural beams are used to control the effect of vibrations that can cause cracks to appear in surfaces (concrete slabs) and beams. This is particularly important in buildings that require high tensile strength and where the use of machinery can cause a lot of vibrations that can disturb structural integrity. One metric to determine the reliability of beams is the deflection value, which should be appropriately low relative to the structure the beams are used in. Engineering codes such as ACI codes include provisions for such values and there are a number of methods to calculate them. Deflection is altered practically by reinforcing the construction materials with concrete or steel.