Large-scale land acquisitions by foreign investors, intended to improve global food security, had little to no benefit, increasing crop production in some areas while simultaneously threatening local food security in others, according to Notre Dame researchers who studied their effects.
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IMAGE: IoT chemical sensor that detects minute quantities of gas molecules adsorbed on the surface of the thin nanosheet view more
Credit: COPYRIGHT (C) TOYOHASHI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Overview:
Third-year doctoral student Toshiaki Takahashi, associate professor Kazuhiro Takahashi, and their research team from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Information Engineering at Toyohashi University of Technology developed a testing chip using semiconductor micro-machining that can detect volatile gasses in exhaled breath in ppm concentrations at room temperature. A polymer that expands and contracts when gas is absorbed is formed on a flexibly deformable nanosheet, and the amount of deformation that occurs when a target gas is absorbed is measured, allowing gas to be detected at high sensitivity. The testing chip, which is formed in the size of a few square millimeters with semiconductor micro-machining technology, is expected to contr
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Researchers in the UK and the United States have succeeded in fine tuning a new thermoplastic biomaterial to enable both the rate at which it degrades in the body and its mechanical properties to be controlled independently.
The material, a type of polyester, has been designed for use in soft tissue repair or flexible bioelectronics by a team at the University of Birmingham in the UK and Duke University in the US.
Materials that successfully replicate the necessary elasticity and strength of biological tissues but which also biodegrade over an appropriate timescale are extremely difficult to engineer. This is because the chemistry used to produce a material s mechanical properties will also typically govern the rate at which it degrades.
This knowledge could help researchers design new diagnostics, evaluate the healing powers of convalescent plasma, develop new therapeutic treatments, and importantly help design future vaccines or monoclonal antibody therapies capable of protecting against mutations that may occur in the COVID-19 virus. The findings could help explain the widely varying reactions COVID-19 patients have to the disease.
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VIDEO: Nanomedicines consisting of one molecule of oligonucleotide and one or two
molecules of Y-shaped block copolymer(s), of which the size is approximately
18 nm and is in dynamic equilibrium with free Y-shaped. view more
Credit: 2021 Innovation Center of NanoMedicine
Summary
Ultra-small nanomedicines of approximately 18 nm were fabricated by dynamic ion-pairing between Y-shaped block copolymers and nucleic acid drugs, such as siRNA and antisense drugs.
Chemically modified and double-stranded oligonucleotides dramatically enhanced the stability of the ultra-small nanomedicines in the blood circulation.
The ultra-small size allows for high permeability in cancer tissues by slipping through the cracks in tumor vasculatures and stromal tissues.