In the earliest stage of life, animals undergo some of their most spectacular physical transformations. Once merely blobs of dividing cells, they begin to rearrange themselves into their more characteristic forms, be they fish, birds or humans. Understanding how cells act together to build tissues has been a fundamental problem in physics and biology.
POSTECH professor Hyung Joon Cha s research team develops a drug-delivering adhesive patch that mimics the blood vessel formation mechanism.
The patch can be applied to any shape anyplace and was verified for the regenerations of myocardial infarction and severe skin loss.
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IMAGE: A photo collage of all nine of the 2021 Vilcek Foundation Prizewinners - Including Science Prizewinners Ruth Lehmann, Mohamed Abou Donia, Ibrahim Cissé, and Silvi Rouskin. Other prizewinners pictured are. view more
Credit: Courtesy of the Vilcek Foundation
NEW YORK, April 6, 2021 The Vilcek Foundation has launched an online celebration to honor the recipients of the 2021 Vilcek Foundation Prizes. Formatted as a microsite, the online celebration recognizes and shares the accomplishments of the 2021 Vilcek Foundation Prizewinners in lieu of the Vilcek Foundation s annual gala.
Awarded annually, the Vilcek Foundation Prizes celebrate the value and importance of immigration by recognizing the outstanding achievements of foreign-born individuals in the United States. In 2021, the Vilcek Foundation Prizes are awarded in Biomedical Science, in Filmmaking, and for Excellence in Public Service.
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IMAGE: The nucleocapsid phosphoprotein (blue) of SARS-CoV-2 (N) (grey) plays critical roles in multiple processes of the SARS-CoV-2 infection cycle, including replication and transcription, and packaging and protecting the genomic RNA. view more
Credit: OSU College of Science
CORVALLIS, Ore. - Researchers in the Oregon State University College of Science have taken a key step toward new drugs and vaccines for combating COVID-19 with a deep dive into one protein s interactions with SARS-CoV-2 genetic material.
The virus nucleocapsid protein, or N protein, is a prime target for disease-fighting interventions because of the critical jobs it performs for the novel coronavirus infection cycle and because it mutates at a comparatively slow pace. Drugs and vaccines built around the work of the N protein carry the potential to be highly effective and for longer periods of time - i.e., less susceptible to resistance.
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IMAGE: Mechanics is key to whisker tactile sensation. When a whisker is deflected, its deformation profile within the follicle determines the activity of different groups of mechanoreceptors. view more
Credit: Yifu Luo and Nadina Zweifel
Researchers have developed a new mechanical model that simulates how whiskers bend within a follicle in response to an external force, paving the way toward better understanding of how whiskers contribute to mammals sense of touch. Yifu Luo and Mitra Hartmann of Northwestern University and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal
PLOS Computational Biology.
With the exception of some primates, most mammals use whiskers to explore their environment through the sense of touch. Whiskers have no sensors along their length, but when an external force bends a whisker, that deformation extends into the follicle at the base of the whisker, where the whisker pushes or pulls on sensor cells, triggering touch signa