Science Daily April 27, 2018 The shape-memory effect in crystalline porous materials is poorly understood. An international team of researchers (Ireland, Japan, University of Southern Florida) reports the porous coordination network that exhibits a sorbate-induced shape-memory effect in which multiple sorbates, N2, CO2 and CO promote the effect. It exhibits three distinct phases: the as-synthesized α phase; a denser-activated β phase; and a shape-memory γ phase. Analysis of the structural information of the three phases helped them to understand structure-function relationships and propose crystal engineering principles for the design of more examples of shape-memory porous materials… read more. Open Access […]
Tag Archives: Biotechnology
Engineering a plastic-eating enzyme
Phys.org April 16, 2018 An international team of researchers (UK, USA – DOE NERL, University of South Florida, Brazil) engineered an enzyme that is even better at degrading the plastic than the one that evolved in nature. The enzyme can also degrade polyethylene furandicarboxylate, or PEF, a bio-based substitute for PET plastics that is being hailed as a replacement for glass beer bottles. The researchers are now working on improving the enzyme further to allow it to be used industrially to break down plastics in a fraction of the time. The discovery could result in a recycling solution for millions […]
Scientists breed bacteria that make tiny high-energy carbon rings
Science Daily April 6, 2018 Researchers at Caltech used directed evolution to evolve a new function in Escherichia coli bacteria, to produce a high-energy carbon compound, bicyclobutanes, a group of chemicals that contain four carbon atoms arranged so they form two triangles that share a side. The carbon rings are useful starting materials for creating other chemicals and materials… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Sugar-coated nanosheets developed to selectively target pathogens
Science Daily March 29, 2018 A team of researchers in the US (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, New York University) created the synthesized nanosheets out of self-assembling, bio-inspired polymers called peptoids. The sheets were designed to present simple sugars in a patterned way along their surfaces. Picking the right sugars to bind to the peptoid nanosheets, in the right distributions, can determine which pathogens will be drawn to them. They confirmed that the bindings with the targeted proteins were successful. The peptoid platform is rugged and stable, it can be deployed into the field for tests of bioagents by military personnel […]
Modified biomaterials self-assemble on temperature cues
Phys.org March 19, 2018 Post-translational modification of proteins is a strategy widely used in biological systems which has remained largely untapped for the synthesis of biomaterials. As a proof of concept of this technique, an international team of researchers (USA – Duke University, Germany) reports the generation of a family of three stimulus-responsive hybrid materials—fatty-acid-modified elastin-like polypeptides—using a one-pot recombinant expression and post-translational lipidation methodology. The hybrid approach allows researchers to control self-assembly more precisely, which may prove useful for a variety of biomedical applications from drug delivery to wound healing… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Personalizing wearable devices
Harvard University February 28, 2018 Researchers at Harvard University used Bayesian optimization to identify the peak and offset timing of hip extension assistance that minimizes the energy expenditure of walking with a textile-based wearable device. Optimal peak and offset timing represents an improvement of more than 60% on metabolic reduction compared with state-of-the-art devices that only assist hip extension. The results provide evidence for participant-specific metabolic distributions with respect to peak and offset timing and metabolic landscapes, lending support to the hypothesis that individualized control strategies can offer substantial benefits over fixed control strategies… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE Harvard researchers […]
What your face says about your heartbeat
Physorg January 29, 2018 When the heart circulates blood through the arteries and veins, the light absorbed by the skin changes by measurable amounts. Hemoglobin in the blood has an absorption peak for green light. When the heart pushes blood into arteries near the skin, more green light is absorbed and less is reflected. Researchers at Utah State University have invented a system that processes the color data and computes an average over regions of the image where skin is visible on the face, neck or arms. Future versions of the design could even replace hospital tools that monitor blood […]
A biological solution to carbon capture and recycling?
Science Daily January 8, 2018 The E. coli bacterium can grow in the complete absence of oxygen. When it does this it makes a special metal-containing enzyme, called ‘FHL’, which can interconvert gaseous carbon dioxide with liquid formic acid. An international team of researchers (Scotland, UK, Industry partners) has shown that when the bacteria containing the FHL enzyme are placed under pressurized carbon dioxide and hydrogen gas mixtures — up to 10 atmospheres of pressure — then 100 per cent conversion of the carbon dioxide to formic acid is observed. The reaction happens quickly, over a few hours, and at […]
Teaching life a new trick: Bacteria make boron-carbon bonds
Source: Eurekalert, November 29, 2017 Researchers at Caltech used directed evolution method, where enzymes are evolved in a lab to perform desired functions, to coax the bacteria into making boron-containing compounds. They mutated the DNA that encodes the protein and then put the mutated DNA sequences into thousands of bacterial cells. The DNA of successful mutant proteins was then mutated again, and the cycle was repeated until the bacteria making the proteins were highly proficient at assembling the boron-carbon compounds. Their final bacterial creations were up to 400 times more productive than synthetic chemical processes used for the same reaction. […]