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Category: biotech/medical

Software tool can detect hidden errors in complex tissue analyses

A new software tool, ovrlpy, improves quality control in spatial transcriptomics, a key technology in biomedical research. Developed by the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH) in international collaboration, ovrlpy is the first tool to identify cell overlaps and folds in tissue sections, thereby reducing previously unrecognized sources of misinterpretations. The researchers have published their results in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

Spatial transcriptomics is a pioneering field of research in biomedicine that visualizes cellular activity within a tissue by mapping RNA transcripts and assigning this molecular activity to individual cells. So far, such analyses of tissue samples have mostly been interpreted in two dimensions. However, even very thin tissue sections of 5 to 10 micrometers thick, about one-tenth the width of a human hair, have a complex three-dimensional structure.

If this 3D arrangement is interpreted only as a flat surface, analytical errors can occur, for example, due to cell overlaps or tissue folds. This impedes the precise assignment of transcripts to individual cells and can distort downstream analysis and interpretation.

Neural crest cells: Miniature electric muscles that colonize embryonic organs

Neural crest cells are a population of stem cells that invade the embryo in early development. They play a big role in what you look like: the pigments of your eyes, of your skin, and the bone structure of your face are all neural crests. Inside your body, the neural crest will form the myelin sheath of your peripheral nervous system and the entire nervous system of your intestine, the so-called “second brain.”

Neurocristopathies are a range of pathologies resulting from defective neural crest migration. One of the most frequent ones is Hirschsprung disease; it affects 1 in 5,000 newborns. These babies lack a nervous system inside their colon because the neural crest cells didn’t make it all the way to the end of the digestive tract during embryogenesis. The condition is lethal if not surgically treated at birth and its causes remain unknown in more than half of cases.

Among the identified genes involved in Hirschsprung disease, one has stood out for more than half a century: the peptide endothelin 3. Mice and humans with genetic defects in either endothelin 3 or its receptor EDNRB develop the disease, in some cases accompanied with pigmentation or craniofacial defects.

Discovery of unique brain tumor subtypes offers hope for targeted glioma therapies

Researchers have uncovered the mechanisms behind three unique subtypes of mismatch repair deficient high-grade gliomas. The findings provide a clearer understanding of how these tumors develop, explain why patients respond differently to immunotherapy, and are already helping guide more precise therapies.

High-grade gliomas are a group of aggressive brain tumors and one of the deadliest tumors in children and young adults. In some children, the tumors are driven by mismatch repair deficiency (MMRD), which is characterized by hypermutation (a large and quickly accumulating number of mutations in tumor cells) and resistance to standard treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation.

Tumors driven by mismatch repair deficiency are known as primary mismatch repair deficient high‑grade gliomas (priMMRD‑HGG). Because priMMRD-HGG have high numbers of mutations, treatment has shifted to immunotherapy, which uses the body’s own immune system to fight cancer by targeting cancer cells.

DNA-binding proteins from volcanic lakes could improve disease diagnosis

Scientists have uncovered new DNA-binding proteins from some of the most extreme environments on Earth and shown that they can improve rapid medical tests for infectious diseases. The work has been published in Nucleic Acids Research. The international research team, led by Durham University and working with partners in Iceland, Norway and Poland, analyzed genetic material from Icelandic volcanic lakes and deep-sea vents more than two kilometers below the surface of the North Atlantic Ocean.

Nature is the world’s largest source of useful enzymes, but many remain undiscovered. By using next-generation DNA sequencing, the researchers were able to search huge databases containing millions of potential proteins.

This approach allowed them to identify previously unknown proteins that bind to single-stranded DNA and remain stable under harsh conditions such as high temperatures, extreme pH or high salt levels.

New nanoparticles remove melanoma tumors in mice with low-power near-infrared laser

Researchers at Oregon State University have developed and tested in a mouse model a new type of nanoparticle that enables the removal of melanoma tumors with a low-power laser. After the systemically administered nanoparticles accumulate in cancerous tissue, exposure to near-infrared light causes them to heat up and destroy the melanoma cells, leaving healthy tissue unharmed.

The study led by Olena Taratula and Prem Singh of the Oregon State University College of Pharmacy represents a huge step toward solving a persistent problem with using photothermal therapy to treat melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer: Conventional nanoparticles require lasers with power densities that are unsafe for the skin. Findings were published in Advanced Functional Materials.

Taratula, associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences, and Singh, a postdoctoral researcher in Taratula’s lab, based their new theranostic platform —it can be used for both treatment and diagnosis—on gold nanorods. The nanorods are coated with an iron-cobalt shell and tightly loaded with a dye that heats up upon exposure to near-infrared light—invisible, low-frequency radiation able to penetrate deeply into human tissue.

Physicists Perform “Quantum Surgery” To Fix Errors While Computing

Quantum computers are often described as a glimpse of a faster, more powerful future. The catch is that today’s devices are fragile in a way ordinary computers are not. Their biggest headache is decoherence, the gradual loss of the delicate quantum behavior that makes them useful in the first place. When decoherence sets in, it can trigger two common kinds of mistakes: bit flips and phase flips.

A bit flip is the more intuitive problem. A qubit that should represent ‘0’ can unexpectedly behave like ‘1’. A phase flip is stranger but just as damaging. Even if a qubit stays in a superposition, the relationship between its components can suddenly switch, turning a positive phase into a negative one and scrambling the computation.

Why the next 25 years could surpass anything in modern memory | Peter Leyden: Full Interview

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“Old systems of the past are collapsing, and new systems of the future are still to be born. I call this moment the great progression.”

Up next, We are living through a slowdown in human progress | Jason Crawford ► • We are living through a slowdown in human…

We are at a tipping point. In the next 25 years, technologies like AI, clean energy, and bioengineering are poised to reshape society on a scale few can imagine.

Peter Leyden draws on decades of observing technological revolutions and historical patterns to show how old systems collapse, new ones rise, and humanity faces both extraordinary risk and unprecedented opportunity.

0:00 We’re on the cusp of an era of progress.

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