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Category: biotech/medical

Major leap towards reanimation after death as mammal’s brain preserved

An entire mammalian brain has been successfully preserved using a technique that will now be offered to people who are terminally ill. The intention is to preserve all the neural information thought necessary to one day reconstruct the mind of the person it once belonged to.

“They would need to donate their brain and body for scientific research,” says Borys Wróbel at Nectome in Portland, Oregon, a research company focused on memory preservation. “But what we are offering, as a company, is for their body and brain to be kept, essentially indefinitely, in the hope that sometime, in the future, it would be possible to read out the information from the brain and reconstruct the person… to allow them to continue, in effect, with their life.”

When it comes to preserving the minute architecture of the brain, timing is critical. Within minutes of blood no longer circulating, enzymes break down neurons and cells start digesting themselves.

Image: Samunella/Science Photo Library

A pig’s brain has been frozen with its cellular activity locked in place and minimal damage. Some believe the same could be done with the brains of people with a terminal illness, so their mind can be reconstructed and they can “continue with their life”

Bio-based polymer offers a sustainable solution to ‘forever chemical’ cleanup

Researchers at the University of Bath have discovered a renewable, bio-based polymer membrane capable of efficiently capturing toxic “forever chemicals” from water, offering a potential new route to more sustainable water treatment. The paper is published in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a member of the per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) family and once commonly used in non-stick coatings, has now been widely detected in water sources worldwide. High levels of exposure have been linked to cancers, hormone disruption, and immune system suppression, with governments around the world taking action to protect people and the environment.

Unlike many conventional water treatment materials that require frequent replacement or generate secondary waste, the new bio-based membrane can trap and hold over 94% of PFOA from water. It can later be treated with heat to remove the trapped pollutants, allowing the polymer to be reused and reprocessed into a new membrane.

Uncovering the evolutionary limits of the COVID-19 virus

A new paper in Genome Biology and Evolution, indicates that while the COVID-19 virus has developed rapidly since 2019, it has done so within limited genetic channels. These genetic limits have remained unchanged. Despite scientists’ earlier fears about dramatic, rapid evolution of the COVID-19 virus, it appears recent changes in the virus were relatively constrained; the virus altered by combining pre-existing mutations. The virus has not expanded the number of genetic routes it can take to evolve.

The paper is titled “Structural constraints acting on the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein reveal limited space for viral adaptation.”

Fish gill-inspired panels reveal path to efficient thermal mixing

A fascination with fish gills has led researchers at Cornell to develop a bio-inspired approach to mixing heat and molecules in fluids—findings that could inform future biomedical devices, heat exchangers and soft robotics.

Moving heat and mass efficiently through flowing liquids is central to technologies ranging from dialysis machines to industrial cooling systems, yet many of those technologies rely on rigid components to get the job done.

Looking for an alternative, Yicong Fu, a mechanical engineering doctoral student, turned to fish gills—soft, porous tissue that constantly stirs water to keep gases and ions flowing. Working with Sunghwan “Sunny” Jung, professor of biological and environmental engineering in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Fu designed a gill-like thermal dispenser that is providing new insights into fluid-structure interactions.

New lipid nanoparticle design improves precision of mRNA vaccine delivery

Penn Engineers have redesigned a key component of lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), the delivery vehicles behind mRNA vaccines, to steer the particles toward lymph nodes while reducing off-target delivery to the liver. The advance could make mRNA vaccines more efficient, potentially achieving strong immune protection at lower doses.

“The more particles that reach the lymph nodes, the fewer particles each dose needs,” says Michael J. Mitchell, Associate Professor in Bioengineering (BE) and senior author of a new study in Journal of the American Chemical Society that describes how the researchers modified the ionizable lipid, a key LNP ingredient that helps mRNA enter cells.

In animal models, the new “aroLNPs,” whose name refers to the addition of a chemical structure called an “aromatic ring” to the ionizable lipid, delivered at least 10-fold less mRNA to the liver compared to the LNP formulation in the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, while maintaining similar levels of lymph-node delivery.

Cortically-mediated muscle responses to balance perturbations increase with perturbation magnitude in older adults with and without Parkinson’s disease

New in eNeuro from Boebinger et al: Compared to young adults, older people with and without Parkinson’s disease have larger brain responses and muscle signals that hinder their balance recovery ability.

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We lack a mechanistic understanding of how cortical contributions to balance control change in aging and Parkinson’s disease (PD). Balance is governed by brainstem circuits, with higher-order centers like the cortex or basal ganglia becoming engaged as challenge increases or balance health declines. We previously showed that parallel sensorimotor feedback loops engaging brainstem and cortical circuitry contribute to muscle activity for balance control in young adults (YAs). Here, we analyze data from male and female older adults (OAs) with and without PD, decomposing perturbation-evoked tibialis anterior and medial gastrocnemius muscle activity into hierarchical components based on latencies of feedback control loops. We found that balance-correcting muscle activity followed a stereotypical waveform of long-latency responses (LLRs): LLR1 began ∼120ms and LLR2 occurred ∼210ms, respectively, consistent with subcortical and cortical feedback latencies. Both LLRs increased with balance challenge and could be explained by center of mass kinematics. Perturbation-evoked antagonist muscle activity consisted of destabilizing and stabilizing components categorized based on whether they resist the kinematic errors that drive their activation. The destabilizing component occurred at ∼180ms and was negatively correlated with clinical measures of balance ability in the OA but not PD group. Exploratory comparisons showed OA and PD groups had larger LLR2s at lower challenge levels than YAs, consistent with greater cortical engagement during balance with aging. These findings demonstrate that a neuromechanical model can decompose perturbation-evoked muscle activity into hierarchical components related to clinical balance ability and identify mechanistic changes in the neural control of balance without direct brain measurements.

Significance Statement We show that reactive balance recovery in older adults with and without Parkinson’s disease can be decomposed into distinct components that reflect hierarchical brainstem, cortical, and basal ganglia feedback loops. Using a neuromechanical model of delayed task-level feedback control, we link these components to perturbation difficulty and clinical balance ability in older adults. This framework connects specific features of agonist and antagonist muscle activity to underlying neural control processes without requiring direct brain recordings. Our findings provide a mechanistic basis for age-and disease-related changes in balance control that can inform individualized assessment and future rehabilitation strategies.

Novel Octameric Resistosome and Immune Mechanism in Wheat

After activation, these NLRs form multi-protein complexes—called resistosomes—that carry out the immune response. Studies have shown that certain resistosomes are pentameric (e.g., ZAR1 and Sr35), whereas others are hexameric (e.g., NRC2 and NRC4). These complexes initiate immune responses by triggering calcium (Ca2+) influx into the cytoplasm. However, the G10 type of CC-NLR (CCG10-NLR) immune receptors constitutes a unique clade among CC-NLRs and its activation mechanism has remained poorly understood.

Now, in a study published in Cell, a research team has revealed a novel octameric resistosome formed by an activated wheat CCG10-NLR immune receptor, which induces Ca2+ influx and immune responses through a unique channel architecture.

The researchers identified the Wheat Autoimmunity 3 (WAI3) gene, which encodes a CCG10-NLR protein. Subsequent analysis revealed that a gain-of-function (GOF) single amino acid mutation in the leucine-rich repeat (LRR) domain leads to autoactivation, providing an opportunity to study the activation mechanism of CCG10-NLR.

After expressing the WAI3 proteins in Nicotiana benthamiana, the researchers used cryo-electron microscopy to resolve the octameric structure of the activated WAI3 resistosome—marking the first time an octameric resistosome has been identified in plants.

The CCG10-NLR WAI3 resistosome differs from known resistosomes both in the number of monomers and in its conformation, representing a novel assembly mechanism for plant NLR resistosomes.

Using Nicotiana benthamiana and animal cell expression systems, the researchers also demonstrated that the WAI3 resistosome induces Ca2+ influx in plants but is not effective in animal cells. ScienceMission sciencenewshighlights.

Continue reading “Novel Octameric Resistosome and Immune Mechanism in Wheat” | >

Ultrastructural preservation of a whole large mammal brain with a protocol compatible with human physician-assisted death

Ultrastructural Preservation of a Whole Large Mammal Brain (bioRxiv, 2026) ⚠️ Preprint – not yet peer-reviewed.

A 2026 preprint builds on over a decade of brain preservation research, demonstrating that whole mammalian brains (pigs) can be preserved with remarkable structural fidelity under near–real-world, end-of-life conditions.

The study refines aldehyde-stabilized cryopreservation (ASC)—a technique previously recognized by the Brain Preservation Foundation. This method combines chemical fixation (aldehydes), cryoprotectants, and controlled cooling to prevent ice damage and preserve neural structure at the nanoscale. — What the study shows.

Whole pig brains preserved with intact cellular and synaptic architecture.

Preservation remains viable even with delayed postmortem intervals (~10 minutes)

Tissue remains perfusable and structurally stable after fixation.

Protocol moves toward clinically realistic implementation, not just lab conditions.

Continue reading “Ultrastructural preservation of a whole large mammal brain with a protocol compatible with human physician-assisted death” | >

The Jellies That Evolved a Different Way To Keep Time

Developmental biologist Tsuyoshi Momose cultures a newly discovered species of jellyfish in a tank of circulating water. Scientists want to understand how these unusual jellies keep time.

The passage of the sun across the sky — dawn, day, dusk, night — drives the clock of life. Some species wake with the sun and sleep with the moon. Others do the opposite, and a few keep odd hours. These naturally driven, 24-hour biological cycles are known as circadian rhythms, and they do more than cue bedtime: They regulate hormones, metabolism, DNA repair, and more. When life falls out of sync, there can be dire consequences for health, reproduction, and survival.

Lacking watches, many species keep time using an internal system — a set of interacting genes and their protein products that effectively keeps track of a 24-hour period — that is calibrated by sunlight. This kind of circadian clock is widespread, found even in single-celled algae, which suggests that biological timekeeping evolved billions of years ago. Across animals, most species have the same genetic system, using genes known as CLOCK, BMAL1, and CRY, or recognizable homologues. This form of biological clock mechanism appears even in ancient lineages, including sponges and some jellyfish.

But is this the only way to do it? In a pea-size jelly off the coast of Japan, biologists are examining a different kind of timekeeping.

The many pathways driving liver inflammation in MASH

Online now: Intra-and extrahepatic inflammation in MASH is driven by various hits such as lipotoxicity, the gut microbiome, and proinflammatory diets. Inflammation contributes to hepatic and systemic complications, including cardiovascular diseases. Beneficial drugs in MASH might target metabolic and inflammatory pathways.

Inflammation is a key driver of this disease, and effective future therapies might have to target metabolic and inflammatory pathways.

Assessment of inflammation, i.e., MASH in humans, is still challenging as it might appear intermittently during the clinical course and could be missed by liver biopsy. Future non-invasive strategies assessing the liver’s inflammatory burden are eagerly awaited.

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