A spidery fungus with a voracious appetite for military uniforms and canvas tents could hold the key to improvements in the production of biofuels, a team of government, academic and industry researchers has announced.

Scientists at City of Hope and the California Department of Public Health have developed a new ultrasensitive assay to detect botulinum neurotoxin. The toxin is one of the most poisonous substances known that can cause life-threatening disease, and is considered a major potential bioterrorism threat agent. The research team’s work is published today in the online journal PLoS ONE (http://www.plosone.org/doi/pone.0002041).

Human monoclonal antibodies (mAbs)--highly specific, identical, infection-fighting proteins produced in large quantities in the lab in cell lines that are derived from a single cell--against influenza can be rapidly produced in the lab, according to a new report from scientists supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Using cells drawn from volunteers inoculated with seasonal influenza vaccine, the investigators made influenza-specific mAbs in just a few weeks rather than the typical two to three months. The new technique could potentially be used to rapidly create mAbs for a range of uses, the team says.

Compounds from oilseeds could be used to make plastics and other products. Australian researchers are a step closer to turning plants into ‘biofactories’ capable of producing oils which can be used to replace petrochemicals used to manufacture a range of products.

Intravenous administration of isotonic fluids is the standard emergency treatment in the U.S. for patients with severe blood loss, but UC San Diego bioengineering researchers have reported improved resuscitation with a radically different approach. Building on earlier studies in humans that have shown benefits of intravenous fluids that are eight times saltier than normal saline, the researchers combined hypertonic saline with viscosity enhancers that thicken blood.

Biodesign Institute scientist John Chaput and his research team have made the first self-assembled nanostructures composed entirely of glycerol nucleic acid -- a synthetic analog of DNA. The nanostructures contain additional properties not found in natural DNA, including the ability to form mirror image structures. The ability to make mirror image structures opens up new possibilities for nanotechnology. Credit: Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University In the rapid and fast-growing world of nanotechnology, researchers are continually on the lookout for new building blocks to push innovation and discovery to scales much smaller than the tiniest speck of dust.

A patent for a system that gives more reliable results in gene technology-based diagnostic tests has been granted to researchers at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH).

A photosynthetic cyanobacterium with chlorophyll (red) and the cellulose material (blue) it produced. A newly created microbe produces cellulose that can be turned into ethanol and other biofuels, report scientists from The University of Texas at Austin who say the microbe could provide a significant portion of the nation’s transportation fuel if production can be scaled up.

Combining a herpes virus genetically altered to express a drug-enhancing enzyme with a chemotherapy drug effectively and safely reduced the size of highly malignant human sarcoma grafted into mice. This new finding may add to the growing arsenal of so called oncolytic viruses under development as novel cancer treatments, especially for difficult, inoperable tumors, according to a research led by Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and published April 24 in Molecular Therapy.

The new technique exposes living cells to labeled antibodies, an approach that yields a much stronger signal for electron microscopy. University of Illinois researchers have developed a technique for imaging cells under an electron microscope that yields a sharper image of the structure of chromatin, the tightly wound bundle of genetic material and proteins that makes up the chromosomes.

New research demonstrates that novel probe technology based on flexible membranes can replace conventional atomic force microscopy (AFM) cantilevers for applications such as fast topographic imaging, quantitative material characterization and single molecule mechanics measurements.

The NIST terahertz imaging system reveals slight temperature differences, as shown in this post-processed image. The color scale ranges from blue indicating 301 K or 28.75 degrees C, to red indicating 302.5 K or 29.35 degrees C. The image was made of the test scene shown in the photo, a room-temperature ring on top of a warmer absorber material. Quantitative analysis shows the current system can distinguish structures with dimensions as small as 4 millimeters, to be significantly improved in the future. Credit: NIST Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated a new imaging system that detects naturally occurring terahertz radiation with unprecedented sensitivity and resolution. The technology may become a new tool chemical and biochemical analyses ranging from early tumor detection to rapid and precise identification of chemical hazards for homeland security instruments.

A new method that uses nanotechnology to rapidly measure minute amounts of insulin is a major step toward developing the ability to assess the health of the body’s insulin-producing cells in real time.

They may never win an Oscar, but scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have developed techniques for creating accurate movies of biological and chemical molecules, a feat only theorized up until now.

Researchers at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Harvard Medical School, Atrius Health, and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health have created and tested a set of computer programs that use electronic medical records to help clinicians detect contagious illness and automatically report them to public health departments.

In the event of an outbreak or a bioterrorist attack, rapid identification of the genetic changes responsible for virulence or drug resistance is essential to mounting an effective response. Standard DNA sequencing and analysis of a pathogen genome is time-intensive and likely impractical during an emergency. Researchers have now developed a comparative genomics strategy to drastically reduce the time needed to accurately identify unique genetic properties of a potential outbreak strain. This report, which demonstrates the approach using next-generation sequencing technology, is published online today in Genome Research (www.genome.org).

The spiraling use of corn for food and fuel is creating heightened concerns about contamination of this staple crop with deadly aflatoxin. Produced by certain fungi that grow on corn, this contaminant is a known human carcinogen that especially threatens food safety in the developing world and can potentially cause the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in the United States each year.

An enzyme from a microbe that lives inside a cow’s stomach is the key to turning corn plants into fuel, according to Michigan State University scientists.

Researchers have made a breakthrough in the development of "green gasoline," a liquid identical to standard gasoline yet created from sustainable biomass sources like switchgrass and poplar trees.

A biosensor made from an array of silver nanoparticles deposited on glass. Nanotechnology is now available in a store near you. Valued for it’s antibacterial and odor-fighting properties, nanoparticle silver is becoming the star attraction in a range of products from socks to bandages to washing machines. But as silver’s benefits propel it to the forefront of consumer nanomaterials, scientists are recommending a closer examination of the unforeseen environmental and health consequences of nanosilver.

Minerals from clay could provide a source of powerful antimicrobials for fighting deadly MRSA infections and other diseases. Mud may be coming to a medicine cabinet or pharmacy near you. Scientists in Arizona report that minerals from clay could form the basis of a new generation of inexpensive, highly-effective antimicrobials for fighting MRSA infections that are moving out of health care settings and into the community. These “superbugs” are increasingly resistant to multiple antibiotics and cause thousands of deaths each year.

A major new partnership between the public and private sectors was made official here this week (3-4 April) with an aim to increase rice production across Asia via the accelerated development and introduction of hybrid rice technologies. The innovative new effort to increase rice production – and support for rice research – comes at a crucial time for Asia as the region struggles to deal with near record rice prices caused by stagnating yields.

A spinal cord injury often leads to permanent paralysis and loss of sensation below the site of the injury because the damaged nerve fibers can't regenerate. The nerve fibers or axons have the capacity to grow again, but don’t because they're blocked by scar tissue that develops around the injury.

A tumor treated with fumagillin nanoparticles (left) is smaller than an untreated tumor. Nanoparticles containing an image-enhancing metal (yellow) show that the treated tumor has much less blood vessel growth than the untreated tumor. Credit: Washington University School of Medicine Anyone facing chemotherapy would welcome an advance promising to dramatically reduce their dose of these often harsh drugs. Using nanotechnology, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have taken a step closer to that goal.

Can 20 trisoligonucleotides with 20×3 individual sequences be programmed to self-assemble into a DNA dodecahedron? The answer is yes if one starts from a new generation of trisoligonucleotides based on C3h-symmetric linkers with proper flexibility. The resulting dodecahedron has C1 symmetry and may facilitate the construction of multimodular scaffolds in the future. Credit: (C) Wiley-VCH For quite some time, DNA, the stuff our genes are made of, has also been considered the building material of choice for nanoscale objects. A team led by Günter von Kiedrowski at the Ruhr University in Bochum has now made a dodecahedron (a geometric shape with twelve surfaces) from DNA building blocks. As reported in the journal Angewandte Chemie, these objects are formed in a self-assembly process from 20 individual trisoligonucleotides, building blocks consisting of a “branching junction” and three short DNA strands.

Researchers from the Nano Machine Center at the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA have developed a novel type of nanomachine that can capture and store anticancer drugs inside tiny pores and release them into cancer cells in response to light.

As gas prices continue to soar to record highs, motorists are crying out for an alternative that won’t cramp their pocketbooks.

A thin section of marine sponge is highlighted with red indicating the presence of cyanobacteria and algae living within the the sponge and blue and green areas revealed by MALDI-TOF MS imaging as areas of organic compounds detected by this approach. Credit: UC San Diego With the number of terrestrial sources that yield novel treatments for human disease decreasing year by year, the oceans have been tapped as a promising resource for discovering new natural biomedicines. Two studies by scientists at UC San Diego, each utilizing mass spectrometry in novel ways, have helped narrow the gap in identifying potent natural compounds from the sea that could one day treat diseases such as cancer. The research, published in the journals Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and Molecular Biosystems, was led by research groups headed by William Gerwick of the Center for Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and the UCSD Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Pieter Dorrestein of the UCSD Skaggs School.

In large-scale field trials, scientists from North Carolina State University have shown that silencing a specific gene in burley tobacco plants significantly reduces harmful carcinogens in cured tobacco leaves.

A researcher at the National University at San Diego has taken a mathematical approach to a biological problem - how to design a portable DNA detector. Writing in the International Journal of Nanotechnology, he describes a mathematical simulation to show how a new type of nanoscale transistor might be coupled to a DNA sensor system to produce a characteristic signal for specific DNA fragments in a sample.