MATTER

Medical Xpress | November 27, 2018

Columbia neuroscientists have discovered why mitochondria, tiny power generators that keep our cells healthy, are often strangely shaped inside the brain. Mitochondria, which exist by the thousands in each of our body's 37 trillion cells, usually look like long interconnected tubes. But inside brain cells called neurons, they adopt two completely different shapes depending on their location within the cell: that same elongated, tubular shape and a substantially smaller, almost spherical shap...

biotech | March 15, 2017

Proteins shake their bodies and wave their limbs, all with the goal of optimizing their interaction with other molecules, including other proteins. These tiny motions, called vibrations, enable the molecules to change shape quickly to bind to one another, which in turn facilitates tasks like absorbing oxygen and repairing cells. ...

Labiotech.eu | January 28, 2020

A Swiss research group has developed tiny plastic particles that could carry gene therapies to the center of the cell with less risk of getting attacked by the immune system than conventional gene therapies. The majority of gene therapies in use today are delivered to the DNA of target cells using viral vectors. While efficient at their job, viral vectors can risk triggering the immune system to destroy them. This can lead to the therapy becoming ineffective....

FierceBiotech | January 27, 2020

Johnson & Johnson is joining the growing ranks of biopharmas, including the likes of Moderna and Gilead Sciences, in trying to create a speedy vaccine for the coronavirus out of China. Over the weekend, we learned of a wider range and more deaths as the new virus, which appears to have come out of Wuhan, China, is doing what these diseases do best: spread. The causes of death have so far been reported as pneumonia, with other reports suggesting most of these have come from those with underly...