Tag

Bioengineering

All articles tagged with #bioengineering

science1 month ago•11 min saved

Brazil's Hidden Dirt Grid: 200 Million Termite Mounds Reveal Ancient Underground Network

Researchers mapped roughly 200 million red-dirt murundus in Brazil’s caatinga, showing they are spoil heaps, not nests, created by the leaf-eating termite Syntermes dirus as it dug a vast underground tunnel network. The cones are about 2.5 meters tall and spaced ~20 meters apart, over about 230,000 square kilometers—the size of Great Britain—with mound centers dating from roughly 690 to 3,820 years old, indicating four millennia of self-organized engineering that moved around 10 cubic kilometers of soil. The scale is so large that it’s described as the most extensive insect-driven bioengineering, yet a queen and a mapped map of the tunnels remain undiscovered. Satellite imagery enabled the discovery; researchers plan targeted digging to understand the architecture, while ongoing land-clearing in the Caatinga threatens the site.

via Space Daily|

#bioengineering #caatinga #science

science1 month ago•16 min saved

Plastic-to-cookie: Microbes bake vanilla cookies from PET bottles

Researchers at Southern Illinois University converted plastic bottles’ PET into edible μBites by breaking PET down with biomass and using engineered yeasts to turn plastic-derived molecules into proteins, vitamins, and flavors, then forming cookie-shaped dough via 3D printing. Aimed at disaster or deep-space food, the approach requires taste-testing approval and currently costs about $60 per kilogram, with ongoing work to add vanilla flavoring and beta-carotene while public acceptance remains a hurdle.

via Gizmodo|

#bioengineering #pet #plastics-recycling

biology1 month ago•16 min saved

Bacteria-Powered Transistors Create Slow-Mood Living Circuits

MIT scientists wired three strains of Pantoea agglomerans to act as transistors, forming “living circuit boards” that pass signals via output molecules. The setup can run multiple logic operations, with the largest circuit containing 24 colonies, but each calculation takes about eight hours and the whole system operates for roughly three days due to slow molecular diffusion and growth. Potential uses include monitoring plant roots for stress or pests, illustrating how simple cellular functions can be linked into larger biological circuits—even if not yet a replacement for traditional computers.

via Gizmodo|

#bioengineering #biology #biotechnology

health2 months ago•14 min saved

Bioengineered Chewing Gum Targets HPV and Harmful Oral Bacteria Linked to Head and Neck Cancer

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania developed a lablab-bean–based bioengineered chewing gum that releases FRIL antiviral protein and Protegrin antimicrobial peptide to reduce HPV levels (up to 93% in saliva) and two cancer-linked bacteria (Porphyromonas gingivalis and Fusobacterium nucleatum) in lab tests, while largely sparing beneficial oral bacteria. The gum is not yet publicly available and is not a substitute for HPV vaccination, regular screenings, or medical treatment; more clinical trials are needed to determine whether regular use could lower cancer risk or improve outcomes.

via NDTV|

#bioengineering #chewing-gum #head-and-neck-cancer

science-policy2 months ago•8 min saved

Europe’s blueprint to become a bioengineering powerhouse: three bold changes

A Nature commentary argues Europe is losing ground in bioengineering to the US and China and calls for a European bioengineering agenda built on three pillars: (1) build academic excellence with dedicated bioengineering departments and cutting‑edge curricula; (2) invest in bioengineers via new, dedicated funding schemes and independent review panels; and (3) establish industry engagement, tax incentives, and streamlined regulatory pathways to translate research into market and clinical use, supported by upcoming EU funding programs to create homegrown hubs and attract global talent.

via Nature|

#bioengineering #education #europe

biotech2 months ago•32 min saved

ProteinGuide enables on-the-fly conditioning of protein design models with experimental data

ProteinGuide provides an inference-time conditioning framework that lets a broad class of protein sequence generators (including masked language models like ESM3, autoregressive models like ProteinMPNN, and discrete-space diffusion/flow models) be guided by auxiliary experimental data without retraining. Built on a unifying statistical approach, it enables designs targeting properties such as stability and activity, supports multi-property Pareto optimization, and, when combined with wet-lab data, can enhance in vivo base-editor activity beyond multi-round directed evolution. The work provides code and data (Zenodo, GitHub) and a ProteinGen package to facilitate design workflows.

via Nature|

#bioengineering #biotech #experimental-data

technology2 months ago•42 min saved

Raygun: AI-driven, length-agnostic protein design that preserves function

Raygun is an autoencoder-based AI framework that encodes proteins as fixed-dimensional Gaussian distributions derived from protein language model embeddings, enabling rapid, single-shot generation of variants at any length with controlled substitutions and indels while preserving predicted structure and functional sites. It demonstrates miniaturization of fluorescent proteins and TurboID, enlargement of EGF with improved EGFR binding, and broad applicability to template-guided protein redesign, offering a faster alternative to diffusion-based de novo design.

via Nature|

#bioengineering #language-models #protein-design

science2 months ago•5 min saved

MIT magnets pattern lab-grown blood vessels

MIT researchers developed a magnetically controlled method to pattern and grow artificial blood vessels in a collagen gel, using a chip with an internal magnet actuated by external magnetic fields to tune vessel length and density. The approach offers a programmable way to create organized vascular networks for lab-grown tissues, though it remains early-stage and requires demonstration of perfusion and integration with organs.

via ScienceAlert|

#angiogenesis #bioengineering #magnetic-actuation

discoveries2 months ago•35 min saved

Ancient bristle worm jaws redefine metal in biology as a new class of bio-metals

Microscopic tests of Perinereis cultrifera jaws show ion‑coordinated proteins that harden toward the tips and display metal‑like, size‑dependent elasticity, supporting a new category called bio-metals that blend polymeric structure with metal‑like hardness; researchers used nanoindentation and manifold micromechanics to define bio-metals by hardness, strain behavior, and ion‑protein structure and plan to study more species and potential genetic links to material design.

via The Brighter Side of News|

#bioengineering #biomaterials #biophysics

technology2 months ago•3 min saved

Paintable Skin Electrodes Signal a New Era for Wearable Biometric Monitoring

Researchers from Penn State, MIT, and China developed WE-PPD, a safe, paintable polymer electrode that can be painted directly onto the skin to monitor heart rate, muscle activity, and brain waves. In tests, the electrode maintained about 95% ECG consistency before/after mild sweating and surpassed traditional films in breathability, while remaining flexible (stretching up to ~170%). It could enable tattoo-like, customizable biointerfaces and extended pediatric monitoring, though more safety evaluations—especially MRI compatibility—are needed before clinical use.

via Gizmodo|

#bioengineering #medical-monitoring #on-skin-electrodes

science3 months ago•92 min saved

Lab-made SpudCell: lifelike but not autonomous

Scientists report SpudCell, a bottom‑up synthetic cell built from 36 purified enzymes and a fatty membrane with a minimal genome, which can feed, grow, and divide in a dish. However, it cannot produce its own energy, lacks full ribosomal machinery, and relies on externally supplied fats, sugars, and enzymes; its genome is distributed on plasmids and cell division can be imperfect. Described as a proof‑of‑principle rather than a living, autonomous organism, the work could someday enable new on‑demand chemical or pharmaceutical production, but peer review is pending and some scientists urge caution about hype and autonomy claims.

via Live Science|

#bioengineering #biorxiv #cell-division

science3 months ago•6 min saved

SpudCell: first synthetic cell built from non-living components completes a full life cycle

Scientists report creating SpudCell, the first synthetic cell assembled from non-living components that can grow, divide, and complete a life cycle using a 90-kilobase genome; while not yet peer‑reviewed and not truly self-sustaining or evolvable, the work provides a programmable chassis for future bioengineering and explorations of what defines life.

via ScienceAlert|

#bioengineering #life #science

technology3 months ago•11 min saved

The Pacemaker Patch: An External Ultrasound Approach to Pacing the Heart

Researchers envision a chest-mounted patch that uses high-frequency ultrasound to pace the heart, made possible by a gene-therapy step that makes heart cells produce a sound-sensitive protein; the system would pair with a pocket-sized data/power module and has shown responses in rats, pigs, and human heart cells. While intriguing as a potential alternative to implanted pacemakers, it remains experimental, with safety, regulatory, and practicality questions to resolve before clinical use.

via Hackaday|

#bioengineering #gene-therapy #medical-hacks

biology4 months ago•17 min saved

Heat-and-Press Silk Becomes a Kevlar-like Ultra-Tough Material

Scientists have turned commercially available silkworm silk into a near-Kevlar-strength material by hot-pressing and fusing fibers at precise temperatures and pressures, preserving silk’s natural structure while boosting toughness, with potential for sustainable, scalable applications in sensors, implants, and lightweight protective materials.

via Gizmodo|

#bioengineering #biology #fused-silk

science4 months ago•26 min saved

Spinach-Inspired Photosynthesis Targets Dry Eye in Eye Cells

Scientists at NUS bioengineered spinach-derived photosynthetic machinery to function in mammalian corneal cells via eye drops, using light to generate anti-inflammatory chemicals and combat oxidative stress in dry eye disease, a condition affecting about 1.5 billion people; the work, published in Cell, explores a novel, plant-based approach to treating dry eye by harnessing light-driven chemistry in eye tissues (still at early model stages).

via ZME Science|

#bioengineering #cornea #dry-eye-disease