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Drugs are often only needed at a specific site in the body. That is why medical research has long been trying to deliver them precisely to where they are needed – in the case of a stroke, directly to the vicinity of the blood clot. A team from ETH Zurich has now achieved decisive breakthroughs on several levels in pursuit of this goal. The results have been published in the prestigious journal Science. The authors of the publication include Professor Tessa Lühmann from the In

The study found that rectification happens because of the way the electric charges lining the inside of the pore influence ion movement. The charge distribution makes it easier for ions to pass in one direction than the other, like a one-way valve. Gating, on the other hand, occurs when a large flow of ions leads to a charge imbalance that structurally destabilizes the pore, which causes part of the pore to temporarily collapse, blocking the flow of ions.

Researchers at the University of North Carolina have created microscopic soft robots shaped like flowers that can change shape and behavior in response to their surroundings, just like living organisms do. These tiny “DNA flowers” are made from special crystals formed by combining DNA and inorganic materials. They can reversibly fold and unfold in seconds, making them among the most dynamic materials ever developed on such a small scale. Each flower’s DNA acts like a tiny com

Researchers in the laboratory of Lulu Qian, Caltech professor of bioengineering, are developing nanoscale machines made out of synthetic DNA, taking advantage of DNA's unique chemical bonding properties to build circuits that can process signals much like miniature computers. Operating at billionth-of-a-meter scales, these molecular machines can be designed to form DNA robots that sort cargos or to function like a neural network that can learn to recognize handwritten numeric

Until now, the early phase of drug discovery for the development of new therapeutics has been both cost- and time-intensive. Researchers at KIT (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) have now developed a platform on which extremely miniaturized nanodroplets with a volume of only 200 nanoliters per droplet – comparable to a grain of sand – and containing only 300 cells per test can be arranged. This platform enables the researchers to synthesize, characterize, and test thousands

Photosystem II doesn’t just collect sunlight – it makes incredibly smart decisions about what to do with that energy. What researchers have uncovered is how nature balances two contradictory goals: getting the most from every photon while also protecting itself from too much light.