INNOVATIONS

Eterna: Online Game Challenges To Design On/Off Switch for CRISPR By: Jennie Dusheck | Stanford News A team of researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine has launched a new challenge for the online computer game Eterna in which players are being asked to design an RNA molecule capable of acting as an on/off [..]

New Solar Cell Inspired By Insect Eyes: Perovskite Based Photovoltaics By: Mark Shwartz | Stanford News Packing tiny solar cells together, like micro-lenses in the compound eye of an insect, could pave the way to a new generation of advanced photovoltaics, say Stanford University scientists. In a new study, the Stanford [..]

Novel Ultrathin Semiconductor Materials By Stanford Engineers By: Andrew Myers | Stanford News The next generation of feature-filled and energy-efficient electronics will require computer chips just a few atoms thick. For all its positive attributes, trusty silicon can’t take us to these ultrathin extremes. Now, electrical engineers at Stanford have [..]

New Biomarkers Associated With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Severity By: Bruce Goldman | Stanford News Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have linked chronic fatigue syndrome to variations in 17 immune-system signaling proteins, or cytokines, whose concentrations in the blood correlate with the disease’s severity. The findings provide evidence that inflammation [..]

Fast, Noninvasive Technique For Probing Cells May Reveal Disease By: Jennifer Chu | MIT News Office  The stiffness or elasticity of a cell can reveal much about whether the cell is healthy or diseased. Cancer cells, for instance, are known to be softer than normal, while asthma-affected cells can be [..]

New Hydrogel-Based Capsules: Ingestible And Slowly Drug releasing Material By: Helen Knight | MIT News correspondent  Around half of all medications for chronic diseases are not taken as prescribed, costing the U.S. health care system more than $100 billion in avoidable hospital stays each year. This noncompliance is even more significant [..]

This Novel Molecular Switch Could Be Useful To Treat Parkinson’s, Arthritis and Other Diseases By : Kristin Samuelson | NW News A groundbreaking advancement in materials from Northwestern University could potentially help patients requiring stem cell therapies for spinal cord injuries, stroke, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, arthritic joints or any other [..]

Probiotic Beer : That Improves Gut Health And Boosts Immunity By: NUS News Beer lovers may soon have a gut-friendly drink to raise a toast to, thanks to the creation of a novel probiotic sour beer by a team of researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS). This new specialty [..]

First Battery-Free Cellphone By: Jennifer Langston | UW News University of Washington researchers have invented a cellphone that requires no batteries — a major leap forward in moving beyond chargers, cords and dying phones. Instead, the phone harvests the few microwatts of power it requires from either ambient radio signals or light. [..]

A New Mechanism for Genome Regulation By: Sarah Yang| Berkeley Lab News The same mechanisms that quickly separate mixtures of oil and water are at play when controlling the organization in an unusual part of our DNA called heterochromatin, according to a new study by researchers at the Department of [..]

A Microscopic Guillotine To Study Single-Cell Wound Repair July 2, 2017 By: Taylor Kubota | Stanford News While doing research at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts, Sindy Tang learned of a remarkable organism: Stentor coeruleus. It’s a single-celled, free-living freshwater organism, shaped like a trumpet and big enough to see with [..]

A Novel Eco-friendly  Method To Extract The Copper By: Denis Paiste | Materials Processing Center  Julye 2, 2017 MIT researchers have identified the proper temperature and chemical mixture to selectively separate pure copper and other metallic trace elements from sulfur-based minerals using molten electrolysis. This one-step, environmentally friendly process simplifies [..]

A New Broad-Spectrum Diagnostic Weapon Against Cancer By : Lindsay Brownell | Wyss Institute News Cancerous tumors are formidable enemies, recruiting blood vessels to aid their voracious growth, damaging nearby tissues, and deploying numerous strategies to evade the body’s defense systems. But even more malicious are the circulating tumor cells (CTCs) that [..]

An Affordable Yeast Based Global Biosensor Tool To Detect Pathogens By: Jessica Guenzel | Columbia University NEWS Columbia University researchers have developed a tool that is likely to revolutionize the way we detect and treat pathogens in everything from human health to agriculture to water. Using only common household baker’s yeast, [..]

A New And More Sustainable Way To Produce The Fuel Additive Ethanol By: MARK SHWARTZ Most cars and trucks in the United States run on a blend of 90 percent gasoline and 10 percent ethanol, a renewable fuel made primarily from fermented corn. But producing the 14 billion gallons of [..]

Utilizing Photosynthesis To Treat Damaged Hearts June 18, 2017 By: Stanford News In the ongoing hunt to find better treatments for heart disease, the top cause of death globally, new research from Stanford shows promising results using an unusual strategy: photosynthetic bacteria and light. Researchers found that by injecting a [..]

Optical Quantum Computing: New Leap By MIT Researchers By: Larry Hardesty | MIT News Office June 17, 2017 Ordinarily, light particles — photons — don’t interact. If two photons collide in a vacuum, they simply pass through each other. An efficient way to make photons interact could open new prospects [..]

Programmed Bacteria With Multicolor Vision By: Rob Matheson | MIT News Office June 5, 2017 MIT researchers have engineered bacteria with “multicolor vision” — E. coli that recognize red, green, or blue (RGB) light and, in response to each color, express different genes that perform different biological functions. To showcase [..]

Moisture-Responsive Breathable Workout Suit: Designed By MIT Scientists     A team of MIT researchers has designed a breathable workout suit with ventilating flaps that open and close in response to an athlete’s body heat and sweat. These flaps, which range from thumbnail- to finger-sized, are lined with live microbial [..]

C-LEARN: A New Approach To Teach Robots With Robots Source: Adam Conner-Simons | CSAIL MIT May 10, 2017 Most robots are programmed using one of two methods: learning from demonstration, in which they watch a task being done and then replicate it, or via motion-planning techniques such as optimization or sampling, [..]

Noval Way To Clear Pollutants From Water By: David L. Chandler | MIT News Office May 14, 2017 When it comes to removing very dilute concentrations of pollutants from water, existing separation methods tend to be energy- and chemical-intensive. Now, a new method developed at MIT could provide a selective [..]

New Chemical “Dye” To Improve Liver Cancer Imaging By: NUS News 14 May 2017 Scientists from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed a novel nanodiamond-based contrast agent – a chemical “dye” used to enhance the visibility of internal body structures in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) – that improves visualisation of liver [..]

New Technology To Monitor And Maintain The Drug Levels In The Body May 12, 2017 By: Tom Abate | Stanford News As with coffee or alcohol, the way each person processes medication is unique. One person’s perfect dose may be another person’s deadly overdose. With such variability, it can be [..]

A New Leap In Quantum Computing By Stanford Team By: Tom Abate (Stanford News) May 11, 2017 For 60 years computers have become smaller, faster and cheaper. But engineers are approaching the limits of how small they can make silicon transistors and how quickly they can push electricity through devices to [..]

Key Step Identified In Lung Cancer Evolution By MIT Biologist By: Anne Trafton | MIT News Office May 11, 2017 Lung adenocarcinoma, an aggressive form of cancer that accounts for about 40 percent of U.S. lung cancer cases, is believed to arise from benign tumors known as adenomas. MIT biologists [..]

Exotic Electronic States of Graphene Source: Jennifer Chu | MIT News Office May 9, 2017 In normal conductive materials such as silver and copper, electric current flows with varying degrees of resistance, in the form of individual electrons that ping-pong off defects, dissipating energy as they go. Superconductors, by contrast, [..]

FDA Approve RADICAVA™ of MT Pharma America To Treat ALS First FDA-approved ALS treatment option in more than 20 years1 RADICAVA has been demonstrated to slow decline of physical function by 33 percent2 Comprehensive clinical development program in ALS conducted over a 13-year period2 Source: MT America News May 9, [..]

Ingestible Wirelessly Powered Electronics Devices By: Anne Trafton | MIT News Office April 30, 2017 Researchers at MIT, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory have devised a way to wirelessly power small electronic devices that can linger in the digestive tract indefinitely after being swallowed. Such [..]

Genetics are key to hormone therapy lowering risk of broken bones in older women Source: David J. Hill | BUFFALO, N.Y. April 24, 2017  Women at the highest genetic risk for fracture benefit the most from hormone therapy, according to a first-of-its-kind study led by researchers at the University at Buffalo. [..]

Stronger Polymers: By A Simple & New Method  Source: Anne Trafton | MIT News Office April 24, 2017 Plastic, rubber, and many other useful materials are made of polymers — long chains arranged in a cross-linked network. At the molecular level, these polymer networks contain structural flaws that weaken them. [..]