Non-invasive treatment of ischemia/reperfusion injury: Effective transmission of therapeutic near-infrared light into the human brain through soft skin-conforming silicone waveguides.

Noninvasive delivery of near-infrared light (IRL) to human tissues has been researched as a treatment for several acute and chronic disease conditions. We recently showed that use of specific IRL wavelengths, which inhibit the mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome oxidase (COX), leads to robust neuroprotection in animal models of focal and global brain ischemia/reperfusion injury. These life-threatening conditions can be caused by an ischemic stroke or cardiac arrest, respectively, two leading causes of death.

Exploring genetic variation in the tomato (Solanum section Lycopersicon) clade by whole-genome sequencing.

We explored genetic variation by sequencing a selection of 84 tomato accessions and related wild species representative of the Lycopersicon, Arcanum, Eriopersicon and Neolycopersicon groups, which has yielded a huge amount of precious data on sequence diversity in the tomato clade. Three new reference genomes were reconstructed to support our comparative genome analyses. Comparative sequence alignment revealed group-, species- and accession-specific polymorphisms, explaining characteristic fruit traits and growth habits in the various cultivars.