4,377 results match your criteria: "the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology[Affiliation]"

Schizophrenia (SCZ), bipolar (BD) and major depression disorder (MDD) are severe psychiatric disorders that are challenging to treat, often leading to treatment resistance (TR). It is crucial to develop effective methods to identify and treat patients at risk of TR at an early stage in a personalized manner, considering their biological basis, their clinical and psychosocial characteristics. Effective translation of theoretical knowledge into clinical practice is essential for achieving this goal.

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Ultrafast Thermal Switching Enabled by Transient Polaritons.

ACS Nano

December 2024

School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.

Ultrafast thermal switches are pivotal for managing heat generated in advanced solid-state applications, including high-speed chiplets, thermo-optical modulators, and on-chip lasers. However, conventional phonon-based switches cannot meet the demand for picosecond-level response times, and existing near-field radiative thermal switches face challenges in efficiently modulating heat transfer across vacuum gaps. To overcome these limitations, we propose an ultrafast thermal switch design based on pump-driven transient polaritons in asymmetric terminals.

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Hazard assessment of nanomaterials: how to meet the requirements for (next generation) risk assessment.

Part Fibre Toxicol

December 2024

Health Effects Laboratory, Department of Environmental Chemistry and Health Effects, NILU, 2007, Kjeller, Norway.

Background: Hazard and risk assessment of nanomaterials (NMs) face challenges due to, among others, the numerous existing nanoforms, discordant data and conflicting results found in the literature, and specific challenges in the application of strategies such as grouping and read-across, emphasizing the need for New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) to support Next Generation Risk Assessment (NGRA). Here these challenges are addressed in a study that couples physico-chemical characterization with in vitro investigations and in silico similarity analyses for nine nanoforms, having different chemical composition, sizes, aggregation states and shapes. For cytotoxicity assessment, three methods (Alamar Blue, Colony Forming Efficiency, and Electric Cell-Substrate Impedance Sensing) are applied in a cross-validation approach to support NAMs implementation into NGRA.

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Electrochemical carbon dioxide (CO) reduction from aqueous solutions offers a promising strategy to overcome flooding and salt precipitation in gas diffusion electrodes used in gas-phase CO electrolysis. However, liquid-phase CO electrolysis often exhibits low CO reduction rates because of limited CO availability. Here, a macroporous Ag mesh is employed and activated to achieve selective CO conversion to CO with high rates from an aqueous bicarbonate solution.

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Micro/nanomotors (MNMs) are highly versatile small-scale devices capable of converting external energy inputs into active motion. Among the various energy sources, light stands out due to its abundance and ability to provide spatiotemporal control. However, the effectiveness of light-driven motion in complex environments, such as biological tissues or turbid water, is often limited by light scattering and reduced penetration.

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Glycogenin is dispensable for normal liver glycogen metabolism and body glucose homeostasis.

Int J Biol Macromol

December 2024

Institut Químic de Sarrià (IQS), Universitat Ramon Llull (URL), Barcelona 08017, Spain; Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Barcelona 08028, Spain.

Glycogen is a glucose-storage polysaccharide molecule present in animals, fungi and bacteria. The enzyme glycogenin can self-glycosylate, forming an oligosaccharide chain that primes glycogen synthesis. This priming role of glycogenin was first believed to be essential for glycogen synthesis, but glycogen was then found in the skeletal muscle, heart, liver and brain of glycogenin-knockout mice (Gyg KO), thereby showing that glycogen can be synthesized without glycogenin.

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Electrochemical reduction of CO (CORR) to multi-carbon products is a promising technology to store intermittent renewable electricity into high-added-value chemicals and close the carbon cycle. Its industrial scalability requires electrocatalysts to be highly selective to certain products, such as ethylene or ethanol. However, a substantial knowledge gap prevents the design of tailor-made materials, as the properties ruling the catalyst selectivity remain elusive.

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The discovery that sponges (Porifera) can fully regenerate from aggregates of dissociated cells launched them as one of the earliest experimental models to study the evolution of cell adhesion and allorecognition in animals. This process depends on an extracellular glycoprotein complex called the Aggregation Factor (AF), which is composed of proteins thought to be unique to sponges. We used quantitative proteomics to identify additional AF components and interacting proteins in the classical model, , and compared them to proteins involved in cell interactions in Bilateria.

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Effects of red blood cell transfusion on cerebral hemodynamics of preterm neonates.

Neurophotonics

October 2024

NICU Fondazione IRCCS Ca' Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico Milan, Milan, Italy.

Significance: Anemia is a common problem in preterm neonates, and red blood cell transfusion (RBCT) is used to improve oxygen delivery. However, RBCT is associated with complications, although an increase in cerebral oxygenation has been documented, and no universally accepted biomarker for the need for transfusion (i.e.

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Strain superlattices (SL) in 2D materials like graphene provide an ideal test bed for generating flat bands and exploring the effects of strong correlations. Here we report STM/STS measurements on an engineered SL generated by placing graphene on a periodic array of silica nanospheres. A pseudomagnetic field as high as 55 T is observed along with the formation of pseudo-Landau levels (pLLs), not only at the expected integer values but also at fractional values.

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Single-Carbon Insertion into Single C-C Bonds with Diazirines.

J Am Chem Soc

December 2024

Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ-CERCA), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Països Catalans 16, 43007 Tarragona, Spain.

A novel platform for the skeletal editing of single C-C bonds via a single-carbon insertion has been developed using diazirines. This strategy involves the photogeneration of arylchlorocarbenes as carbynoid species that undergo site-selective carbene insertion into tertiary C-H bonds and a subsequent Wagner-Meerwein rearrangement promoted by a silver salt. Our skeletal editing strategy based on a formal selective carbyne C-C bond insertion has been demonstrated in six core-to-core conversions, including linear and cyclic benzylic substrates, alkanes and late-stage functionalizations.

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Thyroid vascularization and hemodynamics become altered in thyroid pathologies and could thus inform diagnostics, therapy planning, and follow-up. However, the current non-invasive monitoring methods available in clinics lack the necessary sensitivity and/or are impractical for large-scale deployment. As a step towards proposing a new modality, we applied the first platform, to our knowledge, designed to do simultaneous measurements of neck anatomy and thyroid microvascular hemodynamics and metabolism in a single probe placement, integrating state-of-the-art near-infrared spectroscopy techniques and clinical ultrasound.

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MFN1 (mitofusin 1) and MFN2 are key players in mitochondrial fusion, endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-mitochondria juxtaposition, and macroautophagy/autophagy. However, the mechanisms by which these proteins participate in these processes are poorly understood. Here, we studied the interactomes of these two proteins by using CRISPR-Cas9 technology to insert an HA-tag at the C terminus of MFN1 and MFN2, and thus generating HeLa cell lines that endogenously expressed MFN1-HA or MFN2-HA.

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In , successful development relies on the precise coordination of both spatial and temporal regulatory axes. The temporal axis governs stage-specific identity and developmental transitions through a number of genes, collectively forming the . Among these, Ecdysone inducible protein 93F (E93) serves as the critical determinant for adult specification, but its mechanism of action remains unclear.

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New developments for the Quest for Orthologs benchmark service.

NAR Genom Bioinform

December 2024

Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Stockholm University, Science for Life Laboratory, Box 1031, SE-17121 Solna, Sweden.

The Quest for Orthologs (QfO) orthology benchmark service (https://orthology.benchmarkservice.org) hosts a wide range of standardized benchmarks for orthology inference evaluation.

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Summary: Advances in high-throughput DNA sequencing technologies and decreasing costs have fueled the identification of small genetic variants (such as single nucleotide variants and indels) across tumors. Despite efforts to standardize variant formats and vocabularies, many sources of variability persist across databases and computational tools that annotate variants, hindering their integration within cancer genomic analyses. In this context, we present OpenVariant, an easily extendable Python package that facilitates seamless reading, parsing and refinement of diverse input file formats in a customizable structure, all within a single process.

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Epitranscriptomic rRNA fingerprinting reveals tissue-of-origin and tumor-specific signatures.

Mol Cell

December 2024

Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Dr. Aiguader 88, Barcelona 08003, Spain; Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Barcelona 08003, Spain; ICREA, Passeig Lluís Companys 23, Barcelona 08010, Spain. Electronic address:

Mammalian ribosomal RNA (rRNA) molecules are highly abundant RNAs, decorated with over 220 rRNA modifications. Previous works have shown that some rRNA modification types can be dynamically regulated; however, how and when the mammalian rRNA modification landscape is remodeled remains largely unexplored. Here, we employ direct RNA sequencing to chart the human and mouse rRNA epitranscriptome across tissues, developmental stages, cell types, and disease.

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Advanced Antibacterial Strategies for Combatting Biomaterial-Associated Infections: A Comprehensive Review.

Wiley Interdiscip Rev Nanomed Nanobiotechnol

December 2024

Bioinspired Interactive Materials and Protocellular Systems Group, Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST), Barcelona, Spain.

Biomaterial-associated infections (BAIs) pose significant challenges in modern medical technologies, being a major postoperative complication and leading cause of implant failure. These infections significantly risk patient health, resulting in prolonged hospitalization, increased morbidity and mortality rates, and elevated treatment expenses. This comprehensive review examines the mechanisms driving bacterial adhesion and biofilm formation on biomaterial surfaces, offering an in-depth analysis of current antimicrobial strategies for preventing BAIs.

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Article Synopsis
  • Lifespan variability exists within species, including genetically identical Caenorhabditis elegans, indicating factors beyond genotype and environment influence longevity.
  • Researchers identified biomarkers that strongly predict lifespan, some being positively correlated (lin-4p::GFP, mir-243p::GFP) and others negatively correlated (mir-240/786p::GFP, autofluorescence), suggesting a shared health state linked to longevity.
  • The study revealed that even among individuals of the same chronological age, those predicted to be long- or short-lived had notable differences in their gene expression profiles, indicating that lifespan predictions involve more than just typical aging processes.
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Solution-processed gain media have great technological potential as lasers due to their ease of integration with on-chip photonics, scalability and tuneable optoelectronic properties. Currently, the spectral coverage of solution-processed lasers extends from visible up to telecom wavelengths in the short-wave infrared (SWIR) (<1650 nm). Here, the optical gain in the extended SWIR from 1600 nm to 2500 nm is demonstrated, using PbSbased colloidal quantum dots (CQDs).

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Twisted bilayer graphene (TBG) represents a highly tunable, strongly correlated electron system. However, understanding the single-particle band structure alone has been challenging due to a lack of spectroscopic measurements over a broad energy range. Here, we probe the band structure of TBG around the magic angle using infrared spectroscopy and reveal spectral features that originate from interband transitions.

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Blackbody radiation is incoherent and omnidirectional, whereas various novel applications in renewable energy require a degree of directional control of a thermally emitted beam. So far, such directional control has required nano-structuring the surface of a thermally emitting material, typically by forming diffraction gratings. This, however, necessitates lithography and usually results in polarization-dependent properties.

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Guiding light with surface exciton-polaritons in atomically thin superlattices.

Nanophotonics

July 2024

Department of Applied Physics and Eindhoven Hendrik Casimir Institute, Eindhoven University of Technology, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands.

Two-dimensional materials give access to the ultimate physical limits of photonics with appealing properties for ultracompact optical components such as waveguides and modulators. Specifically, in monolayer semiconductors, a strong excitonic resonance leads to a sharp oscillation in permittivity from positive to even negative values. This extreme optical response enables surface exciton-polaritons to guide visible light bound to an atomically thin layer.

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The ability of surface polaritons (SPs) to enhance and manipulate light fields down to deep-subwavelength length scales enables applications in optical sensing and nonlinear optics at the nanoscale. However, the wavelength mismatch between light and SPs prevents direct optical excitation of surface-bound modes, thereby limiting the widespread development of SP-based photonics. Free electrons are a natural choice to directly excite strongly confined SPs because they can supply field components of high momentum at designated positions with subnanometer precision.

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Article Synopsis
  • - Alternative splicing includes microexons in neuronal proteins, which are often linked to neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
  • - A specific 24-nucleotide microexon in the RNA-binding protein CPEB4, previously shown to be less included in individuals with ASD, plays a critical role in regulating gene expression linked to neurodevelopment.
  • - The study finds that this microexon helps maintain the flexible regulation of CPEB4 during neuronal activation by preventing its aggregation, allowing it to switch from repressing to activating translation of genes.
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