(Funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
Researchers at Penn State have developed novel contrast agents that target two proteins implicated in osteoarthritis, a degenerative joint disease. By marking the proteins with the contrast agents, which comprise newly designed metal nanoprobes, the researchers can use advanced imaging, called photon-counting computed tomography, to simultaneously track separate biological processes in color, which, together, reveal more about the disease’s progression than a traditional scan. “This high-resolution … imaging approach could potentially be used to image multiple biological targets, thus enabling disease progression tracking over time,” said Dipanjan Pan, one of the scientists involved in this study. Read additional details about the research here: https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/new-technique-allows-technicolor-imaging-degenerative-joint-disease.

(Funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health)
A few years ago, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University made an intriguing discovery: adding a branch to the end of lipid nanoparticles’ normally linear lipid tails dramatically improved messenger RNA (mRNA) delivery. Now, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have tested branched lipids in a variety of experiments and found that these lipids reliably outperform even the lipid nanoparticles used by Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech, the makers of the COVID-19 vaccines. The researchers hope the branched lipids will not only improve lipid nanoparticle delivery but also inspire a new approach to designing lipids, moving away from trial-and-error methods.

(Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. National Science Foundation)
Researchers from the University of California, Davis, have developed a new technique to trap clusters of platinum atoms in nanoscale islands. Previous work had shown that platinum arranged in clusters of a few atoms on a surface makes a better hydrogenation catalyst than either single platinum atoms or larger nanoparticles of platinum. But such small clusters tend to clump easily into larger particles, losing efficiency. So, the researchers decided to “trap” platinum clusters on a tiny island of cerium oxide supported on a silica surface and noticed that such clusters showed good catalytic activity in hydrogenation of ethylene.

(Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. National Science Foundation)
Researchers from the University of California, Davis, have developed a new technique to trap clusters of platinum atoms in nanoscale islands. Previous work had shown that platinum arranged in clusters of a few atoms on a surface makes a better hydrogenation catalyst than either single platinum atoms or larger nanoparticles of platinum. But such small clusters tend to clump easily into larger particles, losing efficiency. So, the researchers decided to “trap” platinum clusters on a tiny island of cerium oxide supported on a silica surface and noticed that such clusters showed good catalytic activity in hydrogenation of ethylene.

(Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation)
Researchers from Vanderbilt University have developed advanced dialysis membranes using an atomically thin material called graphene. These innovative membranes leverage a protein-enabled sealing mechanism that works as follows: When proteins escape through larger pores, they react with molecules on the other side of the graphene membrane. This reaction triggers a sealing process, selectively closing larger pores while preserving smaller ones. This self-sealing capability ensures precise size-selective filtration and improves the membrane’s overall effectiveness. The defect-sealed membranes remained stable for up to 35 days and consistently outperformed state-of-the-art commercial dialysis membranes.