The 2019 Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) caused by the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is now raging around the world. Existing studies have shown that SARS-CoV-2 infects host cells through the receptor ACE2. In a new study, scientists discovered that neuropilin 1 (NRP1) is a factor that can promote ... Views: 299
Recently, a research team found that non-toxic concentrations of silver nanoparticles can antagonize the genotoxicity induced by arsenic by reducing the bioaccumulation of heavy metal arsenic in mammalian cells and enhancing the anti-oxidant ability in the cells. Related research results were ... Views: 307
What Are Dendrimers?
Dendrimers are nano-sized, radially symmetric molecules with well-defined, homogeneous, and monodisperse structure consisting of tree-like arms or branches. These hyperbranched molecules were first discovered by Fritz Vogtle in 1978, by Donald Tomalia and co-workers in ... Views: 402
Viruses must enter the host cell to replicate in order to function. Therefore, antiviral drugs can be designed for a series of targets in the process of virus interaction with cell receptors, gene replication, transcription and translation when the virus invades host cells and completes its life ... Views: 314
Upconverting nanoparticles (UCNPs) are nanoscale particles, with diameter from 1nm to 100 nm that can exhibit photon upconversion. Since François formally proposed the concept of upconversion luminescence in 1966, to the introduction of nanotechnology in the 1990s, scientists have synthesized ... Views: 336
Cardiolipin is a unique phospholipid with a very interesting chemical and specific ultrastructural characteristics. In a research report published in the journal Science Advances in 28 Aug 2020, scientists from Johns Hopkins University and other institutions studied yeast and revealed the ... Views: 368
Physiological characteristics of the liver
The liver is an important organ involved in the processes of digestion, excretion, detoxification and immunity. Liver diseases are common clinical diseases, such as viral hepatitis, cirrhosis and liver cancer, which are extremely harmful to human ... Views: 365
Theoretical calculations show that spherical nanoparticles release unstable electron-positron pairs when affected by positrons of specific energies, and the direction of the signal is the same as that of the incident positrons.
When electrons collide with positrons, their antimatter ... Views: 323
At present, the outbreak of COVID-19 has spread to more than 200 countries and regions around the world, and the number of confirmed cases has exceeded 6 million. The world is racing to develop the Novel Coronavirus vaccine. Dozens of candidate vaccines are undergoing pre-clinical evaluation, ... Views: 258
At present, the COVID-19 pandemic is still spreading rapidly. According to Google’s real-time statistics, until November 24, 2020, there have been more than 61 million total cases worldwide and more than 1.4 million deaths globally. The outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 threatens the global medical system ... Views: 359
What are quantum dots?
Quantum dots(QDs) are tiny particles in crystalline semiconductor materials, with sizes of a few nm, usually 2-10 nanometers in diameter. This is the size of a large molecule, although it’s smaller than DNA. They’re usually made up of hundreds or thousands of atoms in a ... Views: 443
What is Novel Coronavirus?
Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) that was first detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China and which continues to expand. Chinese health officials have reported thousands of infections with 2019-nCoV in China, with the virus reportedly spreading from ... Views: 421
Failure of a cell’s protein processing mechanism can lead to the accumulation of misfolded proteins, which can block cells, interfere with their function, and accelerate the development of diseases over time, including neurodegenerative diseases, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis And Alzheimer’s. In ... Views: 433
1. What Is Virus-Like Particles?
Virus-like particles (VLPs) consist of all or part of a protein that forms a viral capsid but lacks a genomic material, similar to the structure of a virus, but cannot replicate in cells, precluding any possibility of reversing mutations or pathogen infection. ... Views: 431
The addition of adjuvants to vaccine formulations to enhance the immune response to vaccine antigens by enhancing antigen processing and presentation by antigen presenting cells (APCs) is a common practice for current vaccine formulations. However, since many adjuvants are composed of microbial ... Views: 404
What creatures still live in our bodies? This problem seems simple, but our understanding is not clear for a long time in history. In recent years, researchers have successively isolated human symbiotic microbes, which actually constitute most of the cells in our body. In human daily activities, ... Views: 491
1.The background of B cells
B lymphocytes, abbreviated as B cells, are differentiated from hematopoietic stem cells in the bone marrow. Most of the B cells that exert effector function live in the body for a short period of time, only a few days to several weeks, but their memory cells can ... Views: 523
What creatures still live in our bodies? This problem seems simple, but our understanding is not clear for a long time in history. In recent years, researchers have successively isolated human symbiotic microbes, which actually constitute most of the cells in our body. In human daily activities, ... Views: 510
Lysosomes are a membrane-bound organelle found in many animal cells. They are spherical vesicles containing hydrolases that break down many biomolecules. The pH of the lysosome in the range of 4.5 to 5.0 is optimal for the enzyme involved in the hydrolysis. Lysosomes perform waste treatment ... Views: 395
Sinusitis, also known as sinus infection, is a symptom caused by inflammation of the sinus mucosa. Common symptoms include snot, stuffy nose, and facial pain. Other signs and symptoms may include fever, headache, poor sense of smell, sore throat and cough. Sinusitis can be caused by infections, ... Views: 523
The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is a very important multi-functional organelle in eukaryotic cells. While completing the basic physiological functions, the endoplasmic reticulum becomes a pivotal platform for coordinated signal transduction with its large membrane structure. The endoplasmic ... Views: 481
The rapid proliferation of tumor cells requires a large amount of nutrients, which requires the formation of new blood vessels in the tumor environment to meet this need. Humans discovered that tumor blood vessels expanded and grew rapidly in around a hundred years ago. Later, the dependence ... Views: 487
In light-sensitive higher organisms, the biological clock is a set of functional systems formed by photoreceptor neurons, endocrine systems, and gene timing oscillation expression regulation. It enables the organism to form a rhythm of day and night from microscopic levels of gene expression, ... Views: 497
Electric field therapy is a non-invasive method of tumor treatment that uses alternating electric fields of specific frequency and intensity to selectively destroy mitosis in cancer cells. Electric field therapy can target proteins that are critical to the cancer cell cycle, leading to mitotic ... Views: 530
Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) is a kind of free DNA released by tumor cells after necrosis and apoptosis. Because it circulates in the blood, the detection of ctDNA can reflect the tumor state in time. In 1940, Mandel and Métais first discovered the presence of free cellular nucleic acids in the ... Views: 405
Mitochondria are a subcellular structure prevalent in eukaryotic cells and the most important source of energy in cells. Most tissue cells in the human body rely on oxidative phosphorylation of mitochondria to obtain the energy needed to maintain their metabolism. Mitochondria not only play an ... Views: 373
The hippocampus is one of the most studied parts of the brain (the cerebral cortex) in the central nervous system of mammals. Because the shape is similar to the hippocampus, it is called the hippocampus. In the human brain, the hippocampus is mainly responsible for learning and memory. The ... Views: 523
Dengue fever is a global acute infectious disease caused by dengue virus (DV). It is widely spread in tropical and subtropical regions. Its clinical manifestations include high fever, headache, muscle and joint pain, sometimes accompanied by rash, lymphadenopathy and leukopenia. Symptoms, when ... Views: 560
The CRISPR-Cas9 system has proven to be a powerful tool for genome editing, allowing for the precise modification of specific DNA sequences within a cell. Many efforts are currently underway to use the CRISPR-Cas9 system for the therapeutic correction of human genetic diseases. The best ... Views: 599
Fungus is the member in a big group which are made by eukaryotic organisms containing microorganisms. Most of them are not detrimental to human body, but some will lead to fungal disease. The reason is that biological compounds will be produced by fungi and some of compounds are harmful to ... Views: 546