Part algae, part red blood cell, these microrobots can travel to hard-to-reach tumors deep in the lungs.
From Zhang et al., Sci. Adv. 10, eadn6157 (2024)
Human heart organoids allow researchers to study the developing heart while avoiding the ethical issues of using human embryos and the imperfections of animal models.
Scientists have designed a solar panel-like pacemaker that can precisely control heartbeats.
Eugene Mymrin/Moment via Getty Images
Pengju Li, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering
Researchers designed an ultrathin pacemaker that can be implanted via minimally invasive techniques, potentially improving recovery time and reducing the risk of complications.
Turns out pop songs and movie soundtracks are key to a new system to deliver insulin.
Sammyvision/Moment via Getty Images
Researchers successfully treated diabetes in mice by engineering cells to make insulin in response to the music of Queen.
A lab dish containing embryos that have been injected with Cas9 protein and PCSK9 sgRNA is seen in a laboratory in Shenzhen in southern China’s Guangdong province.
(AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
You can squash small bugs by stepping on them, but can you crush even tinier microorganisms like viruses and bacteria? It turns out that you’d need to apply a lot of pressure.
Lego bricks have standardised parts and can be found across the world.
Cardiff University
Gregory Allen, University of California, San Francisco
Immunotherapy has the potential to eliminate tumors, but works best for select patients. Engineering T cells to bypass cancer’s defenses could help expand treatment eligibility to more patients.
As a material, bacteria’s ability to rapidly multiply and adapt to different conditions is an asset.
Gschmeissner/Science Photo Library via Getty Images
The walls of your house could someday be built with living bacteria. Synthetic biologists are engineering microbes into living materials that are cheap and sustainable.
Advances in artificial intelligence and technology have allowed researchers to better explore the mechanisms behind neurostimulation.
Iryna Spodarenko/iStock via Getty Images
Existing brain connections may influence the effectiveness of neurostimulation. Tailoring treatments to each individual brain could expand the number of conditions brain stimulation can treat.
A new polymer could help the medicine go down easier.
Hiroshi Watanabe/DigitalVision via Getty Images
While pills are more practical than injections or infusions, digestion in the stomach prevents many drugs from being taken orally. Better drug design could change this.
Dendritic cells (green) produce cytokines like IL-12, which can train T cells (pink) to attack tumors.
Victor Segura Ibarra and Rita Serda/National Cancer Institute via Flickr
Aslan Mansurov, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering
One promising cancer treatment has been in the works for decades, but severe side effects have kept it out of the clinic. A reengineered version may offer a way to safely harness its potent effects.
How many X chromosomes you have can affect your health.
John M Lund Photography Inc/Digital Vision via Getty Images
A one-size-fits-all approach may not be best for treating cardiovascular disease. Taking sex chromosomes into account could make for more effective and equitable care.
Electronics are not the only technology to have been miniaturized. Using the strange behavior of fluids in tiny spaces, microfluidic devices are critical to medicine, science and the modern world.
The need for donated organs can be addressed using a novel 3D-printing technique.
(Shutterstock)
Printing organs could reduce the need for human donor organs. And 3D printed organs using a patient’s own cells would increase successful organ transplants by reducing the risk of rejection.
Scientists are still piecing together the puzzle of how the brain works.
Yuichiro Chino/Moment via Getty Images
A bioengineer explains how a clearer picture of brain structure and function may fine-tune the ways brain surgery attempts to correct structure and medication tries to correct function.
Individuals working together as one.
Orit Peleg and Jacob Peters
A swarm of honeybees can provide valuable lessons about how a group of many individuals can work together to accomplish a task, even with no one in charge. Roboticists are taking notes.
The technology of producing biological parts is advancing, raising new legal and regulatory questions.
Philip Ezze
Bioprinting, an offshoot of 3D printing, is advancing so rapidly that regulators have been caught off guard. Two legal scholars argue patients and manufacturers would benefit from clearer rules.
Executive Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science and Director of the Intelligent Polymer Research Institute, University of Wollongong
Professor of Intellectual Property and Innovation Law; Director Centre for Intellectual Property Policy and Managament (CIPPM), Bournemouth University, Bournemouth University