As mass spectrometry technology continues to develop and increase in sensitivity and throughput, its sample preparation needs to develop as well. Automation can increase throughput, increase reproducibility, and decrease operator-induced variability. Developing technologies have allowed for online control of the individual processing steps for biological...

Plant viral vectors have great potential for rapid production of important pharmaceutical proteins. High-yield production, however, of hetero-oligomeric proteins that require the expression and assembly of two or more protein subunits often is problematic due to the competing nature of viral vectors derived from the same virus. Researchers at the...

Pulmonary embolism is a common cardiovascular emergency with approximately 600,000 incidents and 200,000 deaths occurring annually in the United States. CT pulmonary angiography (CTPA) has become the reference standard for pulmonary embolism diagnosis, but this technique has several issues with interpretation of the intricate branching structure...

Single cell analysis devices are finding increasing use (for studying cellular metabolism, respiration rates, protein expression, etc.) because they overcome the difficulties in ensuring cell homogeneity in larger cell populations. However, current devices determine extracellular flux by measuring temporal changes in concentration, and thus require...

West Nile virus (WNV), a member of the Flavivirus genus, can cause severe neurological disease, long-term morbidity, and death. In the last decade, nearly 30,000 cases of severe WNV infection have been diagnosed in the U.S. Historically, there has been a lack of effective and specific antiviral treatment for flavivirus infection; current treatment...

Much of the organic material in the waste stream of food processing plants consists of simple sugars and starches. This represents a waste of a valuable resource. A process that could convert these simple sugars into a valuable feedstock or commodity would have immediate application. Researchers at the Biodesign Institute of Arizona State University...

There is growing concern about groundwater contamination and the impact of such contamination on health, agriculture, and water supplies. Because of this, it is becoming increasingly important to demonstrate the effectiveness of environmental remediation processes. One of the best ways to do this is to obtain a set of time-discrete samples from...

Phenylurea compounds are mass-produced, toxic compounds that find use as pesticides and include triclocarban, an antimicrobial used in disinfectants, soaps and other household products. These compounds persist during normal wastewater treatment schemes and largely become sequestered in sewage sludge. From both wastewater and sludge reclamation,...

Styrene is a versatile monomer that is widely used to produce polystyrene and other polymers. Styrene is typically produced by the chemo-catalytic dehydrogenation of petroleum-derived ethylbenzene. This process is both highly energy-intensive and uses non-sustainable feedstocks. For these reasons, a means to produce styrene that is more efficient,...

Biofuel production from photoautotrophic biomass is a promising energy solution; also attractive is the carbon-neutral nature of resulting biofuels made with CO2 fixation. Strains of the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. are promising candidates, with high biomass yield and robustness over a wide range of temperatures, salinity, and pH. For highest...