https://phys.org/biology-news/biotechnology/ en-us The latest science news on biotechnology It can't be heard, but different parts of the human body are in constant conversation, communicating to keep the entire system running efficiently. For biologists, being able to listen in on this discussion is a long-sought-after goal. Over the years, researchers have caught snippets of these exchanges, but the complete dialogue has remained out of reach. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-wholistic-view-cellular-communication-entire.html Cell & Microbiology Wed, 09 Sep 2026 11:00:15 EDT news708168661 Every cell relies on ribosomes, the molecular machines that read genetic instructions and use them to assemble proteins. A cell needs thousands of types of proteins at any one time, so ribosomes must be generalists, capable of using instructions to produce any protein. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-rewire-ribosomes-specialize-protein.html Cell & Microbiology Tue, 08 Sep 2026 19:40:01 EDT news708105962 From repairing damaged tissues to developing better implants, many medical developments depend on materials that can mimic the complex properties of human tissue. Meta-biomaterials are among the most promising candidates. By tailoring their geometry, researchers can create materials with properties similar to those of natural tissues. But there is a catch: Changing one property often changes several others at the same time. TU Delft scientists have now developed a method to decouple these properties. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-untangling-meta-biomaterial-puzzle-property.html Cell & Microbiology Tue, 08 Sep 2026 19:00:07 EDT news708103801 A new fluorescence microscopy technique that generates super-resolution images from a single camera exposure could help researchers study rapid movements within cells that are difficult to capture with existing methods. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-super-resolution-imaging-reveals-cells.html Cell & Microbiology Tue, 08 Sep 2026 08:40:08 EDT news708075481 A routine blood sample contains a diverse collection of immune cells that can reveal important clues about health and disease. These cells, known as peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs), are widely used to study infections, autoimmune disorders, cancer and the immune system's response to treatment. Scientists typically identify these cells using fluorescent labels that attach to specific surface markers. While effective, those methods provide limited information about how the cells are functioning and can alter the cells during preparation. As reported in Biophotonics Discovery, a recent study shows how advanced optical imaging can reveal a previously inaccessible layer of information: the metabolic activity of individual immune cells within a complex blood sample. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-advanced-optical-imaging-reveals-hidden.html Cell & Microbiology Sun, 06 Sep 2026 17:30:01 EDT news707627336 Conformational changes in proteins are vital to their function yet remain challenging for state-of-the-art artificial intelligence, such as AlphaFold3, to predict. Researchers at the Institute for Molecular Science (IMS), and the Graduate University for Advanced Studies, SOKENDAI introduced a repulsive force between predicted structures, allowing AlphaFold3 to sample the multiple conformational states that its default settings rarely capture. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-alphafold-limits-proteins.html Biotechnology Sat, 05 Sep 2026 17:00:05 EDT news707472556 In recent years, scientists have developed methods to measure a cell's transcriptome, or all the RNA produced by a cell, to study the cell's identity and genetic activity. However, these methods rely on killing the cell to access the bits of RNA within and offer only a one-time snapshot. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-virus-particles-enable-gene-tracking.html Cell & Microbiology Fri, 04 Sep 2026 15:00:02 EDT news707739962 Revealing how proteins and end products of biological activity (metabolites) change within specific tissue functional units during development or in response to environmental factors is beneficial for understanding localized biological processes and the biological roles of molecules. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-capturing-localized-protein-metabolic-tissue.html Biotechnology Fri, 04 Sep 2026 12:40:01 EDT news707728981 When a patient's DNA is read, it is compared with a reference version of the human genome. This allows geneticists and rare disease experts to look at a list of places where the patient's DNA differs. Most variations will be harmless and shared with millions of other people, but some can cause illness. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-tools-rare-mutations-dangerous.html Biotechnology Thu, 03 Sep 2026 17:20:07 EDT news707660881 Scientists have revealed a bizarre microscopic creature that reproduces in a way reminiscent of the horror film" Alien." The microbe grows one or more new cells inside its own body before the outer "mother" cell ruptures to release them, a reproductive strategy never before seen in its group of organisms. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-scottish-pregnant-grandmother-microbe-offspring.html Cell & Microbiology Thu, 03 Sep 2026 14:40:01 EDT news707654402 A broken rib from Scotty, the largest T. rex skeleton discovered, is helping scientists uncover new information about life on Earth 66 million years ago. Scotty's rib preserves something rarely seen in the fossil record: a healing injury frozen in time. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-neutron-bone-imaging-rex-life.html Biotechnology Thu, 03 Sep 2026 13:20:11 EDT news707652061 There are millions of species of bacteria and archaea on Earth, remarkably little is known about most of them. Now, researchers have mined the genomes of thousands of microorganisms preserved at the RIKEN BioResource Research Center (BRC) to find organisms that may be capable of capturing CO2. BRC, located in Tsukuba—one of Japan's largest centers of scientific research—is a unique, world-class research facility. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-microbial-dark-yields-potential-carbon.html Cell & Microbiology Thu, 03 Sep 2026 11:40:09 EDT news707649132 In the ocean, plastic waste collects to form large garbage patches that endanger marine life. This is partly because the synthetic plastic polymers used today can only be broken down biologically—that is, by microorganisms—at a very slow rate. Instead, the physical fragmentation of these materials leads to the formation of microplastics and nanoplastics. However, microorganisms do colonize plastic waste in the environment, forming biofilms and creating a unique microbial habitat that researchers refer to as the "plastisphere." https://phys.org/news/2026-09-pac-enzyme-bioplastics-penicillin-laboratory.html Cell & Microbiology Wed, 02 Sep 2026 16:00:07 EDT news707579701 For decades, scientists have understood that each of the roughly 20,000 genes in the human body carries instructions for a single kind of protein. Now, researchers at Harvard Medical School have discovered that instructions from different genes—even those on different chromosomes—can combine to create chimeric mRNAs that produce previously unknown, functional proteins. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-mammalian-genes-combine-previously-unknown.html Biotechnology Wed, 02 Sep 2026 11:00:04 EDT news707559061 Plastic waste is one of the world's fastest-growing environmental problems. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's Global Plastics Outlook: Policy Scenarios to 2060 report, global plastic use is projected to nearly triple from 460 million metric tons in 2019 to 1.2 billion metric tons by 2060 if current trends continue. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-bio-based-plastic-fertilizer.html Biotechnology Wed, 02 Sep 2026 10:00:07 EDT news707558100 Cultivated meat aims to produce meat from animal cells in the laboratory without needing to raise a living animal for meat production. It has been proposed as a potentially more sustainable alternative to conventional meat production. Yet recreating something as complex as a steak—rather than minced meat—remains a major scientific challenge. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-bovine-stem-cells-approach-future.html Biotechnology Wed, 02 Sep 2026 05:00:07 EDT news707401161 All known life on Earth uses the same genetic alphabet, consisting of four letters. Now, researchers at the University of California San Diego have demonstrated that one of biology's most essential enzymes can accurately read and transcribe an expanded, eight-letter genetic alphabet. The findings provide important evidence that cells can process synthetic genetic information using their natural molecular machinery, advancing a long-standing goal in synthetic biology to expand the language of DNA. It could also allow scientists to custom-engineer biological systems that perform functions or produce compounds not found in nature. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-letter-dna-alphabet-accurately-natural.html Biotechnology Wed, 02 Sep 2026 05:00:04 EDT news707401165 For too long, the United States has relied on foreign sources for most of the raw materials powering its technological future: the essential minerals in every smartphone, battery pack and semiconductor. What if one answer to the supply crisis isn't buried in a mine shaft but growing quietly in a field? Scientists are betting on a resource-efficient, highly effective strategy: using engineered plants and symbiotic microbes to absorb critical minerals directly from the Earth in a process called phytomining. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-agentic-ai-crops-harvest-critical.html Biotechnology Tue, 01 Sep 2026 21:00:05 EDT news707499181 Researchers today announced AdaptiveFlow, an AI-informed platform that can virtually screen billions of drug-like molecules with a 1,000-fold reduction in computational costs over existing methods. Developed and validated by scientists from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, University of Pavia, Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, AdaptiveFlow allows prohibitively expensive ultra-large virtual drug screens to be conducted routinely. The open-source platform was published today in Nature Biotechnology. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-ai-adaptiveflow-redefines-large-scale.html Biotechnology Tue, 01 Sep 2026 17:00:07 EDT news707486977 Researchers at Constructor University and Constructor Labs have developed BiteNetI, a deep-learning model that locates the binding sites of 14 biologically important ion types directly in three-dimensional protein structures. The model needs only several seconds per structure and reaches two- to threefold higher accuracy than most existing predictors, including Google DeepMind's AlphaFold 3. The study, authored by Igor Kozlovskii and Petr Popov, has been published in the journal Communications Biology. The tool provides an open-access platform that could help accelerate drug discovery and the understanding of protein function. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-ai-ion-sites-proteins.html Biotechnology Tue, 01 Sep 2026 13:40:02 EDT news707481901 Imagine a brain teaser where the challenge is to spot the difference between two nearly identical sandcastles. The only difference? The removal of three grains of sand. Scientists face a similarly exasperating challenge when looking at changes in protein levels within our cells, where small fluctuations can mean the difference between health and disease or a drug working and not working. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-screening-tool-amplifies-tiny-protein.html Cell & Microbiology Tue, 01 Sep 2026 11:00:16 EDT news707413442 High above the fields of the Morven Sustainability Lab, drones equipped with heat and light sensors are changing what it means to farm smarter. This month, researchers and students from the University of Virginia, NASA and the University at Buffalo tested drone technology by flying more than 100 feet (30 meters) above crops to measure plant health at UVA's 2,900-acre (1,170-hectare) research facility. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-drones-farming-heights.html Biotechnology Mon, 31 Aug 2026 21:20:01 EDT news707386650 A research team from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has developed an innovative "one-pot" testing platform, known as TEMPO, that could transform highly sensitive nucleic acid testing from a laboratory-based procedure into a simple, single-step test that can be performed at home. With a single reaction tube, users can obtain results comparable to those of professional laboratory tests in as little as 30 minutes. The breakthrough has the potential to bridge the technological gap between existing rapid tests and laboratory-based nucleic acid diagnostics, offering a more convenient solution for future infectious disease surveillance and genetic screening. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-pot-crispr-platform-lab-sensitivity.html Biotechnology Mon, 31 Aug 2026 18:40:03 EDT news707406541 The question is no longer whether microbial foods can be made. The question now is who can be first to turn them into an industry. KAIST researchers have analyzed the conditions required for the microbial food industry to succeed across manufacturing, markets and regulation, and have proposed growth strategies for the next-generation protein industry. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-industrial-scale-microbial-foods-growth.html Biotechnology Mon, 31 Aug 2026 17:00:04 EDT news707411941 Algae have a habit of turning up where they're not wanted. They coat your swimming pool in green gunk, cling to rocks at the beach and even make headlines when they take over prominent reservoirs, such as the White House Reflection Pool. But put them to work in the right setting, and algae can be surprisingly useful. In fact, these plant-like organisms may hold the key to sustainable fuels of the future. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-scientists-algae-fuel-ai-reveals.html Biotechnology Mon, 31 Aug 2026 15:00:01 EDT news707400467 Sweet, salty, crunchy or creamy—no matter how it's munched, the Virginia peanut has been a cash crop for the commonwealth for much of the past two centuries. But a fungal disease called Sclerotinia blight has decimated peanut plant populations in recent years, with severe outbreaks causing up to a 50% yield loss. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-peanut-sensors-fend-fungus.html Biotechnology Mon, 31 Aug 2026 14:20:07 EDT news707396761 On hearing the first cuckoo of spring, the poet's heart might sing, and while one swallow does not make a summer, the annual migrations of bird species across continents have fascinated us for centuries. Today, however, technology is giving ornithologists the means to follow these incredible journeys in ways that would have been unimaginable to earlier generations of naturalists. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-ai-track-bird-migration.html Plants & Animals Mon, 31 Aug 2026 14:00:06 EDT news707397541 The ability to precisely adjust the expression of genes inside the human body—ramping up protective ones and tamping down harmful ones—holds enormous potential for treating and preventing disease. But the standard molecular tools used to tune genes, such as the CRISPR system, are too bulky to package and deliver into the body's cells. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-gene-tool-crispr-body.html Biotechnology Mon, 31 Aug 2026 10:20:01 EDT news707386154 Imagine doctors could understand exactly which cells caused a patient's cancer or whether pathogens contributed to the disease. They could then use the information to tailor a treatment plan to the patient's specific cancer. But answering such questions would mean wading through data from thousands of experiments locked in massive databases around the globe. Moreover, the search would take at least several days. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-google-cell-rna-previously-impossible.html Biotechnology Fri, 28 Aug 2026 12:00:03 EDT news707135222 Researchers have developed fluorescent molecules that permit imaging of how DNA is packaged inside living cells at unprecedented resolution and, in preserved cells, at a resolution close to the width of the double helix itself. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-fairy-dna-imaged-helix-width.html Biotechnology Fri, 28 Aug 2026 11:00:09 EDT news707044861