The ability to detect and sort particles by type is important to many fields, such as medical diagnostics, environmental monitoring, and food safety.UCI researchers have developed a platform to sort and isolate particles from a turbid medium with minimal pre-processing. The platform is very desirable for applications in which enrichment of particles or biological substances at low concentrations is necessary.

Prof. Jinyong Liu’s lab at UCR has developed a novel heterogeneous catalyst for aqueous ClO3− reduction. The catalyst contains earth-abundant molybdenum (Mo) and is 55-fold more active than palladium on carbon (Pd/C). Under 1 atm H2 and room temperature, the bimetallic catalyst (MoOx−Pd/C) enables rapid and complete reduction of ClO3− in a wide concentration range (e.g., 1 μM to 1 M) and exhibits strong resistance to concentrate salts such as chloride, sulfate, and bromide at 1 to 5 M. In a batch reactor setup, the catalyst was reused for twenty cycles of 0.18 M ClO3− reduction and no activity loss was observed. Fig. 1 shows the effect of concentrated salts on the reduction of 1 mM ClO3− by the MoOx-Pd/C catalyst at a loading of 0.2 g/L. The reactions were conducted at 25 oC and under 1 atm H2. Fig. 2 shows the reduction of 1 M ClO3− in DI water and the treatment of a synthetic chlor-alkali waste brine sample (0.17 M of ClO3− in 3.6 M of NaCl) by 0.5 g/L MoOx-Pd/C.   Fig. 3 shows the profiles of the reduction of 0.18M ClO3− spikes in a multiple-spike reaction series. The decrease of activity was only caused by the gradual build-up of concentrated Cl− (see details in the publication).  

Green algae have been promoted as vehicles for the production of biofuels, pharmaceuticals, food additives, vaccines, and for toxic substance remediation, and many plants are the focus of efforts to produce drought tolerant, pest resistant, or more nutritious crops. Many of these engineering efforts rely on expression of multiple transgenes (e.g. in a multistep metabolic pathway to avoid accumulation of a toxic intermediate). It can also be useful to produce two or more proteins in a particular stoichiometry, as in a heterodimer that requires equimolar production of two polypeptides. Whether the goal is to express one transgene, or several, most efforts to transform plants and algae require cotransformation of the gene of interest with a selectable marker, such as a gene that confers resistance to a drug or herbicide, or complements an auxotrophy. Unfortunately, commonly used methods for co-transformation of algae and other plants are very inefficient. UC Berkeley investigators have developed a method for polycistronic gene expression,  and show how to achieve this using the organism's own sequences, without recourse to viral elements or other foreign elements, which is important for any technology where bioproducts are generated, since these may be used on humans (cosmetics) or in humans (food additives), especially crop technology.

如何加速访问国外服务器? -「云杰通信」:今天 · 伋业用户在与海外伋业对接时，访问海外服务器遇到了十分严重的问题。对于大部分之前一直访问国内服务器，甚至是没国外服务器的用户。在访问国外服务器的时候总会有很多的顾虑，不知道哪种国外服务器访问专线更稳定，能达到自身产品运行所需要的实际服务器环境。

Alcohol is one of the most frequent causes of liver disease including alcohol-associated steatosis, steatohepatitis, fibrosis and cirrhosis, and alcoholic hepatitis. Patients with alcohol‐induced liver disease lose certain glycans (sugar molecules) on the surface of their intestinal epithelial cells (glycocalyx). Intestinal bacteria usually thrive on these glycans by using them as energy substrates. In the absence of these specific glycans, some bacteria lose their competitive advantage and other bacteria grow and thrive instead, changing the gut microbiome, which contributes to symptoms of alcohol‐induced liver disease.

Prof. Juan Pablo Giraldo and his colleagues from the University of California, Riverside have developed a method for targeted nanoparticle delivery and tracking in plants. Engineered nanomaterial (ENM) platforms that bypass biological barriers in plants such as cell walls, membranes, and organelle envelopes for in vivo traceable and targeted delivery of chemicals to organelles (e.g. chloroplasts) and tissues using guiding peptide recognition motifs.  The use of these targeted platforms result in the reduction of pesticides and fertilizers. Fig 1: Confocal microscopy images of chloroplasts in leaf mesophyll cells (purple) containing targeted nanoparticles and their cargoes (green). Chemicals such as paraquat was precisely delivered to chloroplasts by nanoparticles conjugated with targeting peptides.

Researchers at UCI have developed an imaging technique that can monitor and measure small mobile structures called cilia in our airways and in the oviduct. This invention will serve as a stepping stone for study of respiratory diseases, oviduct ciliary colonoscopy and future clinical translations.

Prof. Victor Rodgers and his colleagues from the University of California, Riverside have developed a method for effectively treating excess swelling from fluid, or edema, following a spinal cord injury. Following severe contusion to the spinal cord, edema accumulates and compresses the tissue against the surrounding dura mater. It is believed that this compression results in restricted flow of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and ultimately collapses local vasculature, exacerbating ischemia and secondary injury. This technology includes a surgically mounted osmotic transport device (OTD) that rests on the dura and can osmotically remove excess fluid at the injury site to reduce secondary injury. Fig 1: | Effects of OTD treatment on % water content after severe SCI. Percent (%) water content calculated SCI only, SCI + hydrogel (HG), and SCI + OTD following treatment. The figure shows a statistical reduction in % water content in tissue following OTD treatment