Engineers at Duke University have demonstrated a technique that uses microbubbles and ultrasound to help relatively large cancer drugs enter tumor cells and cause them to self-destruct. Dubbed "Sonoporation-assisted Precise Intracellular Nanodelivery"—or SonoPIN for short—the technology caused 50% of targeted cancer cells in a benchtop experiment to self-destruct, while leaving 99% of non-targeted cells healthy. The results show promise for precisely delivering a wide variety of large-molecule therapeutics to cells with few off-target effects. The research appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

There is a near-infinite number of material candidates out there—and simply not enough time to hunker down in the lab and test them all. Thankfully, researchers have a variety of tools (such as AI) at their disposal to streamline what would otherwise be a time-consuming process of trial-and-error.

An international team of researchers has achieved a breakthrough in the production of doxorubicin, a vital chemotherapy agent. The study identifies and resolves molecular "bottlenecks" that have limited the natural production of this drug for over 50 years. The research is published in Nature Communications.

It's long been assumed that for an organism to learn, remember or draw conclusions, it needs a brain. But mounting evidence, including a recent Cognitive Science study, challenges that assumption, suggesting that neurons might not be necessary for complex information processing.

Scientists from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed a biochemical technique that captures fleeting "handshakes" between newly made proteins and the cellular helpers. These short interactions are important because they can determine whether a protein turns out healthy and useful or is faulty and in need of removal. The research has been published in the journal Molecular Cell.