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The development of a highly sensitive artificial mechanotransducer that mimics the tactile sensing features of human skin has been a big challenge in electronic skin research. Here, we demonstrate an ultrasensitive, low-power oxide transistor-based mechanotransducer modulated by microstructured, deformable ionic dielectrics, which is consistently sensitive to a wide range of pressures from 1 to 50 kPa. To this end, we designed a viscoporoelastic and ionic thermoplastic polyurethane (i-TPU) with micropyramidal feature as a pressure-sensitive gate dielectric for the indium–gallium–zinc–oxide (IGZO) transistor-based mechanotransducer, which leads to an unprecedented sensitivity of 43.6 kPa–1, which is 23 times higher than that of a capacitive mechanotransducer. This is because the pressure-induced ion accumulation at the interface of the i-TPU dielectric and IGZO semiconductor effectively modulates the conducting channel, which contributed to the enhanced current level under pressure. We believe that the ionic transistor-type mechanotransducer suggested by us will be an effective way to perceive external tactile stimuli over a wide pressure range even under low power (<4 V), which might be one of the candidates to directly emulate the tactile sensing capability of human skin.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most prevalent type of dementia. Reports have revealed that the peripheral immune system is linked to neuropathology; however, little is known about the contribution of B lymphocytes in AD. For this longitudinal study, 133 participants are included at baseline and second-year follow-up. Also, we analyze B cell receptor (BCR) repertoire data generated from a public dataset of three normal and 10 AD samples and perform BCR repertoire profiling and pairwise sharing analysis. As a result, longitudinal increase in B lymphocytes is associated with increased cerebral amyloid deposition and hyperactivates induced pluripotent stem cell-derived microglia with loss-of-function for beta-amyloid clearance. Patients with AD share similar class-switched BCR sequences with identical isotypes, despite the high somatic hypermutation rate. Thus, BCR repertoire profiling can lead to the development of individualized immune-based therapeutics and treatment. We provide evidence of both quantitative and qualitative changes in B lymphocytes during AD pathogenesis.

A phototrigger, 1,2,2-triphenylethanone (TPE), was synthesized for the photorelease study. The photorelease of 1,2,2-triphenylethanonyl N-t-Boc--amino glutamate (TPE- N-t-Boc-GABA) showed the quantum efficiency of = 0.75. The phototrigger underwent further transformations that yielded Benzo[b]phenanthro[9,10-d]furan (9).

We have developed and used single-molecule field-effect transistors (smFETs) to characterize the conformational free-energy landscape of RNA stem-loops. Stem-loops are one of the most common RNA structural motifs and serve as building blocks for the formation of complex RNA structures. Given their prevalence and integral role in RNA folding, the kinetics of stem-loop (un)folding has been extensively characterized using both experimental and computational approaches. Interestingly, these studies have reported vastly disparate timescales of (un)folding, which has been interpreted as evidence that (un)folding of even simple stem-loops occurs on a highly rugged conformational energy landscape. Because smFETs do not rely on fluorophore reporters of conformation or mechanical (un)folding forces, they provide a unique approach that has allowed us to directly monitor tens of thousands of (un)folding events of individual stem-loops at a 200 μs time resolution. Our results show that under our experimental conditions, stem-loops (un)fold over a 1–200 ms timescale during which they transition between ensembles of unfolded and folded conformations, the latter of which is composed of at least two sub-populations. The 1–200 ms timescale of (un)folding we observe here indicates that smFETs report on complete (un)folding trajectories in which unfolded conformations of the RNA spend long periods of time wandering the free-energy landscape before sampling one of several misfolded conformations or the natively folded conformation. Our findings highlight the extremely rugged landscape on which even the simplest RNA structural elements fold and demonstrate that smFETs are a unique and powerful approach for characterizing the conformational free-energy of RNA.

The human sensory nervous system recognizes the change in the external environment and transmits the information to the brain. The brain uses information from the vestibular system in the head, which plays a vital role in the multisensory recognition of balance and orientation. The mimicking of human neural network systems based on biological synapses has emerged as a key technology in bioinspired electronics. This study emulates an energy scavenging artificial nervous system for detecting rotational movement to mimic the functions and mechanisms of the biological semicircular canals. Synaptic transistors realize the biological synaptic plasticity, which can be used to simulate short-to long-term memory transitions and learning processes. Furthermore, by integrating synaptic transistors with triboelectric rotation sensors, we have demonstrated that our artificial nervous system is able to detect rotational movements on the coordinates in real time. This artificial nervous system has promising applications including neurorobotics, soft electronics, and neuroprosthetics.

A researcher at Ajou University Medical Center has presented data on the effects of indomethacin therapy. The study investigated the anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects of evogliptin tartrate, a drug that inhibits dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) and improves insulin release and glucose tolerance. The research found that evogliptin tartrate demonstrated anti-inflammatory pain relief similar to indomethacin, suggesting its potential as an anti-inflammatory or pain relief drug. The study was funded by the 2023 Joint Research Project of Institutes of Science And Technology. [Extracted from the article]

2023 DEC 2 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Obesity, Fitness & Wellness Week -- Data detailed on indomethacin therapy have been presented. According to news reporting [...]