Developing and testing new treatments or vaccines for humans almost always requires animal trials, but these experiments can sometimes take years to complete and can raise ethical concerns about the animals' treatment. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Central Science have developed a new testing platform that encapsulates B cells -- some of the most important components of the immune system -- into miniature 'organoids' to make vaccine screening quicker and greatly reduce the number of animals needed. Source: American Chemical Society/Science Daily

Missing crucial doses of medicines and vaccines could become a thing of the past thanks to Rice University bioengineers' next-level technology for making time-released drugs. Source: Rice University/Science Daily

Scientists have employed inventive chemistry to produce an injectable biomaterial with significantly improved adhesive strength, stretchability, and toughness. This chemically modified, gelatin-based hydrogel has attractive features, including rapid gelation at room temperature and tunable levels of adhesion. This custom-engineered biomaterial is ideal as a surgical wound sealant, with its controllable adhesion and injectability and its superior adherence to a variety of tissue and organ surfaces. Source: Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation/Science Daily

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are developing lipid nanoparticles that are designed to carry mRNA specifically to the pancreas. Their study in mice could pave the way for novel therapies for intractable pancreatic diseases, such as diabetes and cancer.

When lymphatic vessels fail, typically their ability to pump out the fluid is compromised. Researchers have now developed a new treatment using nanoparticles that can repair lymphatic vessel pumping. Traditionally, researchers in the field have tried to regrow lymphatic vessels, but repairing the pumping action is a unique approach. Source: Georgia Institute of Technology/Science Daily

Researchers are developing new MRI contrast agents that are activated in low oxygen environments enabling improved diagnosis and treatment of hypoxic tumors as well as other diseases.

The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering has established a new Center for Biomedical Engineering Technology Acceleration, dedicated to applying engineering principles to biomedical discovery and therapeutics. We talk to the Center’s Director Manu Platt about their plans and the focus on diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. Source: Nature Reviews Bioengineering

Researchers create a biomimetic model to study wound healing in burn and laceration wounds. The team designed an in vitro model system made of fibroblasts embedded in a collagen hydrogel. Wounds were created in this microtissue using a microdissection knife to mimic laceration or a high-energy laser to simulate a burn. They discovered that fibroblasts clear away damaged tissue before depositing new material. This part of the healing process is slower in burn wounds. Source: American Institute of Physics/Science Daily

Since the development of functional magnetic resonance imaging in the 1990s, the reliance on neuroimaging has skyrocketed as researchers investigate how fMRI data from the brain at rest, and anatomical brain structure itself, can be used to predict individual traits, such as depression, cognitive decline, and brain disorders. But how reliable brain imaging is for detecting traits has been a subject of wide debate. Researchers now report that stronger links between brain measures and traits can be obtained when state-of-the-art pattern recognition (or 'machine learning') algorithms are utilized, which can garner high-powered results from moderate sample sizes. Source: Dartmouth College/Science Daily