Spiky insight: How red blood cells deform

Holotomographic microscopy

07-Feb-2024 - Empa researchers have observed living red blood cells transforming into spiky "echinocytes" in real time when treated with high concentrations of ibuprofen using holotomographic microscopy and displayed them in 3D renderings. Blood is indeed "a juice of rarest quality." What the poet and natural ...

Seeing cancer’s spread through a computational window

Computational model allows researchers to simulate cellular-scale interactions across unprecedented distances in the human vasculature

29-Nov-2023 - Biomedical engineers at Duke University have significantly enhanced the capabilities of a computational model that simulates the movement of individual cancer cells across long distances within the entire human body. Called “Adaptive Physics Refinement (APR),” the approach captures detailed ...

Research team shows how a cell’s form can be reversed

Light-switchable molecules in membranes enable different forms of living cells to be studied

28-Jun-2023 - A research team led by Prof. Bart Jan Ravoo (University of Münster) and Prof. Timo Betz (University of Göttingen) describes for the first time how living cells can be reversibly deformed by specifically influencing the cell membrane using light. Membranes fulfil a variety of tasks in living ...

Signs of dementia are written in the blood

33 metabolic compounds linked to dementia could be key to new methods of diagnosis and treatment

14-Sep-2021 - Scientists in Japan have identified metabolic compounds within the blood that are associated with dementia. The study revealed that the levels of 33 metabolites differed in patients with dementia, compared to elderly people with no existing health conditions. Their findings, published in PNAS, ...

How a corona infection changes blood cells in the long run

Method could help as an early warning system to detect future pandemics by unknown viruses

22-Jun-2021 - Using real-time deformability cytometry, researchers at the Max-Planck-Zentrum für Physik und Medizin in Erlangen were able to show for the first time: Covid-19 significantly changes the size and stiffness of red and white blood cells - sometimes over months. These results may help to explain why ...

COVID-19: Release of immature blood cells from bone marrow as a signature of severe disease

Research team has identified cell types in the blood that indicate severe disease progression in COVID-19

30-Nov-2020 - In severe cases of COVID-19 disease, not only classic immune cells play a role. In particular, the release of immature precursor cells from the bone marrow into the blood indicates a particularly severe course of the disease and could contribute to complications. This has been shown by an ...

Malaria pathogens under the X-ray microscope

X-ray microscopy at BESSY II reveals how antimalaria-drugs might work

04-Nov-2019 - Malaria is one of the most threatening infectious diseases in the world. An international team has now been able to investigate malaria pathogens in red blood cells in vivo using the BESSY II X-ray microscope and the ALBA and ESRF synchrotron sources. The scientists reveal the mechanisms used by ...

Unmasking blood doping in athletes

RNA changes mark old blood cells among new ones, foiling self-transfusions

22-Oct-2018 - A Duke University research team has found a way to help sporting officials detect whether an athlete's blood has been doped by an infusion of their own stored blood. While tests have been developed to detect two of the three most common methods of dramatically boosting the oxygen-carrying ...

Immune cells may heal bleeding brain after strokes

22-Sep-2017 - While immune cells called neutrophils are known to act as infantry in the body's war on germs, a National Institutes of Health-funded study suggests they can act as medics as well. By studying rodents, researchers showed that instead of attacking germs, some neutrophils may help heal the brain ...

New genetic cause discovered for photosensitive blood disorder

18-Sep-2017 - Researchers from BWH have uncovered a new genetic cause for erythropoietic protoporphyria (EPP), a photosensitive blood disorder. In the past, the most well-known causes for EPP were two specific genetic disorders, but using an extended pedigree from France, the investigators found that EPP can ...