Health

Researchers behind discoveries that led to vaccines for the virus that causes COVID-19 have identified a potential Achilles heel that exists in all coronaviruses. These findings, led by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin, could aid the development of improved treatments for COVID-19 and also protect against existing and emerging coronaviruses.

Today's state-of-the-art optical imaging technologies can help us see biological dynamics occurring at subcellular resolutions. However, this capability is primarily limited to thin biological samples, such as individual cells or thin tissue-sections and falls apart when it comes to capturing high-resolution, three-dimensional images of thicker and more complex biological tissue. This limitation occurs because tissue is composed of heterogeneous arrangements of densely-packed cells, which scatter light and hinder optical imaging. This is especially a challenge in live tissue, where biological dynamics occurring within the tissue further diffuse light and scuttle images.

Customized medical devices represent an intriguing application of additive manufacturing technology, also known as 3D printing. However, the capabilities to design and print the smart, flexible materials this type of equipment requires remains lacking.

Researchers from The University of Texas at Austin and Penn State University just got a grant to change that. The $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation's LEAP-HI program will pave the way for the researchers to tackle the challenge of designing and 3D printing smart devices using multiple materials.

The gold standard for removing benign skin cancers has been around since the 1930s. Although very accurate, it requires a full laboratory next door to the procedure room to determine whether the full tumor has been removed or not. A research group at The University of Texas at Austin is aiming to make that process more efficient and potentially expand access to this type of surgery to a broader population.

Every living cell is made up of a massive network of proteins. Understanding everything there is to know about them can give scientists essential information about the larger processes that govern everything from how we move to how we think.

The way cells interact with each other is among the most fundamental aspects of understanding the body and developing effective treatments for diseases. However, the tools for observing how cells behave in various circumstances remain flawed, despite intense focus from researchers around the globe.

An interdisciplinary team at The University of Texas at Austin was recently awarded a RO1 grant from the National Institutes of Health to create a new platform and devices for experimenting and analyzing cellular interaction, specifically what happens when they bond. This platform could improve creation of treatments for a variety of illnesses, and shed light on how diseases attack our immune systems.

Our palms tell us a lot about our emotional state, tending to get wet when people are excited or nervous. This reaction is used to measure emotional stress and help people with mental health issues, but the devices to do it now are bulky, unreliable and can perpetuate social stigma by sticking very visible sensors on prominent parts of the body.

Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University have applied emerging electronic tattoo (e-tattoo) technology to this type of monitoring, known as electrodermal activity or EDA sensing. In a new paper published recently in Nature Communications, the researchers created a graphene-based e-tattoo that attaches to the palm, is nearly invisible and connects to a smart watch.

In one of the first studies of its kind, several people with motor disabilities were able to operate a wheelchair that translates their thoughts into movement.

The study by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and published today in the journal iScience is an important step forward for brain-machine interfaces — computer systems that turn mind activity into action. The concept of a thought-powered wheelchair has been studied for years, but most projects have used non-disabled subjects or stimuli that leads the device to more or less control the person rather than the other way around.

Nearly two years after COVID-19 vaccines entered widespread use, featuring technology from researchers at The University of Texas at Austin, the Cockrell School of Engineering and the College of Natural Sciences have launched Texas Biologics, a cross-disciplinary effort made up of world-renowned faculty members and researchers working across all areas of therapeutics.

Wearable medical devices are an important part of the future of medicine and a key focus of researchers around the world. They open the door for long-term continuous monitoring of patients outside of the medical setting to give clinicians an accurate picture of what's happening and a better chance to effectively treat their ailments. Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have developed an electroencefalography (EEG) electrode that patients wear on their head to monitor brain activity. The EEG electrodes system could act as a brain-computer interface (BCI), which can be controlled by brain signals to help repair damage to the brain caused by strokes and other disorders.

A new grant for researchers across several departments and schools at The University of Texas at Austin aims to establish a new hub of activity to better understand and replicate the skills that cells possess. The grant from the National Science Foundation will support a platform for creating synthetic cells with an emphasis on how they link up and exchange material and information with one another.

Manuel Rausch, an assistant professor with appointments in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics and the Department of Biomedical Engineering, has received a prestigious R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health in the amount of $3.9 million. He will use the funding to lead a study of the heart’s tricuspid valve to better understand functional tricuspid valve regurgitation (FTR) – a condition that causes leakage of the valve located between the right atrium and the right ventricle of the heart.

Researchers from The University of Texas at Austin developed synaptic transistors for brain-like computers using the thin, flexible material graphene. These transistors are similar to synapses in the brain, that connect neurons to each other. The transistors are biocompatible, which means they can interact with living cells and tissue. That is key for potential applications in medical devices that come into contact with the human body. Most materials used for these early brain-like devices are toxic, so they would not be able to contact living cells in any way.

When people feel sleepy or alert, that sensation is controlled in part by the ebb and flow of a 24-hour rhythm of their body temperature. Bioengineers at The University of Texas at Austin have developed a unique mattress and pillow system that uses heating and cooling to tell the body it is time to go to sleep.

Blood pressure is one of the most important indicators of heart health, but it’s tough to frequently and reliably measure outside of a clinical setting. For decades, cuff-based devices that constrict around the arm to give a reading have been the gold standard. But now, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University have developed an electronic tattoo that can be worn comfortably on the wrist for hours and deliver continuous blood pressure measurements at an accuracy level exceeding nearly all available options on the market today.

Several years ago, a promising therapeutic using stem cell factor (SCF) emerged that could potentially treat a variety of ailments, such as ischemia, heart attack, stroke and radiation exposure. However, during clinical trials, numerous patients suffered severe allergic reactions and development of SCF-based therapeutics stopped.

A research team led by engineers at The University of Texas at Austin has developed a related therapeutic that they say avoids these major allergic reactions while maintaining its therapeutic activity. The keys to the discovery, published recently in Nature Communications, were the use of a similar, membrane-bound version of SCF delivered in engineered lipid nanocarriers.

Mimicking the human body, specifically the actuators that control muscle movement, is of immense interest around the globe. In recent years, it has led to many innovations to improve robotics, prosthetic limbs and more, but creating these actuators typically involves complex processes, with expensive and hard-to-find materials. Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and Penn State University have created a new type of fiber that can perform like a muscle actuator, in many ways better than other options that exist today. And, most importantly, these muscle-like fibers are simple to make and recycle.

Significant advances in artificial intelligence over the past decade have relied upon extensive training of algorithms using massive, open-source databases. But when such datasets are used “off label” and applied in unintended ways, the results are subject to machine learning bias that compromises the integrity of the AI algorithm, according to a new study by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and the University of California, Berkeley.

Hyun Jung Kim has been developing his "gut-on-a-chip" technology for more than a decade. These miniature systems represent accurate models of the patient's own gut, as well as the disease simulation. The aim is to use the patients’ own cells to test drugs and understand disease processes to determine the right treatment for the patient.

A public/private collaboration led by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin has resulted in a new mathematical modeling technique that can accurately predict the response of tumors in breast cancer patients to treatments such as chemotherapy soon after treatment initiation. This is a major improvement on current methods that can determine the efficacy of first-line therapies only after the patient has already received several treatment cycles.