A team led by Avinash Bajaj develops a fluorescent probe to detect mycobacteria from human tissue samples. Lekha Bandopadhyay reports on this study.

A new study performed by a team of researchers from various parts of India, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt shows that citrate-functionalized Mn₃O₄ nanoparticles can effectively treat chronic kidney disease.

A recent study by Rajan Sankaranarayanan’s group from the CSIR-Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology, Hyderabad has found a novel mechanism of lipid metabolism. This opens up new avenues to understand the production of lipid-based bioactive molecules such as antibiotics.

Stem cells of an embryo are pluripotent – they can grow into almost any cell type in the body. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) are artificially reprogrammed body cells that can be made to function like embryonic stem cells, offering therapeutic advantages. However, understanding the genetic machinations of pluripotent stem cells is vital to successfully culture iPSC and is an active research area. In an exciting breakthrough, scientists have identified the group of genes responsible for maintaining distinct states of human pluripotency.

A team of researchers from the National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, and Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore, has revealed how crosstalk between two molecular pathways in the cells of the gut mediates the aberrant inflammation in Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

In a new study, researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Gandhinagar and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, have demonstrated the functioning of a motor protein responsible for recycling material inside a cell. These findings are crucial since faulty recycling in cells is responsible for many disorders including Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s disease, and Cancer.

TNQ’s Inspiring Science Award 2022 is now open for entries and will close at midnight, on 15 October, 2021. The award is given annually to young researchers for the best paper in the life sciences published from India in the previous year. This article tells more about the award and summarizes the results of its 2021 edition.