Category Archives: Technology
Combatting antimicrobial resistance with a ruthenium-based photorelease antimicrobial therapy
Antimicrobial resistance is a complex problem that contributes to health and economic losses worldwide. Resistance to antimicrobial therapies reduces the effectiveness of current drugs, leading to increased morbidity, mortality, and health care expenditure. Because globalization increases the vulnerability of any […]
Fasting against diabetes
Diabetes is a disease typically associated with old age, especially when speaking of type 2, characterized for insulin resistance, and associated with obesity and therefore, more likely to occur in old age.
A recent couple of papers published in Cell […]
How to create a band gap in graphene using lead
Graphene is one of the most promising materials for nanoelectronics owing to its unique Dirac cone-like dispersion of the electronic state and high mobility of the charge carriers. We all know that already, provided we are a little bit interested […]
Diagnosing autism using brain scans?
A key aspect of our effort to overcome autism is to get a quick, reliable and early diagnosis. Typical signs such as difficulty in making eye contact or following the mother’s pointing gesture are usually observed after the age […]
How drug discovery works: finding new strategies against Kaposi’s sarcoma
15% of human cancers worldwide may be attributed to viruses,1 with both DNA and RNA viruses being capable of causing the disease. Epstein-Barr virus, human papilloma virus, hepatitis B virus, and human herpes virus-8 are the four DNA […]
How to measure the viscosity of the liquid inside a living cell using upconverting particles
How would you measure the dynamic viscosity of cytosol, the liquid inside the cells, without destroying the cell? It seems not an easy task. However, a team of researchers that includes Nuno de Sousa (DIPC & IFIMAC), has just provided […]
Plasmons galore for myriad applications
Worldwide research efforts on plasmons and metamaterials have been growing exponentially for the past ten years. Now, Antonio I. Fernández-Domínguez (IFIMAC), Francisco J. García-Vidal (IFIMAC & DIPC), and Luis Martín-Moreno (ICMA) discuss new directions for the future, such as the […]
Pulsed radiotherapy
Author: Álvaro Peralta Conde is a senior researcher at CLPU (Pulsed Lasers Centre)
Can radiotherapy with laser-produced ionizing radiation be an alternative to conventional radiotherapy? Can we deep our understanding of the basic mechanisms of radiation damage? Can we study […]
Melodrama with happy ending for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy patients
Patients suffering from rare diseases (defined by the European as those affecting less than 5 in 10000 people) have traditionally been overlooked by pharmaceutical companies. They are usually looking for the next blockbuster drug, so the lack of a large […]
Quantum dots embedded in graphene nanoribbons
Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs), are strips of graphene with ultra-thin width (
GNRs are very interesting structures, partly due to their attractive electronic properties. Those properties vary dramatically with changes in the nanoribbon’s atomic structure in terms of width, crystallographic […]