Rice University

Help for patients with sickle cell disease may soon come from gene editing to fix the mutation that causes the disease and boost the patient’s own protective fetal hemoglobin. New research shows that using CRISPR-Cas9 and a corrective short DNA template to repair the sickle cell mutation in a patient’s hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) could…

There’s a hitch in the swing of a protein that delivers the flu virus. Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine researchers believe this mechanism may be a useful target to stop the virus from infecting cells. In a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Rice-Baylor team led by biophysicist…

A hydrogel invented at Rice University that is adept at helping the body heal may also be particularly good at treating wounds related to diabetes. The Rice lab of chemist and bioengineer Jeffrey Hartgerink reported this week that tests on diabetic animal models showed the injectable hydrogel significantly accelerated wound healing compared with another hydrogel…

By chipping away at a viral protein, Rice University scientists have discovered a path toward virus-like, nanoscale devices that may be able to deliver drugs to cells. The protein is one of three that make up the protective shell, called the capsid, of natural adeno-associated viruses (AAV). By making progressively smaller versions of the protein,…

Rice University researchers have invented a device that uses fast-moving fluids to insert flexible, conductive carbon nanotube fibers into the brain, where they can help record the actions of neurons. The Rice team’s microfluidics-based technique promises to improve therapies that rely on electrodes to sense neuronal signals and trigger actions in patients with epilepsy and…

 Rice University scientists have developed a method to efficiently modify natural antibodies that can deliver drugs to target cells. Adding a little extra metal is the key. Rice chemist Zachary Ball and graduate student and lead author Jun Ohata discovered that rhodium, a rare transition metal, can be a useful element in the design and…

Chemists scouring Appalachia for exotic microorganisms that could yield blockbuster drugs have reported a unique find from the smoldering remains of a coal mine fire that’s burned for nearly a decade in southeastern Kentucky. In new findings this week in the journal Nature Chemical Biology, a research team from Rice University, the University of Kentucky and…

A drug used now to treat Type 2 diabetes may someday help beat breast and ovarian cancers, but not until researchers decode the complex interactions that in some cases help promote tumors, according to Rice University scientists. Rice bioscientist Daniel Carson and alumna Micaela Morgado researched thiazolidinediones, small molecules used to fight diabetes, that can halt…

Scientists from Rice University, Baylor College of Medicine and other institutions are using synthetic biology to capture elusive, short-lived snippets of DNA that healthy cells produce on their way to becoming cancerous. Researchers said the work could lead to the development of new drugs that could prevent cancer by neutralizing “DNA intermediates,” key pieces of…

A metallic molecule being studied at Rice University begins to glow when bound to amyloid protein fibrils of the sort implicated in Alzheimer’s disease. When triggered with ultraviolet light, the molecule glows much brighter, which enables real-time monitoring of amyloid fibrils as they aggregate in lab experiments. Rice chemist Angel Martí said such a powerful…

Rice University scientists have synthesized a novel anti-cancer agent, Thailanstatin A, which was originally isolated from a bacterial species collected in Thailand. Thailanstatin A fights cancer by inhibiting the spliceosome, the machinery in the cell that edits messenger RNA after transcription from DNA but before its translation into proteins. Rice synthetic chemist K.C. Nicolaou and…

The next generation of nanosubmarines being developed at Rice University has been upgraded with tags that fluoresce longer, which enables the submersibles to be tracked for greater periods while being driven through a solution. The single-molecule vehicles introduced by the Rice lab of chemist James Tour last year may someday be used to deliver drugs…

A gap-toothed peptide created by bioengineers at Rice University may be an efficient way to deliver insoluble drugs to precise locations in the body. Rice bioengineer Jeffrey Hartgerink and his students made a hydrogel of what they call “missing tooth” peptide nanofibers. Gaps in the fibers are designed to hold drug molecules that have hydrophobic…