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UCLA researchers have produced the clearest 3-D images to date of the virus that causes cold sores, herpes simplex virus type 1, or HSV-1. The images enabled them to map the virus’ structure and offered new insights into how HSV-1 works. A report on the research was published online by the journal Science. The scientists used cryo electron microscopy, or cryoEM, to obtain the first atomic model of the virus particle, which is made up of more than 3,000 protein molecules comprising tens of millions of atoms.

STROBE’s Markus Raschke received a Phase II STTR to continue work with STROBE industry partner, Anaysis.

82 Grants Will Support Scientific Innovation

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry announced that the Department of Energy will award 82 grants totaling $99 million to 69 small businesses in 26 states.  Funded through DOE’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs, today’s selections are for Phase II research and development.

The U.S. is losing ground in a second laser revolution of highly intense, ultrafast lasers that have broad applications in manufacturing, medicine, and national security, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.  Currently, 80 percent to 90 percent of the high-intensity laser systems are overseas, and all of the highest power research lasers currently in construction or already built are overseas as well.  The report makes five recommendations that would improve the nation’s position in the field, including for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to create a broad network to support science, applications, and technology of these lasers, as well as for DOE to plan for at least one large-scale, open-access high-intensity laser facility that leverages other major science infrastructures in the DOE complex.

NSF, which has supported national centers of excellence, such as the Center for Ultrafast Optical Science at the University of Michigan (1991-2002),52 appears to no longer be directly involved in the development of high-powered or high-intensity lasers, except for some spin-off applications such as the new NSF STROBE Science and Technology Center at University of Colorado.

Researchers in the US have developed nanosensors that can be directly inserted into a cell’s lipid membrane and be used to measure membrane potential. The devices, which are based on inorganic semiconductor nanoparticles, could potentially record action potentials from multiple neurons as well as electrical signals on the nanoscale – for example, across just one synapse.

Image Courtesy: Y Kuo and S Sasaki / University of California, Los Angeles

Professor Shimon Weiss leads team to develop nanosensors that can be directly inserted into a cell’s lipid membrane and be used to measure membrane potential.

The devices, which are based on inorganic semiconductor nanoparticles, could potentially record action potentials from multiple neurons as well as electrical signals on the nanoscale – for example, across just one synapse. Their paper, “Membrane insertion of—and membrane potential sensing by—semiconductor voltage nanosensors: Feasibility demonstration” was published in the January, 12, 2018 issue of Science Advances.

So Ginsberg and her colleagues devised a measurement that transforms an optical “super-resolution” microscopy known as STED (stimulated emission depletion) into a tracker of excitons on these short scales in an organic semiconductor. The technique makes it possible, for the first time, to relate the characteristics of exciton migration efficiency to nanoscale structures within light harvesting materials. “We ended up using the spatial profile of light pulses and the way that they interact with the material in order to excite very small and localized regions that have very sharp boundaries,” she said.