Fouling is a natural phenomenon that describes the tendency of proteins in water to adhere to nearby surfaces. It’s what causes unwanted deposits of protein to form during some food production or on biomedical implants, causing them to fail. Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute are harnessing this process, which is typically considered a persistent challenge, to develop a versatile and accessible approach for modifying solid surfaces.

A novel form of polymerized estrogen developed at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute can provide neuroprotection when implanted at the site of a spinal cord injury — preventing further damage. This promising result, found in a preclinical model, was recently published in ACS Chemical Neuroscience, and it lays the groundwork for further advancement of this new biomaterial.  

Using a nanopore, researchers have demonstrated the potential to reduce the time required for sequencing a glycosaminoglycan — a class of long chain-linked sugar molecules as important to our biology as DNA — from years to minutes.

Envisioning an animal-free drug supply, scientists have — for the first time — reprogrammed a common bacterium to make a designer polysaccharide molecule used in pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals. 

The era of widespread remote learning brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic requires online testing methods that effectively prevent cheating, especially in the form of collusion among students. With concerns about cheating on the rise across the country, a solution that also maintains student privacy is particularly valuable.

Pingkun Yan, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, is among 63 inventors named by the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) to the 2021 class of NAI Senior Members.

An antioxidant found in green tea may increase levels of p53, a natural anti-cancer protein, known as the “guardian of the genome” for its ability to repair DNA damage or destroy cancerous cells.

TROY, N.Y. — Jonathan Dordick, the Howard P. Isermann ’42 Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), for his “contributions to methods for rapidly screening drug efficacy and toxicity, and biocatalytic technologies for improving human health.”

A new grant from the National Institute On Aging at the National Institutes of Health will support ongoing research at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to address Alzheimer’s disease caused by gene mutations. According to Chunyu Wang, the principal investigator and an assistant professor of biological sciences at Rensselaer, the project seeks to understand and counter the mechanism that produces Amyloid-Beta 42 peptide in brain cells.

As cancer and tumor cells move inside the human body, they impart and are subject to mechanical forces. In order to understand how these actions affect cancer cell growth, spread, and invasion, a team of engineers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is developing new models that mimic aspects of the mechanical environment within the body, providing new insight into how and why tumors develop in certain ways.