Bioengineering

According to the Global Burden of Skin Disease, skin conditions were ranked fourth in leading causes of disability, globally, and was the 18th leading cause of DALYs (disability-adjusted life year). Another serious condition sweeping nations is melanoma, a type of skin cancer affecting more than 85,000 individuals per year in the US alone.

The management of type 1 diabetes mellitus is an extensive, cumbersome process for patients as it involves rigid schedules and maintenance with regard to administering insulin injections regularly. As of 2017, according to the National Diabetes Statistics Report, more than 30 million people around the world are suffering with diabetes, a tenth of that affecting the American population.

Remember Dolly the sheep, the first mammal born as a product of cloning?

Obesity is a serious public health problem that is taking hold of the vast majority of countries in the developed world. For example, approximately 4 of every 10 adults in America is obese. Obesity may have a considerable negative impact on quality of life, as it can impede normal independent movement and exercise. It may also lead to chronic health problems such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and non-alcoholic liver failure.

Owing to the persistence of issues such as infertility and failure to conceive, aspects of female fertility have been studied in the past, and are still being researched extensively. Recently, scientists at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, UK, along with other German experts, discovered that epigenetics and a protein called MLL2, can attempt to solve the issue of fertility by helping in maintaining the fertilizable egg cells’ freshness and stasis.

Melanoma is the most severe form of skin cancer. It can even be fatal, although timely detection and treatment can effectively protect against this eventuality. This treatment may come in the form of surgical incision, or as medical anti-tumour therapy. Medical treatment for melanoma has resulted in full remission for some patients. However, adaptations in these tumours have led to relapses for others. This is true for a recently-developed treatment called anti-PD-1 therapy.

Although affecting less than one million people in the United States, junctional epidermolysis bullosa (JEB) is a lethal genetic condition that causes severe blistering and erosions on the skin by means of injury or from friction by scratching. Those who survive endure chronic wounds that can often lead to skin cancer, and sometimes even death.

Today, there are many projects that investigate new and emerging treatments that address a critical factor in cancer progression: the tumor microenvironment. This is a complex process, in which cancer cells adjust the conditions within, and also possibly in the immediate vicinity of, the tumor they have formed to their own ‘liking’.

Many material scientists and engineers work with the goal of making synthetic polymers with the strength and conformation to rival or exceed natural products such as silk. This is done to create textiles, sheets or other implements to be used in construction or outerwear for their durability, strength and longevity. Unfortunately, though, there are often drawbacks linked to the compounds these researchers develop.

Many drugs available today act by targeting one pathological protein associated with an illness. This protein might be a toxin from bacteria or virus particles, or a dysfunctional human protein that cancer cells use to avoid the natural process of cell death.

Many scientists hypothesise that the creation of life as we know it required a pivotal stage in which primal, simple biological building blocks (such as amino acids) were bonded together, most likely as a result of phosphorylation (a reaction in which two molecules are conjoined with the input of one phosphorus atom and the loss of one atom from the molecules’ existing structure). Phosphorylation underpins a huge range of important biochemical reactions (e.g.

The AIDS virus, HIV, continues to threaten communities globally, affecting more than 35 million people each year. Although there have been attempts to develop vaccines for this life-threatening syndrome, it is the virus’ genetic diversity that has posed challenges in the past.