Intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) in steatotic cells pose a problem due to their potential to cause oxidative stress and cellular damage. Delivering engineered phospholipids to intracellular lipid droplets in steatotic hepatic cells, using the cell's inherent intracellular lipid transport mechanisms are investigated. Initially, it is shown that tail-labeled fluorescent lipids assembled into liposomes are able to be transported to intracellular lipid droplets in steatotic HepG2 cells…

Designing and assembling artificial cells (ACs) is a core direction in bottom-up synthetic biology. Here, the advancements in the past 3 years in engineering ACs with focus on compartmentalization and surface modifications with the aim for their integration in semi-synthetic tissue are outlined. Compartmentalization in vesicles, coacervates and hydrogels are discussed for encapsulated catalysis or cytoskeleton formation including the use of components of mammalian cells to increase the ACs’…

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the critical need for the advancement of diagnostic and therapeutic platforms. These platforms rely on the rapid development of molecular binders that should facilitate surveillance and swift intervention against viral infections. In this study, we have evaluated by three independent research groups the binding characteristics of various published RNA and DNA aptamers targeting the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. For this comparative analysis, we have…