Laboratory Equipment Magazine

1 week ago | laboratoryequipment.com | Michelle Taylor

PFAS are known as “forever chemicals” because of their extreme persistence. This persistence is why PFAS chemicals became popular in the first place—they are good at what they do. However, we are now seeing that this extreme persistence is also what contributes to pollution in a variety of matrices, as well as toxic effects on human health. Found in a variety of matrices, PFAS are especially persistent in water and food packaging.

2 weeks ago | laboratoryequipment.com | Michelle Taylor

A four-year follow up to a 2017 study has revealed the microbial mechanisms behind why newborns treated with antibiotics go on to have a permanently underdeveloped immune system. The data also suggests a way to minimize or even reverse the risk in the future.

3 weeks ago | laboratoryequipment.com | Michelle Taylor

Coming off the worst flu season in nearly two decades, an internation cohort of leading researchers have shown that person-to-person variation in antibody immunity plays a key role in shaping which flu strains dominate in a population. Infection or vaccination with the influenza virus elicits a neutralizing antibody response targeting the viral hemagglutinin (HA) protein. These antibodies protect against infection, providing immunity to strains that they neutralize.

1 month ago | laboratoryequipment.com | Michelle Taylor

Ancient DNA samples from as long as 2,300 years ago are revealing evolutionary secrets about Borrelia recurrentis, a type of bacteria that causes relapsing fever and is a distant cousin of the bacteria that causes modern Lyme disease. Only three known species of bacteria, including B. recurrentis, have transitioned from being carried primarily by ticks to lice, changing the potential severity of the disease. It was unknown when B.

1 month ago | laboratoryequipment.com | Michelle Taylor

A 6-month-old born with a rare genetic disorder is the world’s first person successfully treated with a customized CRISPR gene editing therapy in a historic medical breakthrough. The infant, KJ, was diagnosed with a rare metabolic disease—an urea cycle disorder known as severe carbamoyl phosphate synthetase 1 (CPS1) deficiency. During the normal breakdown of proteins in the body, ammonia is naturally produced.