While new technologies, including those powered by artificial intelligence, provide innovative solutions to a steadily growing range of problems, these tools are only as good as they data they’re trained on. In the world of molecular biology, getting high-quality data from tiny biological systems while they’re in motion – a critical step for building next-gen […]
Amyloid-beta (A-beta) aggregates are tangles of proteins most notably associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Despite its constant stint in the limelight, however, researchers have been unable to get a good understanding of how A-beta comes together and breaks apart. “The way A-beta behaves in a variety of environments, including the human brain, is […]
A new imaging technique developed by engineers at Washington University in St. Louis can give scientists a much closer look at fibril assemblies — stacks of peptides that include amyloid beta, most notably associated with Alzheimer’s disease. These cross-β fibril assemblies are also useful building blocks within designer biomaterials for medical applications, but their resemblance […]
Matthew Lew, PhD, an associate professor of electrical and systems engineering at the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, has received a five-year $2 million Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support his ongoing work to improve microscopic imaging techniques. Lew will use the […]
Research from the lab of Matthew Lew, PhD at Washington University in St. Louis offers entirely new ways to see the very small. The research — two papers by PhD students at the McKelvey School of Engineering — was published in the journals Optica and Nano Letters. They have developed novel hardware and algorithms that allow them to visualize the […]
At the Washington University in St. Louis Board of Trustees meeting March 4, numerous faculty members were appointed or promoted with tenure or granted tenure, effective July 1 unless otherwise indicated. Promotion with tenure Carlos A. Botero to associate professor of biology in Arts & Sciences; Caitlyn M. Collins to associate professor of sociology in Arts & […]
A realtor sends a prospective homebuyer a blurry photograph of a house taken from across the street. The homebuyer can compare it to the real thing — look at the picture, then look at the real house — and see that the bay window is actually two windows close together, the flowers out front are […]
For those not involved in chemistry or biology, picturing a cell likely brings to mind several discrete, blob-shaped objects; maybe the nucleus, mitochondria, ribosomes and the like. There’s one part that’s often overlooked, save perhaps a squiggly line indicating the cell’s border: the membrane. But its role as gatekeeper is an essential one, and a […]
Neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s are often accompanied by amyloid proteins in the brain that have become clumped or misfolded. At Washington University in St. Louis, a newly developed technique that measures the orientation of single molecules is enabling, for the first time, optical microscopy to reveal nanoscale details about the structures of […]
Tiny protein structures called amyloids are key to understanding certain devastating age-related diseases. Amyloids form plaques in the brain, and are the main culprits in the progression of Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s diseases. “In patients you see these huge plaques, but that’s the endpoint of the disease. It’s not the beginning,” said Matthew Lew, PhD, assistant […]
Answers to big questions increasingly require access to the realm of the very small. As researchers continue to push the limits of imaging, a scientist at Washington University in St. Louis has uncovered a fundamental barrier to accuracy when it comes to measuring the rotational motion of molecules. Lew Matthew Lew, assistant professor in the […]
Engineering team just found new way to see proteins that cause Alzheimer’s, other diseases From the WashU Newsroom… Tiny protein structures called amyloids are key to understanding certain devastating age-related diseases. Aggregates, or sticky clumped-up amyloids, form plaques in the brain, and are the main culprits in the progression of Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s diseases. Amyloids […]
NIH grant to help engineers visualize Alzheimer’s From the WashU Newsroom… With support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an engineer at Washington University in St. Louis plans to push the envelope of microscopic imaging to better visualize the molecules involved in Alzheimer’s disease. Matthew Lew, assistant professor of electrical & systems engineering in the […]