Showing papers in "Trends in Biotechnology in 2008"

TL;DR: Biodiesel from microalgae seems to be the only renewable biofuel that has the potential to completely displace petroleum-derived transport fuels without adversely affecting supply of food and other crop products.

TL;DR: These challenges are identified, an overview of their implications for the feasibility of bioelectrochemical wastewater treatment is provided and the opportunities for future BESs are explored.

TL;DR: It is illustrated that combining the efforts of different research lines might be necessary to obtain optimal results in the field of tissue engineering, and the advantages and limitations of recent strategies aimed at enhancing the vascularization of tissue-engineered constructs are discussed.

TL;DR: Recent efforts to engineer synthetic microbial consortia are reviewed, and future applications are suggested to suggest future applications.

TL;DR: This review addresses the design of multifunctional nanoparticles as an alternative system for drug and gene delivery, which has great potential for therapy in areas, such as cancer and neuropathologies, and discusses the controversy generated by the possible toxic health effects of nanoparticles.

TL;DR: Through analysis of the current advances in production of citric, lactic and succinic acid production, guidelines for future developments in this fast-moving field are presented.

TL;DR: This review describes and compares the different individual types of nanoparticles that are currently in use for PDT applications and describes the nanoparticles in terms of stability, stability, photocytotoxic efficiency, biodistribution and therapeutic efficiency.

TL;DR: Although much interest in this technology exists and its penetration of the market will probably increase significantly, there remains a lack of understanding of key process constraints such as membrane channel clogging, and of the science of membrane cleaning.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) as a diet component to suppress gene expression in nematodes and showed that feeding with dsRNA can be effective in downregulating targeted genes.

TL;DR: Future development will require research targeted towards increased commercial availability of key enzymes, as well as the improvement of enzyme stability and substrate repertoire, to fully realize the potential of biocatalysis for making pharmaceutical processes greener.

TL;DR: Recent developments in nanobiocatalysis are described and their potential applications in various fields, such as trypsin digestion in proteomic analysis, antifouling, and biofuel cells are described.

TL;DR: Advances in microbial engineering for the production of other potential fuel molecules, using a variety of biosynthetic pathways are reviewed, to highlight additional options.

TL;DR: This review discusses biomimetic and bioinspired mineral formation as a technique for the immobilization of enzymes with potential application to a wealth of biocatalytic processes.

TL;DR: It is suggested that tumor-targeting ligands function primarily to increase intracellular uptake of the nanocomplex and do not influence tumor localization, but other reports indicate that they do play a role in the accumulation in the tumor.

TL;DR: The unique features of spidersilks, the progress and challenges in the cloning and expression of these silks, environmentally triggered silk assembly and disassembly and the formation of fibers, films and novel chimeric composite materials from genetically engineered spider silks will be reviewed.

TL;DR: An increased understanding of the chemical signals that direct cell differentiation, migration and proliferation, advances in scaffold design and peptide engineering that allow this signaling to be recapitulated and the development of new materials have given engineers enhanced control over the chemical properties of a material and cell fate.

TL;DR: The fabrication of materials, such as nanoparticles and scaffolds for tissue engineering, and the nanopatterning of surfaces aimed at eliciting specific biological responses from the host tissue will be addressed.

TL;DR: Aptamers are characterized by high affinity and specificity for their target, a versatile selection process, ease of chemical synthesis and a small physical size that collectively make them attractive molecules for targeting diseases or as therapeutics.

TL;DR: Compared with other biomass-based vehicle fuels available so far, biogas often has several advantages from an environmental and resource-efficiency perspective, and this provides the motivation for further technological development aiming to reduce costs and thereby increased economic competitiveness ofBiogas as a vehicle fuel.

TL;DR: This review discusses several single-molecule sequencing technologies that are expected to become available during the next few years and explains how they might impact on genomics research.

TL;DR: In this review, these recent advances in miRNA microarray technology and their applications, particularly in basic research and clinical diagnosis, will be summarized and discussed.

TL;DR: Possible mechanisms of resistance and different strategies to cope with resistance, such as expression of several toxins with different modes of action in the same plant, modified Cry toxins active against resistant insects, and the potential use of Cyt toxins or a fragment of cadherin receptor are reviewed.

TL;DR: In the past six years many metabolic engineering efforts have been undertaken in plants to enable the use of plants as 'cell factories' for producing specialty carotenoids and to improve plant resistance to abiotic stress.

TL;DR: A variety of specialized methodologies have been developed or adopted to enhance neo-tendogenesis, including cellular hybridization, interfacing improvement, and physical stimulation.

TL;DR: Options for shifting the balance of healing from scarring to regeneration in the context of non-pathological wounds are discussed, with particular focus on potential therapies based on transforming growth factor (TGF)-beta signaling and recent unexpected findings involving targeting of gap junctional connexins.

TL;DR: To reduce enzyme associated process costs, the immobilization of fungal mycelium within biomass support particles (BSPs) as well as expression of the lipase enzyme on the surface of yeast cells has been developed to generate whole-cell biocatalysts for industrial applications.

TL;DR: A general overview of recent efforts to activate enzymes for use in nonaqueous media is presented, giving particular focus to the use of simple salts as additives that result in significant biocatalytic improvements.

TL;DR: Improved techniques for lipid membrane self-assembly and membrane protein incorporation on nano- and microporous substrates have led to great improvements in measurement sensitivity, membrane stability and packaging, suggesting that nanopore-spanning membranes are leading contenders for a breakthrough in membrane protein screening and biosensing applications.

TL;DR: This review focuses on the most recent developments in molecular imprinting, not only covering the widespread use of biological macro-templates but also highlighting the emerging use of synthetic macro- Templates, such as dendrimers and hyperbranched polymers.

TL;DR: Two examples are described: the development of marine drugs from sponges and the use of microalgae to produce bulk chemicals and biofuels.