A magnetic field can be used to switch nanolasers on and off, shows new research from Aalto University. The physics underlying this discovery paves the way for the development of optical signals that cannot be disturbed by external disruptions, leading to unprecedented robustness in signal processing.

Lasers concentrate light into extremely bright beams that are useful in a variety of domains, such as broadband communication and medical diagnostics devices. About ten years ago, extremely small and fast lasers known as plasmonic nanolasers were developed. These nanolasers are potentially more power-efficient than traditional lasers, and they have been of great advantage in many fields—for example, nanolasers have increased the sensitivity of biosensors used in medical diagnostics.

So far, switching nanolasers on and off has required manipulating them directly, either mechanically or with the use of heat or light. Now, researchers have found a way to remotely control nanolasers.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has officially recommended the widespread use of a malaria vaccine for the first time.

“As some of you may know, I started my career as a malaria researcher, and I longed for the day that we would have an effective vaccine against this ancient and terrible disease,” Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. “Today is that day, an historic day.”

The challenge: Malaria is a serious parasitic disease spread by mosquitoes. Although eradicated in the U.S. and many other countries, it’s a major threat to people in other parts of the world, claiming more than 400,000 lives every year, and about half of the deaths are children under the age of five.

Q&A with Akiko Iwasaki, PhD, discussing research her team conducted recently that discovered local vaccines administered with a nasal spray were more effective in protecting mice against influenza than vaccines that are injected into the muscle, the way standard flu shots are done.

A Yale School of Medicine research team led by Akiko Iwasaki, PhD, recently found that local vaccines administered with a nasal spray were more effective in protecting mice against influenza than vaccines that are injected into the muscle, the way standard flu shots are done. Iwasaki, who is Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Immunobiology and professor of molecular, cellular, and developmental biology and of epidemiology (microbial diseases), discusses her new research, which was published December 10 in Science Immunology.

Akiko Iwasaki: We found that local mucosal immunity that’s established by intranasal vaccination elicits a much more robust and cross reactive, cross protective immunity than a conventional vaccine that uses intramuscular injection. And the way we got to this knowledge is that we were comparing different routes of vaccine administration and found that only after the intranasal vaccination, there are these antibodies that are secreted into the mucosa known as IgA. And this IgA coats the mucus membrane and mucus surface and protects the host by preventing the virus from entering the body. So it’s like putting the guard outside of the door instead of inside the door where antibodies normally work, inside the body.

Over-the-counter antioxidants 🤔

Mitochondria are pivotal for bioenergetics, as well as in cellular response to viral infections. Nevertheless, their role in COVID-19 was largely overlooked. Here, we analyzed available bulk RNA-seq datasets from COVID-19 patients and corresponding healthy controls (three blood datasets, N = 48 healthy, 119 patients; two respiratory tract datasets, N = 157 healthy, 524 patients). We found significantly reduced mtDNA gene expression in blood, but not in respiratory tract samples from patients. Next, analysis of eight single-cells RNA-seq datasets from peripheral blood mononuclear cells, nasopharyngeal samples, and Bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (N = 1,192,243 cells), revealed significantly reduced mtDNA gene expression especially in immune system cells from patients. This is associated with elevated expression of nuclear DNA-encoded OXPHOS subunits, suggesting compromised mitochondrial-nuclear co-regulation. This, together with elevated expression of ROS-response genes and glycolysis enzymes in patients, suggest rewiring toward glycolysis, thus generating beneficial conditions for SARS-CoV-2 replication. Our findings underline the centrality of mitochondrial dysfunction in COVID-19.