Media Watch
Cephalopod protein changes optical properties of human cells
C&EN -
Alon A. Gorodetsky of the University of California, Irvine, and coworkers have given some of that camouflage ability to human cells. The researchers engineered human embryonic kidney cells to make a protein called reflectin that gives somecephalopod skin cells and organs their optical properties …. Read More
Scientists Engineer Human Cells With Squid-like Transparency
Technology Networks -
“For millennia, people have been fascinated by transparency and invisibility, which have inspired philosophical speculation, works of science fiction, and much academic research,” said lead author Atrouli Chatterjee, a UCI doctoral student in chemical & biomolecular engineering. “Our project – which is decidedly in the realm of science – centers on designing and engineering cellular systems and tissues with controllable properties for transmitting, reflecting and absorbing light.” Read More
UCI researchers create human cells with the transparency of a squid
Slash Gear -
Researchers from the University of California, Irvine, have made a breakthrough with a bio-inspired research project that they say is the first step towards intrinsically translucent tissue. The team was inspired by octopuses, squids, and other sea creatures that can disappear by using specialized tissues in the body to manipulate the transmission and reflection of light. The scientists have been able to engineer human cells that have similar transparent abilities. Read More
Secret of squid invisibility used to turn human cells transparent
New Atlas -
Of all the superpowers in the animal kingdom, the squid’s ability to turn invisible is one of the coolest. And now scientists at the University of California, Irvine have managed to recreate that in human cells for the first time, granting them tuneable transparency. Read More
Video: Scientists turn human cells TRANSPARENT thanks to colour changing proteins from a squid
Daily Mail -
Human kidney cells have been turned invisible in a laboratory in a startling display of the power of modern science. Researchers from the University of California Irvine in the US injected proteins from a squid... Watch Now
Scientists turn human cells TRANSPARENT thanks to colour-changing proteins from a squid
Daily Mail -
Researchers from the University of California Irvine in the US harvested these colour-changing proteins and injected them into human kidney cells. This resulted in the human cells becoming partially transparent. Researchers say the technique could be used by other scientists to get a clearer view of the processes inside living cells and tissues. Read More
Genetically altered human cells can vary their transparency like squid
New Scientist -
Human cells genetically engineered to vary their transparency by making a squid protein could one day lead to see-through tissue. … “That’s the crazy, far-out idea,” says Alon Gorodetsky at the University of California, Irvine. “But when you see squid doing it, then you think it’s not so far-out after all.” Read More
Inspired By Female Squids, Scientists Genetically Engineered Human Cells To Become Translucent
Forbes -
For almost a decade, chemical engineers at the Henry Samueli School of Engineering at the University of California, Irvine, have been working on materials that are either derived or inspired by squids, octopus, and cuttlefish. After specifically working on reflectin proteins that play a critical role in how squids change color, they had a breakthrough that led to their study on how biotechnology can help in engineering human cells to become transparent … Read More
Transparent human cells turn a classic sci-fi story into reality
Inverse -
Alon Gorodetsky is the paper’s lead author and an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at UC Irvine. He tells Inverse that his goal is to eventually use this technology to make HUMAN SKIN TRANSPARENT too, which could have implications for cosmetic surgery or cell imaging. But also just because it’s cool. … “Our engineered human cells work almost the same way, as far as we can tell, as the natural leucophore cells in squid skin,” he says. Read More
Engineer? Cancer expert? Physicist? They’re coronavirus researchers now
Los Angeles Times -
Sunny Jiang, a UC Irvine environmental engineer, usually studies wastewater recycling methods and monitors coastal contamination. Now she’s examining the extent to which the coronavirus can be transmitted through aerosols. ... “You need diverse minds to look at this problem,” she said. Stopping this pandemic, she said, will require solutions from all walks of science. [Subscription required, you can request an electronic copy of the article by sending an email to communications@uci.edu.] Read More