Biological sciences articles within Nature Materials

Featured

  • News & Views |

    Microgel particle precursors bearing peptide substrates for human enzymes crosslink in wound sites to produce bioactive scaffolds in situ that rapidly recruit cells and promote dermal healing.

    • David W. Grainger

  • News & Views |

    The fabrication of a self-sustaining source of low-energy electrons in a single-atom layer could help unravel fundamental mechanisms of radiobiological damage and lead to improved cancer therapies.

    • Léon Sanche

  • News & Views |

    Implanted spheres with a diameter larger than 1.5 mm escape fibrotic responses, thereby extending the survival time of the encapsulated therapeutic cells.

    • Ruud A. Bank

  • Research Highlights |

    • Pep Pàmies

  • News & Views |

    The combination of topological constraints and deformability in an active system of microtubules and molecular motors leads to rich dynamic behaviour.

    • Julia M. Yeomans

  • News & Views |

    Extracellular-matrix stiffness regulates cell behaviour even when decoupled from ligand density and tethering.

    • Sanjay Kumar

  • Editorial |

    Understanding how cells sense and adapt to their environment, and engineering defined culture substrates, will be central to progress in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.

  • News & Views |

    Cells use differences in the binding rates between the extracellular matrix and integrin adhesion receptors to sense matrix rigidity.

    • José R. García
    •  & Andrés J. García

  • News & Views |

    The nuclei of naive mouse embryonic stem cells that are transitioning towards differentiation expand when the cells are stretched and contract when they are compressed. What drives this auxetic phenotype is, however, unclear.

    • Ning Wang

  • News & Views |

    Physical cues from the extracellular environment influence the lineage commitment of stem cells. Now, experiments on human mesenchymal stem cells cultured on photodegradable hydrogels show that the cells' fate can also be determined by past physical environments.

    • Jeroen Eyckmans
    •  & Christopher S. Chen

  • News & Views |

    Soft culture substrates improve the yield of functional motor neurons derived from human pluripotent stem cells.

    • Emily Rhodes Lowry
    •  & Christopher E. Henderson

  • Commentary |

    Materials-based control of stem cell fate is beginning to be rigorously combined with traditional soluble-factor approaches to better understand the cells' behaviour and maximize their potential for therapy.

    • P. C. Dave P. Dingal
    •  & Dennis E. Discher

  • News & Views |

    Chloroplasts with extended photosynthetic activity beyond the visible absorption spectrum, and living leaves that perform non-biological functions, are made possible by localizing nanoparticles within plant organelles.

    • Gregory D. Scholes
    •  & Edward H. Sargent

  • News & Views |

    Electric fields prompt epithelial cell populations to make coordinated movements such as U-turns.

    • Nir Gov

  • Editorial |

    Materials-based imaging agents are attractive candidates for a diverse range of imaging modalities and combined imaging–therapy applications, but economic implications and practical concerns remain obstacles to their clinical translation.

  • News & Views |

    Detection of a wide range of tumours remains a challenge in cancer diagnostics. By exploiting changes in the tumour microenvironment, a pH-responsive polymeric nanomaterial enables ultrasensitive tumour-specific imaging in many types of cancer.

    • Daishun Ling
    • , Michael J. Hackett
    •  & Taeghwan Hyeon

  • Commentary |

    The preclinical intersection of molecular imaging and gene- and cell-based therapies will enable more informed and effective clinical translation. We discuss how imaging can monitor cell and gene fate and function in vivo and overcome barriers associated with these therapies.

    • Nigel G. Kooreman
    • , Julia D. Ransohoff
    •  & Joseph C. Wu

  • Commentary |

    Nanoparticle-based imaging plays a crucial role in cancer diagnosis and treatment. Here, we discuss the modalities used for molecular imaging of the tumour microenvironment and image-guided interventions including drug delivery, surgery and ablation therapy.

    • Chun Li

  • News & Views |

    Adult cells can be routinely reprogrammed into pluripotent stem cells by chemical and genetic means, such as the expression of a cocktail of exogenous transcription factors. It is now shown that growing cells on substrates with aligned features such as microgrooves can enhance this process.

    • Yan Xu
    • , Longqi Liu
    •  & Miguel A. Esteban

  • News & Views |

    Measurements of the structure and organization of intact bone samples show that water plays a significant role in orienting bone apatite crystals, and that such ordering is mediated by an amorphous mineral coating layer.

    • Melinda Duer
    •  & Arthur Veis

  • News & Views |

    Advances in photochemistry have profoundly impacted the way in which biology is studied. Now, a photoactivated enzymatic patterning method that offers spatiotemporal control over the presentation of bioactive proteins to direct cells in three-dimensional culture significantly expands the available chemical toolbox.

    • Daniel L. Alge
    •  & Kristi S. Anseth

  • News & Views |

    Cells can sense their environment by applying and responding to mechanical forces, yet how these forces are transmitted through the cell's cytoskeleton is largely unknown. Now, a combination of experiments and computer simulations shows how forces applied to the cell cortex are synergistically shared by motor proteins and crosslinkers.

    • Andreas R. Bausch
    •  & Ulrich S. Schwarz

  • Commentary |

    Many materials-based therapeutic systems have reached the clinic or are in clinical trials. Here we describe materials design principles and the construction of delivery vehicles, as well as their adaptation and evaluation for human use.

    • Jeffrey A. Hubbell
    •  & Robert Langer

  • Article |

    Somatic cells can be reprogrammed into induced pluripotent stem cells biochemically through the expression of a few transcription factors. It is now shown that aligned microgrooves or nanofibres on cell-adhesive substrates can promote the reprogramming of somatic cells more efficiently through epigenetic regulation of genes related to pluripotency and the mesenchymal-to-epithelial transition. The findings suggest that the epigenetic state can be regulated by variations in cell morphology.

    • Timothy L. Downing
    • , Jennifer Soto
    •  & Song Li

  • News & Views |

    Cells at the edges of migrating epithelial sheets pull themselves towards unfilled space regardless of their direction of motion.

    • Eric R. Dufresne
    •  & Martin A. Schwartz

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