A study conducted at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, has proven the efficiency of a sustainable process for extracting isoflavones from soybean meal that increases their bioavailability.

Isoflavones are used in foods, cosmetics, and supplements due to their health benefits, including combating neurodegenerative and cardiovascular diseases, type 1 and type 2 diabetes, hyperglycemia, and exhibiting anticancer, antimicrobial, and antioxidant activities. They also bind to estrogen receptors, modulating hormonal imbalances and potentially alleviating or preventing menopause-related symptoms.

The problem is that traditionally, these isoflavones are separated from the meal using time-consuming techniques involving toxic solvents.

“That’s why our research sought to solve this issue by applying innovative and sustainable technology that combines environmentally friendly solvents under high pressure with ultrasonic waves to intensify the extraction,” explains Pedro Henrique Santos, a food engineer from the Multidisciplinary Food and Health Laboratory (LabMAS) at the Faculty of Applied Sciences (FCA) at UNICAMP who participated in the study.

The results were published in Food Chemistry.

After discovering the most efficient way to extract isoflavones from soybean meal using the new technology, the researchers applied an enzyme that broke the isoflavones down into smaller molecules called genistein and daidzein. These molecules are more easily absorbed by the human body, similar to what happens with lactose-free milk.

“The combination of the two steps resulted in an extract that is completely rich in isoflavones already in their active form [genistein and daidzein], in less time than traditional methods and in a 100% sustainable manner. In addition, the meal left over from the process retained its high protein content and can be used in animal feed or in the development of vegetable protein supplements, generating two high-value-added products from the same by-product,” says Santos.

Cocoa bean shells

Some of the researchers who worked on this study dedicated themselves to finding a new way to add value to an interesting cocoa byproduct: the almond shells of the fruit. The shells resemble cocoa nibs and have a similar smell, but they are very fibrous, so they are usually discarded.

“The material has compounds that may be of interest to different industries, such as food and cosmetics, as it has beneficial health effects. Therefore, our intention was to extract these substances in order to obtain an enriched fraction in each of them,” says Felipe Sanchez Bragagnolo, a process and biotechnology engineer who works in the same laboratory as Santos.

The study was the subject of another article in Food Chemistry.

To accomplish this, the researchers, assisted by María González-Miquel from the Polytechnic University of Madrid in Spain and Dario Arrua from the Future Industries Institute at the University of South Australia, used equipment operating at pressures much higher than those of a domestic pressure cooker.

In this system, water and ethanol (safe solvents) pass through the shells of the cocoa beans and extract the desired compounds into the solution.

The solution then enters a smart filter that separates the compounds according to their chemical affinity. Those that “like” water more appear in the more aqueous fractions, while those that “prefer” ethanol appear in the fractions with more ethanol. This process allows for the production of purer portions of each group of compounds.

Using this method, the scientists improved the system, enabling them to extract and separate the compounds. They obtained a fraction rich in theobromine, the main compound in cocoa bean shells. Next, they obtained a fraction rich in caffeine, followed by a final fraction full of phenolic compounds.

“The findings can be used in different approaches. One of them is the use of the system for raw material quality control, as we were able to verify, in fewer steps, what’s in the plant material and how much of it there is. Another application, more specific to cocoa, is the targeted use of the fractions,” Bragagnolo explains.

This means that, for example, if an industry is interested in using theobromine in a product, it will be possible to scale up the process and obtain a purer, enriched fraction of theobromine from cocoa bean shells.

Despite being the third-largest producer and consumer of beer worldwide, Brazil depends almost entirely on hop imports. Less than 1% of the ingredient responsible for the bitterness, aroma, and flavor of beer is grown locally. However, a new project involving Brazilian scientists and producers in the Vale do Ribeira region of the state of São Paulo seeks to change this scenario. The project aims to make domestic hop production more efficient and viable while boosting the development of new bioproducts.

The project was born within the Center for Research on Biodiversity Dynamics and Climate Change (CBioClima), one of the Research, Innovation, and Dissemination Centers (RIDCs) and based at São Paulo State University (UNESP). The project is investing in supercritical extraction with carbon dioxide (CO₂), a technology that is already well-established in countries such as Germany and the United States. This method efficiently extracts aromatic and bioactive compounds from hops, reducing logistics costs and improving beer quality.

“Brazilian hops are normally sold in pellets [dehydrated and pressed flowers] to breweries. However, with this technology, hops can be marketed in oil form, which, in addition to logistical gains, yields beer production results that are far superior to conventional methods,” explains Levi Pompermayer Machado, a professor at UNESP and one of the researchers involved in the project.

In the study published in the journal Biomass Conversion and Biorefinery, the researchers compared the extraction of hops at Atlântica Hops in the municipality of Juquiá in Vale do Ribeira using conventional and supercritical CO₂ methods.

While traditional extraction, which uses organic solvents or a technique known as steam stripping, yields about 15% extract with 9% α-acids (the compounds responsible for the bitterness of beer), the CO₂ method achieves up to 72% α-acids. Additionally, the process results in a lower volume, better preservation, and an increase of up to 20% in beer productivity.

“Each hop has a unique flavor, which is defined by what we call terroir, and that’s what the industry is looking for. In the study, we also conducted analyses of the sensory profile of the hop extract in pellets and the extract we produced. There was a slight change in flavor, but the sensory signature of the product remained more or less the same. Therefore, with all this improvement in efficiency and quality, the characteristics of the terroir are almost entirely maintained,” he says.

Machado points out that the technology tested in Vale do Ribeira stands out for adhering to the principles of green chemistry. Traditional methods use large amounts of water or petroleum-based solvents to separate essential oils from hops.

Supercritical extraction, on the other hand, uses carbon dioxide under high-pressure, high-temperature conditions where it exists in a state between liquid and gas (the supercritical state). In this state, CO₂ acts as a natural solvent, penetrating deeply into the raw material and extracting its compounds with high efficiency.

“In addition, the CO₂ used in supercritical technology is recaptured at the end of the process, which avoids atmospheric emissions and eliminates chemical residues in the extract. This makes the method more efficient and environmentally responsible,” says Machado.

The researcher states that the main objective of the project is to provide producers with cultivation options that have a smaller environmental footprint and greater added value (as is the case with hops), rather than expanding agricultural frontiers with low-value commodities such as soybeans and sugarcane.

“We’re talking about producing more in a much smaller cultivated area, with a crop that responds well to climate change and offers multiple market possibilities,” the researcher points out.

Circular economy

Another advantage of this technology is that the resulting extracts can be used not only in the brewing industry but also in the cosmetics and pharmaceutical sectors. In addition to the extracts, the researchers analyzed the waste left over after extraction (spent hops).

Johana Marcela Concha Obando, a postdoctoral fellow at INCT NanoAgro at UNESP who is involved in the project, explains that hop waste still contains bioactive compounds with high antioxidant potential, such as phenolics and flavonoids.

“Since the technique doesn’t use reagents, this waste isn’t lost in the process and can be used for other purposes,” she explains.

The study’s biochemical analysis revealed that, even after removing the main active ingredients, the residual biomass retains properties that can be used in new products. “With the extract, we’re no longer serving just the brewing niche, but reaching five, six, or even ten different sectors,” Machado celebrates.

A new system could overhaul maps that misclassify hundreds of thousands of smallholder coffee and cacao farmers as working in forests. Without better maps, deforestation regulations could ripple through markets from remote farms to a caffe mocha near you.

Sample Earth, launched by the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT and available on Harvard Dataverse, helps mapmakers build accurate, inclusive maps to prevent smallholder farmers from being wrongly classified as producing major commodities in forested areas. Misclassification risks excluding compliant producers from markets enforcing deforestation-free rules, particularly the European Union’s new regulation (EUDR).

The initiative is the result of a collaboration between Alliance researchers, tech companies (including Google), and the World Cocoa Foundation. Researchers call on private-sector mapmakers to adopt their model to harden their supply chains against disruption.

Producers of coffee and cacao, and the companies that buy their products, could soon lose access to the world’s second-largest economy. The European Union, at the end of next year, will phase in the long-delayed EUDR legislation that requires many agricultural commodities to be certified deforestation-free. Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of producers will face considerable hurdles, and not because they produce on land that hasn’t been deforested since 2020 (the EU’s cutoff date): It’s due to maps that wrongly classify their farmland as forest.

For example, the EU’s main reference map, published in 2025, misclassifies more than half the coffee production zones in Colombia, China, Guatemala and Mexico as forest, according to research by the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT. Similar reference maps have the same shortcomings. This is because these maps are “trained” on land-cover datasets that largely exclude remote areas cultivated by smallholders.

Improving these maps is urgent. To spark the creation of better maps, the Alliance recently launched Sample Earth, a trusted and inclusive global benchmark and reference dataset that accurately represents remote smallholder farms. The initial data tranche includes approximately 100,000 open-access, time-stamped geolocation points in Ghana and Vietnam. The countries are the second-largest producers of cacao and coffee, respectively.

“Maps are needed for due diligence, and buyers will likely steer clear of areas misclassified as ‘high risk’ for deforestation,” said Louis Reymondin, a data scientist at the Alliance. “With Sample Earth, we invite governments, companies, NGOs and research institutions to invest in expanding this inclusive, high-quality land-cover reference to preserve livelihoods and incentivize environmental protection.”

Smallholders produce an estimated 60% of the world’s coffee and 90% of its cacao. If maps used for compliance are inaccurate, buyers may decline purchases from entire regions rather than risk penalties for non-compliance, effectively shutting smallholders out of major markets.

“Most maps are not accurate at local scales because the data is biased toward regions with a lot of training data,” said Thibaud Vantalon, a scientist at the Alliance’s Digital Inclusion research area. “Remote regions are very poorly mapped. Sample Earth means to fill this gap in training data for smallholders.”

Making map-making better

Sample Earth is designed to improve map accuracy and to streamline the map-making workflow. Data scientists, the people who make maps with satellite imagery, spend an estimated 80% of their time collecting, cleaning and organizing training data. Sample Earth provides reference samples to reduce that burden and speed up the creation of accurate land-cover maps for compliance.

“High-quality data and data-based action are the foundation for compliance with deforestation-free rules and net-zero carbon emission targets,” said Michael Matarasso, the Impact Director and Head of North America at the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF), a partner in Sample Earth.

“However, highly accurate public data is rare… This poses a significant risk to all stakeholders involved. A standard to deliver highly accurate and transparent data in partnership with governments and farmers is of critical importance more than ever.”

Sample Earth aims to set a new transparency and quality benchmark for map-based compliance tools. Currently, no universal standard exists for third-party accuracy assessments of maps used in deforestation due diligence. Sample Earth plans to include a built-in improvement mechanism that allows mapmakers to access confidential land-use reference data to validate and refine their maps without exposing individual farmers’ locations.

“Global forest maps have advanced, but without open, standardized reference data, progress in disambiguating forest land use from other land use like cacao and coffee agroforestry remains limited” said Rémi d’Annunzio, Forestry Officer at FAO and product manager of Whisp. “Today, initiatives like the Forest Data Partnership and DIASCA are putting efforts such as Sample Earth high on the global agenda as we work to define and standardize guidelines for open reference data collection.”

Sample Earth builds on nearly two decades of Alliance research using satellite imagery to monitor land-cover changes across the Global South. The team plans to expand the dataset within Vietnam and Ghana and add other countries with high rates of misclassified smallholder farms, including Colombia and Honduras, along with coffee- and cacao-producing nations across Africa and Asia.

Seeking modern cartographers

Sample Earth’s roster of collaborators includes the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, Germany’s international development agency (GIZ), Google, Satelligence and WCF. The Alliance is actively seeking more collaborators and investors.

“For EUDR to succeed, we need to lower the burden of monitoring and reporting, and we need to ensure that longstanding smallholder farms can be reliably reported as non-deforested areas,” said Dan Morris, a researcher at Google AI for Nature and Society. “AI combined with satellite imagery is a powerful tool that can help address these challenges, but AI systems are only as good as their training and validation data.”

Inaction could disrupt supply chains and consumer markets, and not just in the EU; other jurisdictions are following suit in building similar legislation that will apply to most agricultural commodities. Supply constraints are feasible if maps do not quickly improve, which could push up prices. It’s bad news across supply chains, from vulnerable smallholders who already face myriad challenges to food-inflation-weary consumers worldwide.

Sample Earth’s proposition is straightforward: better, inclusive training datasets will yield more accurate maps, protect compliant farmers from unwarranted exclusion, and give buyers and governments transparent tools to verify deforestation-free claims. By filling the data gaps that leave smallholder landscapes underrepresented, Sample Earth aims to make compliance affordable and fair, while supporting conservation and sustainable livelihoods in the tropics.

Provided by The Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture

A wheat field near Elberta, Utah, just became the most technically sophisticated wheat field on Earth, thanks to a talented team of BYU professors and students.

The team of engineers placed 86 Bluetooth devices throughout the 50-hectare (124-acre) field to measure water levels across every inch of the field. Placing this many sensors in a commercial field is unprecedented and allows researchers to see unique patterns that have never before been captured.

Each of these sensors, called BYU Smart Bluetooth Stakes, is powered by a credit-card-sized solar panel and uses two metal prongs to gauge the soil moisture as often as every minute. The system is significantly more accurate than traditional water saturation measurement methods and provides a map of where water is needed.

“We took existing technology—they’re the same kind of microchips that would be inside your Bluetooth headphones—and we put them on a platform, added solar powering, probes to measure soil moisture, and then just made the whole package waterproof and outdoor-capable so that it could be left for a long period of time,” said Ph.D. student and team member Samuel Craven. “They have to be really small, low enough to the ground that a farmer’s tractor can go over top of it, and cheap enough that we can do hundreds of them.”

The project is part of Craven’s dissertation and was published in the journal Sensors.

The smart Bluetooth stakes are placed prongs-down in the ground and work together with a smart receiver attached to a center pivot sprinkler system. An important finding from their research showed that switching to a parabolic antenna for the smart receiver significantly improved signal strength and range. The receiver was able to collect data more reliably across the field, especially from distant stakes, with a range increase from 300 meters to 600 meters.

Getting to that point required extensive research and experimentation. BYU electrical and computer engineering professor Brian Mazzeo pulled together an interdisciplinary research team of students and faculty—including plant and wildlife sciences professor Neil Hansen and geography professor Ruth Kerry—to take it on.

“We decided to go with Bluetooth because it’s inexpensive, it’s readily available, the wavelengths, everything. There are a lot of things that made it very attractive, but the research itself, goes beyond that,” Mazzeo said. “Somebody may come up with a better wireless solution, and that’s okay, but understanding the density of sensors necessary is a critical question that farmers and other agricultural professionals need to know.”

Working through a drought is an expected challenge for farming in the West, including the desert lands of Utah. The BYU Smart Bluetooth Stakes provide a way to deliberately use water resources in the ways farmers need them and better navigate drought conditions while still maintaining healthy crop production.

“We’re solving real, practical problems,” Kerry said. “It’s very heartening to realize we can solve these problems if we work together.”

In a new study published in Trends in Biotechnology, researchers used a gene-editing technology called CRISPR to increase a fungus’s production efficiency and cut its production-related environmental impact by as much as 61%—all without adding any foreign DNA. The genetically tweaked fungus tastes like meat and is easier to digest than its naturally occurring counterpart.

“There is a popular demand for better and more sustainable protein for food,” says corresponding author Xiao Liu of Jiangnan University in Wuxi, China. “We successfully made a fungus not only more nutritious but also more environmentally friendly by tweaking its genes.”

Animal agriculture is responsible for about 14% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Raising livestock also takes up land and requires a large amount of fresh water, which is already at risk due to climate change and human influence. Microbial proteins, including those found in yeast and fungi, have emerged as a more sustainable alternative to meat.

Among the options explored thus far for mycoprotein, or fungi with protein, the fungus Fusarium venenatum stands out because of its natural texture and flavor, which closely resemble those of meat. It has been approved for food use in many countries, including the United Kingdom, China, and the United States.

However, Fusarium venenatum has thick cell walls that make its nutrients difficult for humans to digest. Also, it’s resource intensive; producing even small amounts of mycoprotein requires a large amount of resource input. The spores are raised in giant metal tanks filled with feedstock made with sugar and nutrients like ammonium sulfate.

Liu and his team set out to explore the potential of boosting Fusarium venenatum’s digestibility and production efficiency using CRISPR—without introducing foreign DNA into the fungal genes.

To do so, they removed two genes associated with the enzymes chitin synthase and pyruvate decarboxylase. Eliminating the chitin synthase made the fungal cell wall thinner, allowing more protein inside the cell to become available for digestion. Taking out the pyruvate decarboxylase gene helped to fine-tune the fungus’s metabolism so that it required less nutrient input to produce protein.

Analyses showed that the new fungal strain, dubbed FCPD, required 44% less sugar to produce the same amount of protein compared to the original strain and did so 88% faster.

“A lot of people thought growing mycoprotein was more sustainable, but no one had really considered how to reduce the environmental impact of the entire production process, especially when compared to other alternative protein products,” says first author, Xiaohui Wu of Jiangnan University.

The researchers then calculated the environmental footprint of FCPD, from spores in the laboratory to inactivated meat-like products, at an industrial scale.

They simulated FCPD production in six countries with different energy structures—including Finland, which uses mostly renewable energy, and China, which relies more heavily on coal—and found that FCPD had a lower environmental impact than traditional Fusarium venenatum production did, regardless of location.

Overall, FCPD production resulted in up to 60% less greenhouse gas emissions for the entirety of its life cycle.

The team also investigated the impact of FCPD production compared to the resources required to produce animal protein. When compared to chicken production in China, they found that myoprotein from FCPD requires 70% less land and reduces the risk of freshwater pollution by 78%.

“Gene-edited foods like this can meet growing food demands without the environmental costs of conventional farming,” says Liu.

Kelp species such as Saccharina japonica and Undaria pinnatifida serve as critical global economic resources. However, global warming, marked by rising seawater temperatures, is severely impacting kelp cultivation. This reality has made the development of new, heat-resistant kelp cultivars with broader adaptability an urgent priority to mitigate climate-related threats.

While triploid breeding is a common practice in terrestrial crops, it has rarely been applied to seaweeds.

To address this challenge, a research team led by Prof. Shan Tifeng from the Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IOCAS) has developed a new method for breeding triploid cultivars in kelp species.

The study was published in the Journal of Phycology.

Prior research efforts obtained diploid gametophytes from heterozygous sporophytes via apospory, but the sex of these gametophytes was variable and unpredictable. This inconsistency made it difficult to conduct precise crosses for the development of triploid lines.

“This issue has become the primary technical bottleneck limiting triploid breeding in kelp,” noted Prof. Shan, the corresponding author of the study.

Building on doubled haploid (DH) population construction technology and using Undaria pinnatifida as the target species, the researchers proposed a new approach: generating homozygous diploid gametophytes by inducing apospory in DH sporophytes, then crossing these homozygous diploid gametophytes with haploid gametophytes to produce triploid sporophytes. This method effectively resolves the aforementioned technical bottleneck.

Specifically, the researchers first obtained DH sporophytes through the selfing of a monoicous gametophyte. They then derived single-sex (male) diploid gametophytes via apospory. These male diploid gametophytes were crossed with three female haploid gametophyte clonal lines, resulting in the successful development of three triploid hybrid lines.

Cultivation trials conducted at a seaweed farm revealed that, compared to conventional diploid cultivars, the triploid hybrids exhibited superior traits: a faster growth rate, longer blades, enhanced resistance to high temperatures and aging, and a notable sterility characteristic.

“The triploid breeding method established in this study may also be applicable to other kelp species, as they share a similar life cycle,” Prof. Shan added.

This study provides a practical polyploid breeding tool for kelp, helping develop hardier, more adaptable cultivars to support the stable development of the seaweed farming industry.

A team led by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory has engineered poplar trees to produce valuable chemicals that can be used to make biodegradable plastics and other products. The modified trees were more tolerant of high salt levels in soil and were easier to break down for conversion into biofuels and other bioproducts.

The study, published in Plant Biotechnology Journal, shows that poplar trees, which are already useful as a bioenergy crop, can be reprogrammed at the genetic level to act as living factories for producing high-value materials.

This approach to making important raw materials could help establish a flexible domestic supply chain, potentially lowering costs and reducing reliance on imported specialty chemicals.

“This study demonstrates the metabolic ‘plasticity,’ or flexibility, of poplar and the feasibility of engineering stress-resistant crops to produce multiple desired products,” said Brookhaven Lab biologist Chang-Jun Liu, who led the research. “It’s an example of how basic biological discoveries that help us understand metabolic processes in plants can lead to real-world practical applications.”

The study team included collaborators at the Joint BioEnergy Institute, which is managed by DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and at Kyoto University.

Re-engineering poplar

The team modified hybrid poplar trees to produce 2-pyrone-4,6-dicarboxylic acid (PDC)—a compound used to make durable, high-performance plastics and coatings. This compound is normally generated through complex chemical processes or by using bacteria and other microbes to break down biomass.

The Brookhaven team moved the microbial process into the plants by inserting five genes from naturally occurring soil microbes into hybrid poplar trees. These genes make up a synthetic metabolic pathway that redirects part of the plant’s metabolic system to produce PDC and other related compounds, including protocatechuic acid and vanillic acid, both of which have industrial and pharmaceutical uses.

“Poplar grows quickly, adapts to many environments, and is easy to propagate,” said Nidhi Dwivedi, who works with Liu in Brookhaven Lab’s Biology Department. “By adding this new pathway, we’re expanding the range of bioproducts these trees can produce.”

Other beneficial changes

The genetic modifications changed the poplar trees’ internal chemistry in other useful ways. Specifically, the cell walls of the engineered plants contained lower levels of lignin, an organic “woody” polymer that makes biomass difficult to break down.

At the same time, the cell walls had higher levels of hemicellulose, a type of complex sugar that can be used for biochemical conversions. With less lignin and more extractable sugars, the modified trees yielded up to 25% more glucose and 2.5 times more xylose—key ingredients for making biofuels and other bioproducts.

The metabolic changes also caused a higher amount of a waxy substance called suberin to accumulate in the bark and roots of the poplar trees. Suberin protects plant tissues, helps them retain water and nutrients, and blocks toxins—allowing the modified poplar trees to grow in less-than-ideal conditions, including salty soil.

“These trees can grow on soil not suitable for food production, so they won’t compete for prime agricultural land,” said Dwivedi. “When they are stressed by high salt levels, they produce even higher levels of bioproducts than when they are not stressed.”

So far, the results have come from greenhouse-grown plants. The next step is to test the engineered poplars under field conditions to confirm their performance and long-term stability. The team will continue to optimize the metabolic pathway for even higher yields of PDC and related compounds.

The researchers point out that this model for plant-based manufacturing is easily modifiable and scalable to meet changing demands without the upfront investment required for conventional chemical manufacturing facilities.

“This work gives us a deeper understanding of plant metabolism,” said Liu. “Using different combinations of genes, we can potentially make additional products. This knowledge will help researchers design productive crops for a range of U.S. manufacturing and agricultural needs.”

Researchers at Wageningen University & Research (WUR), working in close collaboration with KeyGene, have developed a method that enables plant cells to regenerate into complete plants without the need for added hormones.

This newly developed method can help plant breeders accelerate the development of innovative varieties across various crops. The findings have been published in The Plant Cell.

Some plants can grow a root, a leaf or even an entire plant from a single plant cell. “We call this process regeneration,” explains Jana Wittmer, cell biology researcher at Wageningen University & Research.

“This works because a specific cell, such as a root or leaf cell, can be converted into an undifferentiated state—in other words, a stem cell. From this stem cell state, the cell can specialize all over again and develop into a root or leaf, or even into a completely new plant.”

Maintaining plant varieties

“Regeneration is widely used in agriculture, for example in plant breeding,” says Wittmer. “Regeneration ensures that, when you create new plants, the genome of the original plant is passed on identically to the next generation.

“In this way, you can maintain the genetic make-up of a plant or plant variety over successive generations. Until now, breeders have used plant hormones in the regeneration process. They add these hormones to the growth medium in which the plant, or part of it, is placed.

“This often involves young plant tissues, because older, more differentiated tissues respond less well to hormone treatment. By adjusting the hormone regime—which controls plant development and growth—we can steer the development of stem cells so that they grow into roots or shoots, for example.”

Drawbacks of hormone treatment

“However,” Wittmer continues, “regeneration with the help of hormones also has its drawbacks and limitations. The process is very labor-intensive and time-consuming. You first have to determine experimentally which treatment works best for the plant in question. Every plant species needs a different hormone regime, and even within a single species these regimes can vary.

“On top of that, for quite a few crops, such as pepper and cucumber, we currently still do not have a hormone regime that allows us to carry out the process in a reproducible way. Hormone-based regeneration does not always work, and even when it does, it takes a lot of time and effort—and that also means high costs.”

Alternative method

The researchers therefore set out to find an alternative way to achieve regeneration without using hormones. In doing so, they were inspired by a Nobel Prize-winning method that has been applied in animals.

Wittmer adds, “This technique is also known as induced pluripotent stem cells. In plants, regeneration proceeds via a transient, or temporary, stage in which root stem cells are created. Our group has been working on root stem cells for many years, so we know the genes that are important for these stem cells.

“The next step is to test different combinations of these genes to see whether you can ‘reprogram’ cells into a stem cell. From there, the cell can develop into any type of organ.”

Works across a wide range of plants

Through a series of experiments, the researchers succeeded in regenerating plants without adding hormones. The most surprising outcome, according to Wittmer, was that they needed only two genes to trigger regeneration in the cells.

“After that, you do not have to intervene at all—the plant cells organize themselves. From a block of cells, an entire plant develops again. We have demonstrated that this works in the model plant Arabidopsis, but also in crops such as tomato, lettuce and bell pepper.

“In principle, the technique can therefore be applied to a wide range of plant species, including species like bell pepper that do not respond to hormones, or for which we have not yet found a suitable hormone treatment.”

“Eliminating the need for hormones in regeneration can save breeders a great deal of time and work,” says Wittmer.

“In addition, our method makes it easier to introduce or switch off genes, because that process also relies on regeneration. This could help make plants more resilient to diseases and pests, for example. In turn, that can have positive effects on crop yields and on the environment.”

Searching for a GMO-free approach

At the same time, Wittmer stresses that the study is only a first step in developing the technique. “It is not yet ready to be used in practice. In the lab, we changed the plants’ genetic material. Bringing genetically modified plants to the market in Europe is a particularly costly and therefore hardly feasible route. We now need to find a way of activating the regeneration genes without using genetic modification.

“One option, for instance, would be to deliver the proteins into the cells that are encoded by the regeneration genes. If that proves possible, the method could be used immediately. But we first need to investigate and develop this further. That could easily take several years.”

Opening doors for follow-up research

“For science, this induction system opens many doors,” Wittmer concludes. “We can now study the regeneration process in greater depth, and in a much simpler way. It also raises some fascinating follow-up questions. Why does regeneration work well in some cell types and plant species, but not in others, for example? It is also exciting to explore how we might maintain the stem cell stage.

“At present, we can activate genes that trigger stem cell formation, but these cells then regenerate directly into a plant. If you could maintain a stem cell, you could steer it towards a specific plant cell type—for instance, cells that produce particular pharmaceutical compounds or other valuable molecules. But that is work for the future.”

Using catalytic chemistry, researchers at Institute of Science Tokyo have achieved dynamic control of artificial membranes, enabling life-like membrane behavior. The work is published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

By employing an artificial metalloenzyme that performs a ring-closing metathesis reaction, the team induced the disappearance of phase-separated domains as well as membrane division in artificial membranes, imitating the dynamic behavior of natural biological membranes. This transformative research marks a milestone in synthetic cell technologies, paving the way for innovative therapeutic breakthroughs.

Programmable artificial cell membranes controlled by a catalytic chemical reaction

Biological membranes are fundamental structures that form the boundaries of all living cells, controlling how cells communicate, grow, and respond to their environment. These membranes are composed of different molecules, such as lipids and proteins, which organize themselves into a membrane layer.

Under certain circumstances, the molecules cluster together into local functional regions that regulate specific biological processes. These clustered regions are known as phase-separated domains and are distinct from the surrounding membrane.

Understanding and replicating the dynamic behaviors of these regions has long fascinated scientists aiming to construct artificial cells that behave like natural cells. However, since most artificial membrane models remain static, reproducing these adaptive properties of biological membranes has remained a major challenge until now.

Addressing this challenge, researchers at Institute of Science Tokyo (Science Tokyo), Japan, and the University of Basel, Switzerland, jointly developed a new chemical strategy to control the behavior of artificial cell membranes.

The study was led by Professor Kazushi Kinbara and doctoral student Rei Hamaguchi from the School of Life Science and Technology, Science Tokyo, Japan, in collaboration with Professor Thomas R. Ward from the University of Basel, Switzerland.

To bring the membranes to life, the researchers first built tiny artificial cell-like structures called lipid vesicles. The researchers then built a hybrid catalyst known as an artificial metalloenzyme (ArM)—a combination of a biological protein streptavidin (Sav) and a synthetic metal catalyst (ruthenium metal complex) carrying a biotin (vitamin B7) moiety. This enzyme acts like a catalyst on the membrane, performing a critical chemical reaction known as ring-closing metathesis (RCM).

To attach the ArM catalyst to the surface of the lipid membrane, the team also incorporated a special kind of biotin-tagged lipid into the membrane, which acted as an anchor for the catalyst.

“When triggered by fatty acid precursors, the ArM system releases free fatty acids through RCM,” explains Kinbara. “These fatty acids slip into the membrane, subtly altering its structure and driving dynamic membrane behavior.”

Molecular simulations revealed key mechanisms underlying these transformations. Inactive, caged fatty acid precursors were first activated by the ArM catalyst through the RCM reaction. This reaction uncages the caged fatty acid precursors, releasing free fatty acids near the membrane.

The released fatty acids naturally insert themselves into the membrane surface, changing its rigidity and curvature, which in turn leads to visible transformations such as the disappearance of phase-separated domains and membrane division.

“It’s a bit like giving a synthetic membrane the ability to breathe and respond,” says Kinbara. “By controlling a chemical reaction on the membrane’s surface, we can make it reorganize itself, much like a living cell does.”

The discovery marks the first attempt to chemically program the physical behavior of artificial membranes, setting the stage for the creation of life-like materials that can sense and respond to their surroundings.

It not only advances synthetic biology but also introduces a blueprint for creating programmable artificial membranes that could inspire future therapeutic innovations—bridging the gap between chemistry and life.

Cancer research, drug safety testing and aging biology may all gain a major boost from a new fluorescent sensor developed at Utrecht University. This new tool allows scientists to watch DNA damage and repair unfold in real time inside living cells. The development, which opens the door to experiments that weren’t feasible before, is published today in the journal Nature Communications.

DNA inside our cells is constantly damaged by sunlight, chemicals, radiation or simply by the many processes that keep us alive. Usually, the cell fixes this damage quickly and efficiently. But when repair fails, the consequences can be serious, contributing to aging, cancer and other diseases.

Until now, however, scientists had great difficulty watching these repair processes as they happen. Most methods required killing and fixing cells at different moments, offering only snapshots of the action.

DNA damage sensor

Researchers at Utrecht University have now developed a tool that changes this completely. They developed a DNA damage sensor that allows scientists to observe how damage forms and disappears in living cells and even in living organisms. The study opens a door to experiments that were impossible before.

Lead researcher Tuncay Baubec describes the innovation as a way to look into the cell “without disrupting the cell.” He explains that existing tools, such as antibodies or nanobodies, tend to bind too strongly to DNA. Once attached, they can interfere with the cell’s own repair machinery.

“Our sensor is different,” he says. “It’s built from parts taken from a natural protein that the cell already uses. It goes on and off the damage site by itself, so what we see is the genuine behavior of the cell.”

‘This is going to work’

The sensor works by attaching a fluorescent tag to a tiny domain borrowed from one of the cell’s own proteins. This domain briefly binds to a marker that appears on damaged DNA. Because the interaction is gentle and reversible, it lights up the damage without blocking the repair process.

Biologist Richard Cardoso Da Silva, who engineered and tested the tool, remembers clearly when he realized they had something special. “I was testing some drugs and saw the sensor lighting up exactly where commercial antibodies did,” he says. “That was the moment I thought: this is going to work.”

A more realistic picture

The difference with earlier methods is dramatic. Instead of laboring through ten separate experiments to capture ten time points, scientists can now follow the entire repair process in one continuous movie. They can see when damage appears, how quickly repair proteins arrive, and when the cell finally resolves the problem. “You get more data, higher resolution and, importantly, a more realistic picture of what actually happens inside a living cell,” says Cardoso Da Silva.

From cells in the lab to living organisms

The team did not stop at cultured cells. Collaborators at Utrecht University tested the protein in the worm C. elegans, a living organism widely used in biology. The sensor performed just as well there, and revealed programmed DNA breaks that form during the worm’s development. For Baubec, this was a key moment. “It showed that the tool is not only for cells in the lab. It can be used as well in real living organisms.”

Discovering what affects repair

The possibilities now stretch far beyond observing repair. The protein can be freely attached to other molecular parts. This means researchers can use it to map where DNA damage occurs in the genome, and also identify which proteins gather around a damaged spot. They can even move damaged DNA to different locations inside the cell nucleus to see what factors affect repair. “Depending on your creativity and your question, you can use this tool in many ways,” says Cardoso Da Silva.

More accurate medical research

Although the sensor itself is not a medical treatment, it could influence medical research. Many cancer therapies act by deliberately damaging the DNA of tumor cells. In early drug development, scientists need to measure exactly how much DNA damage a compound causes.

“Right now, clinical researchers often use antibodies to assess this,” Baubec says. “Our tool could make these tests cheaper, faster and more accurate.” The researchers also imagine uses in clinical practice, from studying natural aging processes to detecting radiation or mutagenic exposure.

Available for all researchers

Their tool has already attracted attention. Other laboratories contacted them even before publication, eager to use the sensor in their own research on DNA repair. To support that, the team has made the tool openly available. Baubec says, “Everything is online. Scientists can use it immediately.”