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​A single-molecule imaging technique, called protein-induced fluorescence enhancement (PIFE), has gained traction in recent years as a popular tool for observing DNA–protein interactions with nanometer precision. Yet, according to a new KAUST study, research laboratories have not been using the technique to its fullest potential.

The PIFE assay is predicated on the idea that DNA tagged with a fluorescent dye will glow brighter when proteins are bound in the vicinity. In many instances, this is true—which has led many scientists to adopt PIFE over other more labor-intensive techniques that rely on dual labeling of proteins and DNA.

But Samir Hamdan's graduate students Fahad Rashid, Manal Zaher and Vlad-Stefan Raducanu  realized that protein binding to DNA-dye complexes could sometimes have the opposite effect as well. Instead of enhancing the fluorescent signal, protein interactions can sometimes dampen the glow, depending on certain properties of the system.

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Image: Manal Zaher holds up the DNA-dye complex.
© 2019 KAUST

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​Marine sediments tell the history of an environment, including oil spills. By "reading" sediments from the past century, a research team has now determined how much oil hydrocarbon is accumulated in different vegetated coastal habitats of the Arabian Gulf and the significance of this for environmental management.

In the early 1900s, the world’s second-largest and most productive oil resource was discovered in the Arabian Gulf. Today, the Gulf produces nearly half of the oil in the global market. In oil-producing areas, incidental spills, leakages and emissions are unavoidable. However, these spills have considerable impacts on surrounding marine habitats. The world’s largest spill took place here, during the Gulf War in 1991, with more than a million tons of crude spilling directly into Kuwait’s coastal waters.

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Image: This photo illustrates how blue-carbon habitats, such as this mangrove forest, can accumulate oil hydrocarbons.
© 2019 Vincent Sarderne

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The vast datasets generated by modern plant-science technologies require clever data-mining methods to extract useful information. Now, KAUST researchers have developed MVApp—an open-source, online statistics platform for conducting multivariate analyses of these intricate data.

The recent development of high-throughput phenotyping techniques has rapidly produced huge datasets on the characteristics of plants. These multivariate data hold crucial details about plant physiology: how a plant responds to different environments and how a plant’s growth patterns and potential yields change—all of which are valuable in developing sustainable agriculture and ensuring food security.

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Image: The Arabidobsis thaliana plants shown here are growing on a conveyor belt that is part of plant-screening phenotyping system.
© 2019 KAUST

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​A multifunctional device that captures the heat shed by photovoltaic solar panels has been developed by KAUST and used to generate clean drinking water as a way to simultaneously generate electricity and water using only renewable energy.

Water and energy production is deeply intertwined, says Wenbin Wang, a Ph.D. student in Peng Wang’s labs at the University's Water Desalination and Reuse Center. Conventional solar farms use fresh water to wash dust from the panels. Meanwhile, water desalination plants consume a lot of electricity to produce fresh water from seawater. “The water-energy nexus is one of the main issues threatening sustainable global development,” Wenbin says.

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Image: A solar farm of photovoltaic panels with a heat-driven seawater desalination system beneath each panel could cogenerate renewable electricity and fresh water in arid coastal areas.
© 2019 Wenbin Wang

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​Dates are one of the most significant fruit crops grown in the Middle East; however, little is known about how these resilient palm trees flourish in the high temperatures of desert habitats. Now, KAUST researchers have shown that date palms, after germination, can pause their early development within womb-like root structures in the soil, ready to grow when the environmental conditions are just right.

“Date palms are of huge importance to desert agriculture, especially in The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where they are considered as a symbol of vitality and prosperity,” says Ting Ting Xiao, who worked on the study with an international project team, under the supervision of KAUST’s Ikram Blilou. “Dates are known for their medicinal and nutritional values. In Europe, they are considered a delicacy, while in the desert they are a promising sustainable food source.”

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Image: Date palms employ remote germination to protect their meristems from the surrounding hostile desert environment.
2019 Vinicius Lube

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​Mixing microbes with carbon nanomaterials could help the transition to renewable energy. KAUST research shows microbes and nanomaterials can be used together to form a biohybrid material that performs well as an electrocatalyst. The material could be used in the solar-powered production of carbon-free fuels and several other green-energy applications.

At the heart of many clean energy technologies is a process called the oxygen-evolution reaction (OER). In the case of solar-fuel production, for example, the OER enables the use of solar electricity to split water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen, producing clean hydrogen that can be used as a fuel. Currently, rare and expensive metals are used as OER electrocatalysts. But graphene-based biohybrid materials could make an inexpensive, eco-friendly alternative, Pascal Saikaly and his team have shown.

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Image: Microbes and nanomaterials can be combined to create a biohybrid material that may have broad environmental applications.
© 2019 KAUST Xavier Pita