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​A removable coating that can be used to clean desalination membranes has been developed by KAUST researchers. The nontoxic coating could provide a safer and more efficient alternative to harmful chemicals used to clean reverse osmosis systems for seawater desalination.

The reverse osmosis desalination process uses pressure to filter seawater through a semipermeable membrane to produce fresh drinking water. While the technique is more energy efficient than other desalination approaches, its performance can be hindered by the growth of bacteria and other microorganisms on the membrane surface.

“This biofilm creates a layer that does not allow water to pass as easily,” says Maria Fernanda Nava-Ocampo, a Ph.D. student under the supervision of Johannes Vrouwenvelder. “One of the biggest problems of all the current methods to control biofouling is that they do not completely remove the biofilm from the membrane system, resulting in permanent fouling. This causes elevated energy consumption and disposal of control chemicals into the sea.”

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Image: The removable polyelectrolyte coating prevents biofouling on desalination membranes and avoids the need for harmful chemicals to clean seawater desalination systems.
© 2020 KAUST; Xavier Pita

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​A simple COVID-19 test kit combines virus amplification with a CRISPR-Cas system for effective SARS-CoV-2 detection. The kit under development, called iSCAN, uses reagents that can be locally manufactured.

“Our whole iSCAN procedure can be completed in less than an hour and can be easily adopted as a point-of-care detection system at airports and borders,” says KAUST Ph.D. student Ahmed Mahas.

The current gold standard in SARS-CoV-2 testing is the PCR test, in which DNA primers recognize specific RNA sequences in the viral genome that are then copied using a specific enzyme. This "amplification" process makes it easier to detect the originally small amounts of viral RNA present in the nasopharyngeal swabs taken from patients. This test can reliably detect if a person really has the virus without providing too many false positive or negative results. But it needs highly skilled personnel to conduct the test, which is done in multiple steps in central laboratories with sophisticated equipment.

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Image: One method to visualize the result is to shine ultraviolet light on the sample, and a detector analyzes the light to report the amount of viral RNA.
© 2020 Ali et al.

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​For over a century, scientists have been puzzled by the electrification of water when it is brought in contact with water-repellent or “hydrophobic” materials, such as paraffin wax, oils, air bubbles and perfluorinated membranes and sheets. Underlying mechanisms remain hotly debated. Now, a team of KAUST engineers has untangled the roles of water, hydrophobicity and environmental factors in this process. This fundamental contribution could support development of better devices for microfluidics and nanofluidics and for generating clean energy.

“Hydrophobic surfaces are quite common,” notes Jamilya Nauruzbayeva, Ph.D. student and lead author of the study. “For instance, polypropylene and perfluorinated pipettes, tubes, coatings and membranes are hydrophobic surfaces used for many basic sciences and engineering applications. Thus, it is important to understand which mechanisms are at play to improve them and develop new ones.”

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Image: KAUST researchers observed that “pendant” droplets formed from hydrophobic capillaries respond to uniform electric fields.
© 2020 KAUST; Anastasia Serin

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​The sequencing of the genome of the cauliflower coral, Pocillopora verrucosa, by an international team, provides a resource that scientists can use to study how corals have adapted to different environmental conditions.

The cauliflower coral, also known as brush or lace coral, is one of the most popular corals in research because it is found throughout the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. “Having the genome will help us understand the genetic basis underlying the species’ adaptation to different environmental conditions,” says Carol Buitrago-López, a Ph.D. student supervised by Christian R. Voolstra, “which might shine light on how corals could respond to global warming.”

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Image: KAUST researchers compared populations of cauliflower corals to identify sites in the genome linked with adaptations.
© 2020 KAUST; Hagen Gegner

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​A new way of producing an enzyme called fucosyltransferase VI (FTVI) in the lab could help enhance the therapeutic potential of cord blood transplants.

Cord blood is currently used to treat more than 80 life-threatening conditions, ranging from cancer and immune deficiency to metabolic and genetic disorders. The therapy is predicated on the idea that stem cells in the cord blood will traffic to the bone marrow, where they can help rebuild a healthy blood and immune system that has been damaged by disease. But cord blood stem cells are not naturally adept at this process—which is why several drugmakers have turned to FTVI as a way of enhancing the cells’ homing ability.

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Image: The researchers showed that their yeast- and silkworm-derived enzyme far outperformed commercial sources of the enzyme made in standard expression systems.
© 2020 KAUST; Heno Hwang

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​Changing the surface chemistry of electrodes leads to the preferential growth of a novel electroactive bacterium that could support improved energy-neutral wastewater treatment.

To grow, electroactive bacteria break down organic compounds by transferring electrons to solid-state substrates outside their cells. Scientists have utilized this process to drive devices, such as microbial electrochemical systems, where the bacteria grow as a film on an electrode, breaking down the organic compounds in wastewater and transferring the resultant electrons to the electrode.

Scientists are now looking for ways to improve this process so it produces hydrogen gas at a negatively charged cathode electrode, which can then be converted to electricity to power wastewater treatment plants. This needs electroactive bacteria that efficiently transfer electrons to a positively charged anode electrode that do not use hydrogen for their growth.

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Image: KAUST researchers have identified a novel electroactive bacterium, called Desulfuromonas acetexigens, that produces a higher current density than a traditionally used bacterium, and in a shorter time.
© 2020 KAUST

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​Any Red Sea diver will have encountered colorful triggerfish along coral reefs, and some divers will have experienced the painful bite of their huge teeth if they get too close to their nesting grounds. Now, Ph.D. student Matthew Tietbohl and colleagues at KAUST report a peculiar feeding strategy by a titan triggerfish that highlights their innate ability to learn and adapt.

Tietbohl and his colleagues were on Mar Mar island in the south central Red Sea looking for signs of turtle nesting when they saw a titan triggerfish come up on to the shoreline and attack, and eventually grab, a Red Sea ghost crab. Most interesting was that the triggerfish partially beached itself in shallow water for the first attack, a hunting behavior that has not been previously reported in any fish belonging to the order Tetraodontiformes, which comprises 350 coral reef species, including triggerfish. Several subsequent attacks ensued in very shallow water, without beaching, with the fish slowly approaching the crab and then rushing at it horizontally. The fish finally grabbed the crab in several centimeters of water and dragged it into deeper water, where it was eaten.

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Image: Triggerfish have a diverse range of feeding behaviors that allow them to diversify their prey.
© 2020 KAUST; Matthew Tietbohl

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​A fresh new look at an old technique in protein biochemistry has shown that it should be reintroduced to the spectroscopy toolkit.

For decades, scientists have used nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to probe the molecular motions of proteins on various timescales. This technique has revealed aspects of enzyme reactions, protein folding and other biological processes, all on an atomic scale.

Typically, spectroscopists will gauge the rotation of NMR-active atoms in the protein backbone with and without proton irradiation to calculate a ratio known as a steady-state nuclear Overhauser effect (NOE); however, it was not always done this way.

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Image: Dynamic nuclear Overhauser effect accurately tracks the biological motions of proteins.
© 2020 Łukasz Jaremko and Vladlena Kharchenko

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​Semiconductive photocatalysts that efficiently absorb solar energy could help reduce the energy required to drive a bioelectrochemical process that converts CO2 emissions into valuable chemicals, KAUST researchers have shown.

Recycling CO2 could simultaneously reduce carbon emissions into the atmosphere while generating useful chemicals and fuels, explains Bin Bian, a Ph.D. student in Pascal Saikaly’s lab, who led the research. “Microbial electrosynthesis (MES), coupled with a renewable energy supply, could be one such technology,” Bian says.

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Image: SEM image shows the dense and uniform cathodic biofilm, which mainly comprises chemolithoautotrophs, and could serve as biocatalysts for efficient carbon dioxide conversion to acetate.
© 2020 KAUST

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​An optical device that resembles a miniaturized lighthouse lens can make it easier to peer into Petri dishes and observe molecular-level details of biological processes, including cancer cell growth. Developed by KAUST, the new lens is also very cost effective.

Many bioimaging techniques require fluorescent dyes to be added to specific cell targets. But a recently developed method known as stimulated raman scattering (SRS) microscopy can avoid cumbersome labeling steps by using laser pulses to collect molecular vibrational signals from biological samples. The ability of SRS microscopes to produce high-resolution, noninvasive images at real-time speeds has prompted researchers to deploy them also for in vivo disease diagnostic studies.

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Image: The thin and cost-effective lens is 3D printed and has the capacity to put live cells under the microscope, which would significantly improve diagnostics.
© 2020 Andrea Bertoncini