[Message from the editor: Today (April 22) is Earth Day, an international event celebrated around the world to pledge support for environmental protection. This year’s theme is “Restore Our Earth”. Let’s meet Prof. GAO Xiang, an expert on energy and environmental science and technology, who has been leading his team to develop a system to reduce emissions from fuel combustion.] Quotes from the interview: - For the past 30 years, I have been working on reduction of the emission of s...

When we are provoked or threatened, anger often arises and it is even accompanied by certain aggressive behaviors. In the biological chain, stalking and hunting are quite common in the natural world. Aggression is a core strategy in the law of survival of the fittest. Most animals have evolved specific neural circuits to regulate aggressive behavior. Then how do brain circuits manage anger and govern aggression?The armed forces in the brainThe research team led by academician DUAN Shumin an...

The research team led by Prof. PING Yuan from the Zhejiang University College of Pharmaceutical Sciences published their study in the journal Science Advances. They developed a dissolvable microneedle (MN) patch that can mediate transdermal co-delivery of CRISPR-Cas9–based genome-editing agents and glucocorticoids for the effective treatment of inflammatory skin disorders (ISDs).ISDs represent one of the most persistent diseases that are generally characterized by the activation o...

[Message from the editor: Prof. GUO Guoji, featured in the newly released university video, charted the first human cell landscape at the single-cell level, improving diagnostic and treatment efficiency.] Quotes from the interview: - The mouse cell atlas will enable us to gain a more insightful understanding of diversified cell types in mammals, and the human cell landscape will produce a far-reaching impact on the future diagnosis of diseases.- Zhejiang University boasts a full spectrum of...

Recently, the research team led by WANG Huabing from the Zhejiang University College of Animal Sciences published an open-access article entitled “Horizontal gene transfer and gene duplication of β-fructofuranosidase confer lepidopteran insects metabolic benefits” in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution. This article analyzed the molecular evolution and functional differentiation of β-fructofuranosidase and revealed that lepidopteran insects can ingeniously regulate sucrose metab...

Aggregation-induced emission (AIE) has captured immense attention in recent years. Previous studies reveal that there exists much scope for improvement in imaging quality beyond 900 nm or even 1500 nm compared to the traditional first near-infrared region (NIR-I) fluorescence imaging (760-900 nm). Given the suppressed tissue-scattering and diminished autofluorescence, fluorescence bioimaging in the second near-infrared region (NIR-II, 900-1700 nm) allows the precise visualization of details thro...

On March 10, the research team led by Prof. KE Yuehai at the Zhejiang University School of Medicine published an open-access article entitled “Phosphatase Shp2 regulates biogenesis of small extracellular vesicles by dephosphorylating Syntenin” in Journal of Extracellular Vesicles. This study identified a group of tyrosine phosphatases that regulate the synthesis and secretion of small extracellular vesicles (sEVs) and elucidated that tyrosine phosphatase PTPN11/Shp2 negatively controls th...

Serotonin, dopamine and endorphins are the three most important substances for human happiness. Among them, Serotonin, or 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT), is a messenger molecule that produces a sense of well-being and happiness and is therefore also known as the “happy hormone”. Fluctuations in its level are often associated with emotional changes. For example, 5-HT deficiency can lead to depression. However, the biological mechanism as to how 5-HT generates a sense of well-being has yet to be dec...

The global pandemic has brought in its wake a steep rise in the consumption of face masks and an acute shortage of their raw material—propene. In 2020, the consumption of propene added up to 116 million tons globally. To meet the increasing demands for propene, oxidative dehydrogenation of propane (ODHP) has emerged as one of the key industrial technologies. In this regard, researchers, including XIAO Feng-Shou and WANG Liang from the Zhejiang University College of Chemical and Biological E...

Wearable sensing technology is an essential link to future personalized medicine through seamlessly monitoring heart rate, body temperature, and physical activities of human body. Recently, a wearable electronic sensor for plants has been jointly developed by LIU Xiangjiang and YING Yibin from the College of Biosystems Engineering and Food Science, WANG Xiaozhi from the College of Information Science and Electronic Engineering and HU Zhongyuan from the College of Ag...