Sambit Majumdar, Amity University Kolkata
Researchers of Texas A&M University, Hewlett Packard Labs, and Stanford University have discovered a new nanodevice that is almost like a brain.
Dr. Stanley Williams, professor of electrical and computer engineering said that this is the first study by them, where they have been able to surpass a neuron with just a single nanoscale device, instead of hundreds of transistors. In these, the researcher particularly reveals proof of concept that their brain-inspired system can identify a possible mutation in a virus, which is highly relevant for ensuring the efficiency of vaccines and medication for strain exhibiting genetic diversity.
This synthetic nanoscale device consisting of layers of different inorganic materials each have a distinctive purpose to build a block of the brain or neuron, this all happens in the thin layer of compound niobium dioxide. On applying minimum voltage, its temperature starts to increase and reaches a critical value and the compound shows a quick response in personality turning from insulator to a conductor. As it conducts electric currents, its temperature drops and the compound returns to an insulator. Back and forth transition allows the synthetic device generates a pulse of electric current that forms electric spikes, produced by a biological neuron.
They introduced the network to short gene fragments and formed basic rules for joining these genetic fragments. They found that within a microsecond a network of artificial neurons settles down in a state that was indicative of the genome for mutant strain.
Source:
Kumar, S., Williams, R.S. & Wang, Z. Third-order nanocircuit elements for neuromorphic engineering. Nature585, 518–523 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2735-5
A unique class of T cells may improve immunotherapeutic treatments
-Binayak Das, Team Bioxone A new study has revealed the presence of a unique class of T cells, known as the Memory CD8 T lymphocytes, in mice, and its analogous population in humans also. This class of memory cells exhibited combined molecular functioning characteristic features, of both short-lived effector cells and long-lived memory T cells. […]