Tag Archives: sponges

Current weight-loss treatments like surgery or fat-blocking drugs can be risky, but researchers are testing a gentler alternative. They’ve developed edible, plant-based microbeads that bind to fat in the gut, preventing absorption. Credit: Stock Researchers have developed plant-based microbeads that block fat absorption in the gut. Current strategies for weight loss, such as gastric bypass surgery or medications that block …

At first glance, Nam-Joon Cho’s lab at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University looks like your typical research facility — scientists toiling away, crowded workbenches, a hum of machinery in the background. But the orange-yellow stains on the lab coats slung on hooks hint at a less-usual subject matter under study. The powdery stain is pollen: microscopic grains containing male reproductive cells …

Softening the shell To begin working with pollen, scientists can remove the sticky coating around the grains in a process called defatting. Stripping away these lipids and allergenic proteins is the first step in creating the empty capsules for drug delivery that Csaba seeks. Beyond that, however, pollen’s seemingly impenetrable shell—made up of the biopolymer sporopollenin—had long stumped researchers and …