Tracey Peake

NCSU researchers utilize molecular dynamics, machine learning for drug discovery

Posted by Tracey Peake | May 18, 2017

Researchers from North Carolina State University have demonstrated that molecular dynamics simulations and machine learning techniques could be integrated to create more accurate computer prediction models. These “hyper-predictive” models could be used to quickly predict which new chemical compounds could be promising drug candidates. Drug development is a costly and time-consuming process. To narrow down the number of chemical compounds that could be potential drug candidates, scientists utilize computer models that can predict how a particular chemical compound might interact with a biological target of interest – for example, a key protein that might be involved with a disease...

Researchers: Synthetic stem cells could offer therapeutic benefits, reduced risks

Posted by Tracey Peake | Jan 10, 2017

Researchers from North Carolina State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University have developed a synthetic version of a cardiac stem cell. These synthetic stem cells offer therapeutic benefits comparable to those from natural stem cells and could reduce some of the risks associated with stem cell therapies. Additionally, these cells have better preservation stability and the technology is generalizable to other types of stem cells. Stem cell therapies work by promoting endogenous repair; that is, they aid damaged tissue in repairing itself by secreting “paracrine factors,” including proteins and...

NCSU researchers drive toward more efficient solar cells

Posted by Tracey Peake | Jul 11, 2016

For solar energy to become a real power player in the energy game, solar cells need to be both inexpensive to manufacture and efficient in terms of energy they collect. That’s why researchers are focusing their efforts on organic solar cells, which use non-fullerene polymers. These organic polymers are less expensive to produce and some of them, according to some new findings from researchers at NC State and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, may have comparable efficiency to their fullerene-based brethren. NC State physicist Kenan Gundogdu was part of an international team that produced organic solar...

Database helps researchers connect exposures. compare diseases for treatment

Posted by Tracey Peake | May 13, 2016

Two new studies from a group at North Carolina State University give researchers new strategies for connecting environmental exposures to human health effects. The Comparative Toxicogenomics Database (CTD) is a public database that manually curates and codes data from the scientific literature describing how environmental chemicals interact with genes to affect human health. “CTD is the only freely available database of its sort,” says Carolyn Mattingly, associate professor of biology at NC State and principal investigator of the CTD program. “It centralizes scientific data on thousands of chemicals and their relationships to genes, molecular pathways and diseases, and combines...

NCSU takes crabbing to a new locale – farmers’ ponds

Posted by Tracey Peake | Oct 7, 2008

Editor’s note: WRAL Local Tech Wire publishes selected stories from the news services of various universities as part of its UniversityTech coverage. LTW is enhancing significantly its coverage of scientific and research efforts at regional universities where many of tomorrow’s discoveries are being made and the foundations of new companies are in the process of being created.RALEIGH, N.C. — Work by researchers at North Carolina State University is leading to a new kind of crab harvest – blue crabs grown and harvested from freshwater ponds instead of from the sea. Crab lovers shouldn’t worry, researchers say, because the pond-raised...