China Science & Technology Forum

[JSCh]

PUBLIC RELEASE: 31-OCT-2018
Changes to RNA aid the process of learning and memory
With the help of a binding protein, the most common messenger RNA modification in mammals helps coordinate nerve cell response to memory-inducing stimulus in mice

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICAL CENTER

RNA carries pieces of instructions encoded in DNA to coordinate the production of proteins that will carry out the work to be done in a cell. But the process isn't always straightforward. Chemical modifications to DNA or RNA can alter the way genes are expressed without changing the actual genetic sequences. These epigenetic or epitranscriptome changes can affect many biological processes such as immune system response, nervous system development, various human cancers and even obesity.

Most of these changes happen through methylation, a process in which chemical molecules called methyl groups are added to a DNA or RNA molecule. Proteins that add a methyl group are known as "writers," and proteins that can remove the methyl groups are "erasers." For the methylation to have a biological effect, there must be "reader" proteins that can identify the change and bind to it.

The most common modification on messenger RNA in mammals is called N6-methyladenosine (m6A). It is widespread in the nervous system. It helps coordinate several neural functions, working through reader proteins in the YTH family of proteins.

In a new study published in Nature, scientists from the University of Chicago show how Ythdf1, a member of the YTH family that specifically recognizes m6A, plays an important role in the process of learning and memory formation. Using CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing tools to knock out Ythdf1in mice, they demonstrated how it promotes translation of m6A-modified messenger RNA (mRNA) in response to learning activities and direct nerve cell stimulus.

"This study opens the door to our future understanding of learning and memory," said Chuan He, PhD, the John T. Wilson Distinguished Service Professor of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at UChicago and one of the senior authors of the study. "We saw differences in long-term memory and learning between the normal and knockout mice, demonstrating that the m6A methylation plays a critical role through Ythdf1."

In 2015, He published a study in Cell showing how Ythdf1 recognizes m6A-modified mRNAs and promotes their translation to proteins. The new study further demonstrates how this translation increases specifically in response to nervous system stimulation.

Hailing Shi, a graduate student in He's lab, led the new study, working with colleagues from Shanghai Tech University in China and the University of Pennsylvania. Mice express more Ythdf1 mRNAs in the hippocampus, part of the brain crucial to spatial learning and memory. So, the researchers conducted several experiments with both normal mice and mice without Ythdf1 to test the effects on their ability to learn from experiences.

In one scenario called the Morris water maze to test spatial memory, they used a water tank with a submerged platform a mouse could stand on to avoid swimming. Mice got several tries to learn where the platforms were located based on visual cues in a testing room. Then the platform was removed. The normal mice did a better job remembering where the platform used to be than the knockout mice.

The researchers also tested contextual and auditory fear memory in the different groups of mice by administering electrical shocks in combination with certain sounds in specific settings. Again, the normal mice demonstrated better contextual memory than knockout mice. They showed a fear response after being placed in the same setting again without the associated sounds, but not after hearing the sounds in a different setting.

The memory and learning deficits were reversible, however. When the researchers injected knockout mice with a virus carrying Ythdf1, their performance on memory and learning tasks improved dramatically.

The researchers also tested the response of cultured mouse neurons directly in the lab. When the normal cells were stimulated, they increased new protein production, compared to much less activity in Ythdf1 knockout cells.

"It's really an exciting finding to show how the protein can respond to a neuronal stimulus which could contribute to controlled translation," Shi said.

"It's a stimulation-dependent upregulation of translation," He added. "It makes sense because you don't want to fire up your neurons constantly, only when you have a stimulation."

While the current study identifies one important function for YTHDF1, there may be many other functions involved with other biological processes.

"This is not just limited to learning and memory. This stimulation induced translation should apply to many other systems," He said. "The same m6A modification is known to play a role in the immune system when there is an infection, or when a cell moves to a different part of the body. So, I think this is a general concept."


Changes to RNA aid the process of learning and memory | EurekAlert! Science News

Hailing Shi, Xuliang Zhang, Yi-Lan Weng, Zongyang Lu, Yajing Liu, Zhike Lu, Jianan Li, Piliang Hao, Yu Zhang, Feng Zhang, You Wu, Jary Y. Delgado, Yijing Su, Meera J. Patel, Xiaohua Cao, Bin Shen, Xingxu Huang, Guo-li Ming, Xiaoxi Zhuang, Hongjun Song, Chuan He & Tao Zhou. m6A facilitates hippocampus-dependent learning and memory through YTHDF1. Nature (2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0666-1​

 

[JSCh]

PUBLIC RELEASE: 2-NOV-2018
Spaced-out nanotwins make for stronger metals
BROWN UNIVERSITY

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Nanotwins have been shown to improve strength and other properties of metals. A new study shows strength can be further improved by varying the amount of space between nanotwins. CREDIT: Gao Lab / Brown University

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- Researchers from Brown University and the Institute of Metals Research at the Chinese Academy of Sciences have found a new way to use nanotwins -- tiny linear boundaries in a metal's atomic lattice that have identical crystalline structures on either side -- to make stronger metals.

In a paper in the journal Science, the researchers show that varying the spacing between twin boundaries, as opposed to maintaining consistent spacing throughout, produces dramatic improvements in a metal's strength and rate of work hardening -- the extent to which a metal strengthens when deformed.

Huajian Gao, a professor in Brown's School of Engineering who co-led the work, says the research could point toward new manufacturing techniques for high-performance materials.

"This work deals with what's known as a gradient material, meaning a material in which there's some gradual variation in its internal makeup," Gao said. "Gradient materials are a hot research area because they often have desirable properties compared to homogeneous materials. In this case, we wanted to see if a gradient in nanotwin spacing produced new properties."

Gao and his colleagues have already shown that nanotwins themselves can improve material performance. Nanotwinned copper, for example, has shown to be significantly stronger than standard copper, with an unusually high resistance to fatigue. But this is the first study to test the effects of variable nanotwin spacing.

Gao and his colleagues created copper samples using four distinct components, each with different nanotwin boundary spacing. Spacings ranging from 29 nanometers between boundaries to 72 nanometers. The copper samples were comprised of different combinations of the four components arranged in different orders across the thickness of the sample. The researchers then tested the strength of each composite sample, as well as the strength of each of the four components.

The tests showed that all of the composites were stronger than the average strength of the four components from which they were made. Remarkably, one of the composites was actually stronger than the strongest of its constituent components.

"To give an analogy, we think of a chain as being only as strong as its weakest link," Gao said. "But here, we have a situation in which our chain is actually stronger than its strongest link, which is really quite amazing."

Other tests showed that the composites also had higher rates of work hardening than the average of their constituent components.

To understand the mechanism behind these increases in performance, the researchers used computer simulations of their samples' atomic structure under strain. At the atomic level, metals respond to strain through the motion of dislocations -- line defects in the crystalline structure where atoms are pushed out of place. The way in which those dislocations grow and interact with each other is what determines a metal's strength.

The simulations revealed that the density of dislocations is much higher in the gradient copper than in a normal metal.

"We found a unique type of dislocation we call bundles of concentrated dislocations, which lead to dislocations an order of magnitude denser than normal," Gao said. "This type of dislocation doesn't occur in other materials and it's why this gradient copper is so strong."

Gao said that while the research team used copper for this study, nanotwins can be produced in other metals as well. So it's possible that nanotwin gradients could improve the properties of other metals.

"We're hoping that these findings will motivate people to experiment with twin gradients in other types of materials," Gao said.


Spaced-out nanotwins make for stronger metals | EurekAlert! Science News

Zhao Cheng, Haofei Zhou, Qiuhong Lu, Huajian Gao & Lei Lu. Extra strengthening and work hardening in gradient nanotwinned metals. Science (2018). DOI: 10.1126/science.aau1925​

 

[JSCh]

Scientists bring new hope to brain tumor patients
November 2, 2018, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

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Sequencing data from 188 sGBM patients were collected to uncover the mutational landscape of sGBM, which reveals METex14 as a biomarker for predicting patient survival. In Phase I MET-targeted clinical trial, partial response was achieved in selected patients. Credit: HKUST

sGBM is a rare type of brain cancer in adults. The incidence varies from 2 to 5 per million people per year. For example, if Hong Kong's base population of 7.5 million people is taken as a reference, over 15 people will be diagnosed with sGBM tumors annually. sGBM starts off as low-grade glioma (LGG) tumors around nerve cells that surround the spine and brain, and its 5-year survival rate is under 10%.

Currently, sGBM tumors are treated with a chemotherapy drug called temozolomide (TMZ), first developed in Europe and became available for widespread patient use in the early 2000s. TMZ invokes non-specific DNA damage to tumor cells to prevent it from reproducing and spreading.

However, history and patient data show that sGBM patients undergoing TMZ treatment almost invariably have relapses which display mutations that allow the sGBM tumors to evade a second round of TMZ treatment, making it chemo-resistant and pushing researchers to look further afield to seek better treatment options.

For the first time, this study revealed the somatic mutational landscape of sGBM in 188 cases, and showed that a significant proportion (approximately 14%) of sGBM patients displayed a new mutation, METex14 (some of those simultaneously harbor another mutation, named ZM fusion), which led to more aggressive tumor growth. Previous studies were much smaller (typically 20 patients or less) and therefore meant that findings were inconclusive.

Promisingly, a MET kinase inhibitor molecule named PLB-1001 was identified and is able to penetrate the blood-brain barrier, a key treatment characteristic. This new molecule shows remarkable potency in selectively targeting sGBM tumors and sGBM tumors that co-display this mutation.

Beijing Tiantan Hospital has given the green light for PLB-1001 Phase I clinical trials. Successfully enrolled patients are those who display this mutation or have a history of sGBM tumors and fall within the right age bracket.

"This clinical trial and its results are quite significant in furthering the knowledge about sGBM treatment. Precision cancer medicine promises to tailor treatments according to personal cancer mutations, but it is complicated by the dynamic changes during cancer evolution. sGBM tumors are high on the list of toughest tumors to treat," said HKUST's Prof. WANG Jiguang, who led this Beijing-Hong Kong collaborative study. "Developing computational models on cancer evolution helps to predict cancer cells' future behavior and prioritize treatment options. In this study, MET is one of the running targets we have identified. By using PLB-1001 as a standalone drug, our collaborators were able to see shrinkage of the tumors over a two-month period in selected patients. More studies need to be done to see if PLB-1001 can be used in conjunction with other drugs to have longer lasting results."

Prof. Wang is Assistant Professor at HKUST's Division of Life Science and Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering.

Prof. Tao Jiang's team at Beijing Tiantan Hospital has been enrolling a large number of Chinese glioma patients for genomic sequencing and running this clinical trial, and initial findings indicate that PLB-1001 is safe to use as a monotherapy for sGBM patients and especially those who have the specified mutation. This may lead to new combinational chemotherapy cocktail treatments for patients later down the line.

Ultimately, this finding offers a new silver lining for both medical researchers and sGBM patients alike, and will continue to shed more light on how to better treat this aggressive tumor type.

More information: Huimin Hu et al, Mutational Landscape of Secondary Glioblastoma Guides MET-Targeted Trial in Brain Tumor, Cell (2018). DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2018.09.038


Scientists bring new hope to brain tumor patients | MedicaXpress

 

[JSCh]

International B&R alliance established to tackle global scientific challenges
By Zhang Hui Source:Global Times Published: 2018/11/4 21:08:39

Gao Fu, director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, delivers a speech at The First General Assembly of the Alliance in International Science Organization in the Belt and Road region organized by the Chinese Academy of Sciences on Sunday. Photo: Zhang Hui/GT

An alliance of international science organizations under the China-proposed Belt and Road initiative was established on Sunday, aiming at tackling major world scientific challenges.

President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter to the launch ceremony of the assembly on Sunday, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

Xi said in the letter that promoting cooperation in science and technology among countries constituted an important part of building the Belt and Road and played a positive role in improving people's livelihood, promoting development and coping with common challenges.

The First General Assembly of the Alliance of International Science Organizations (ANSO) in the Belt and Road Region, organized by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has witnessed about 800 participants from worldwide science organizations..

ANSO is an international, non-profit and non-governmental scientific organization, focusing on the major scientific challenges such as ecological resources, climate change, environmental protection and public health.

ANSO tries to mobilize public and private sectors to jointly address diverse development challenges, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

ANSO has 36 founding members including Russia, Chile, Bangladesh, Belgium and Thailand as of October 30.

Qasim Jan, president of the Pakistan Academy of Sciences, told the Global Times on the sidelines of the assembly on Sunday that the assembly was a wonderful initiative which pulled human expertise from a diverse background to address global problems, and these problems can be minimized through good science.

Gao Fu, director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said during his speech on Sunday that emerging and reemerging infectious diseases are still a big issue for developing counties such as diarrheal diseases, respiratory infections and HIV/AIDS.

"Public health and diseases control are first in society's development," Gao said.

"Whenever you have diseases, you have zero development," Gao noted.

 

[Bismarck]

Chinese chip firm Fujian Jinhua denies stealing IP from Micron

Memory chip parts of U.S. memory chip maker Micron Technology are pictured at their booth at an industrial fair in Frankfurt, Germany, July 14, 2015. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach/File Photo

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Chinese chipmaker Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co Ltd said on Saturday it has not stolen any technology, after the U.S. Justice Department indicted the state-back firm for stealing trade secrets.

The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday indicted Fujian Jinhua, Taiwan’s United Microelectronics Corp and three individuals for conspiring to steal trade secrets from U.S. semiconductor company Micron Technology Inc relating to its research and development of memory storage devices.

Earlier in the week, U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration took action to cut Fujian Jinhua off from U.S. suppliers.

“Behaviour to steal another firm’s technology does not exist,” Fujian Jinhua said in a statement posted on its official website.

“Micron regards the development of Fujian Jinhua as a threat and adopts various means to hamper and destroy the development of Fujian Jinhua,” the statement said.

The company “always attaches great importance to the protection of intellectual property rights,” Fujian Jinhua added.

The move to block Fujian Jinhua escalated what until now had been a business dispute into the realm of an international trade conflict between the United States and China.

The world’s top two economies are already waging a tariff war over their trade disputes, with U.S. duties in place on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods and Chinese duties on $110 billion of U.S. goods.

The U.S. moves could seriously damage the ambitions of Fujian Jinhua, a firm of strategic importance to China.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-china-semiconductors/chinese-chip-firm-fujian-jinhua-denies-stealing-ip-from-micron-idUSKCN1N809K

 

[JSCh]

PUBLIC RELEASE: 5-NOV-2018
'Master key' gene has links to both ASD and schizophrenia
Mice lacking MIR-137 show ASD-ish phenotype + increased Pde10a

EMORY HEALTH SCIENCES

Recent studies of complex brain disorders such as schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have identified a few "master keys," risk genes that sit at the center of a network of genes important for brain function. Researchers at Emory and the Chinese Academy of Sciences have now created mice partially lacking one of those master keys, called MIR-137, and have used them to identify an angle on potential treatments for ASD.

The results are scheduled for publication in Nature Neuroscience.

Mice partially lacking MIR-137 display learning and memory deficits, repetitive behaviors and impaired sociability. MIR-137 encodes a microRNA, which regulates hundreds of other genes, many of which are also connected to schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder.

By treating mutant mice with papaverine, a vasodilator discovered in the 19th century, scientists could improve the performance of the mice on maze navigation and social behavior tests. Papaverine is an inhibitor of the enzyme Pde10a (phosphodiesterase 10a), which is elevated in mutant mice.

Other Pde10a inhibitors have been tested in schizophrenia clinical trials, but the new results suggest this group of compounds could have potential for some individuals with ASD, says senior author Peng Jin, PhD, professor of human genetics at Emory University School of Medicine.

Having just the right level of MIR-137 function is important. Previous studies of people with genetic deletions show that a loss of MIR-137 is connected with intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorder. The reverse situation, in which a genetic variation increases MIR-137 levels, appears to contribute to schizophrenia.

"It's interesting to think about in the context of precision medicine," Jin says. "Individuals with a partial loss of MIR137 - either genomic deletions or reduced expression -- could potentially be candidates for treatment with Pde10a inhibitors."

To create the mutant mice, Jin's lab teamed up with Dahua Chen, PhD and Zhao-Qian Teng, PhD scientists at the State Key Laboratories of Stem Cell and Reproductive Biology and Membrane Biology, part of the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. Jin says that generating mice with a heritable disruption of MIR-137 was technically challenging, taking several years.

Mice completely lacking MIR-137 have problems with development and die soon after birth. The effect is similar if the deletion is restricted to the nervous system. Other "knockouts" of microRNA genes have not displayed such distinct post-natal effects, Jin notes. However, the scientists wanted to study animals that had one copy intact - a situation analogous to the humans with ASD.

"Several studies had shown an association between MIR-137 and both ASD and schizophrenia, but it was very important to show that causal relationship," Jin says.

Mice with one copy of MIR-137 disrupted in the brain learn to navigate mazes with more difficulty than controls. They also display increased repetitive behaviors (self-grooming and marble-burying) and show a limited preference to socialize with another mouse rather than an object, and do not discriminate familiar mice from strangers.

The brains of mutant mice have a higher density of dendritic spines, indicating that they have impaired synaptic pruning, a process other researchers have observed is altered in schizophrenia and autism.

Analyzing the genes in brain cells whose activities were most altered by MIR-137 loss allowed the researchers to pinpoint Pde10a. Treating mutant mice with papaverine improved their ability to learn mazes, although it did not restore their performance to that of control mice. In addition, papaverine treatment significantly increased the amounts of time mutant mice interacted with other mice.



'Master key' gene has links to both ASD and schizophrenia | EurekAlert! Science News

Ying Cheng, Zhi-Meng Wang, Weiqi Tan, Xiaona Wang, Yujing Li, Bing Bai, Yuxin Li, Shuang-Feng Zhang, Hai-Liang Yan, Zuo-Lun Chen, Chang-Mei Liu, Ting-Wei Mi, Shuting Xia, Zikai Zhou, An Liu, Gang-Bin Tang, Cong Liu, Zhi-Jie Dai, Ying-Ying Wang, Hong Wang, Xusheng Wang, Yunhee Kang, Li Lin, Zhenping Chen, Nina Xie, Qinmiao Sun, Wei Xie, Junmin Peng, Dahua Chen, Zhao-Qian Teng, Peng Jin. Partial loss of psychiatric risk gene Mir137 in mice causes repetitive behavior and impairs sociability and learning via increased Pde10a. Nature Neuroscience (2018); DOI: 10.1038/s41593-018-0261-7​

 

[JSCh]

PUBLIC RELEASE: 8-NOV-2018
A newly discovered, naturally low-caffeine tea plant
AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY

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Leaves and young shoots of a rare wild tea that is low in caffeine. CREDIT: American Chemical Society

Tea drinkers who seek the popular beverage's soothing flavor without its explosive caffeine jolt could soon have a new, naturally low-caffeine option. In a study appearing in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, scientists report that a recently discovered wild tea plant in China contains little or no caffeine and, unlike many industrially decaffeinated products, could potentially provide many of the health benefits of regular brewed teas.

In 2017, Americans drank nearly 4 billion gallons of tea, according to the Tea Association of the USA. The association estimates that up to 18 percent of those drinks were decaffeinated. To decaffeinate tea, manufacturers often use supercritical carbon dioxide or hot water treatments. However, these methods can affect the brew's flavor and destroy compounds in the tea associated with lowered cholesterol, reduced risk of heart attack or stroke, and other health benefits. Recently, scientists discovered hongyacha (HYC), a rare wild tea found in the mountains of southern China. Local residents believe it can it can cure colds, soothe stomach pain and relieve a host of other ailments. But little is known about its structural makeup or its chemical composition. Liang Chen and colleagues sought to close that gap.

The researchers used high-performance liquid chromatography to analyze HYC buds and leaves collected during the growing season. In addition to finding several potentially health-promoting compounds not found in regular tea, they determined that HYC contains virtually no caffeine. Digging deeper, they found this was because of a mutation in the gene encoding the enzyme tea caffeine synthase, which promotes caffeine production in most tea plants. The researchers conclude that naturally low-caffeine HYC could possibly become a popular drink because of its distinct composition and unique health benefits.


A newly discovered, naturally low-caffeine tea plant | EurekAlert! Science News

Ji-Qiang Jin, Yun-Feng Chai, Yu-Fei Liu, Jing Zhang, Ming-Zhe Yao, Liang Chen. Hongyacha, a Naturally Caffeine-Free Tea Plant from Fujian, China. J. Agric. Food Chem. (2018). DOI: 10.1021/acs.jafc.8b03433​

 

[JSCh]

Healing kidneys with nanotechnology
November 8, 2018

The illustration shows a diseased kidney on the left and a healthy kidney on the right, after rectangular DNA nanostructures migrated and accumulated in the kidney, acting to alleviate damage due to oxidative stress.
Graphic by Shireen Dooling

Each year, there are some 13.3 million new cases of acute kidney injury (AKI), a serious affliction. Formerly known as acute renal failure, the ailment produces a rapid buildup of nitrogenous wastes and decreases urine output, usually within hours or days of disease onset. Severe complications often ensue. Currently, there is no known cure for AKI.

AKI is responsible for 1.7 million deaths annually. Protecting healthy kidneys from harm and treating those already injured remains a significant challenge for modern medicine.

In new research appearing in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering, Hao Yan and his colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and in China describe a new method for treating and preventing AKI. Their technique involves the use of tiny, self-assembling forms measuring just billionths of a meter in diameter.

Yan directs the Biodesign Center for Molecular Design and Biomimetics and is the Martin D. Glick Distinguished Professor in the School of Molecular Sciences at ASU.

Their research demonstrated that the introduction of DNA origami nanostructures (DONs) protected normal kidneys and improved functioning of kidneys damaged by AKI. The beneficial effect of the nanostructures was comparable to the current treatment modality, administration of an anti-oxidant drug known as N-acetylcysteine (NAC). New treatments are being saught because NAC is not easily absorbed in the kidneys. Further examination of stained tissue samples from mice confirmed the beneficial effects of the DONs.

The triangular, tubular and rectangular shapes are designed and built using a method known as DNA origami. Here, the base pairing properties of DNA’s four nucleotides are used to engineer and fabricate DNA origami nanostructures, which self-assemble and preferentially accumulate in kidneys.

“The interdisciplinary collaboration between nanomedicine and the in-vivo imaging team led by professor Weibo Cai at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the DNA nanotechnology team has led to a novel application—applying DNA origami nanostructures to treat acute kidney injury,” Yan says. “This represents a new horizon for DNA nanotechnology research.”

Experiments described in the new study—conducted in mice as well as human embryonic kidney cells—suggest that DONs act as a rapid and active kidney protectant and may also alleviate symptoms of AKI. The distribution of DONs was examined with positron emission tomography (PET). Results showed that the rectangular nanostructures were particularly successful, protecting the kidneys from harm as effectively as the leading drug therapy and alleviating a leading source of AKI known as oxidative stress.

The study is the first to explore the distribution of DNA nanostructures in a living system by means of quantitative imaging with PET and paves the way for a host of new therapeutic approaches for the treatment of AKI as well as other renal diseases.

“This is an excellent example of team science, with multidisciplinary and multinational collaboration,” Cai said. “The four research groups are located in different countries, but they communicate regularly and have synergistic expertise. The three equally-contributing first authors (Dawei Jiang, Zhilei Ge, Hyung-Jun Im) also have very different backgrounds, one in radiolabeling and imaging, one in DNA nanostructures, and the other in clinical nuclear medicine. Together, they drove the project forward.”

Vital organ

Kidneys perform essential roles in body, removing waste and extra water from the blood to form urine. Urine then flows from the kidneys to the bladder through the ureters. Wastes in the blood are produced from the normal breakdown of active muscle and from foods, which the body requires for energy and self-repair.

Acute kidney injury can range considerably in severity. In advanced AKI, kidney transplantation is required as well as supportive therapies including rehydration and dialysis. Contrast-induced AKI, a common form of the illness, is caused by contrast agents sometimes used to improve the clarity of medical imaging. An anti-oxidant drug known as N-acetylcysteine (NAC) is used clinically to protect the kidneys from toxic assault during such procedures, but poor bioavailability of the drug in the kidneys can limit its effectiveness. (Currently, there is no known cure for AKI.)

Nanomedicine—the engineering of atoms or molecules at the nanoscale for biomedical applications—represents a new and exciting avenue of medical exploration and therapy. Recent research in the field has driven advances leading to improved imaging and therapeutics for a range of diseases, including AKI, though the use of nanomaterials within living systems in order to treat kidney disease has thus far been limited.

The base-pairing properties of nucleic acids like DNA and RNA enable the design of tiny programmable structures of predictable shape and size, capable of performing a multitude of tasks. Further, these nanoarchitectures are desirable for use in living systems due to their stability, low toxicity, and low immunogenicity.

New designs

The current study marks the first investigation of DNA origami nanostructures within living organisms, using quantitative imaging to track their behavior. The PET imaging used in the study allowed for a quantitative and reliable real-time method to study the circulation of DONs in a living organism and to assess their physiological distribution. Rectangular DONs were identified as the most effective therapeutic to treat AKI in mice, based on the PET analysis.

Yan and his colleagues prepared a series of DONs and studied their behavior in mouse kidney, using PET imaging. The PET scans showed that the DONs had preferentially accumulated in the kidneys of healthy mice as well as those with induced AKI. Of the three shapes used in the experiments, the rectangular DONs provided the greatest benefit in terms of protection and therapy and were comparable in their effect to the drug N-acetylcysteine, considered the gold standard treatment for AKI.

Patients with kidney disease often have accompanying maladies, including a high incidence of cardiovascular disease and malignancy. Acute kidney illness may be induced through a process known as oxidative stress. This occurs when certain waste products known as reactive oxygen species cause damage to cells. The result is often inflammation, which accelerates the progression of renal disease. (Foods and supplements rich in antioxidants act to protect cells from the harmful effects of reactive oxygen species.)

Safeguarding kidneys with DNA geometry

The protective and therapeutic effects of the DONs described in the new study are due to the ability of the nanostructures to scavenge reactive oxygen species, thereby insulating vulnerable cells from damage due to oxidative stress. This effect was studied in human embryonic kidney cell lines as well as in living mice. The accumulation of the nanostructures in both healthy and diseased kidneys provided an increased therapeutic effect compared with traditional AKI therapy. (DONs alleviated oxidative stress within two hours of incubation with affected kidney cells.)

The authors propose several mechanisms to account for the persistence in the kidneys of properly folded origami nanostructures, including their resistance to digestive enzymes, avoidance of immune surveillance and low protein absorption.

Levels of serum creatinine and blood urea nitrogen (BUN) were used to assess renal function in mice. AKI mice treated with rectangular DONs displayed improved kidney excretion comparable to mice receiving treatment using the mainline drug N-acetylcysteine.

Further, the team established the safety of rectangular DONs, evaluating their potential to elicit an immune response in mice by examining blood levels of interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor alpha. Results showed the DONs were non-immunogenetic and tissue staining of heart, liver, spleen lungs and kidney revealed their low toxicity in primary organs, making them attractive candidates for clinical use in humans.

Based on the effective scavenging of reactive oxygen species by DONs in both human kidney cell culture and living mouse kidney, the study concludes that the approach may indeed provide localized protection for kidneys from AKI and may even offer effective treatment for AKI-damaged kidneys or other renal disorders.

The successful proof-of-concept study expands the potential for a new breed of therapeutic programmable nanostructures, engineered to address far-flung medical challenges, from smart drug delivery to precisely targeted organ and tissue repair.



Written by: richard harth

Healing kidneys with nanotechnology | The Biodesign Institute | ASU

Dawei Jiang, Zhilei Ge, Hyung-Jun Im, Christopher G. England, Dalong Ni, Junjun Hou, Luhao Zhang, Christopher J. Kutyreff, Yongjun Yan, Yan Liu, Steve Y. Cho, Jonathan W. Engle, Jiye Shi, Peng Huang, Chunhai Fan, Hao Yan, Weibo Cai. DNA origami nanostructures can exhibit preferential renal uptake and alleviate acute kidney injury. Nature Biomedical Engineering (2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41551-018-0317-8​

 

[JSCh]

Scientists Improve the Focal Intensity for Shanghai Super-intense Ultrafast Laser Facility
Nov 01, 2018

Ultra-fast petawatt-class laser systems have undergone rapid development by the incorporation of chirped-pulse amplification (CPA) and optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) technologies.

In October 2018, Shanghai Super-intense Ultrafast Laser Facility (SULF) achieved the amplified output energy of 339J, which support the peak power of 10.3 PW. For the high-field laser- matter interaction research, the focal intensity at the target is a critical parameter. Therefore, in addition to increasing the pulse energy and shortening the pulse duration, decreasing the size of the focus spot has become another essential and economic method to increase the intensity.

Given the complex optical elements and severe aberrations of petawatt laser systems, double or more adaptive optics systems (AOSs) with cascaded correction have been required in high-power laser systems to improve the focusing ability of the laser pulse.

Recently, an experimental scheme, based on the function of double deformable mirrors (DMs) in the AOSs, was developed by State Key Laboratory of High Field Laser Physics, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and it has succeeded in the compensation of the wavefront aberrations of the laser beam.

The major part of the large-scale aberrations was compensated by the 300mm-DM with a large stroke in the second AOS and the small-scale residual aberrations were further improved by the high-spatial-resolution 130mm-DM in the first AOS.

Focused with an f/2.5 off-axis parabolic mirror (OAP), a focal spot close to the diffraction limit was achieved, which contained approximately 27.69% energy in the full width at half-maximum (FWHM) area (2.75 × 2.87 um2).

A peak intensity of 2 × 1022 W/cm2 was also realized at the output of 5.4 PW, and it could exceed 1023 W/cm2in the SULF 10 PW laser facility using an f/1.8 OAP. The focal intensity improvement will be implanted at peak power of 10 PW very shortly.

The results, entitled "Improvement of the focusing ability by double deformable mirrors for 10-PW-level Ti: sapphire chirped pulse amplification laser system", were published in Opt. Express.

The phase profiles of the focal spots (a) before and (c) after the correction; (b) and (d) the corresponding focal spots focused (Image by SIOM)


Scientists Improve the Focal Intensity for Shanghai Super-intense Ultrafast Laser Facility---Chinese Academy of Sciences

 

[JSCh]

Overcoming Organ Transplant Rejection with Hydrogels [Video]

By Advanced Science News Video
Posted on November 12, 2018

Liver transplantation requires suppression of a recipient’s immune system to avoid transplant rejection. Since immune suppressants threaten patient health, precise control over their dose is required.

In Advanced Materials, Dr. Jindao Wu, Prof. Xuehao Wang, and Dr. Fuqiang Wang from Nanjing Medical University, Prof. Gaolin Liang from the University of Science and Technology of China, and their co-workers report a vehicle for stimulated release of the immune suppressant, tacrolimus (tac).

Prof. Xuehao Wang: “Rejection is the key problem after liver transplantation. In clinic, we use tac to reduce rejection, to improve the survival.”

Dr. Jindao Wu: “Transplant doctors often adjust tac dosage according to their clinical experience. We hope to release tac intelligently according to the immune status of recipients and minimize the risk of tac-related complications.”

The researchers devised two peptide-based hydrogelator compounds, which co-assembled with tac into a gel.

Dr. Fuqiang Wang: “The activated PTK (protein tyrosine kinase) could be used to disassemble a tac-encapsulating supramolecular hydrogel for the immune-responsive release.”

Prof. Gaolin Liang: “We expect that our smart, facile method of immune-responsive release of tac could be applied to overcome organ transplantation rejection in clinic in the near future.”

To learn more about this smart approach to overcoming organ transplant rejection, please visit the Advanced Materials homepage.


Overcoming Organ Transplant Rejection with Hydrogels [Video] - Advanced Science News

 

[JSCh]

PUBLIC RELEASE: 12-NOV-2018
Traditional eutectic alloy brings new hope for high energy density metal-O2 batteries
CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES HEADQUARTERS

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a) Comparison of oxidation and corrosion resistance of Li-Na eutectic alloy and Na metal. SEM images for Li-Na alloy b), and Na c) electrodes after five stripping/plating cycles. d) Voltage profiles for symmetric metal batteries. Cycling e), and rate f) performance of metal-O2 batteries with and without catalysts. CREDIT: YAN Junmin, ZHANG Yu, ZHANG Xinbo

Current lithium-ion intercalation technology, even when fully developed, is difficult to satisfy society's increasing demand of high-energy-density power sources for electric vehicles and electronics. Thus, non-aqueous alkali metal-oxygen (AM-O2: AM = Li, Na, etc.) batteries are promising to replace conventional lithium-ion battery due to their ultrahigh theoretical energy density.

However, AM is extremely reactive towards air and almost all nonaqueous electrolytes, resulting in significant parasitic reactions. Furthermore, uncontrollable Li or Na metal plating/stripping, generally emerging as dendrites, easily induces cells short circuit accompanying by fire/explosion events, plaguing AM anodes towards practical applications. Therefore, to achieve a safe and stable AM-O2 cell, it is important to solve the dendrite coupled with oxidation/corrosion issues of AM anode.

Recently, a research team led by ZHANG Xinbo from the Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry (CIAC), Chinese Academy of Sciences, YAN Junmin from Jilin University, ZHANG Yu from Beihang University Beijing developed a long-life AM-O2 battery using Li-Na eutectic alloy as novel metal anode for the first time. Their findings were published in Nature Chemistry.

They found that Li and Na of Li-Na alloy exhibited similar reaction activities and therefore both could be employed as active components in batteries without sacrificing the specific capacity compared with other alloys (e.g., Na-Sn alloy). In addition, alloying Li and Na improved the corrosion resistance of single metal against O2 and electrolyte and suppressed the metal dendrites growth.

Importantly, in a Li-Na alloy battery, with the help of electrolyte additive, the resultant dendrite-suppressed, oxidation-resistant, and crack-free Li-Na alloy electrode endowed the newly-proposed aprotic bimetallic Li-Na alloy-O2 battery with good performances.

Furthermore, by introducing efficient O2 reduction/evolution catalysts (e.g., Co/NCF), the cycling life and rate capability of Li-Na alloy-O2 battery were significantly improved.

"We believe that this strategy can also be applied to other metal electrodes, such as Zn, Mg, Ca, Al and so on," said ZHANG.

Meanwhile, this study provides a guidance for developing other bimetal batteries such as bimetal ion batteries and bimetal-S batteries. These batteries possess new chemistries, exhibit much better electrochemical performance than mono-metal batteries, and adopt collaborative methods to release the great potential of alkali metal anode.


Traditional eutectic alloy brings new hope for high energy density metal-O2 batteries | EurekAlert! Science News

Jin-ling Ma, Fan-lu Meng, Yue Yu, Da-peng Liu, Jun-min Yan, Yu Zhang, Xin-bo Zhang, Qing Jiang. Prevention of dendrite growth and volume expansion to give high-performance aprotic bimetallic Li-Na alloy–O2 batteries. Nature Chemistry, November 2018. DOI: 10.1038/s41557-018-0166-9​

 

[JSCh]

SynBio Workshop Boosts International Technology Transfer
Nov 15, 2018

More than 200 delegates from universities, research institutes, hi-tech enterprises and Sci&Tech organizations from the United States, Germany, Japan, South Korea, and countries along the “Belt and Road”, attended the 2018 Qingdao International Technology Transfer Conference - Synthetic Biology Workshop held on November 14, 2018.

Organized by the Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology (QIBEBT) of Chinese Academy of Sciences, the workshop focused on the relationship between synthetic biotechnology and four major fields: resource and environment, energy and chemindustry, pharmaceutics and health, and method and technology.

QIBEBT and Chiang Mai University in Thailand renewed their decade cooperation agreement at the workshop. According to the agreement, a "Green Biotechnology Cooperation Center" will be built focusing on the development of clean energy and natural products as well as the demonstration and industrial promotion of bioenergy including cellulosic ethanol, bio-aviation oil and bio-natural gas through co-construction of technological platforms and joint training of scientific and technological talents.

During the past decade, four projects have been launched by the two sides. “In the future, our cooperation will be upgraded to a new platform. We will also make in-depth explorations in high value-added chemicals to further solve the problem of agricultural residue waste in Thailand,” said Sujinda Sriwattana, Dean of Chiang Mai University.

A “synthetic biotechnology international partnership" was also initiated to promote and strengthen the sharing of knowledge and technology among countries along the "Belt and Road". The partnership network between members will expand the radiation effect of synthetic biotechnology to industry.

"Recent years, Chinese and German researchers have strengthened academic exchanges and held many workshops,” said Professor Rolf Schmid, Asia science and technology consultant of Baden-Wurttemberg State, “In the field of synthetic biology, QIBEBT is a very important institution in Shandong Province and even in China. German scientific research institutions are also willing to have further work exchanges and experience sharing opportunities with the Chinese researchers.”

Representatives of international well-known enterprises and institutions such as Thermo Fisher, Klein Chemical, Novo Nordisk Foundation, BGI Gene, Vland, and local enterprises, participated the workshop. More than 20 technological projects were selected for technology transfer.

Professor Petr Hladik, head of business development department of technology center of the Czech Academy of Sciences said, “Three years ago, we successfully implemented the technology transfer project in Chengdu. This time, I brought three demonstration of technology transformation. I hope to find a suitable technology transformation partner here through this platform.”

The Synthetic Biotechnology Innovation Center of Shandong Province jointly constructed by QIBEBT and other six local organizations was unveiled at the opening ceremony of the workshop.

Combining biology and engineering, synthetic biology has drawn much attention in recent years, from the research fields as well as the industry.


SynBio Workshop Boosts International Technology Transfer---Chinese Academy of Sciences

 

[JSCh]

Single-manganese-atom catalyst drives key water-splitting step
Finding may advance mission to make hydrogen fuel from water inexpensively

by Mitch Jacoby
OCTOBER 25, 2018 | APPEARED IN VOLUME 96, ISSUE 43

Credit: Nat. Catal.
Graphene functionalized with isolated MnN4 units undergoes a catalytic cycle to convert water (starting at top right) to O2 (top left).

An easy-to-prepare catalyst consisting of isolated metal atoms embedded at various points across functionalized graphene sheets can carry out a key step in water splitting, according to a study (Nat. Catal. 2018, DOI: 10.1038/s41929-018-0158-6).

If water could be split easily and inexpensively into molecular hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O2), the world could draw a nearly limitless supply of clean-burning hydrogen fuel from the oceans. Inspired by nature’s use of a metal cluster (CaMn4O5) to generate O2 from water during photosynthesis, scientists have designed various multimetal-atom catalysts to facilitate the process, called the water oxidation reaction (WOR).

Several researchers have shown that various synthetic manganese-cluster catalysts actively mediate WOR. What remained unknown is whether a simpler, less expensive catalyst based on single manganese atoms rather than clusters can do the job actively and energy efficiently.

Yes, it can, concludes a team led by Can Li of the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics. By reacting manganese chloride, graphene oxide, and ammonia, the researchers made a material in which isolated manganese atoms are embedded across a graphene surface, each surrounded by four nitrogen atoms. The team conducted water-oxidation tests to evaluate the material’s catalytic properties.

The researchers found that in contrast with pure graphene and nitrogen-doped graphene, which were inactive, their MnN4-graphene catalyst exhibited a WOR turnover frequency of up to 215 per second. Turnover frequency is a measure of catalytic activity that describes how many times a catalyst carries out a reaction in a given period. The MnN4-graphene value is nearly 100 times as high as that of other synthetic Mn-based catalysts and in the ballpark of naturally occurring ones. The team also found that the new catalyst mediates WOR at relatively low overpotential values, an indication of high energy efficiency.

A great deal of effort has been devoted to finding efficient, low-cost catalysts that drive water splitting, says Xiao Cheng Zeng of the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, who has studied the process computationally. “The water oxidation reaction is the most challenging step,” he says, so this experimental demonstration with manganese, which is much cheaper than precious-metal catalysts, “is a significant step in the right direction.”


Single-manganese-atom catalyst drives key water-splitting step | Chemical & Engineering News

 

[JSCh]

World's Next Supercollider Design Report Released
Nov 14, 2018

Scientists working on the Circular Electron Positron Collider (CEPC), a planned next-generation particle collider in China, released its Conceptual Design Report (CDR) on Nov. 14 in Beijing.

In a special ceremony at the 2018 CEPC workshop at the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP), Prof. WANG Yifang, director of the IHEP and chair of the CEPC steering committee, released the CDR to the particle physics community and the public at large.

The two-volume report contains technical details regarding the accelerator (Volume I) and the Physics & Detector (Volume II) of the project. It outlines in great detail the design options of the future collider, which would both complement and go beyond the physics of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The report summarizes the work accomplished in the past six years by thousands of scientists and engineers both in China and abroad.

"The CDR signifies that we have completed the basic design of the accelerator, detector and civil engineering for the whole project,” said Prof. GAO Yuanning of Peking University and chair of the CEPC Institutional Board. “Now our next step will focus on the R&D of key technologies and prototypes for the CEPC.”

Volume I of the report covers the design of the accelerator complex including the linear accelerator, the damp ring, the booster, and the collider. In addition, it describes the cryogenic system, the civil engineering, the radiation protection, and the auxiliary facilities. It also discusses the option to upgrade to a Super proton proton Collider (SppC).

Volume II presents the physics case for the CEPC, describes the detector concepts and their technological options, highlights the expected detector and physics performance, and discusses future plans for detector R&D and physics investigations.

"(CDR) has built the foundation for TDR (Technical Design Report) and engineering design as the next step, and a realistic timeline for construction,” said Prof. George Wei-Shu Hou of National Taiwan University and chair of the Asia-Pacific High Energy Physics Panel (AsiaHEP).

The current two-volume CDR (“Blue Report”) was preceded by the Preliminary Conceptual Design Report (Pre-CDR, “White Report”), published in March 2015, and a Progress Report (“Yellow Report”) published in April 2017.

A five-year R&D period (2018-2022) will precede the construction. During this period, prototypes of key technical components will be built and the infrastructure will be established to support the manufacturing of a large number of required components.

Construction is expected to start in 2022 and be completed in 2030. According to the tentative operational plan, the CEPC will run for seven years as a Higgs factory, followed by two years as a Z factory and one year at the WW threshold. The SppC era could begin following the completion of the CEPC operation.

The CEPC is an important part of the global plan for high-energy physics research. It will support a comprehensive research program by scientists around the world. “Physicists from many countries will work together to explore the frontiers of science and technology, thus taking our understanding of the fundamental nature of matter, energy and the universe to a new level,” said Prof. WANG Yifang.

About the CEPC

The discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in July 2012 created new opportunities for a large-scale accelerator. The Higgs boson is a crucial cornerstone of the Standard Model (SM). In September 2012, Chinese scientists proposed a 240-GeV Circular Electron Positron Collider (CEPC), serving two large detectors for the studies of Higgs bosons. The tunnel for such a collider could also host a Super proton proton Collider (SppC) to reach energies beyond the LHC.

The CEPC is a circular e+ e-collider located in an underground tunnel of 100-km circumference. The accelerator complex consists of a linear accelerator (Linac), a damping ring, a booster, a collider and several transport lines.

The heart of the CEPC will be a double-ring collider. Electron and positron beams will circulate in opposite directions in separate beam pipes. The CEPC booster will be located in the same tunnel above the collider with 10-GeV injection energy and extraction energy equal to the beam collision energy. Top-up injection will be used to maintain constant luminosity. The 10-GeV Linac, an injector to the booster, will be built at ground level and accelerate both electrons and positrons.

In the planned ten-year operation, the CEPC will produce over one million Higgs bosons, one hundred million W bosons, and close to one trillion Z bosons. W and Z bosons are force carriers of the weak force. Billions of bottom quarks, charm quarks and tau-leptons will also be produced in the decays of the Z bosons.

More information:

1 Download the Conceptual Design Report (Volume I: Accelerator, Volume II: Physics & Detector)

2 Images, videos and background information for the CEPC

3 Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences​

World's Next Supercollider Design Report Released---Chinese Academy of Sciences

 

[JSCh]

China’s Circular Electron Positron Collider would be built underground in a 100-kilometer-circumference tunnel at an as-yet-undetermined site.

IHEP​

China unveils design for $5 billion particle smasher | Science | AAAS
By Dennis Normile
Nov. 16, 2018 , 3:30 PM

BEIJING—The center of gravity in high energy physics could move to Asia if either of two grand plans is realized. At a workshop here last week, Chinese scientists unveiled the full conceptual design for the proposed Circular Electron Positron Collider (CEPC), a $5 billion machine to tackle the next big challenge in particle physics: studying the Higgs boson. (Part of the design was published in the summer.) Now, they’re ready to develop detailed plans, start construction in 2022, and launch operations around 2030—if the Chinese government agrees to fund it.

Meanwhile, Japan’s government is due to decide by the end of December whether to host an equally costly machine to study the Higgs, the International Linear Collider (ILC). How Japan’s decision might affect China’s, which is a few years away, is unclear. But it seems increasingly likely that most of the future action around the Higgs will be in Asia. Proposed “Higgs factories” in Europe are decades away and the United States has no serious plans.

The Higgs boson, key to explaining how other particles gain mass, was discovered at CERN, the European particle physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland, in 2012—more than 40 years after being theoretically predicted. Now, scientists want to confirm the particle’s properties, how it interacts with other particles, and whether it contributes to dark matter. Having only mass but no spin and no charge, the Higgs is really a “new kind of elementary particle” that is both “a special part of the standard model” and a “harbinger of some profound new principles,” says Nima Arkani-Hamed, a theorist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Answering the most important questions in particle physics today “involves studying the Higgs to death,” he says.

“Physicists want at least one machine,” says Joao Guimaraes da Costa, a physicist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’s Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) here, which put together the Chinese proposal. “Ideally, both should be built,” because each has its scientific merits, adds Hitoshi Murayama, a theoretical physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Tokyo’s Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe in Kashiwa, Japan.

The CERN discovery relied on the Large Hadron Collider, a 27-kilometer ring in which high-energy protons traveling in opposite directions are steered into head-on collisions. This produces showers of many types of particles, forcing physicists to sift through billions of events to spot the telltale signal of a Higgs. It’s a bit like smashing together cherry pies, Murayama says: “A lot of goo flies out when what you are really looking for is the little clinks between pits.”

Smashing electrons into their antimatter counterparts, positrons, results in cleaner collisions that typically produce one Z particle and one Higgs boson at a time, says Bill Murray of The University of Warwick in Coventry, U.K. How Z particles decay is well understood, so other signals can be attributed to the Higgs “and we can watch what it does,” Murray says.

Japan’s plan to build an electron-positron collider grew from international investigations in the 1990s. Physicists favored a linear arrangement, in which the particles are sent down two straight opposing raceways, colliding like bullets in rifles put muzzle to muzzle. That design promises higher energies, because it avoids the losses that result when charged particles are sent in a circle, causing them to shed energy in the form of x-rays. Its disadvantage is that particles that don’t collide are lost; in a circular design they continue around the ring for another chance at colliding.

Along the way, Japan signaled it might host the machine and shoulder the lion’s share of the cost, with other countries contributing detectors, other components, and expertise. A 2013 basic design envisioned a 500-giga-electronvolt (GeV) linear collider in a 31-kilometer tunnel costing almost $8 billion, not counting labor. But by then, the CERN team had already pegged the Higgs mass at 125 GeV, making the ILC design “overkill,” Murayama says. The group has since revised the plan, aiming for a 250-GeV accelerator housed in a 20-kilometer-long tunnel and costing $5 billion, says Murayama, who is also deputy director of the Linear Collider Collaboration, which coordinates global R&D work on several future colliders.

IHEP scientists made their own proposal just 2 months after the Higgs was announced. They recognized the energy required for a Higgs factory “is still in a range where circular is better,” Murray says. With its beamlines buried in a 100-kilometer-circumference tunnel at a site yet to be chosen, the CEPC would collide electrons and positrons at up to 240 GeV.

Both approaches have their advantages. The CEPC will produce Higgs at roughly five times the rate of ILC, allowing research to move faster. But Murayama notes that the ILC could easily be upgraded to higher energies by extending the tunnel by another couple of kilometers. Most physicists don’t want to choose. The two colliders “are quite complementary,” Murray says.

Whether politicians and funding agencies agree remains to be seen. Construction of the CEPC hinges on funding under China’s next 5-year plan, which starts in 2021, says IHEP Director Wang Yifang. IHEP would then also seek international contributors. Murayama says Japan needs to say yes to the ILC in time to negotiate support from the European Union under a particle physics strategy to be hammered out in 2019. Missing that opportunity could mean delaying the collider by 20 years, he says—and perhaps ceding the field to China.