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Journal articleJiang Q, Normand C, Beauchamp F, et al., 2026,
Structural composite battery: Reinforced carbon fibre electrodes within a porous polyethersulfone matrix
, Composites Science and Technology, Vol: 278, Pages: 111555-111555, ISSN: 0266-3538 -
Journal articleYousefi N, Tao H, Anthony DB, et al., 2026,
Scale matters: a perspective on structural hierarchical carbon fibre composites incorporating carbon nanotubes
, Composites Science and Technology, Vol: 277, ISSN: 0266-3538Composites have long played a vital role in material science due to their lightweight, stiff, strong, and durable construction. Composites consist of at least two complementary materials, typically comprising reinforcing elements, prominently carbon or glass fibres, held in place by a surrounding polymer matrix. Conventional fibre composites already display a structural hierarchy from fibres within tows, to plies, to laminates forming large-scale structures. The term “hierarchical composites” specifically refers to materials that integrate reinforcements spanning additional length scales, down to the molecular range, most notably nanoscale reinforcements that complement microscale fibres. Natural structural materials rely extensively on hierarchical motifs to maximise performance, though using constituents limited by abundance and ambient aqueous processing. Technical hierarchical composites are broadly inspired by natural multiscale systems, sometimes implementing specific mechanisms from nature in new material classes. In hierarchical composites, the largest reinforcement, fibres, dominate in-plane mechanical properties. In contrast, nanoscale reinforcements may address matrix-dominated responses by, for example, improving shear properties that control stress transfer and kink band initiation, introducing additional toughening mechanisms to limit debonding or delamination, and providing direct reinforcement, particularly through-thickness. Nanomaterials can provide other benefits, such as improved fatigue life, acoustic damping, and solvent/fire resistance. The addition of nanomaterials may also imbue composites with multifunctionality, obviating other constituents or components and reducing system weight. We critically discuss the progress in developing hierarchical fibre reinforced carbon nanotube composites over the past decade and provide insight into manufacturing and their structural and functional performance.
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Journal articleSun T, Sun M-L, Lin L, et al., 2026,
Combining multiplex metabolic engineering with adaptive evolution strategies for high-level succinic acid production in Yarrowia lipolytica
, Synthetic and Systems Biotechnology, Vol: 11, Pages: 48-58, ISSN: 2405-805XSuccinic acid, an essential platform chemical with extensive utility in biodegradable materials, pharmaceuticals, and the food industry, faces challenges of high energy consumption and environmental pollution in traditional chemical synthesis. Here, we employed multiplex metabolic engineering and adaptive laboratory evolution to enhance succinic acid biosynthesis in Yarrowia lipolytica. By attenuating succinate dehydrogenase (Sdh) activity, mitigating by-product accumulation, and enhancing the succinate synthesis pathway, engineered strains showed efficient succinic acid production from glycerol. The titer reached 130.99 g/L under unregulated pH conditions, translating to a yield of 0.35 g/g and a productivity of 0.70 g/(L·h). Subsequently, transporter engineering and adaptive evolution strategies were applied to enhance glucose utilization for succinic acid synthesis, yielding an evolved strain that eliminated the growth lag phase and produced 106.68 g/L succinic acid from glucose, which translated to a yield of 0.32 g/g and a productivity of 0.64 g/(L·h). Additionally, transcriptomic analysis and inverse metabolic engineering revealed that 4-hydroxyphenylpyruvate dioxygenase (4-Hppd) in the tyrosine degradation pathway partially restored the growth of Sdh-deficient strains on glucose, offering new insights for subsequent succinic acid biomanufacturing using Y. lipolytica.
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Journal articleRafieenia R, Fu J, Hapeta P, et al., 2026,
Advancing arabinose-based bioproduction in Yarrowia lipolytica by integrating metabolic engineering and adaptive laboratory evolution
, Metabolic Engineering, Vol: 94, Pages: 15-23, ISSN: 1096-7176The oleaginous yeast, Yarrowia lipolytica has gained interest as a biotechnological chassis to produce foods, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and biofuels. To reduce production costs and sustainability, inexpensive and abundant feedstocks such as lignocellulose must be used for bioproduction. Since lignocellulosic biomass contains components that cannot be utilised by Y. lipolytica, it is important to use engineering biology to enable their utilisation. L-arabinose is the second most abundant pentose in lignocellulose after xylose. However, it has received much less attention than xylose as a bioresource. In the present study, we first engineered Y. lipolytica to grow on L-arabinose as the sole carbon source. We used several wild-type and engineered strains to express the multigene arabinose cassette. Second, we used adaptive laboratory evolution to improve the utilisation of arabinose by the engineered strains. Third, we enabled the production of β-carotene from arabinose by expressing a β-carotene cassette in the evolved strain. Using minimal YNB medium supplemented with 20 g/l of arabinose as the sole carbon source resulted in the complete utilisation of L-arabinose within 120 h. In bioreactors, a β-carotene production of 418.89 mg/l was achieved with the complete utilisation of 60 g/l of L-arabinose. This study is the first to engineer L-arabinose utilisation in Y. lipolytica, opening new avenues for biomanufacturing using alternative carbon sources.
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Journal articleWang Y, Jiang Q, Vorlaufer D, et al., 2026,
Application of vitrimer-based sizing agent onto carbon fibres through thiol-ene photo-polymerisation
, COMPOSITES PART A-APPLIED SCIENCE AND MANUFACTURING, Vol: 202, ISSN: 1359-835X -
Journal articleWilliams TJ, Griffiths JS, Gonzales-Huerta LE, et al., 2026,
Selective Targeting of IL-1RAP-Dependent Eosinophilic Inflammation in Allergic Fungal Airway Disease.
, Allergy -
Journal articleWang D, Hadad N, Moss S, et al., 2026,
Assessment of mosaic loss of chromosome Y in pulmonary fibrosis reveals limited association with susceptibility or disease severity.
, BMJ Open Respir Res, Vol: 13BACKGROUND: Pulmonary fibrosis (PF) is a rare lung disease with diverse pathogenesis and biological mechanisms. Mosaic loss of chromosome Y (mLOY) has been reported to be associated with increased risk of fibrotic diseases. However, the exact role of mLOY in the development of PF remains to be elucidated. METHODS: Copy number on chromosome Y was used to estimate mLOY comparing patients in PROFILE and gnomAD cohorts and between cases and control patients from the GE100KGP cohort. Correlation of mLOY with demographic and clinical variables was tested using patients from the PROFILE cohort. Lung single-cell transcriptomic data were analysed to assess the cell types implicated in mLOY. Mendelian randomisation was performed to examine the causal relationship between mLOY, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and telomere length. RESULTS: The genetic analysis suggests that mLOY is found in PF from both case cohorts but when compared with an age matched population the effect is minimal (p=0.00316, median: 0.288 vs 0.291). mLOY is related to age (p=0.000214) and shorter telomere length (p=0.00815) rather than PF severity or progression. Single-cell analysis indicates that mLOY appears to be found primarily in immune cells. Mendelian randomisation demonstrates that mLOY is not on the causal pathway for IPF, but partial evidence supports that telomere shortening is on the causal pathway for mLOY. CONCLUSIONS: Our study confirms the existence of mLOY in PF patients, suggests that mLOY is not a major driver of IPF, and might support a triangulation model where telomere shortening leads to both IPF and mLOY.
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Journal articleSwamy R, Völtz LR, Xiong S, et al., 2026,
Approach to Sustainable Fibers from Spent Mushroom Substrate for Future All-Natural-Materials
, ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, Vol: 14, Pages: 2385-2393, ISSN: 2168-0485 -
Journal articleAlmousa HA, De Luca HG, Anthony DB, et al., 2026,
Uniform and scalable carbon nanotube growth on carbon fibers: insights from experimental dynamic snapshots and computational fluid dynamics
, Carbon, Vol: 248, ISSN: 0008-6223Carbon nanotube (CNT) grafted carbon fibers (CFs) are promising for multifunctional composites (CFRPs) but remain limited by scalability, non-uniform growth, and degradation of fiber tensile strength. This paper reports a continuous spool-to-spool chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process that achieves uniform CNT growth throughout 12k CF tows while preserving fiber tensile properties. The uniformity of CNT coverage, over meters of length and across thousands of fibers, was objectively established via a multi-length scale characterization protocol, combining machine learning-based SEM classification with macroscopic measurements of BET-based specific surface area (SSA) and gravimetric CNT content. Microscopic and macroscopic measurements are independently self-consistent. To understand and optimize CNT growth, a new dynamic snapshot method was developed and combined with steady-state computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling to resolve the spatial evolution of catalyst activation, nucleation, and CNT growth kinetics as a function of reactor temperature and species concentrations. These insights informed targeted modifications to gas flow and temperature conditions, enabling reproducible CNT growth at 550 °C. Under optimized CVD conditions, the CFs were grafted with a CNT corona of 850 nm in length, corresponding to a loading of 2.9 wt% on the fibers, which led to a ten-fold increase in SSA (5.35 m2 g−1). The process was shown to be stable for extended lengths (>50 m) and reproducible across multiple runs, establishing a scalable route for integrating CNT-grafted CFs into conventional manufacturing. This experimental-computational framework provides a rational approach toward high-performance multifunctional, hierarchical CFRPs.
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Journal articleMalcı K, Meng F, Galez H, et al., 2026,
Slowpoke: An Automated Golden Gate Cloning Workflow for Opentrons OT-2 and Flex.
, ACS Synth BiolIn synthetic biology, DNA assembly is a routine process where increasing demands for standardization, high-throughput capacity, and error-free execution are driving the development of accessible, automated solutions. Here, we present Slowpoke, a user-friendly and flexible workflow for Golden Gate-based cloning designed for the popular entry-cost, open-source liquid-handling platforms Opentrons OT-2 and Flex. Slowpoke automates the key steps of the DNA assembly process, including cloning, Escherichia coli transformation, plating, and colony PCR, requiring user intervention primarily for colony picking and plate transfers. To further simplify the usage, we developed a free graphical user interface (GUI), available at https://slowpoke.streamlit.app/, which enables rapid protocol generation through simple file uploads. We validated the workflow using two Golden Gate-based toolkits, the MoClo Yeast Toolkit (YTK), and SubtiToolKit (STK). High assembly efficiencies were achieved across platforms for basic transcript unit constructions: 17/17 positive colonies with YTK on OT-2, 11/12 on Flex, and 8/13 with STK on OT-2. High-throughput assemblies were also performed with six parts in Flex using YTK-compatible parts, and 55 out of 57 combinations resulted in correct constructs. These results confirm the robustness and adaptability of the workflow across toolkit complexity and automation platforms. The Slowpoke suite, including code scripts and templates, is freely available at https://github.com/Tom-Ellis-Lab/Slowpoke, offering an accessible and modular solution for automating Golden Gate cloning in synthetic biology laboratories.
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