Human Behavior

10 Reasons Why AI-Powered, Automated Customer Service Is the Future – TechiExpert.com

Automation is no longer the future, for it is the present. From autonomous home appliances to delivering food, from luggage check-ins at airports to automatic check-in at hotels, from doctors appointment booking to doctorless surgery, automation has become an integral part of our everyday living.

Customer service is no exception to automation. A survey by Gartner predicts that more than 80% of customer handling will be done by autonomous systems. The deployment of AI-powered automatic systems is not only going to benefit your customers (by enhancing customer experience) but will have a tremendous performance improvement of your agents. Agents can avail virtual assistants to go through rigorous data searches easily, saving time and effort.

Thishassle-free support system enhances customer satisfaction and reduces agentdistress. Powered by smart systems agents become even smarter and the reducedresolution time with increased accuracy saves a lot of expenditure on thesupport paradigm of your business.

Ifthis wasnt enough, virtual assistants today are backed by ArtificialIntelligence that can handle most queries on its own. So now as anorganization, you can fully automate front end support. Your back-end team canavail the required information automatically to enhance performance andaccuracy. This paves the path to AI-powered resolutions occurring in real-time.Here are 10 reasons why AI-powered automated customer support is the future:

Alot of startups dont have the resources to empower themselves with AI-backedcustomer support. Because of this organizations can produce a tremendous amountof revenue. All they need to do is to find a win-win situation while providingAI-backed customer support service.

Andthe fact that the new age businesses prefer opting for automated servicesrather than manpower-oriented services, provides the perfect timing to come upwith an AI-powered customer support center.

Itcan be developed once and delivered it to multiple organizations which makes ita revenue stream of indispensable income at a fixed investment.

Thefact that this is primal of the win-win situation which is considered as the boonof new age success for any organization itself speaks for the importance ofautomation of customer services. When combined with the tremendous bettermentit brings along for the organization acquiring the service, it brings about thebest possible mutual growth scenarios that b2b organizations thrive for. Theimplications of AI-powered automated customer support are monumental, to saythe least.

Asa customer, a company gets to enjoy the benefits of automation that may takeseveral weeks and a generous amount of expenditure. This can be availed at a fractionof the cost to build it. Also, when acquired as a service, it is available onan immediate basis.

Thesetwo factors when combined not only saves expenditure but the valuable time thatcan be utilized at developing business. As for developing business (startups),since the elementary need is business development, they will opt for such aservice any time of the year.

Soundoubtedly automated customer service is one of the best and in-demand ideasto generate revenue.

Thesuccess of apple can be credited to Steve Jobs understanding of customerrequirements. To put it exactly in his words People dont know what they wantunless you give it to them. Artificial Intelligence can bring this to realityat the customer support paradigm.

BecauseAI-powered customer support systems can track user behavior at every minor step, when powered with deep learning, these systems can predict theproblems that may be faced by your customers way before they even face it. Oneway to do this is by realizing how your brand interacts with your customers orvice versa.

Thebiggest advantage of having an automated customer support system is that it canaudit an unending list of applications and websites. When backed by artificialintelligence, an automated system can figure out the elements of distress thatmay be faced by a customer during the whole process. When realized, aresolution may be preempted before even the query is raised.

Thesesolutions may be offered with virtual assistants or added as a part of the FAQsto smoothen customer queries. This greatly enhances customer retention rates ascustomers can get pre-emptive messages about the problem they might face.Imagine having a resolution delivered to yourself about a problem you are yetto encounter! Will you ever rather choose a different service?

Mostbusinesses today have already opted for automated message delivery. Because ofthis they can provide a better customer service. As soon as a customer opts forany service, the automated system can deliver the conformation, invoice andother relevant information instantaneously.

Thisalso helps the organization by reducing the manpower that would have beeninvested in delivering messages and maintaining the customer database. Becauseof automation of messaging, organizations are now able to automate databasemanagement. Delivered messages are automatically stored in the database and canbe easily pulled out for future references.

Messagingservices have overtaken not just social media, but all digital platforms thatsend messages. Be it your cab service, hotel service, airline service, fooddelivery, or banking for that matter, they all utilize automated systems todeliver the messages, so how can you as a customer tell the difference? Well,you cannot! These messages may come from an autonomous system, but they are ascustomized as customization gets, courtesy of AI.

Thisway organizations can preserve the personalization factor of customersatisfaction even while going autonomous.

Asignificant amount of time and capital is invested in training and hiringsupport agents. One of the biggest hurdles faced by most call centers acrossall industries is staff attrition. Staff attrition is a fancy way to elaborateon the reduced strength or effectiveness of a call center that may occur due todecreased employee strength.

Thiscalls for a recurrence of the hiring and training process that requiresreinvesting in the resources already once invested in. This, when combined withthe increased customer handling time, caused because of frustrations thatdevelop in the course of elongated call, leaves a bad customer experience.

Whencompared against the automated service available at the fraction of the priceof setting up once own call center, the former is unequivocally superior. Also,even if your employees are very satisfied, there may be an alteration orrevision of the process following which the employees need to be retrained.

An AI-backed service center, however, is built to be able to cope up with thechanges (at worst, requiring minor reconfiguration). Combine all of this whilestill emancipating your workforce from the mundane tier-1 tasks, you not onlysave capital but are able to utilize your workforce at more complex problemsthat still cant be resolved without human intervention.

Whilea company needs to follow the respective government regulations in defining itscustomer support policies, it can utilize the automated counterpart of humanagents which is not bounded by any regulations. The implications of this areimmense. The most prominent of these encompasses catering to your customerseven on public holidays!

Thereis an add on advantage of time efficiency. What may require a few days for anagent to resolve can be resolved by an AI-backed automated service in a fewhours. Consequently, the brand image and brand value are greatly enhanced asthe customers feel more satisfied. When topped with the personalization of the cadreof human interaction that comes with automated customer service, it serves asthe perfect icing on the cake.

Automatedservice support backed by AI can provide the ideal service environment thatcustomers stipulate, and organizations solicit. One of the greatest advantagesof using automatic customer support is that it comes with all thepersonalization possibly available with no emotions.

Becauseemotions form an integral part of human nature, a human agent is very likely toget biased by the interaction with a customer. An automated agent, however, isdevoid of these emotions and consequently is capable of catering to customersof all varieties.

Havingsaid this, if you are wondering how then do you cater to a client that mayrequire complex reasoning that can only be provided by humans, well, AI-backedautomated systems have the option of transferring the query to a humanagent/manager shall that be the need of the hour.

Theagent/manager being backed by AI has the minutes of the issues andconsequently, the required beforehand and underlying information at fingertips.This helps them resolve the issue in minimal time possible, with little to nohassle or frustration that may come with handling all the calls from greetingsto thank you note.

Casestudies done for call computerization have shown a significant amount ofreduction in investment when compared against the outsourcing of traditionalcall centers. Outsourcing a call center itself has severe complications. This includesbut is not restricted to limited control of agent monitoring and performanceevaluation.

Ontop of it, with computerized call centers are backed by machine learning andadvanced speech recognition which also boosts the performance of your IVR(interactive voice response).

Thecustomer service paradigm is changing at a faster pace than most companiesimagined. The need to disband human interaction and the fact that most surveysnever saw this coming is exemplary of the new demands.

All of this, when combined with the millennialmentality today makes up for the best of all possible scenarios in handlingcustomers. Millennials dont like talking to a human agent. After all, we aretach-savvy. Nothing suits better to us than getting our problems resolved by aninteractive system that outperforms most humans by a significant margin.

Themost prominent factor for businesses today is adapting to the changing times.Those who dont fall prey to those who do. As a business, it is imminent togauge the requirements of not only the current customer base but also theupcoming customer base. The next generation is going to be even moreself-reliant, and hence the need to adapt to automated customer support wasnever direr.

Organizationscan track and collect customer data from a variety of platforms. This data canthen be processed by Artificial intelligence backed by machine learning, deeplearning together with big data analysis to deliver an outcome not humanlypossible.

Thisrenders personalization redefined. More understanding of human behavior can bederived from automated behavior analysis in minutes than humans can do in evenmonths.

Asimple example of this was in conventional stores. When backed by big data andmachine learning, a weird projection came out. It was to put beer next to babydiapers. This saw increased sales of beer. Upon human inspection, it turned outthat there were a lot more fathers shopping for their new babies than therewere mothers. And consequently, when you put beer next to it, they tend to buyit more often than they would otherwise.

Thisis just one example of how the understanding of human behavior derives thecapital gain of an organization and the role that automation plays in it.

Anothergreat application of automated customer service is that it provides scalabilityoptions that just cannot be matched by human agents. Lets consider a scenariowherein you are escalating your market consequently you need to cater to awider range of audiences with an increased number of customers.

UsingAI chatbots and voice responsive agents an organization can satisfy thesedemands without any significant increase in capital investment. You end up notneeding to hire agents that speak the local language and training those.

Take Away

UsingAI-powered customer service is the primal need for sustainable growth intodays day and age. The dusk of self-service customer support is set to seethe dawn of traditional call centers. Agents are already been backed by AI;they soon will be replaced by AI. This has more significance than just reducingyour expenditure as a business, it is the demand of the current and theupcoming generations.

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10 Reasons Why AI-Powered, Automated Customer Service Is the Future - TechiExpert.com

Human Behavior

‘It’s called a job’ – The Jewish Standard

Ethan Hunter wants you to know about SafeMode, an Israeli company that helps trucking companies improve driver safety.

Mr. Hunter grew up in Tenafly, and he graduated from the Dwight-Englewood School in Englewood. Now, hes a sophomore at Washington University in St. Louis, where he is majoring in history and management.

And he is a student leader of the Tamid Group, a student organization that has more than 50 chapters across the country with some 8,000 participating students. Tamid was founded by students at the University of Michigan as an Israeli investment club in 2007.

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Now, Tamids investment track is complemented by a consulting track, in which students work with Israeli companies.

Im a project manager on the consulting track, Mr. Hunter explained. That has him overseeing a team of three Washington University students working with SafeMode. And it has him speaking regularly with Ido Levy, SafeModes founder and CEO.

Mr. Hunters team was paired with SafeMode through a process in which he applied to several companies that seemed interesting. They posted a description, and I applied with my expertise, he said. Personally, I wanted a mentorship. I wanted broader connections between me as an undergraduate and Israels startup culture.

Mr. Hunter spent last summer in Israel at Israel Summer Business Academy, a six-week Washington University program in Herzliya. He took classes on venture capital and venture creation and the Israeli business ecosystem and met with many Israeli entrepreneurs.

Mr. Hunter and his fellow students work on various tasks for SafeMode, including market research, branding, and search engine optimization. It doesnt have a marketing department, he said. Were working to create social media posts for them to gain them more exposure. Were getting hands-on experience. They dont treat you like an intern. Interns dont exist in Israel its called a job.

Its a very open and inviting environment, which is very different from the U.S. I see it more as a mentorship than an internship. I have no problem sending the CEO a WhatsApp message any time I have a question, he said.

As a project manager, Mr. Hunter comes up with certain metrics and tasks to keep the team on track. A lot of it revolves around reaching out and doing interviews, establishing what SafeMode is, he said. That included his outreach to the Jewish Standard, which led to this story.

Mr. Hunter is using the skills hes learning in his Organizational Behavior 360 course. The business school stresses collaboration; he appreciates the chance Tamid offers him to lead a team. Thats not how we are taught, he said.

So heres the SafeMode story.

It starts, Mr. Hunter said, with $70 billion annually in avoidable costs in the trucking industry. That includes the costs of accidents.

Its a large market, Mr. Hunter said.

SafeMode is a software company that automates the job of a fleet manager. It helps firms monitor their drivers with the goal of improving safety. It accesses the cameras and sensors of different trucks, and drivers can access their driver data through the app. A lot of companies incentivize their drivers for safe driving, but its not always followed up on.

SafeMode claims that by monitoring drivers and rewarding them for safe practices, its been able cut fuel consumption by 4 percent and increase safety by 30 percent.

Thats a lot of money for fleets, Mr. Hunter said. It saves millions of dollars annually in repairs and in lawsuits.

Mr. Levy, SafeModes CEO, said the origins of the company came three months before he finished his IDF service, when a friends mother was killed by a drunk driver.

How could he make the world safer?

Mr. Levy connected with Dr. Erez Shmueli, a researcher in behavioral economics connected to the MIT Media Lab. He researched how we can change human behavior to shift drivers to drive more safely and more efficiently, Mr. Levy said. He joined me, and this is where we started to build the project.

These days, truck drivers are monitored remotely. Every heavy duty must have a connected device that sends data about the hours the driver drives, Mr. Levy said. Thats the most basic component of the monitoring. But trucking companies have installed monitors that detect speeding, acceleration, the distance the driver is keeping from other vehicles, and even cameras to track the drivers alertness.

Thats a lot of data. Fleet managers are overwhelmed, Mr. Levi said. We take all the data and bring it to the driver. We provide an app for the driver to open after every shift and see how they drove, and what they earned as a result of their behavior. They drove more efficiently, or had fewer breaking or speeding events.

The driver gets actual rewards based on their improvement, so they want to improve. For the first time, a driver gets positive engagement from their manager.

SafeMode recently partnered with Volvo.

Volvo makes a lot of 18 wheelers, Mr. Hunter said. Theyre starting to make SafeMode standard on a lot of their trucks.

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'It's called a job' - The Jewish Standard

Cell Biology

Where math meets biology – Penn: Office of University Communications

Open any biology textbook and it becomes instantly clear that this area of study is incredibly complex. From the atomic-level structure of DNA to the relationships between prey and predator populations, biology encompasses an incredibly broad spectrum of molecules, organisms, and systems, all of which scientists are trying to understand in detail.

Yoichiro Moris career is focused on developing mathematical solutions to help address unanswered questions in biology and, in turn, to invigorate mathematics by introducing new questions inspired by biological problems. His research demonstrates how a fundamental mathematical understanding can provide new insights into complex systems and lead to new theoretical developments. Now, as the Calabi-Simons Visiting Professorof Mathematics and Biology, he aims to foster connections between researchers at Penn.

Moris latest research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, stems from his interest in cell movement. Biologists have studied how cells rearrange their cytoskeleton, internal filaments that give cells structure, and use mechanical forces to move themselves forward. But theres a second force always acting on cells whose role in movement is less understood: osmosis. Osmotic and ionic regulation is a key component of cell biology, but biologists have yet to figure out if it could also play a role in how cells move.

Through a combination of experiments, conducted by collaborators at Johns Hopkins University, and mathematical models, the researchers found that its more advantageous for cells to use their osmosis-powered engines to move when they are in environments with high mechanical resistance, or where the space is crowded by cells or particles. They also found that having a cell membrane thats permeable to water also helped cells move more easily.

This paper is also one of the few studies that could directly compare osmotic engines with cell movement powered by the cytoskeleton, thanks in part to Moris previous work on how cells control their size. Mori was able to apply the thermodynamic framework to this problem, a technique that could be extended to other areas of biology in the future.

Despite his success in using math to help solve biological problems, Mori tries to stay humble. There are a lot of interesting biological questions, but many questions are not inherently mathematical, he says. Part of the challenge is that many systems in biology are quite complicated, especially compared to other natural sciences, like physics, where systems can be modeled more easily. Biology data are also more variable, and there is more uncertainty about how systems actually work.

Science has different phases, Mori explains. At the beginning you have to name things; the first thing is to list everything, and its only then that you can start to understand relationships. Most of biology up to the end of the 20th century was spent on naming things, but with molecular biology we can now start talking about relationships. Now, mathematics can start to play an important role.

Moris own unique academic path has also helped him see firsthand the role of math in biology. While attending medical school at the University of Tokyo, he realized that his passion for math and physics was stronger than for clinical medicine or benchtop research. After finishing his board exams, he made the seemingly unorthodox decision to join a Ph.D. program in mathematics at New York University. I have a lot of respect for experimentalists, in particular because I failed so miserably, says Mori. I found that scribbling equations on paper is the only thing I can actually do, and what I do is comparatively quite easy.

As the Calabi-Simons Visiting Professor, and co-director of the Center for Mathematical Biology, Mori aims to promote this area of research at Penn by bringing together faculty, graduate students, and researchers working at the interface of fundamental mathematics and other fields in the natural sciences like biology and medicine.

Theres so much exciting science going on in every corner of Penn, and I think there can be some really interesting collaborations and synergies, says Mori, adding that Penns strong history in soft condensed matter physics and the research portfolio of the medical school will also be instrumental in his own work on mathematical physiology and biophysics.

Mori also emphasizes Penns collaborative spirit as essential for future progress in this field. What I found through the years is that if you want to do really interesting things, you dont just sit in your office and think, you have to go talk to people. Getting ideas from other people, sharing your ideas with other people, and working with people are essential.

This research was supported by National Science Foundation Grant DMS-1620316.

Yoichiro Mori is the Calabi-Simons Visiting Professor ofMathematics and Biology with appointments in the Department of Mathematics and the Department of Biology in the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania.

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Where math meets biology - Penn: Office of University Communications

Cell Biology

Novel out-of-this-world approach to cancer research – News-Medical.net

Australia's first space research mission to the International Space Station (ISS) will attempt to establish how some of the most aggressive cancer cells behave in a zero-gravity environment.

University of Technology (UTS) researcher Dr Joshua Chou is looking to replicate the promising results of experiments he has carried out on cancer cells in the zero-gravity chamber built by his team in the UTS School of Biomedical Engineering.

Dr Chou organized the first ever Space Biology Symposium at UTS bringing together scientists, investors, government and space enthusiasts to consider advances in space biology and medicine. Topics included research and development of new types of pharmaceuticals, engineered tissues, and emerging medical technologies.

He also announced details of the ISS mission to determine how microgravity can affect some of the hardest cancers to kill: ovarian, breast, nose and lung.

UTS will work with YURI, a German company founded to enable and expand research and commercial applications in microgravity. It will provide the hardware - a bio-module - which will carry the cells into space.

he believes the mission findings could signal to the Australian research community that the era of space biology and medicine is well and truly here.

Cancer involves some body cells dividing uncontrollably and invading tissue, with the cells coming together to form a solid tumor which continues to grow until a point in which the cells are 'signaled' to invade the body.

No one knows exactly when that point is reached.

There must be a means by which cancer cells 'feel' and 'sense' each other in order to form a tumour. We know the only way cancer cells sense their surroundings is through mechanical forces. And those forces only exist when there's gravity."

Dr. Joshua Chou, UTS researcher

In tests in a microgravity environment at UTS, 80 to 90 per cent of the cells in the cancer types were disabled - they either die or float off because they can no longer hold on.

"We're ready to verify if the cells do the same thing in space. My hope is to confirm what we found in the lab and be able to identify new targets and introduce a drug that 'tricks' the cancer cell into thinking it's in space when it's actually still on Earth," he said.

"My vision is that this drug would work alongside existing treatments to improve treatment timespan and efficiency.

"It would not be a magic bullet, but it could give current treatments like chemotherapy a big enough boost to kill the disease."

Dr Chou's previous experience of how the space environment impacts understanding of cell biology and disease progression occurred in research he did at Harvard that created the osteoporotic drug EVENITY. It was developed from research conducted at the ISS, and has been on the market and helping patients for six months.

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Novel out-of-this-world approach to cancer research - News-Medical.net

Cell Biology

Study Shows Unborn Babies See More Than We Knew – The Daily Wire

A new study has given more information confirming the status of the unborn child as a being who should not be regarded as anything other than a child: by the second trimester, when the unborn child can detect light in the developing retina, the cells sensing light connect to the perihabenula, which regulates mood, and the amygdala, which is involved with ones emotional state.

Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley have gone beyond known information that already found the retina in the unborn child sensed light in order to help the child become accustomed to 24-hour, day-night rhythms. As Science Daily explains:

In the developing eye, perhaps 3% of ganglion cells the cells in the retina that send messages through the optic nerve into the brain are sensitive to light and, to date, researchers have found about six different subtypes that communicate with various places in the brain. Some talk to the suprachiasmatic nucleus to tune our internal clock to the day-night cycle. Others send signals to the area that makes our pupils constrict in bright light.

Science Daily noted, UC Berkeley graduate student Franklin Caval-Holme combined two-photon calcium imaging, whole-cell electrical recording, pharmacology and anatomical techniques to show that the six types of ipRGCs in the newborn mouse retina link up electrically, via gap junctions, to form a retinal network that the researchers found not only detects light, but responds to the intensity of the light, which can vary nearly a billionfold.

Marla Feller, a UC Berkeley professor of molecular and cell biology, wrote in Current Biology,Given the variety of these ganglion cells and that they project to many different parts of the brain, it makes me wonder whether they play a role in how the retina connects up to the brain. Maybe not for visual circuits, but for non-vision behaviors. Not only the pupillary light reflex and circadian rhythms, but possibly explaining problems like light-induced migraines, or why light therapy works for depression.

Feller added:

We thought they (mouse pups and the human fetus) were blind at this point in development. We thought that the ganglion cells were there in the developing eye, that they are connected to the brain, but that they were not really connected to much of the rest of the retina, at that point. Now, it turns out they are connected to each other, which was a surprising thing In the past, people demonstrated that these light-sensitive cells are important for things like the development of the blood vessels in the retina and light entrainment of circadian rhythms, but those were kind of a light on/light off response, where you need some light or no light. This seems to argue that they are actually trying to code for many different intensities of light, encoding much more information than people had previously thought.

She concluded, In conclusion, we have provided a complete characterization of encoding of ambient light in the neonatal retina and reveal for the first time that gap junction coupling significantly contributes to the heterogeneity of ipRGC light responses. The strength of gap junction coupling is modulated by dopamine, providing a powerful source of modulation of light responses prior to maturation of intraretinal circuits.

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Study Shows Unborn Babies See More Than We Knew - The Daily Wire

Cell Biology

Live Cell Imaging Market 2019 Research Report Overview by Top Key Players, Opportunities, Key Drivers, Application and Regional Outlook To 2027 -…

Global Live Cell Imaging Industry Analysis of the value chain helps to analyze major raw materials, major equipment, production processes, customer analysis and major Live Cell Imaging Market distributors. A comprehensive analysis of the statistics, market share, performance of the company, historical analysis Till 2018, volume, revenue, growth rate of YOY and CAGR forecast for 2027 is included in the report. Research Report also provides explicit information in recent years on mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures and other important market activities. Research Analysis report also provides Porter analysis, PESTEL analysis and market attractiveness to better understand the macro-and micro-level market scenario. Live Cell Imaging report also includes a detailed description, a competitive scenario, a wide range of market leaders and business strategies adopted by competitors with their analysis of SWOT.

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MARKET INTRODUCTION

Live cell imaging is the technique to study live cells with the help of images obtained from imaging systems such as high content screening systems and microscopes. This method is used by the scientists to obtain a better view of the cells biological function by studying the cellular dynamics. In recent years, live cell imaging technology has been widely accepted by various researchers to obtain a better knowledge regarding cell biology. Live cell imaging plays a crucial role in research fields such as neurology, immunology, microbiology and, genetics among others.

MARKET DYNAMICS

Rise in the number of cancer cases along with increase in the number of government funds for R&D activities are expected to be the driving factor in the market in the future years. Use of live cell imaging in the field of personalized medicine is expected to provide growth opportunities in the live cell imaging market during the forecast period.

The report also includes the profiles of key live cell imaging market companies along with their SWOT analysis and market strategies. In addition, the report focuses on leading industry players with information such as company profiles, components and services offered, financial information of last 3 years, key development in past five years.

Key Competitors In Market are

TOC pointsof Market Report:

Market size & shares

Market trends and dynamics

Market Drivers and Opportunities

Competitive landscape

Supply and demand

Technological inventions in industry

Marketing Channel Development Trend

Market Positioning

Pricing Strategy

Brand Strategy

Target Client

MARKET SCOPE

The Global Live Cell Imaging Market Analysis to 2027 is a specialized and in-depth study with a special focus on the global medical device market trend analysis. The report aims to provide an overview of live cell imaging market with detailed market segmentation by product, technology, application, end users and geography. The global live cell imaging market is expected to witness high growth during the forecast period. The report provides key statistics on the market status of the leading live cell imaging market players and offers key trends and opportunities in the market.

Market segmentation:

Live Cell Imaging Market to 2027 Global Analysis and Forecasts By Product (Equipment, Kits and Reagents, Software, Consumables); Technology (Fluorescence Recovery After Photobleaching, Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer, High-content Analysis, Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization, Others); Application (Drug Discovery, Cell Biology, Developmental Biology,, Stem Cells, Others); End User (Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology Companies, Hospitals, Diagnostic Laboratories, Others) and Geography

By Geography North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific (APAC), Middle East and Africa (MEA) and South & Central America. And 13 countries globally along with current trend and opportunities prevailing in the region.

The target audience for the report on the market

Manufactures

Market analysts

Senior executives

Business development managers

Technologists

R&D staff

Distributors

Investors

Governments

Equity research firms

Consultants

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The Insight Partnersis a one stop industry research provider of actionable intelligence. We help our clients in getting solutions to their research requirements through our syndicated and consulting research services. We are committed to provide highest quality research and consulting services to our customers. We help our clients understand the key market trends, identify opportunities, and make informed decisions with our market research offerings at an affordable cost.

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Cell Biology

Aiming to to Form Biological Patterns, Scientists Dissect and Redesign Protein-Based Pattern Formation – SciTechDaily

Different patterns formed by the teams minimal biochemical interaction networks. The modular replacements for MinE create this diverse set of patterns when co-reconstituted with MinD on membranes. Credit: Glock et al. CC BY 4.0

Probing the functional segments, or motifs, of proteins has helped scientists identify the minimal ingredients needed for them to form biological patterns.

Writing in the journal eLife, the researchers describe how they dissected the biological phenomenon of protein pattern formation into its main functional modules, and then rebuilt the process from the ground up in a completely new way.

Proteins self-organize to form patterns in living cells, which are essential for key functions such as cell division, communication, and movement. A striking example is the MinDE system of the bacterium Escherichia coli (E. coli). This system produces oscillations of two protein types, MinD and MinE, between two poles of the rod-shaped bacteria, positioning the machinery for cell division to midcell. It can be reconstituted in the laboratory, allowing scientists to control and manipulate the functional elements needed for pattern formation via protein mutations.

Because of its simplicity, the MinDE system has been invaluable in understanding the mechanisms of protein-based pattern formation, says Philipp Glock, a Ph.D. student at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Munich, Germany, and co-lead author alongside Fridtjof Brauns and Jacob Halatek, both from the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich. A key question that remains is whether this structural and functional complexity can be reduced further to reveal a set of minimal ingredients for pattern formation.

To answer this, Glock and his colleagues created a minimalistic version of MinE, which plays an antagonistic role in the two-protein MinDE system, by dissecting the protein in a set of core functional motifs, guided by theoretical modeling. One motif, the short helical sequence of amino acids which MinE uses to interact with MinD, is not enough to produce patterns on its own. But adding other functional motifs of MinE one at a time enabled the scientists to fully design new minimal pattern-forming protein mutants.

The team found that at least one other functional motif is required to form patterns. This can either be a motif for membrane binding or a dimerizing motif, which binds to other molecules of the same kind. Neither of these motifs needs to be from native MinE, but can be replaced and potentially simplified further.

Mathematical modeling then allowed the authors to explain why these features are required and how they enable patterns to form. Moreover, they predicted how these patterns adapt to the cell shape in E. coli. The team says that testing these predictions is an exciting goal for future experiments.

Our work provides a starting point for a modular and tunable experimental platform to design protein-based pattern formation from the bottom-up, says Petra Schwille, PhD, Director of the Department of Cellular and Molecular Biophysics at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, and co-senior author alongside theoretical physicist Erwin Frey, from the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich. She adds that while the patterns created by the new system are less regular than those formed by the native MinDE system, they are still sufficient for reproducing and studying basic biological processes.

The model can now be used to study which functional features, regardless of a particular protein system, need to be combined to allow for self-organization and pattern formation in biology. Our modular approach may also provide the necessary data for computer modeling of pattern formation in other types of bacteria, as well as more complex organisms, Schwille concludes.

Reference: Design of biochemical pattern forming systems from minimal motifs by Philipp Glock, Fridtjof Brauns, Jacob Halatek, Erwin Frey and Petra Schwille, 26 November 2019, eLife.DOI: 10.7554/eLife.48646

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Aiming to to Form Biological Patterns, Scientists Dissect and Redesign Protein-Based Pattern Formation - SciTechDaily

Cell Biology

Understanding the Origin of the Cell Organelle and how it is Maintained – TrendinTech

The body is a complex station that is in continuous operation morning, noon, and night. Whatever the hour, our bodies are working hard to make and maintain the various substances needed for us to operate efficiently.

Anytime a substance enters a cell it gets engulfed by some of the cells outer membrane and forms a sac as the result. This sac then becomes a carrier of the substance inside the cell. After this, the cell then merges with an organelle called an endosome.

Endosomes are often referred to as a kind of sorting station. From here the substance either gets recycled and churned back into the cell membrane or it gets thrown forward to the lysosome where it is broken down ready for degradation.

The general consensus is that these endosomes are maintained by a process which allows vesicles moving from the cell membrane to keep fusing into them. However, a recent study published in Communications Biology, suggests these vesicles are far more important than that and play a crucial role in both the formation and maintenance of endosomes.

We used our research to show that endocytic vesicle internalization is not essential, but that vesicle transport from the trans-Golgi network is crucial, states the team from the Tokyo University of Science, who is responsible for the research.

The results of the study were obtained from a series of experiments which introduced either mutations or two drugs, called Brefeldin A and Monensin, into the yeast cell. At first, mutant yeast strains were used. They chose to use these strains as they contain mutations responsible for causing defects during the endocytosis process which in turn, hamper the ingestion of substances at the cell membrane.

When looking at the mutated cells, what they discovered was the protein called Rab5, which is responsible for mediating the formation of endosomes, carried on as normal, initiating and leading normal endosome formation.

The next part of the experiment involved introducing the two drugs into the yeast cell in which to try and stop the transportation of certain vesicles. In doing this they noted that endosome formation was hampered with smaller amounts of Rab5 localized on the endosomes.

After carrying out further experiments, the leader of the study, Prof Jiro Toshima, along with his group, saw that some proteins which are already present in the Golgi or are recruited there, are those responsible for activating Rab5 and the formation of endosomes.

Gathering all the information obtained from these experiments, the team concluded that endocytosis is not required for the formation of endosomes, but the movement from the Golgi is. Our results provide a different view of endosome formation and identify the TGN as a critical location for optimal maintenance and functioning of endosomes, says Toshima. And it is this kind of knowledge that could help in the development of better treatments for a wide range of diseases.

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Immunology

Herpes Virus Variant Linked to MS Onset – Technology Networks

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have developed a new method to separate between two different types of a common herpes virus (HHV-6) that has been linked to multiple sclerosis. By analyzing antibodies in the blood against the most divergent proteins of herpesvirus 6A and 6B, the researchers were able to show that MS-patients carry the herpesvirus 6A to a greater extent than healthy individuals. The findings, published in Frontiers in Immunology, point to a role for HHV-6A in the development of MS.

Multiple sclerosis, MS, is an autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system. The cause of the disease is unclear, but one plausible explanation is a virus tricks the immune system to attack the body's own tissue. Human Herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6) has previously been associated with MS, but in those studies it wasn't possible to distinguish between 6A and 6B. Through virus isolation from ill individuals, researchers have been able to show that HHV-6B can cause mild conditions such as roseola in children, but it has been unclear if HHV-6A is the cause of any disease.

According to estimates, as many as 80 percent of all children are infected with the HHV-6 virus before 2 years of age, and many also carry protection in the form of antibodies against this particular virus for the rest of their lives. But since it hasn't been possible to tell the two variants apart post-infection, it has been difficult to say whether HHV-6A or B is a risk factor for MS.

In this study, however, the researchers were able to distinguish between the A and B virus by analyzing antibodies in the blood against the proteins--immediate early protein 1A and 1B (IE1A and IE1B)--that diverge the most between the two viruses.

"This is a big breakthrough for both the MS and herpes virus research," says Anna Fogdell-Hahn, associate professor at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet and one of the study's senior authors. "For one, it supports the theory that HHV-6A could be a contributing factor to the development of MS. On top of that, we are now able, with this new method, to find out how common these two different types of HHV-6 are, something we haven't been able to do previously."

The researchers compared antibody levels in blood samples of some 8,700 MS-patients against more than 7,200 healthy people whose gender, date of birth, date of blood sample and other factors matched those with MS. They concluded that people with MS had a 55 percent higher risk of carrying antibodies against the HHV-6A protein than the control group. In a sub-group of almost 500 people, whose blood samples were drawn before the onset of the disease, the risk of developing MS in the future was more than doubled if they had a 6A viral infection. The younger the people were when the virus was first discovered in the blood, the higher the risk was of developing MS in the future. HHV-6B, on the other hand, was not positively associated with MS. Instead MS-patients had lower levels of antibodies toward IE1B than those without MS.

Antibodies toward Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), another herpes virus that is also associated with MS, were analyzed with the same method and the researchers were able to show that individuals affected with both viruses had an even greater risk of MS. This indicates that several virus infections could be acting jointly to increase the risk of MS.

"Both HHV-6A and 6B can infect our braincells, but they do it in slightly different ways. Therefore, it is now interesting to go forward and attempt to map out exactly how the viruses could affect the onset of MS," says Anna Fogdell-Hahn.

Reference: Engdahl, E., Gustafsson, R., Huang, J., Bistrm, M., Lima Bomfim, I., Stridh, P., Fogdell-Hahn, A. (2019). Increased Serological Response Against Human Herpesvirus 6A Is Associated With Risk for Multiple Sclerosis. Frontiers in Immunology, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2019.02715

This article has been republished from the following materials. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

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Herpes Virus Variant Linked to MS Onset - Technology Networks