Researchers from Aarhus University and Caltech have developed a method to build much larger, though still nanosize, RNA scaffolds than previously thought possible using RNA origami. The method is based on new software that has been made available online so other researchers can use it to develop biosensors, nanorobots and medicine – including vaccines, for example.

This summer, Aarhus University will welcome Professor Anja-Verena Mudring when she joins the Department of Chemistry. Professor Mudring is one of the world's top researchers in the field of materials research. She is one of the leaders in materials development for energy conversion, and she has made a particularly prominent impression in the field of ionic liquids, which may help sustainable technologies for green energy in the future.

Why spend time wading through streams and rivers to catch insects and other small animals with finely meshed nets, when all you need is their DNA in a water sample to check the biodiversity in the watercourse? Using this method, which is called environmental DNA (eDNA), researchers from Aarhus University have detected 212 different species of invertebrates in five Danish watercourses. Twelve of these are entirely new species, never detected in Denmark before.

Every year, the Aarhus University Research Foundation awards PhD prizes to five young researchers with extraordinary talent. The five award recipients have all made a name for themselves, both with their results and with the way they have communicated the results.

A research group at Aarhus University has found a way to transform a naturally occurring substance class that is toxic for both bacteria and mammals so that it is only toxic for bacteria, including antibiotic-resistant bacteria. This means that polyether ionophores, as the substances are called, could be candidates for the antibiotics of the future.

A new partnership between Skrydstrup Group (iNANO & Dept. of Chemistry, Aarhus University), Vestas, Olin, and the Danish Technological Institute collides industry and research to support circularity of wind turbine blades. The CETEC project paves the way for manufacturing new blades using materials from old turbine blades, thereby creating fully recyclable wind turbines.

Chemically synthesized short DNA sequences are extremely important ingredients with countless uses in research laboratories, hospitals and in industry, like in the method for identifying COVID-19. Phosporamidites are necessary building blocks in the production of DNA sequences, but they are unstable, and break quickly. PhD Alexander Sandahl (Professor Kurt Gothelf's group) has, in collaboration with a researcher in Professor Troels Skrydstrup developed a new patented way to quickly and efficiently manufacture the unstable building blocks immediately before they are to be used and thus streamline DNA production.

Professor of biology Signe Normand from Aarhus University is one of the five recipients of the Elite Research Prize for 2021. There are also Elite Research travel grants for two PhD students from the Department of Computer Science and Department of Bioscience. The awards will be presented at an event at the Ministry of Higher Education and Science on 10 August.

Andreas Sommerfeldt, PhD in chemistry and nanotechnology from Department of Chemistry and iNano at Aarhus University has won the PhD Cup final. The competition was broadcast on the Danish television channel DR 2 on Friday 30 April.