Recent advances in stem cell biology have shown that terminally differentiated somatic cells can be directly converted to the different types of somatic cells such as neurons and cardiomyocytes with defined sets of transcription factors without going through a pluripotent state. Recently, it was demonstrated that the hepatocyte-specific transcription factors, Hnf4α plus Foxa1, Foxa2 or Foxa3 could erase somatic memory and reset hepatocyte program on the differentiated somatic genome. Here, we show that Foxa3 together with Hnf4α could efficiently reprogram fibroblasts into hepatocytes. However, the direct conversion into hepatocytes is not observed with Hnf4α plus Foxa1. After two weeks of retroviral transduction of Hnf4α and Foxa3, we observed epithelial colonies emerged from starting fibroblasts and were able to establish stable hepatocyte cell lines, namely induced hepatocytes (iHep cells). The iHep cells closely resemble primary hepatocytes in a number of characteristics such as their polygonal shapes, the hepatic gene expression patterns and the presence of E-cadherin signals as determined by immunocytochemistry. In addition, iHep cells show the storage of glycogen as revealed by Periodic acid-Schiff (PAS) staining, indicating that iHep cells are functionally similar to their in vivo counterparts. Taken together, our findings suggest that the combination of hepatic transcription factors, Hnf4α with Foxa3 but not Foxa1 could induce hepatocyte fate on the differentiated somatic cells.

High-purity and super-hard nano-polycrystalline diamond has been successfully synthesized by direct conversion from high-purity graphite under static pressures above 15 GPa and temperatures above . This paper describes research findings on the formation mechanism of nano-structure and on the contributing factor leading to high hardness.

In this study, the thermo-catalytic hydrogenation using corn stark and wasted palm kernel shell was carried out for the production of hydrocarbon compounds in direct biomass liquefaction. The conversion of biomass in direct biomass liquefaction over Mo-based catalyst increased with increasing the reaction temperature and the content of the volatile matter contained in biomass and the corn starch was more available than the wasted palm kernel shell. And then, the conversion was about 97.9% using corn starch and was about 92.4% using wasted palm kernel shell at 400oC. It was confirmed that the liquefied products obtained after the thermo-catalytic reaction were C6, C7, C8-typed hydrocarbon compounds.

최근 디지털 방사선 영상획득을 위한 평판형 X선 검출기에 이용되는 광도전체(a-Se, HgI2, PbO, CdTe, PbI2 등)에 대한 관심이 증대되고 있다. 본 연구에서는 입자침전법 적용이 가능한 광도전 물질을 이용하여 X선 영상 검출기 적용을 위한 필름층을 제작하여 평가하였다. 먼저, X선 영상에서 일반적으로 사용되는 에너지대역인 70 kVp 의 연속 X선에 대한 필름 두께별 양자효율을 몬테카를로 시뮬레이션을 통해 조사하였다. 평가결과, 현재 상용화된 500 μm 두께의 a-Se 필름에 대한 양자효율인 64 %와 유사한 HgI2의 필름의 두께는 180 μm 정도였으며, 240 μm 두께에서 74 %의높은 양자효율을 보였다. 입자침전법을 이용하여 제작된 239 μm 필름에 대한 전기적 측정결과, 10 pA/mm2 이하의 매우 낮은 암전류를 보였으며, X선 민감도는 1 V/μm의 인가전압에서 19.8 mC/mR-sec의 높은 감도를 보였다. 영상의대조도에 영향을 미치는 신호 대 잡음비 평가결과 0.8 V/μm의 낮은 동작전압에서 3,125의 높은 값을 보였으며, 전기장의 세기가 높아질수록 암전류의 급격한 증가에 의해 SNR 값이 지수적으로 감소하였다. 이러한 결과는 종래의 a-Se을 이용하는 평판형 검출기를 입자 침전법으로 제작 가능한 필름으로 대체하여 저가형 고성능 영상검출기 개발이 가능할 것으로 기대된다.