IIn the latest episode of Papers Illuminated – Člankarnica we are joined by Elvira Boršič Mlinarič, who walks us through her recently published paper on NLRP3 inflammasome activation. We talk about how immune sensors detect danger in the cell, why where proteins gather can matter as much as what they sense, and how clustering on membranes or protein scaffolds triggers inflammatory responses. Together, we unpack complex molecular immunology concepts and place them into a broader biological and biomedical context, from fundamental mechanisms to disease relevance. An episode for anyone curious about how cells recognize trouble and respond.

🔬 Read the paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-60277-4

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In the Papers Illuminated - Člankarnica podcast, together with researchers from the National Institute of Chemistry, we present interesting and accessible explanations of their latest discoveries, published in prestigious scientific journals. We invite you to follow us on social media and send us your questions, comments, and suggestions.

https://www.ki.si/o-institutu/podkast/clankarnica/

In this episode of Papers Illuminated – Člankarnica, we talk with Tilen Potisk, co-author of a cutting-edge paper that develops advanced particle-based models for microbubbles and nanoscale gas vesicles, two of the most important structures used in modern biomedical ultrasound.

Tilen walks us through why encapsulated microbubbles and protein-based gas vesicles matter for imaging and drug delivery, what distinguishes them, and why modeling their mechanical behavior has been so challenging until now. This conversation opens up the nanoscale world behind ultrasound contrast agents and highlights how physics-based simulations can guide the design of next-generation therapeutic carriers. If you’re interested in soft matter physics, biomedicine, modeling, or simply enjoy clear explanations of complex science, you’ll love this episode.

🔬 Read the paper: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsanm.5c02783

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In the Papers Illuminated - Člankarnica podcast, together with researchers from the National Institute of Chemistry, we present interesting and accessible explanations of their latest discoveries, published in prestigious scientific journals. We invite you to follow us on social media and send us your questions, comments, and suggestions.

https://www.ki.si/o-institutu/podkast/clankarnica/

What if a key breakthrough for affordable green hydrogen was sitting in a lab drawer for years, just waiting for the right team to discover it? In this episode of Papers Illuminated, we're joined by Dr. Milutin Smiljanić from the National Institute of Chemistry to explore his team's groundbreaking research on a new catalyst platform that could significantly reduce the cost of producing green hydrogen.

We dive into two of their recent papers, published in ACS Catalysis and the Chemical Engineering Journal, which detail how they engineered a solution by combining ruthenium—a much cheaper alternative to platinum—with a unique titanium oxynitride support. Their work creates a highly efficient and durable catalyst for splitting water.

🔬 Read the studies: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1385894725050399

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acscatal.5c02831

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In the Papers Illuminated - Člankarnica podcast, together with researchers from the National Institute of Chemistry, we present interesting and accessible explanations of their latest discoveries, published in prestigious scientific journals. We invite you to follow us on social media and send us your questions, comments, and suggestions.

https://www.ki.si/o-institutu/podkast/clankarnica/