Lifeboat Foundation

Engineers at Duke University have devised a system for manipulating particles approaching the miniscule 2.5 nanometer diameter of DNA using sound-induced electric fields. Dubbed “acoustoelectronic nanotweezers,” the approach provides a label-free, dynamically controllable method of moving and trapping nanoparticles over a large area. The technology holds promise for applications in the fields ranging from condensed matter physics to biomedicine.

The research appears online on June 22 in Nature Communications.

Precisely controlling nanoparticles is a crucial ability for many emerging technologies. For example, separating exosomes and other tiny biological molecules from blood could lead to new types of diagnostic tests for the early detection of tumors and neurodegenerative diseases. Placing engineered nanoparticles in a specific pattern before fixing them in place can help create new types of materials with highly tunable properties.

Circa 2020

Self-propelling magnetic nanorobots capable of intrinsic-navigation in biological fluids with enhanced pharmacokinetics and deeper tissue penetration implicates promising strategy in targeted cancer therapy. Here, multi-component magnetic nanobot designed by chemically conjugating magnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles (NPs), anti-epithelial cell adhesion molecule antibody (anti-EpCAM mAb) to multi-walled carbon nanotubes (CNT) loaded with an anticancer drug, doxorubicin hydrochloride (DOX) is reported. Autonomous propulsion of the nanobots and their external magnetic guidance is enabled by enriching Fe3O4 NPs with dual catalytic-magnetic functionality. The nanobots propel at high velocities even in complex biological fluids. In addition, the nanobots preferably release DOX in the intracellular lysosomal compartment of human colorectal carcinoma (HCT116) cells by the opening of Fe3O4 NP gate.

Physics World

Experiment shows that classical clocks exhibit the same relationship between entropy and accuracy as their quantum counterparts.

Light-driven molecular motors have been around for over 20 years. These motors typically take microseconds to nanoseconds for one revolution. Thomas Jansen, associate professor of physics at the University of Groningen, and Master’s student Atreya Majumdar have now designed an even faster molecular motor. The new design is driven by light only and can make a full turn in picoseconds using the power of a single photon. Jansen says, “We have developed a new out-of-the-box design for a motor molecule that is much faster.” The design was published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters on 7 June.

The new motor molecule design started with a project in which Jansen wanted to understand the energy landscape of excited chromophores. “These chromophores can attract or repel each other. I wondered if we could use this to make them do something,” explains Jansen. He gave the project to Atreya Majumdar, then a first-year student in the Top Master’s degree program in Nanoscience in Groningen. Majumdar simulated the interaction between two chromophores that were connected to form a single molecule.

Nanobots, tiny nano-sized robots and vehicles that can navigate through blood vessels to reach the site of a disease could be used to deliver drugs to tumours that are otherwise difficult to treat.

Once injected or swallowed, most drugs rely upon the movement of body fluids to find their way around the body. It means that some types of disease can be difficult to treat effectively in this way.

One aggressive type of brain tumour known as glioblastoma, for example, kills hundreds of thousands of people a year. But because it produces finger-like projections into a patient’s brain tissue that damage the blood vessels around them, it is hard for drugs to reach the tumour site.

Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego have developed immune cell-mimicking nanoparticles that target inflammation in the lungs and deliver drugs directly where they’re needed. As a proof of concept, the researchers filled the nanoparticles with the drug dexamethasone and administered them to mice with inflamed lung tissue. Inflammation was completely treated in mice given the nanoparticles, at a drug concentration where standard delivery methods did not have any efficacy.

The researchers reported their findings in Science Advances on June 16.

What’s special about these nanoparticles is that they are coated in a cell membrane that’s been genetically engineered to look for and bind to inflamed lung cells. They are the latest in the line of so-called cell membrane-coated nanoparticles that have been developed by the lab of UC San Diego nanoengineering professor Liangfang Zhang. His lab has previously used cell membrane-coated nanoparticles to absorb toxins produced by MRSA; treat sepsis; and train the immune system to fight cancer. But while these previous cell membranes were naturally derived from the body’s cells, the cell membranes used to coat this dexamethasone-filled nanoparticle were not.

Check out my short video in which I explain some super exciting research in the area of nanotechnology: de novo protein lattices! I specifically discuss a journal article by Ben-Sasson et al. titled “Design of biologically active binary protein 2D materials”.

Here, I explain an exciting nanotechnology paper “Design of biologically active binary protein 2D materials” (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-03120-8).

Continue reading “Synthetic protein lattices explained” »

Circa 2015

Coatings that attract water (hydrophilic) are useful for anti-fogging applications⁶; any liquid water spreads out into a thin film thereby maintaining transparency. This is more favorable than using hydrophobic surfaces for anti-fogging as this requires a surface to be tilted for the droplets to roll off and transparency be maintained. Hydrophilic surfaces can also be used for self-cleaning⁷. Previous examples of superhydrophilic surfaces include the use of polymer–nanoparticle coatings^8,9,10,11 however mechanical durability was not investigated.

Coatings with surface tensions lower than that of water (72 mN m^–1) but higher than that of oils¹² (20–30 mN m^–1) will attract oils (oleophilic) but repel water and can be used to create oil–water separators^13,14,15. When applied to a porous substrate, the coating will allow the passage of oil but block the passage of water, resulting in their separation. In addition, their water repellency also makes them ideal for self-cleaning^4,16 and anti-icing^17,18,19 applications. Anti-icing surfaces are typically superhydrophobic as supercooled droplets of water are able to roll off the cold surface before freezing and any ice formed is weakly adhered compared to hydrophilic surfaces due to an air cushion^18,20.

Continue reading “Bioinspired, roughness-induced, water and oil super-philic and super-phobic coatings prepared” »

Circa 2019

The evolution of micro and nanofabrication approaches significantly spurred the advancements of cardiac tissue engineering over the last decades. Engineering in the micro and nanoscale allows for the rebuilding of heart tissues using cardiomyocytes. The breakthrough of human induced pluripotent stem cells expanded this field rendering the development of human tissues from adult cells possible, thus avoiding the ethical issues of the usage of embryonic stem cells but also creating patient-specific human engineered tissues. In the case of the heart, the combination of cardiomyocytes derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells and micro/nano engineering devices gave rise to new therapeutic approaches of cardiac diseases. In this review, we survey the micro and nanofabrication methods used for cardiac tissue engineering, ranging from clean room-based patterning (such as photolithography and plasma etching) to electrospinning and additive manufacturing. Subsequently, we report on the main approaches of microfluidics for cardiac culture systems, the so-called “Heart on a Chip”, and we assess their efficacy for future development of cardiac disease modeling and drug screening platforms.