Nanotechnology – Lifeboat News: The Blog

Mar 5
2026

Ribosome organization during stress!

“Surprisingly, the two ribosomes are not held together by proteins, as is common in bacteria. Instead, the connection is made by a specific piece of ribosomal RNA called an expansion segment”, explains one of the lead authors.

Expansion segments are long, flexible RNA “tentacles” that protrude from ribosomes and have grown larger over the course of evolution. Although they are a prominent feature of animal ribosomes, their functions only just started to emerge. This study now shows that one particular expansion segment, called “31b”, is both necessary and sufficient to link ribosomes together during stress. At the molecular level, the expansion segment forms a precise RNA-RNA interaction — a so-called “kissing loop” — in which identical RNA loops bind each other through complementary sequences. Disrupting this interaction prevents disome formation, stunts cellular growth and makes cells more sensitive to stress. Science Mission sciencenewshighlights.

Ribosomes, the cell’s protein-making factories, consume large amounts of energy as they build the proteins that keep cells alive and functioning. When cells experience stress — such as lack of nutrients or sudden drops in temperature — they quickly switch into survival mode. New research now reveals an unexpected way cells manage this transition: By pairing up inactive ribosomes using a ribosomal RNA link. This RNA-based mechanism reveals a previously unknown role for ribosomal RNA in the cellular stress response.

Ribosomes are large molecular machines made of protein and RNA that build all proteins in the cell. Because protein production is extremely energy-intensive, cells rapidly reduce protein synthesis when stressed. It has long been known that bacterial cells pair their inactive ribosomes into so-called “hibernating disomes” however, such structures had not previously been identified in animal cells.

Using advanced imaging techniques, the team discovered that stressed animal cells — including neurons — assemble inactive ribosomes into tightly linked pairs, known as disomes. These ribosome pairs are not accidental collisions or artifacts, but a regulated and reversible response to stress. The new study was published in Science.

Mar 5
2026

Thermogenetics: How proteins are controllable by heat

Protein activity can be precisely regulated via subtle changes in temperature using heat-sensitive switches. Underlying this capability is a novel modular design strategy developed by researchers at the Institute of Pharmacy and Molecular Biotechnology of Heidelberg University. The strategy allows the integration of sensory domains in various proteins regardless of function or spatial structure.

This new approach in the field of thermogenetics is broadly applicable and opens up new possibilities for precise, non-invasive control of different cellular processes. It was developed by a research team led by Prof. Dr. Dominik Niopek and Dr. Jan Mathony and is published in Nature Chemical Biology

Proteins are the molecular machines of the cell. They regulate nearly all vital processes and their responses are highly dynamic. To better understand these processes and their chronological sequence, scientists need tools that can be used to change individual parameters precisely and in a controlled manner. The most suitable proteins are those that can be turned on and off like technical devices. Especially attractive in this context are heat-sensitive protein switches that tightly regulate the temperature spatiotemporally and are able to deeply penetrate tissue or complex biological samples as a signal.

Mar 5
2026

‘Nano-origami’ reshapes liquid droplets into six-pointed stars

For the first time, researchers in France and Israel have observed how an emulsified liquid droplet can transform from a hexagon into a six-pointed star shape in response to rising temperature. Publishing their results in Physical Review Letters, a team led by Eli Sloutskin at Bar-Ilan University has shed new light on the mechanisms underlying this striking behavior, revealing a previously unseen form of “nano-origami,” that could inspire future generations of self-assembling nanostructures.

When tiny amounts of liquid are isolated, surface tension usually drives them to adopt a spherical shape—but over the past decade, researchers have uncovered far more complex behavior in emulsions of oil and water. In these systems, droplets are stabilized by surfactant molecules, which reduce the surface tension between the two liquids.

Under carefully controlled temperature changes, these droplets can undergo dramatic shape transformations. Previous studies have shown spheres turning into icosahedra, and then flattening into triangular, parallelogram or hexagonal, lens-like shapes with exclusively convex edges.

Mar 4
2026

Poking a nanostring: Scientists uncover energy cascades in tiny resonators

Scientists at TU Delft have designed a nanostring that, when poked, doesn’t lose its energy to the environment immediately. Instead, the energy leaks out within the string, triggering a cascade of distinct vibrational modes. For the first time, researchers have observed this cascade reaching all the way up to the fifth mode, while only actuating the first mode.

This discovery offers new insights that could benefit the development of extremely sensitive sensors. The results have been published in Physical Review Letters.

“Imagine plucking a guitar string,” associate professor Farbod Alijani begins to explain. “Eventually its energy dissipates into its surroundings and the vibrations slowly die out.” The team engineered a nanoscale string that behaves in a very distinct manner.

Mar 3
2026

Nanoparticle-Single-Atom Tandem Catalyst within a Metal–Organic Framework for Efficient Ethylene Electrosynthesis

Copper nanoparticles (Cu NPs) are effective catalysts for the electroreduction of CO2 (ECO2R) to multicarbon products but suffer from insufficient selectivity, aggregation, and deactivation. To address these challenges, we developed an in situ encapsulation strategy that engineers Cu NPs in a metal–organic framework (MOF) host from a simple one-pot hydrothermal synthesis, creating a selective and robust CO2R catalyst. The key design is the introduction of Sn additives during synthesis, which later evolve into single atoms (SAs) that serve a dual function: modulating the growth of Cu NPs from 3.35 to 9 nm and acting as active sites for the conversion of CO2 to CO. The locally generated CO then feeds adjacent Cu NPs, promoting subsequent C–C coupling via a tandem mechanism. The optimal catalyst, with a balanced Cu/Sn ratio, achieves a CO2-to-C2H4 Faradaic efficiency (FE) of 64%. Combined theoretical simulations and in situ infrared spectroscopy further reveal that Sn SAs promote Cu NPs electron transfer, enriching the electron density at active sites. This stabilizes *CO intermediates and reduces the energy barriers for CO2 activation and ensuing C–C coupling steps. This work presents a novel atomic- and nanoscale design strategy for advanced CO2RR catalysts.

Mar 3
2026

New iron nanomaterial wipes out cancer cells without harming healthy tissue

Scientists at Oregon State University have engineered a powerful new nanomaterial that zeroes in on cancer cells and destroys them from the inside out. Designed to exploit cancer’s unique chemistry—its acidity and high hydrogen peroxide levels—the tiny iron-based structure sparks not one but two intense chemical reactions, flooding tumors with cell-damaging oxygen molecules. This dual attack overwhelms cancer cells with oxidative stress while sparing healthy tissue.

Mar 3
2026

How Nanotech Made an Old Leukemia Drug 22,000x Stronger

Structural nanomedicine — what helped give us the COVID vaccine — may now be the key to a potent blood cancer treatment that’s had remarkable early results.

The findings, published in ACS Nano, show that just two doses of the experimental therapy achieved 97.5% tumor growth inhibition in a human AML xenograft mouse model — 59-fold more effective than standard 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) treatment, with no observable side effects.

For a disease with a grim 29% 5-year survival rate — and a cure rate of only 15% in patients older than 70 years — the findings offer a glimpse of how rethinking drug structure, not just chemistry, could advance cancer care.

Mirkin frames the findings within what he calls “the era of structural nanomedicine,” the idea that how you arrange medicinal components at the nanoscale matters as much as the molecules themselves.

Mar 3
2026

Catching light in air: Programmable Mie voids boost light matter interaction

Atomically thin semiconductors such as tungsten disulfide (WS₂) are promising materials for future photonic technologies. Despite being only a single layer of atoms thick, they host tightly bound excitons—pairs of electrons and holes that interact strongly with light—and can efficiently generate new colors of light through nonlinear optical processes such as second-harmonic generation.

These properties make them attractive for quantum optics, sensing, and on-chip light sources. At the same time, their extreme thinness imposes a basic limitation: There is very little material for light to interact with. As a result, emission and frequency conversion are often weak unless the surrounding photonic environment is carefully engineered.

A study published in Advanced Photonics introduces a new way to address this challenge by reshaping not the two-dimensional material itself, but the space beneath it. The researchers demonstrate a hybrid platform in which a monolayer of WS₂ is placed on top of nanoscale air cavities, known as Mie voids, carved into a high-index crystal of bismuth telluride (Bi₂Te₃). The work shows that these voids can strongly enhance light emission and nonlinear optical signals, while also allowing direct visualization of localized optical modes.

Mar 2
2026

Structures of hantavirus glycoprotein tetramers

This surface protein complex for the Andes virus is a mushroom-shaped structure called a Gn-Gc tetramer. To map the 3D structures, the team first produced virus-like particles that mimic a real virus, but without the genome that makes a virus infectious. They then used a cryo-electron microscope—which shines an electron beam through a frozen sample and detects the shadows created by molecules—to reconstruct the three-dimensional structures of the Gn-Gc tetramers on the surface of the virus-like particles.

But there was a twist: To obtain extremely high-resolution structures, the researchers painstakingly identified and isolated shadows from only the tetramers that were pointing sidewise relative to the electron beam and ignored those pointing in other directions. This allowed them to borrow a reconstruction method typically used on individual proteins.

The resulting structures have an extremely high resolution of 2.3 angstroms, meaning details the size of just a couple of atoms were effectively captured. That’s enough to represent a transformational improvement over another team’s model of the tetramer from a few years ago, at a resolution of 12 angstroms, still tiny but large enough to produce some key inaccuracies – ones effectively corrected with the newer method and resulting structure.

These latest structures show the Gn-Gc tetramer in a particular state before it has infected a cell. For vaccines or antibody therapies to be most effective against a hantavirus, mimicking surface proteins at this pre-infection stage is essential. ScienceMission sciencenewshighlights.

Hantaviruses, transmitted from rodents to people, have a death rate approaching 40%. They’re found around the world, and because there are no approved vaccines or treatments, they’re among the pathogens of highest concern for future pandemics. They made news in the United States last year when Betsy Arakawa, the wife of actor Gene Hackman, died from a hantavirus infection in New Mexico in March.

New findings published in the journal Cell about the Andes virus, a hantavirus endemic to the southwestern U.S. and other parts of North and South America, represent a crucial first step towards much-needed vaccines and antibody therapies for this and other hantaviruses.

Continue reading “Structures of hantavirus glycoprotein tetramers” | >

Mar 2
2026

Attenuating age-related decline in dendritic cell migration improves vaccine efficacy via gut-immune crosstalk

Dai and colleagues implicate defective dendritic cell migration in impaired vaccine responses in aged mice. Oral delivery of yeast-derived nanoparticles promotes migration of dendritic cells from the gut to lymph nodes and restores vaccine efficacy in aged mice.