Lifeboat Foundation

“Nature is a great source of inspiration, and nanotechnology is an exciting way to apply its lessons.”

A small robot that could one day help doctors perform surgery was inspired by the incredible grasping ability of geckos and the efficient motion of inchworms.

What is GeiwBot, the soft robot in healthcare?

Continue reading “First-of-its-kind gecko robot could one day help doctors in surgeries” »

Physicians routinely prescribe an infusion containing gadolinium to enhance MRI scans, but there is evidence that nanoparticles of the toxic rare earth metal infiltrate kidney cells, sometimes triggering severe side effects, University of New Mexico researchers have found.

In the worst cases, gadolinium, an element that has no biologic function, can trigger nephrogenic systemic fibrosis, a painful disease that affects the skin and organs and is often fatal.

In a new study published in Scientific Reports, a team led by Brent Wagner, MD, MS, associate professor in the UNM Department of Internal Medicine, describes the use of electron microscopy to detect tiny deposits of gadolinium in the kidneys of people who had been injected with contrast agents prior to their MRIs.

A slow-motion movie on sports television channels shows processes in hundredths of a second. By contrast, processes on the nanoscale take place in the so-called femtosecond range: For example, an electron needs only billionths of a second to orbit a hydrogen atom. Physicists around the world are using special instruments to capture such ultrafast nano-processes in films.

Researchers at Kiel University (CAU) have developed a new method for such films that is based on a different physical concept and thus allows further and more precise options for investigation. To do this, they combined an electron microscope with nanostructured metallic thin films that generate very short light pulses.

Continue reading “New analysis method developed for quantum and nanomaterials” »

Hey folks, I’m excited to share a new essay with y’all on my proposed route towards nanoscale human brain connectomics. I suggest that synchrotron ‘expansion x-ray microscopy’ has the potential to enable anatomical imaging of the entire human brain with sub-100 nm voxel size and high contrast in around 1 year for a price of roughly $10M. I plan to continue improving this essay over time as I acquire more detailed information and perform more calculations.

For a brief history of this concept: I started exploring this idea during undergrad (working with a laboratory-scale x-ray microscope), but was cut short by the pandemic. Now, I’m working on a PhD in biomedical engineering centered on gene therapy and synthetic biology, but I have retained a strong interest in connectomics. I recently began communication with some excellent collaborators who might be able to help move this technology forward. Hoping for some exciting progress!

By Logan Thrasher Collins.

Continue reading “Feasibility of mapping the human brain with expansion x-ray microscopy” »

Scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently announced the invention of a nanowire, 10,000 times thinner than a human hair, which can be cheaply grown by common bacteria and can be tuned to “smell” a vast array of chemical tracers—including those given off by people afflicted with different medical conditions, such as asthma and kidney disease.

Thousands of these specially tuned wires, each sniffing out a different chemical, can be layered onto tiny, wearable sensors, allowing health-care providers an unprecedented tool for monitoring potential health complications. Since these wires are grown by bacteria, they are organic, biodegradable and far greener than any inorganic nanowire.

To make these breakthroughs, which were detailed in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectrics, senior authors Derek Lovley, Distinguished Professor of Microbiology at UMass Amherst, and Jun Yao, professor of electrical and computer engineering in the College of Engineering at UMass Amherst, needed to look no farther than their own noses.

Researchers have developed a proof of concept technology that could pave the way for next-generation displays beyond current LCDs and LEDs, enabling screens and electronic devices to become thinner, offer higher resolution and be much more energy efficient.

A team at Nottingham Trent University, the Australian National University and the University of New South Wales Canberra in Australia has engineered electrically tunable arrays of nanoparticles called “metasurfaces,” which can offer significant benefits over current liquid crystal displays.

Today’s display market offers a large range of choices, each with its pros and cons. However factors including production costs, lifespan and energy consumption have kept liquid crystal technology the most dominant and popular technology for screens such as TV sets and monitors.

In a new study, researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) show how a brain-inspired image sensor can go beyond the diffraction limit of light to detect miniscule objects such as cellular components or nanoparticles invisible to current microscopes. Their novel technique, which combines optical microscopy with a neuromorphic camera and machine learning algorithms, presents a major step forward in pinpointing objects smaller than 50 nanometers in size. The results are published in Nature Nanotechnology.

Since the invention of optical microscopes, scientists have strived to surpass a barrier called the diffraction limit, which means that the microscope cannot distinguish between two objects if they are smaller than a certain size (typically 200–300 nanometers).

Their efforts have largely focused on either modifying the molecules being imaged, or developing better illumination strategies—some of which led to the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. “But very few have actually tried to use the detector itself to try and surpass this detection limit,” says Deepak Nair, Associate Professor at the Center for Neuroscience (CNS), IISc, and corresponding author of the study.

A research team from LKS Faculty of Medicine, the University of Hong Kong (HKUMed) has developed thyroid hormone (TH)–encapsulated nanoparticles modified with an adipose-homing peptide, which selectively transports TH to adipose tissues. This will advance the treatment of obesity-related medical complications with TH by overcoming the severe adverse effects caused by systemic administration. The new findings are now published in Nature Communications.

Obesity is a major risk factor for multiple life-threatening chronic diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular and neurodegenerative disorders. TH is an ancient hormone with therapeutic potential for obesity and its related medical complications by promoting energy expenditure. However, despite enormous research efforts in the past decades, clinical trials have failed to demonstrate obvious clinical benefits of chronic systemic administration of TH on weight loss in obese individuals.

Furthermore, due to widespread expression of TH receptors, systemic administration of TH often leads to serious deleterious effects on multiple organs, including tachycardia, heart attack, muscle wasting, and osteoporosis. Skeletal muscle and adipose tissues are thought to be the two major target organs where TH exerts its stimulatory actions on metabolic rate and energy expenditure. However, whether selective delivery of TH to adipose tissues is sufficient to induce weight loss remains unclear.

Professor Juhyuk Lee of the Department of Energy Engineering has developed an elastic triboelectric generator that can be used in the daily lives of frequent movers. The cause of the output reduction of the elastic triboelectric sensor was identified during joint research with Professor Joohun Lee of Hanyang University’s (ERICA campus) Department of Bio-Nanotechnology. Additionally, the professor used graphene to develop a touch sensor with stable output and expand the application of the triboelectric generator. The study is published in the journal Nano Energy.

Along with the rapid growth of various biosensors and wearable devices due to the continuous development of semiconductors and small electronic components, there has been a growing interest in triboelectric generators for use as sensors or energy sources. To use the triboelectric generator in a wearable device, the material that comes into contact with the body must be safe, and the output must be constant despite any deformations caused by movement.

However, the output of conventional elastic triboelectric generators is affected by its change in form. The reason for this relationship was not clearly understood. Similar to previously existing products, there are limitations to precise detection if the output changes along with the change in form, such as stretching.