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Category: nanotechnology

New nanoparticles stimulate the immune system to attack ovarian tumors

A team, including researchers in MIT ChemE, designed new nanoparticles that can deliver an immune-stimulating molecule called IL-12 directly to ovarian tumors. When given along with immunotherapy drugs called checkpoint inhibitors, IL-12 helps the immune system launch an attack on cancer cells.

“What’s really exciting is that we’re able to deliver IL-12 directly in the tumor space. And because of the way that this nanomaterial is designed to allow IL-12 to be borne on the surfaces of the cancer cells, we have essentially tricked the cancer into stimulating immune cells to arm themselves against that cancer,” says MIT ChemE Professor Paula Hammond, a senior author of the study.

📸: Courtesy of the researchers.

MIT researchers designed nanoparticles that can deliver an immune-stimulating molecule called IL-12 directly to ovarian tumors. When given to mice along with checkpoint inhibitors, the treatment eliminated metastatic tumors more than 80 percent of the time.

Scientists Learn To Steer Light at the Nanoscale, Setting New Records

Researchers have introduced an innovative two-step excitation approach that makes it possible to efficiently generate and clearly separate different modes of hyperbolic polaritons. An international collaboration of scientists has introduced a new approach for generating and manipulating extremely

Invisible heat insulators

Researchers in Science have developed a clear, high-insulating material they say could be used to produce ultra-efficient windows and thus reduce the energy use of buildings dramatically worldwide.

Learn more in a new Science Perspective.

A nanotube network with precisely engineered pores could replace insulating components in windows.

Longnan Li and Wei Li Authors Info & Affiliations

Science

Vol 390, Issue 6778

Continue reading “Invisible heat insulators” | >

Laser-engineered nanowire networks could unlock new material manufacturing

A breakthrough development in nanofabrication could help support the development of new wireless, flexible, high-performance transparent electronic devices.

Researchers from the University of Glasgow’s James Watt School of Engineering have developed a new method of interfacial imprinting ultra-thin nanowires onto bendable, transparent polymeric substrates.

The team’s paper, titled “Laser-Engineered Interfacial-Dielectrophoresis Aligned Nanowire Networks for Transparent Electromagnetic Interference Shielding Films,” is published in ACS Nano.

Molecules as switches for sustainable light-driven technologies

Metal nanostructures can concentrate light so strongly that they can trigger chemical reactions. The key players in this process are plasmons—collective oscillations of free electrons in the metal that confine energy to extremely small volumes. A new study published in Science Advances now shows how crucial adsorbed molecules are in determining how quickly these plasmons lose their energy.

The team led by LMU nanophysicists Dr. Andrei Stefancu and Prof. Emiliano Cortés identified two fundamentally different mechanisms of so-called chemical interface damping (CID), the plasmon damping caused by adsorbed molecules. Which mechanism dominates depends on how the electronic states of the molecule align with those of the metal surface, gold in this case—and this alignment is even reflected in the material’s electrical resistance.

Archimedean screw inspires new way to encode chirality into magnetic materials

In physics and materials science, the term “spin chirality” refers to an asymmetry in the arrangement of spins (i.e., the intrinsic angular momentum of particles) in magnetic materials. This asymmetry can give rise to unique electronic and magnetic behaviors that are desirable for the development of spintronics, devices that leverage the spin of electrons and electric charge to process or store information.

The creation of materials that exhibit desired spin chirality and associated physical effects on a large scale has so far proved challenging. In a recent paper published in Nature Nanotechnology, researchers at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids and other institutes introduced a new approach to encode chirality directly into materials by engineering their geometry at a nanoscale.

“Dirk and myself were initially inspired by the elegance of the Archimedean screw and began wondering whether we could build a magnonic analog, something that could ‘pump’ magnons (i.e., collective electron spin excitations) in a similarly directional way,” Dr. Mingran Xu, first author of the paper, told Tech Xplore.

Cancer Cells Light Up With a Breakthrough Imaging System

A new ultra-sensitive imaging system can make cancer cells light up, paving the way for faster and earlier detection.

Researchers have created a compact Raman imaging system that can reliably tell tumor tissue apart from normal tissue. The goal is to support earlier cancer detection and make molecular imaging easier to use beyond specialized research labs.

How SERS nanoparticles help tumors stand out.

Machine learning model predicts protein binding on gold nanoclusters

Researchers in the Nanoscience Center at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, have developed a pioneering computational model that could expedite the use of nanomaterials in biomedical applications. The study presented the first generalizable machine-learning framework capable of predicting how proteins interact with ligand-stabilized gold nanoclusters, materials widely employed in bioimaging, biosensing, and targeted drug delivery.

The adsorption of proteins onto nanomaterial surfaces is fundamental to many biological applications, including bioimaging and biosensing to targeted drug delivery. Gold nanoclusters, in particular, have attracted attention thanks to their biocompatibility and tunable optical properties. Yet existing studies that predict how proteins interact with these ligand-protected nanostructures often focus on isolated cases, leaving researchers without a unified model to guide design.

“This gap has created a clear need for general, scalable models capable of capturing the underlying rules of protein–nanocluster binding,” specifies Postdoctoral Researcher Brenda Ferrari from the University of Jyväskylä

Aluminum nitride transistor advances next-gen RF electronics

Cornell researchers have developed a new transistor architecture that could reshape how high-power wireless electronics are engineered, while also addressing supply chain vulnerabilities for a critical semiconductor material.

The device, called an XHEMT, includes an ultra-thin layer of gallium nitride built on bulk single-crystal aluminum nitride, a semiconductor material with low defect densities and an ultrawide bandgap—properties that allow it to withstand higher temperatures and voltages while reducing electrical losses.

The device was detailed in the journal Advanced Electronic Materials and the research was co-led by Huili Grace Xing, the William L. Quackenbush Professor, Debdeep Jena, the David E. Burr Professor—both in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and the Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science—and doctoral student Eungkyun Kim.

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