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Category: nanotechnology – Page 146

Nanotech used to grow eye cells as a potential treatment for blindness

Researchers have used 3D nanotechnology to successfully grow human retinal cells, opening the door to a new way of treating age-related macular degeneration, a leading cause of blindness in the developed world.

In age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the macula, the part of the retina that controls sharp, straight-ahead vision, deteriorates and causes blurring in the central field of vision.

There are two types of AMD, ‘dry’ and ‘wet.’ Dry AMD is where the RPE cells in the macula break down, causing vision loss over time. It’s the most common type and mostly affects older people. In the rarer wet AMD, abnormal blood vessel growth into the macula causes fluid and blood leakage, damaging the retina and destruction of the RPE cells, leading to a rapid loss of vision.

Physics Breakthrough: Scientists Discover Rydberg Moiré Excitons

The Rydberg state is prevalent across various physical mediums such as atoms, molecules, and solid materials. Rydberg excitons, which are highly energized, Coulomb-bound electron-hole pair states, were initially identified in the 1950s within the semiconductor material, Cu2O.

In a study published in Science, Dr. Xu Yang and his colleagues from the Institute of Physics (IOP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in collaboration with researchers led by Dr. Yuan Shengjun of Wuhan University, have reported observing Rydberg moiré excitons, which are moiré-trapped Rydberg excitons in the monolayer semiconductor WSe2 adjacent to small-angle twisted bilayer graphene.

Graphene is an allotrope of carbon in the form of a single layer of atoms in a two-dimensional hexagonal lattice in which one atom forms each vertex. It is the basic structural element of other allotropes of carbon, including graphite, charcoal, carbon nanotubes, and fullerenes. In proportion to its thickness, it is about 100 times stronger than the strongest steel.

Cancer Research & Nanotech: The Power of Nanobiotechnology|Role of nanotechnology in Cancer

Revolutionizing Cancer Research: The Power of Nanobiotechnology|Role of nanotechnology in Cancer.

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Continue reading “Cancer Research & Nanotech: The Power of Nanobiotechnology|Role of nanotechnology in Cancer” | >

Retina cell breakthrough could help treat blindness

When the scaffold is treated with a steroid called fluocinolone acetonide, which protects against inflammation, the resilience of the cells appears to increase, promoting growth of eye cells. These findings are important in the future development of ocular tissue for transplantation into the patient’s eye.

Scientists have found a way to use nanotechnology to create a 3D ‘scaffold’ to grow cells from the retina-paving the way for potential new ways of treating a common cause of blindness.

Researchers, led by Professor Barbara Pierscionek from Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), have been working on a way to successfully grow retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells that stay healthy and viable for up to 150 days. RPE cells sit just outside the neural part of the retina and, when damaged, can cause vision to deteriorate.

It is the first time this technology, called ‘electrospinning’, has been used to create a scaffold on which the RPE cells could grow, and could revolutionise treatment for one of age-related macular degeneration, one of the world’s most common vision complaints.

These super strong nanostructures are made of glass-coated DNA

One of the world’s strongest structures could be one of its smallest: Collaborators from University of Connecticut, Columbia University, and Brookhaven National Lab have developed a new nanomaterial composed of DNA strands coated in flawless glass. At proportionally four times stronger and five times lighter than steel, the minuscule latticework structures could provide a template for a new wave of extremely durable and lightweight vehicles, body armor, and countless other products.

As detailed recently in Cell Reports Physical Science, the team first connected multiple portions of self-assembling DNA to form a nanostructure framework akin to a building’s support beams. They then coated the enjoined DNA strands with a glass-like material only a few hundred atoms thick, leaving relatively large empty spaces akin to rooms in a house. These spaces allowed the resulting nanomaterial to remain extremely lightweight, while the glass reinforced its durability.

[Related: Microscopic mesh could be the key to lighter, stronger body armor.].

Light enhancement in nanoscale structures could aid cancer detection

A cutting-edge practice by two Vanderbilt researchers that enhances light in nanoscale structures could help in the detection of diseases like cancer.

The work by Justus Ndukaife, assistant professor of electrical engineering, and Sen Yang, a recent Ph.D. graduate from Ndukaife’s lab in Interdisciplinary Materials Science under Ndukaife, was published in Light: Science & Applications.

In their paper, they show how an engineered nanostructured surface—quasi-BIC dielectric metasurface—can be used to trap micro and sub-micron particles within seconds, which they say helps in the transport of analytes to biosensing surfaces. The metasurface can also serve as a sensor to detect the aggregated particles or molecules, and can be used to enhance fluorescence or Raman signals from the , thereby boosting detection sensitivity, according to the researchers.

New protein-based nano-switches could lead to faster, more accurate diagnostic tests

QUT researchers have developed a new approach for designing molecular ON-OFF switches based on proteins which can be used in a multitude of biotechnological, biomedical and bioengineering applications.

The research team demonstrated that this novel approach allows them to design and build faster and more accurate diagnostic tests for detecting diseases, monitoring water quality and detecting environmental pollutants.

Professor Kirill Alexandrov, of the QUT School of Biology and Environmental Science, lead scientist on the CSIRO-QUT Synthetic Biology Alliance and a researcher with the ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology, said that the new technique published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature Nanotechnology demonstrated that protein switches could be engineered in a predictable way.

Retina cells cultured on nanofiber scaffolds could help treat blindness

Scientists have found a way to use nanotechnology to create a 3D “scaffold” to grow cells from the retina—paving the way for potential new ways of treating a common cause of blindness.

Researchers, led by Professor Barbara Pierscionek from Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), have been working on a way to successfully grow epithelial (RPE) cells that stay healthy and viable for up to 150 days. RPE cells sit just outside the neural part of the retina, and when damaged, can cause vision to deteriorate. Their work is published in Materials & Design.

It is the first time this technology, called “electrospinning,” has been used to create a scaffold on which the RPE cells could grow, and could revolutionize treatment for one of age-related macular degeneration, one of the world’s most common vision complaints.

Researchers demonstrate scaling of aligned carbon nanotube transistors to below sub-10 nm nodes

Carbon nanotubes, large cylindrical molecules composed of hybridized carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal structure, recently attracted significant attention among electronics engineers. Due to their geometric configuration and advantageous electronic properties, these unique molecules could be used to create smaller field-effect transistors (FETs) that exhibit high energy efficiencies.

FETs based on carbon nanotubes have the potential to outperform smaller transistors based on silicon, yet their advantage in real-world implementations has yet to be conclusively demonstrated. A recent paper by researchers at Peking University and other institutes in China, published in Nature Electronics, outlines the realization of FETs based on carbon nanotubes that can be scaled to the same size of a 10 nm silicon technology node.

“Recent progress in achieving wafer-scale high density semiconducting carbon nanotube arrays brough us one step closer to the practical use of carbon nanotubes in CMOS circuits,” Zhiyong Zhang, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Phys.org. “However, previous research efforts have mainly focused on the scaling of channel or gate length of carbon nanotube transistors while keeping large contact dimensions, which cannot be accepted for high density CMOS circuits in practical applications.

New study reveals spin in quantum dots’ carrier multiplication

A new approach to developing semiconductor materials at tiny scales could help boost applications that rely on converting light to energy. A Los Alamos-led research team incorporated magnetic dopants into specially engineered colloidal quantum dots—nanoscale-size semiconductor crystals—and was able to achieve effects that may power solar cell technology, photo detectors and applications that depend on light to drive chemical reactions.

“In quantum dots comprising a lead-selenide core and a cadmium-selenide shell, manganese ions act as tiny magnets whose magnetic spins strongly interact with both the core and the shell of the quantum dot,” said Victor Klimov, leader of the Los Alamos nanotechnology team and the project’s principal investigator. “In the course of these interactions, energy can be transferred to and from the manganese ion by flipping its spin—a process commonly termed spin exchange.”

In spin-exchange multiplication, a single absorbed photon generates not one but two , also known as excitons, which occur as a result of spin-flip relaxation of an excited manganese ion.

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