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Category: nanotechnology – Page 334

Common nanoparticle has subtle effects on oxidative stress genes

A nanoparticle commonly used in food, cosmetics, sunscreen and other products can have subtle effects on the activity of genes expressing enzymes that address oxidative stress inside two types of cells. While the titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles are considered non-toxic because they don’t kill cells at low concentrations, these cellular effects could add to concerns about long-term exposure to the nanomaterial.

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology used high-throughput screening techniques to study the effects of titanium dioxide nanoparticles on the expression of 84 genes related to cellular oxidative stress. Their work found that six genes, four of them from a single gene family, were affected by a 24-hour exposure to the nanoparticles.

The effect was seen in two different kinds of cells exposed to the nanoparticles: human HeLa cancer cells commonly used in research, and a line of monkey kidney cells. Polystyrene nanoparticles similar in size and surface electrical charge to the titanium dioxide nanoparticles did not produce a similar effect on gene expression.

Photonics researchers create first nanoscale ‘optical parametric amplifier’

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Rice University photonics researchers have unveiled a new nanoparticle amplifier that can generate infrared light and boost the output of one light by capturing and converting energy from a second light.

The innovation, the latest from Rice’s Laboratory for Nanophotonics (LANP), is described online in a paper in the American Chemical Society journal Nano Letters (“Toward Surface Plasmon-Enhanced Optical Parametric Amplification (SPOPA) with Engineered Nanoparticles: A Nanoscale Tunable Infrared Source”). The device functions much like a laser, but while lasers have a fixed output frequency, the output from Rice’s nanoscale “optical parametric amplifier” (OPA) can be tuned over a range of frequencies that includes a portion of the infrared spectrum.

Light-Amplifying Nanoparticle

Rice University’s new light-amplifying nanoparticle consists of a 190-nanometer diameter sphere of barium tin oxide surrounded by a 30-nanometer-thick shell of gold. (Image: Alejandro Manjavacas /Rice University)

Samsung’s Quantum Dot TV Tech to Find Medical Applications

Samsung get into the cancer treatment space with their own Q-Dot technology? Another reason for the FDA to show up in tech’s backyard; lookout for all those future federal and state regs & compliance training that will be coming that eats up 20 hours each month of your scientists and engineering talent’s time.

For a lot of users, Samsung might be known best for their smartphones and other mobile devices, but the company is so much more than that. Many of you reading this might have one of Samsung’s Super HD TV sets, a curved Samsung TV or some other model of theirs. Next to smartphones one of their more popular consumer electronics is of course of TVs, and with the advent of new technology such as Quantum Dot, Samsung is getting even better at producing a great image. One area that you might expect to find this Quantum Dot technology being used is for medical uses, but that’s just what researchers have been exploring recently.

Explaining a Quantum Dot can become quite tricky, but to cut a long story short, they are semiconductors that are so small they register at the nanoscale side of things. In terms of Quantum Dots used in television displays, it’s their ability to precisely tune to a specific and exact part of the color spectrum that makes them so attractive, not to mention their much lower power draw. Now, Kim Sung-jee, a professor of the Chemistry department at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), has said that “when combining protein which clings to cancer cells and quantum dots, it can be used to seek out cancer cells in the body”. It’s reasoned that the potential for these Quantum Dots to be so precise in terms of color reproduction can help physicians track down certain cancer cells.

Myung Seung-jae, chief director of Biomedical Research Center at Asan Institute for Life Sciences who joined Professor Kim in researching Quantum Dots to fight cancer, said that when a test was ran on animals with Cancer cells in their bodies drugs with Quantum Dots “attacked only cancer cells. When quantum dots meet cancer cells, they detect the change of potential of hydrogen (pH) and anti-cancer drugs”. So, while it seems a long way off, it looks like the same technology that makes for a more accurate and engaging picture for your TV could be used in order to fight cancer or at least better identify types of Cancer and how to combat them inside of the body.

Lele flagella motor research develops novel insights in cellular mechanics

Using bacteria to aid in the design of superior biomedical implants capable of resisting colonization by infectious bugs.

Dr. Pushkar Lele, assistant professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University, is developing novel insights in cellular mechanics with bacteria to aid in the design of superior biomedical implants capable of resisting colonization by infectious bugs. Lele’s group also focuses on unraveling the fundamental principles underlying interactions in biological soft-matter to build bio-nanotechnology-based molecular machines. Lele’s lab currently focuses on a unique electric rotary device found in bacteria — the flagellar motor.

According to Lele, it is well established how motile bacteria employ flagellar motors to swim and respond to chemical stimulation. This allows bacteria to search for nutrients and evade harmful chemicals. However, in his recent work, Lele has now demonstrated that the motor is also sensitive to mechanical stimulation and identified the protein components responsible for the response. Sensing initiates a sensitive control of the assemblies of numerous proteins that combine to form the motor. Control over motor assemblies facilitates fine-tuning of cellular behavior and promotes chances of survival in a variety of environments.

“What is the sense of touch in a bacterium? It is likely that they employ appendages such as the flagella to detect solid substrates, analogous to our use of fingers,” Lele said. “How they recognize the substrate using the flagellum has been a long-standing question in biology with tremendous biomedical significance. Our findings have provided a handle on this important problem. We now know [how] the motor-components [are] involved in sensing the substrate [and] would like to know how these sensors trigger signaling networks that ultimately cause infections. “.

Iridium Oxide Nanoparticles Used to Harvest Hydrogen

Researchers from Argonne National Laboratory developed a first-principles-based, variable-charge force field that has shown to accurately predict bulk and nanoscale structural and thermodynamic properties of IrO2. Catalytic properties pertaining to the oxygen reduction reaction, which drives water-splitting for the production of hydrogen fuel, were found to depend on the coordination and charge transfer at the IrO2 nanocluster surface. Image: Courtesy of Maria Chan, Argonne National Laboratory

Iridium oxide (IrO2) nanoparticles are useful electrocatalysts for splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen — a clean source of hydrogen for fuel and power. However, its high cost demands that researchers find the most efficient structure for IrO2 nanoparticles for hydrogen production.

A study conducted by a team of researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Argonne National Laboratory, published in Journal of Materials Chemistry A, describes a new empirical interatomic potential that models the IrO2 properties important to catalytic activity at scales relevant to technology development. Also known as a force field, the interatomic potential is a set of values describing the relationship between structure and energy in a system based on its configuration in space. The team developed their new force field based on the MS-Q force field.

“Before, it was not possible to optimize the shape and size of a particle, but this tool enables us to do this,” says Maria Chan, assistant scientist at Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials (CNM), a DOE Office of Science User Facility.

Kiel’s Researchers Explore Nanostructure of Animal Cells

Results are in from a study on the similarities and differences of the nanostructure surfaces.

There is a clear difference between a snake’s skin and moth’s eyes. Scientists at Kiel University have developed a new technique that brings this so-called ‘apples and oranges’ to a common level. This unique approach has given way to an entirely new and comparative outlook on biological surfaces, and provides a better understanding of how these surfaces actually work.

Scientists Develop Powerful Bio-Compatible Nano-Motor

Cambridge’s new nano-scale light-powered piston engine that may one day energize devices to treat diseases directly or deliver drugs.

At the University of Cambridge researchers have developed a nano-scale light-powered piston engine that may one day energize devices to treat diseases directly or deliver drugs in powerful new ways. The device consists of charged gold nanoparticles within a polymer that bends and relaxes in response to heat changes. The polymer absorbs water when cooled, expanding in size, while heating the gold nanoparticles using a laser raises the temperature of the polymer, shedding the absorbed water and relaxing in response. This process happens in a fraction of a second, and as long as a laser is made to flip between being on and off, the engine keeps working.

According to the researchers, the force generated given the weight of the device is quite huge, at least a hundred times greater than existing motors or even muscle cells.

“It’s like an explosion,” said Dr Tao Ding from Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory, and the paper’s first author, in a press release. “We have hundreds of gold balls flying apart in a millionth of a second when water molecules inflate the polymers around them.”

Northwestern University Research Group Uses 3D Printing to Create Terahertz Lens

The Illinois-based Northwestern University has utilized 3D printing technology to research a variety of vital applications, from 3D printing fuel cells to 4D printing materials on the nanoscale. Now, researchers from the prestigious institution are looking at 3D printing technology through a unique lens—a terahertz lens, to be exact. Generally unknown within the electromagnetic spectrum, hidden in between the more commonly known wavelengths of microwaves and infrared, lies the information-packed terahertz spectrum. The terahertz is not only a forgotten frequency, it’s also rarely studied, let alone well understood, yet it has high value in applications regarding imaging and communications.

One research group, led by Northwestern University’s Cheng Sun, has used metamaterials and a unique style of SLA technology called projection micro-stereolithography to manufacture a novel lens capable of working with terahertz frequencies. The 3D printed terahertz gradient-refractive index lens has better imaging capabilities than other commonly used lenses, and also enables researchers to make more advances with the relatively unknown world of the terahertz.

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