News • Fire and Ice
Nanomedicine: more effective tumor treatment
Researchers have succeeded in using metal oxide nanoparticles as "radiosensitizers" – and in producing them on an industrial scale.
Nanotechnology
Article • Super-resolution miscroscopy
PEAR: setting nano-imaging in motion
Ever since the Abbe diffraction limit of conventional microscopy has been surpassed, super-resolution techniques have been diving ever deeper into the most miniscule details of molecular structures. We spoke with Prof. Dominic Zerulla, whose company PEARlabs is developing an imaging technique that sets out to push the boundaries once more – by looking at in-vivo nano-scale processes in motion.
Article • Diabetes
Microneedles: Nano-sized, huge impact
Drug delivery, blood extraction, contrast agent injection – many procedures in modern medicine would be utterly impossible without needles. Despite the benefits, inserting pointy metal tubes into a patient also comes with several drawbacks. By downscaling the to micrometer-size, Japanese researchers open even more areas of application for needles, while bypassing some of the most important…
News • Drug delivery research
Nanoparticles to help cross the blood-brain barrier
Treating diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s is a challenge because drugs have to be able to cross the blood–brain barrier. As a result, the doses administered must be high and only a small fraction reaches the brain, which can lead to significant systemic side effects.
News • Promising approach
New nanoparticles suppress resistance to cancer immunotherapy
Hokkaido University scientists and colleagues in Japan have found a way that could help some patients overcome resistance to an immunotherapy treatment for cancer. The approach, proven in mice experiments, was reported in the Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer.
News • Up-converting nanoparticles technology
Digital pathology: tissue imaging patent granted
Imaging company Lumito has secured a European patent for an instrument and staining reagents based on UCNPs (up-converting nanoparticles) for imaging in scattering materials, such as human tissue. The instrument is intended for use in tissue diagnostics, to provide pathologists visual depictions of tissue samples as an input for making diagnosis. The technology is patented across three global…
News • Cell delivery vehicles
Bio-inspired nanocontainers could enter cells and release their medical cargo
Nanocontainers can transport substances into cells where they can then take effect. This is the method used in, for example, the mRNA vaccines currently being employed against Covid-19 as well as certain cancer drugs. In research, similar transporters can also be used to deliver labelled substances into cells in order to study basic cellular functions. To take advantage of their full potential,…
News • Mechanical inactivation
'Nano traps' to lock up and neutralize viruses
To date, there are no effective antidotes against most virus infections. An interdisciplinary research team at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has now developed a new approach: they engulf and neutralize viruses with nano-capsules tailored from genetic material using the DNA origami method. The strategy has already been tested against hepatitis and adeno-associated viruses in cell…
News • Advanced care
This 'smart' wound dressing monitors the healing process with built-in sensors
Researchers at RMIT University in Australia have developed smart wound dressings with built-in nanosensors that glow to alert patients when a wound is not healing properly. The multifunctional, antimicrobial dressings feature fluorescent sensors that glow brightly under UV light if infection starts to set in and can be used to monitor healing progress.
News • Targeted drug delivery
'Soft X‑ray' method opens up ways for smart nano-medicine
Before the huge potential of tiny nanocarriers for highly targeted drug delivery and environmental clean-up can be realized, scientists first need to be able to see them. Currently researchers have to rely on attaching fluorescent dyes or heavy metals to label parts of organic nanocarrier structures for investigation, often changing them in the process. A new technique using chemically-sensitive…
News • Chemotherapeutic delivery
Bowel cancer: Nanotechnology offers new hope
Bowel cancer survival rates could be improved if chemotherapy drugs were delivered via tiny nanoparticles to the diseased organs rather than oral treatment. That’s the finding from Indian and Australian scientists who have undertaken the first study, using nanoparticles to target bowel cancer, the third most common cancer in the world and the second most deadliest.
News • Nanotechnology
New low-cost solution for virus-scale microscopy
Using an ordinary light microscope, engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have devised a technique for imaging biological samples with accuracy at the scale of 10 nanometers — which should enable them to image viruses and potentially even single biomolecules, the researchers say. The new technique builds on expansion microscopy, an approach that involves embedding…
News • Nano science
Conductive hydrogel could replace brain tissue
Due to their tissue-like mechanical properties, hydrogels are being increasingly used for biomedical applications; a well-known example are soft contact lenses. These gel-like polymers consist of 90 percent water, are elastic and particularly biocompatible. Hydrogels that are also electrically conductive allow additional fields of application, for example in the transmission of electrical signals…
News • Nanoparticle-based contrast agent SAIO
New MRI contrast agent to improve upon gadolinium-based products
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is widely used to identify the narrowing or blockage of blood vessels. Contrast agents improve the visibility of the structures and offer more accurate information of vascular conditions such as vascular blockage and stenosis. Commonly used gadolinium-based contrast agents must be administered in chelated forms due to the gadolinium ions' high toxicity and pose…
News • Self-powered electronics
Nano-sized generator protects the heart
A new type of ultra-efficient, nano-thin material could advance self-powered electronics, wearable technologies and even deliver pacemakers powered by heart beats.
News • Osteoarthritis research
New treatment target could halt knee cartilage degeneration
There is currently no cure for osteoarthritis, but a group of scientists believe they’ve discovered a method through which a simple knee injection could potentially stop the disease’s effects. These researchers showed that they could target a specific protein pathway in mice, put it into overdrive and halt cartilage degeneration over time. Building on that finding, they were able to show that…
News • 'Nanobodies'
Small antibodies show promise against Covid-19
Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have developed, in collaboration with researchers in Germany and the U.S., new small antibodies, also known as nanobodies, which prevent the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus from entering human cells. The research study, published in Science, shows that a combined nanobody had a particularly good effect – even if the virus mutated. According to the researchers, the…
News • Crossing the blood-brain barrier
Nanoparticle drug-delivery system to treat brain disorders
In the past few decades, researchers have identified biological pathways leading to neurodegenerative diseases and developed promising molecular agents to target them. However, the translation of these findings into clinically approved treatments has progressed at a much slower rate, in part because of the challenges scientists face in delivering therapeutics across the blood-brain barrier (BBB)…
News • Altering the intestinal microbiome
How nanoplastics threaten human health
A recent review study concludes that nanoplastics change the composition and diversity of gut microbiome in vertebrates and invertebrates. The effects of a widespread and prolonged exposure to nanoplastics observed in animal models can be applied to humans.
News • Gels for drug delivery systems
'Soft' 3D printing could jump-start creation of tiny medical devices
Researchers at the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a new method of 3D-printing gels and other soft materials. Published in a new paper, it has the potential to create complex structures with nanometer-scale precision. Because many gels are compatible with living cells, the new method could jump-start the production of soft tiny medical devices such as…
News • Theranostics
Magnetic gold nanohybrid particles will help fight cancer
A team of scientists at the Russian National University of Science and Technology MISiS, together with colleagues from Russia and Germany, have presented a detailed study of magnetite-gold nanohybrids. In the future, such nanoparticles can help in theranostics — the diagnostics and subsequent therapy of oncological diseases. The results of the work have been published in the Journal of…
News • Reducing side effects
Nanohybrid vehicles to deliver drugs into the human body
Researchers in The University of Texas at El Paso’s (UTEP) Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry have developed a nanohybrid vehicle that can be used to optimally deliver drugs into the human body. The research was published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. Leading the study are Mahesh Narayan, Ph.D., professor, and Sreeprasad Sreenivasan, Ph.D., assistant professor, both from the…
News • New sensor tech
A more reliable way to early detect lung tumours
People who are at high risk of developing lung cancer, such as heavy smokers, are routinely screened with computed tomography (CT), which can detect tumors in the lungs. However, this test has an extremely high rate of false positives, as it also picks up benign nodules in the lungs. Researchers at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have now developed a new approach to early…
News • Subdermal quantum tattoo
Nano-patch stores medical information under the skin
Every year, a lack of vaccination leads to about 1.5 million preventable deaths, primarily in developing nations. One factor that makes vaccination campaigns in those nations more difficult is that there is little infrastructure for storing medical records, so there’s often no easy way to determine who needs a particular vaccine. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)…
News • Nanoswarm
Tiny transporters deliver treatment to stroke patients
Swarms of nanoparticles which are 15,000 times smaller than a pinhead may be able to deliver vital drugs to the brain, offering new hope to patients in the early stages of a stroke. The research, carried out at The University of Manchester, shows that tiny vesicles called liposomes, just 100 nanometres in diameter can translocate through the damaged blood brain barrier following stroke. And that…