TechBlog

Brent Christner, LSU professor of biological sciences, in partnership with colleagues in Montana and France, recently found evidence that rain-making bacteria are widely distributed in the atmosphere. These biological particles could factor heavily into the precipitation cycle, affecting climate, agricultural productivity and even global warming. Christner and his colleagues published their results on Feb 29 in the journal Science.

Brent Christner, LSU assistant professor of biolo-

gical sciences, collecting precipitation samples in Antarctica. (Credit: Brent Christner Continue reading ‘Evidence Of ‘Rain-making’ Bacteria Discovered In Atmosphere And Snow’ »

Future nanomanufacturing processes will rely on two basic principles: a combination of chemical synthesis and self-assembly on one hand and robotic nanofabrication on the other. While the former is a controlled ‘natural’ process relying on chemistry and self-organization principles of nature (read more: How falling spaghettis could lead to more complex nanotechnology self-assembly), the latter will be an industrial process similar in concept to today’s automated manufacturing assembly lines.

Micromanufacturing

Continue reading ‘A Gripping Tale for Nanomanufacturing’ »

The same nanotech approaches being explored to deliver drugs exactly to the cells where they are needed also provide a technology base that might lead to permanent enhancements of human metabolism. Excerpts from “Cell ‘organs’ get plastic upgrades“, by Tamsin Osborne at NewScientist.com news service:

Human cells could have their metabolisms upgraded without altering their genes by inserting tiny plastic packages of enzymes, Swiss researchers have shown. They hope the technique could allow advanced cancer therapies, or even upgrade a person’s metabolism.

 

Continue reading ‘Artificial organelles: nanotechnology beyond simple drug delivery’ »

A major advantage of nanotech drug delivery is that multiple drug molecules can be combined on one nanoparticle so that one nanoparticle binds more strongly to the drug target than would the isolated drug molecules. Attaching 12 molecules of an HIV drug to a 2.0 nm diameter gold nanoparticle enabled the drug to prevent HIV infection in cultured patient cells. From a North Caroline State University News Release
“Failed HIV Drug Gets Second Chance with Addition of Gold Nanoparticles“:

Researchers at North Carolina State University have discovered that adding tiny bits of gold to a failed HIV drug rekindle the drug’s ability to stop the virus from invading the body’s immune system.

 

Continue reading ‘Nanotechnology combines multiple molecules of drug to prevent HIV infection’ »

Courtesy Atsushi Asano, Cornell University

While not quite on the nanoscale, an average human sperm on average is about 0.055 mm long, sperm have provided inspiration for how to power nano-sized devices. Energy to power the sperm tail (flagellum) comes from the mitochondria, the power stations of the cell, while the rear section of the tail or ‘principal piece’ gets it’s energy from glycolysis, the direct breakdown of glucose to produce energy. It’s this process that has inspired researchers at the Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility to try and mimic this process to provide a power source for nanodevices.

In sperm, the 10 enzymes required for glycolysis are attached to scaffolding proteins in the sperm tail, holding them in place in a unique conformation. Scientists engineered and tethered 3 of the 10 proteins to a gold surface covered in nickel ions, whilst retaining the enzymes activity. Researchers are now looking to extend the project to include all 10 protens necessary to complete a nano ‘power supply’.

Astronomers from Arecibo Observatory radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, have detected for the first time the molecules methanimine and hydrogen cyanide - two ingredients that build life-forming amino acids - in a galaxy some 250 million light years away. “Just add water!” said Robert Minchin, an Arecibo astronomer on the project, who explained that methanimine and hydrogen cyanide are two of the basic ingredients of life, because when combined with water they form glycine, the simplest amino acid, a building block of life on Earth.

The astronomy team, led by Arecibo astronomer Christopher Salter, announced this discovery today (Jan. 11) in a poster presented at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Austin. The Arecibo Observatory is managed by Cornell University for National Science Foundation.

The Arecibo astronomers focused on the distant galaxy Arp 220, an ultra-luminous starburst galaxy, because it forms new stars at a very high rate. They used the 305-meter, or 1,000-foot diameter, Arecibo radio telescope, the world’s largest and most sensitive, to observe the galaxy at different frequencies. In fact, for the first time in April 2007, they used the 800 megahertz wide-band mode of the main spectrometer to make these detections.

Continue reading ‘Radio Telescope Detects Life-Forming Ingredients In Far Off Galaxy’ »

System is invisible to the immune system, preventing response
News source: University of California - Los Angeles, via AAAS EurekAlertUsing nanotechnology, scientists from UCLA and Northwestern University have developed a localized and controlled drug delivery method that is invisible to the immune system, a discovery that could provide newer and more effective treatments for cancer and other diseases.

…The researchers used nanoscale polymer films, about four nanometers per layer, to build a sort of matrix or platform to hold and slowly release an anti-inflammatory drug. The films are orders of magnitude thinner than conventional drug deliver coatings, said Genhong Cheng, a researcher at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center and one of the study’s authors…

“Using this system, drugs could be released slowly and under control for weeks or longer,” said Cheng, a professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics. “A drug that is given orally or through the bloodstream travels throughout the system and dissipates from the body much more quickly. Using a more localized and controlled approach could limit side effects, particularly with chemotherapy drugs.” Continue reading ‘Copolymeric Nanofilm Platform for Controlled and Localized Therapeutic Delivery’ »

Joel White Kathleen Truesdell, Lloyd B. Williams, Mary S. AtKisson, John S.

1 Department of Neuroscience, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, 2 CogniScent, Inc., North Grafton, Massachusetts, United States of America, 3 Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, United States of America

Continue reading ‘Solid-State, Dye-Labeled DNA Detects Volatile Compounds in the Vapor Phase’ »

Researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston have developed a new “nanobiotechnology” that enables magnetic control of events at the cellular level. They describe the technology, which could lead to finely-tuned but noninvasive treatments for disease, in the January issue of Nature Nanotechnology.

Don Ingber, MD, PhD, and Robert Mannix, PhD, of Children’s program in Vascular Biology, in collaboration with Mara Prentiss, PhD, a physicist at Harvard University, devised a way to get tiny beads — 30 nanometers (billionths of a meter) in diameter — to bind to receptor molecules on the cell surface. When exposed to a magnetic field, the beads themselves become magnets, and pull together through magnetic attraction. This pull drags the cell’s receptors into large clusters, mimicking what happens when drugs or other molecules bind to them. This clustering, in turn, activates the receptors, triggering a cascade of biochemical signals that influence different cell functions.

The technology could lead to non-invasive ways of controlling drug release or physiologic processes such as heart rhythms and muscle contractions, says Ingber, the study’s senior investigator. More importantly, it represents the first time magnetism has been used to harness specific cellular signaling systems normally used by hormones or other natural molecules.

Continue reading ‘An “Attractive” Man-Machine Interface: Researchers Use Magnetic Fields, Rather Than Drugs, To Control Cellular Signaling’ »

The molecular machinery behind gene transcription — the intricate transfer of information from a segment of DNA to a corresponding strand of messenger RNA — isn’t stationed in special “transcription factories” within a cell nucleus, according to Cornell researchers. Instead, the enzyme RNA polymerase II (Pol II) and other key molecules can assemble at the site of an activated gene, regardless of the gene’s position.

The findings, published recently in the journal Molecular Cell, are the result of an ongoing collaboration between the laboratories of John T. Lis, the Barbara McClintock Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics, and Watt W. Webb, professor of applied physics and the S.B. Eckert Professor in Engineering. Jie Yao, the paper’s lead author, recently finished his Ph.D. at Cornell under Webb.

Watching genes turn on: Multiphoton microscopy images of living cells show the transcriptional activation of heat shock loci in real time.Using multiphoton microscopy, a technique developed by Webb that allows high-precision 3D imaging in living cells, the researchers observed polytene chromosomes — giant, multistranded chromosomes in the salivary gland tissue of fruit flies that have hundreds of sets of the genome instead of the usual two sets in conventional cells.They activated heat shock genes, which protect cells from sudden rises in temperature, and watched them in real time as they began to be transcribed. The researchers also tagged Pol II with a fluorescent marker to track its movements within the nucleus.

Continue reading ‘Research Sheds Light On The Mechanics Of Gene Transcription’ »