Inspired by the way molecules interact in nature, UNSW medical researchers engineer versatile nanoscale machines to enable greater functional range.
To withstand the challenging conditions within living organisms, molecular machines need to be durably constructed for continuous operation over long periods. At the same time, they need to adapt to different needs and to their changing environment by quickly swapping out molecular components to reconfigure the machinery.
A team, led by A/Prof. Lawrence Lee of UNSW Medicine & Health's EMBL Australia Node in Single Molecule Science, reports how they designed and built rapid exchange molecular machines with stability in the journal ACS Nano.
Unfortunately, not much seems to have come of this in the time ever since. But here's to hoping!Researchers at the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin have built the smallest, fastest and longest-running tiny synthetic motor to date. The team's nanomotor is an important step toward developing miniature machines that could one day move through the body to administer insulin for diabetics when needed, or target and treat cancer cells without harming good cells.
With the goal of powering these yet-to-be invented devices, UT Austin engineers focused on building a reliable, ultra-high-speed nanomotor that can convert electrical energy into mechanical motion on a scale 500 times smaller than a grain of salt.
With all its dimensions under 1 micrometer in size, the nanomotor could fit inside a human cell and is capable of rotating for 15 continuous hours at a speed of 18,000 RPMs, the speed of a motor in a jet airplane engine. Comparable nanomotors run significantly more slowly, from 14 RPMs to 500 RPMs, and have only rotated for a few seconds up to a few minutes.
The old adage that oil and water don't mix isn't entirely accurate. While it's true that the two compounds don't naturally combine, turning them into one final product can be done. You just need an emulsifier, an ingredient commonly used in the food industry.
Yangchao Luo, an associate professor in UConn's College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources, is using an innovative emulsification process for the development of a healthier shelf-stable fat for food manufacturing.
Luo is working with something known as high internal phase Pickering emulsions (HIPEs). High internal phase means the mixture is at least 75% oil. Pickering emulsions are those that are stabilized by solid particles.
Previous research in Pickering emulsions has focused on non-edible particles, but Luo is interested in bringing HIPEs to the food industry as an alternative to trans and saturated fats.
This new approach could have a major impact on how food is produced and could make it easier for food manufacturers to include healthier fats.
Many processed foods are loaded with saturated and trans fats for flavor and to extend a product's shelf life. Consuming these fats can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and LDL cholesterol.
The ability to analyze binding configurations in isolated nanosystems is of tremendous interest because how molecules attach to a surface is crucial in chemical processes. Dr. Lukas Bruder and Prof. Dr. Frank Stienkemeier from the University of Freiburg have succeeded in researching the binding configurations and mobility of organic molecules on ultracold noble gas particles.
Within a newborn's umbilical cord lie potentially life-saving stem cells that can be used to fight diseases like lymphoma and leukemia. That is why many new parents elect to store ("bank") their infant's stem cell-rich umbilical cord blood. But in the 6–15% of pregnancies affected by gestational diabetes, parents lack this option because the condition damages the stem cells and renders them useless.
Now, in a study forthcoming in Communications Biology, bioengineers at the University of Notre Dame have shown that a new strategy can restore the damaged stem cells and enable them to grow new tissues again.
At the heart of this new approach are specially engineered nanoparticles. At just 150 nanometers in diameter—about a quarter of the size of a red blood cell—each spherical nanoparticle is able to store medicine and deliver it just to the stem cells themselves by attaching directly onto the stem cells' surface. Due to their special formulation or "tuning," the particles release the medicine slowly, making it highly effective even at very low doses.
Donny Hanjaya-Putra, an assistant professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering in the bioengineering graduate program at Notre Dame who directs the lab where the study was conducted, described the process using an analogy. "Each stem cell is like a soldier. It is smart and effective; it knows where to go and what to do. But the 'soldiers' we are working with are injured and weak. By providing them with this nanoparticle 'backpack,' we are giving them what they need to work effectively again."
Researchers at Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology (Leibniz IPHT) developed a new glass fiber design that enables exceptionally long observations of a large number of individual, freely moving nanoparticles in a liquid. This allows the size distribution of nano-objects in a sample to be determined with even higher precision. The scientists are thus laying the foundation for even better research into environmental and bioanalytical issues in the future.
Whether water analysis, vaccine production or the examination of biological samples—mixtures of minute particles occur in almost all areas of everyday life and are composed of a variety of different tiny objects in liquid environments.
The accurate determination of individual components of such a fine particle mixture within a liquid (dispersion) poses challenges to science—especially with regard to the width of their size distribution and the presence of various particle species that differ only slightly in size. A new microstructured glass fiber (single antiresonant element fiber) developed at Leibniz IPHT offers the potential to significantly enhance the measurement accuracy of nano-object size characterization.
New optical fiber for high-precision analysis
With the special optical fiber realized at the Jena institute, nano-objects in aqueous solution with a diameter smaller than 20 nanometers can be confined, individually tracked and their size precisely determined. This allows researchers to precisely analyze size distributions of nanoparticles in mixtures. For this purpose, the glass fiber has a thin-walled and therefore light-conducting microchannel that's 17 micrometers in diameter.
To examine a sample, the particle fluid is brought into contact with the hollow-core fiber, which fills with the fluid sample as a result of capillary force. The coupled light is guided along the fiber's integrated fluid channel. The glass wall, which is only 756 nanometers thick, allows intense and uniform illumination of the sample to be examined and the contained nano-objects.
Researchers at the University of Cambridge have developed a super-sized nanocage that can be used to deliver larger drug cargoes, according to an article published in Nature Synthesis. These nanocages, created using a simple building block process inspired by biological systems, have the largest ligand-enclosed inner cavity volume ever made. The larger nanocages have potential applications in drug delivery and biotechnology, and could be used to deliver larger therapeutic biomolecules to specific parts of the body. The research also suggests that the large internal cavities of the nanocages could serve as platforms for binding large biomolecules, which could be useful in drug discovery and development.
Cambridge researchers have developed a super-sized nanocage capable of delivering larger drug cargoes, with potential applications in drug delivery, biotechnology, and drug discovery.
Think about how frustrating it is to try to fit a gift into a box that is too small. Sometimes you just need a bigger box.
https://phys.org/news/2023-12-nanoparti ... early.html
Existing flu vaccines provide only limited, seasonal protection because they target highly changeable proteins on the virus. Scripps Research scientists have now designed a vaccine that should work broadly against influenza A strains—one of the two types of flu virus that normally circulate in humans.
The new vaccine design, described in a paper titled "Single-Component Multilayered Self-Assembling Protein Nanoparticles Displaying Extracellular Domains of Matrix Protein 2 as a Pan-influenza A Vaccine" in ACS Nano on November 21, uses a relatively unchanging influenza A protein fragment, M2e, and presents it on self-assembling nanoparticles to better engage the immune system.
The vaccine's strong results in initial animal tests point to the possibility of a universal flu vaccine that provides long-term protection against serious illness from both ordinary and novel flu strains.
"This experimental vaccine has the potential to protect against diverse seasonal influenza A strains as well as future emergent strains that could cause pandemics," says study senior author Jiang Zhu, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology at Scripps Research.
Researchers have demonstrated a programmable nano-scale robot, made from a few strands of DNA, that's capable of grabbing other snippets of DNA, and positioning them together to manufacture new UV-welded nano-machines – including copies of itself.
The robots, according to New Scientist, are created using just four strands of DNA, and measure just 100 nanometers across, so about a thousand of them could squeeze up into a line the width of a human hair.
The team, from New York University, the Ningbo Cixi Institute of Biomechanical Engineering, and The Chinese Academy of Sciences, says the robots surpass previous efforts, which were only able to assemble pieces into two-dimensional shapes. The new bots are able to use "multiple-axis precise folding and positioning" to "access the third dimension and more degrees of freedom."
These nano-bots are often viewed as potential ways of manufacturing drugs, enzymes and other chemicals, potentially inside the cells of the body. But the researchers specifically call out the fact that these machines can "self-replicate its entire 3D structure and functions."
Very problematic.
Northwestern University researchers have developed the first selective therapy to prevent allergic reactions, which can range in severity from itchy hives and watery eyes to trouble breathing and even death.
To develop the new therapy, researchers decorated nanoparticles with antibodies capable of shutting down specific immune cells (called mast cells) responsible for allergic responses. The nanoparticle also carries an allergen that corresponds to the patient's specific allergy. If a person is allergic to peanuts, for example, then the nanoparticle carries a peanut protein.
In this two-step approach, the allergen engages the precise mast cells responsible for the specific allergy, and then the antibodies shut down only those cells. This highly targeted approach enables the therapy to selectively prevent specific allergies without suppressing the entire immune system.
In a mouse study, the therapy demonstrated 100% success in preventing allergic responses without causing noticeable side effects.
The research is published today (Jan. 16) in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. It marks the first nanotherapy for inhibiting mast cells, thus preventing an allergic response to a specific allergen.
Water pollution from dyes used in textile, food, cosmetic and other manufacturing is a major ecological concern with industry and scientists seeking biocompatible and more sustainable alternatives to protect the environment.
A new study led by Flinders University has discovered a novel way to degrade and potentially remove toxic organic chemicals including azo dyes from wastewater, using a chemical photocatalysis process powered by ultraviolet light.
Professor Gunther Andersson, from the Flinders Institute for NanoScale Science and Technology, says the process involves creating metallic 'clusters' of just nine gold (Au) atoms chemically 'anchored' to titanium dioxide which in turn drives the reaction by converting the energy of absorbed UV light.
