nanotechnology

The breakthrough launched a debate: What do we make now? One faction wanted to grow a face, but the faction that wanted to try a hand won. They imagined a five-fingered structure that could be snipped open at the wrist, slid on like a glove, then sutured. “You would only have to apply bandages around the wrist area—and that would be the surgery,” Abaci says.So the lab printed a five-fingered scaffold about the size of a sugar packet, prepared the cells as they had before, and then tested how well the “edgeless” construct…

By Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science December 8, 2022Illustration of depot-specific targeting of fat by cationic nanomaterials. Credit: Nicoletta Barolini/Columbia UniversityPositively Charged Nanomaterials Treat Obesity Anywhere You Want<span class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Columbia University</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Columbia University is a private Ivy League research university in…

By University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center November 10, 2022In this series of illustrations, the immune cell does not initially recognize the cancer cell. After BiTN particles (red), which include the “eat me” signal (teal), are attached to the cancer cell, the immune cell recognizes the cell to ingest it. Credit: The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer CenterPreclinical study uses nanoparticles to attach immune-activating molecules to tumors, sensitizing them to immunotherapy.Scientists have developed a…

The reason they could opt for a more information-dense bit is because of the physics of the reading head. When the head sticks to a -1, it contorts in a predictable way. When it sticks to a section deemed +1, it contorts the opposite way. For 0, no contortion.Then, if you shine light at the molecular machine while it reads, each of the three contortions will twist that light in a unique way. The scientists were able to follow along with how the head was changing its shape by reading this light. They used a process called…

When Robert Curl was 9 years old, his parents gave him a chemistry set for Christmas. Though his mother was upset when nitric acid spilled on the family stove, he had found a calling. The gift led to a 64-year career as a researcher and professor at Rice University, where in 1985 he happened to be available to help when a group of scientists performed a series of experiments using lasers to vaporize graphite, a form of carbon. They discovered that the…

Reseachers have developed a nanotechnology platform that could aid in the development of novel treatments for degenerative bone diseases. Scientists from the King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST) have developed a platform that relies on iron nanowires. It is capable of bending in response to magnetic fields.The researchers were able to grow bone-forming stem cells on the mesh formed by the nanowires, which resulted in physical activity for the moving substrate, causing the stem cells to grow into…

Next, they proved that the bots could swim. In test tubes containing urea, the microbots reached speeds of up to 4 micrometers per second—“one or two body lengths per second,” says Sánchez. (Humans also swim around one body-length per second.)Then it was time to show that the bots could also kill. But the team agonized over how to prove that they could actually treat an animal’s infection better than by just using passive drops of antibiotics. "That took some time," de la Fuente says.In the end, they devised a setup to…

This illustration is inspired by the Paleolithic rock painting in the Lascaux cave, signifying the acronym of our method, ROCK. Figuratively, the patterns of the rock art in the background (brown) are the 2D projections of the engineered dimeric construct of the Tetrahymena group I intron, while the main object in the front (blue) is the reconstructed 3D cryo-EM map of the dimer, with one monomer in focus and refined to the high resolution that allowed the collaborators to build an atomic model of the RNA. Credit: Wyss…

Infectious diseases such as malaria remain a leading cause of death in many regions. This is partly because people there don't have access to medical diagnostic tools that can detect these diseases (along with a range of non-infectious diseases) at an early stage, when there is more scope for treatment.It's a challenge scientists have risen to, with a goal to democratise health care for economically disadvantaged people the world over.My colleagues and I have developed a new method for the investigation of biological…