Nanotechnology Spotlight – Latest Articles

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Nanotechnology endoscope for living cells

nanoendoscopeWith the advance of nanomedicine, bio-nanotechnology, and molecular biology, researchers require tools that allow them to work on a single cell level. These tools are required to probe individual cells, monitor their processes, and control/alter their functions through nanosurgery procedures and injection of drugs, DNA etc. - all without damaging the cells, of course. Researchers have now developed a multifunctional endoscope-like device, using individual CNTs for prolonged intracellular probing at the single-organelle level, without any recordable disturbance to the metabolism of the cell. These endoscopes can transport attoliter volumes of fluid, record picoampere signals from cells, and can be manipulated magnetically. Furthermore, the tip deflects with submicrometer resolution, and the attachment of gold nanoparticles allows intracellular fingerprinting using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS).

Dec 15th, 2010

Hollow capsules expand graphene nano-toolbox

graphene_capsuleGraphene has attracted a huge amount of attention in recent years with its extraordinarily high electrical and thermal conductivities, mechanical, chemical properties, and large surface area. In order to meet the various demands for a variety of applications, preparation of desired structures of graphene sheets with controlled dimension and architecture are of significant importance. While research on flat graphene oxide structures has become quite common, there have been few reports on the preparation of hollow capsules of graphene through the nanosize, controlled assembly of graphene. Researchers in South Korea have now demonstrated the formation of graphene-based capsules through layer-by-layer (LbL) assembly of surface-functionalized reduced graphene oxide nanosheets of opposite charges onto polystyrene colloidal particles to produce multilayer thin films of graphene nanosheets.

Dec 14th, 2010

Novel, fast DNA nanopore detector features integrated tunneling electrodes

nanoporeResearchers worldwide are working on fast and low-cost strategies to sequence DNA, that is, to read off the content of our genome. Particularly promising for future genome sequencing are devices that measure single molecules. In this respect, the creation of nanochannels or nanopores in thin membranes has attracted much interest due to the potential to isolate and sense single DNA molecules while they translocate through the highly confined channels. Particularly interesting are techniques that can offer fast and low cost readout of long DNA molecules without the need of DNA labelling or amplification. In very interesting work performed at Imperial College London, researchers have now successfully developed a protocol for the fabrication of a solid state nanopore aligned to a tunneling junction.

Dec 13th, 2010

Another nanotechnology step towards 'Fantastic Voyage'

fantastic_voyageOff-targeting remains a key challenge of researchers working on nanoparticle drug delivery - the majority of intravenously administered therapeutic nanoparticles are also reaching normal tissues, resulting in considerable adverse side effects. Another challenge of nanoparticle drug delivery includes the limited penetration depth of particles into the tumors. While extensive efforts have been devoted for designing therapeutic nanoparticles, a new study - echoing the journey through the human body in Fantastic Voyage - represents the first example of coupling such drug nanocarriers with self-propelled nanoshuttles. The ability of synthetic nanomotors to carry 'cargo' has already been demonstrated; but not in connection to common drug-loaded particles. In a new study, researchers demonstrate that catalytic nanoshuttles can readily pickup common biocompatible and biodegradable drug-loaded particles and liposomes and transport them over predefined routes towards predetermined destination.

Dec 10th, 2010

Can nanoparticles end up in the brain?

brainThe use of minute particles as drug carriers for targeted therapy has been studied and discussed for more than 20 years. A selective accumulation of active substances in target tissues has been demonstrated for certain so-called nanocarrier systems that are administered bound to pharmaceutical drugs. Great expectations are placed on nanocarrier systems that can overcome natural barriers such as the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and transport the medication directly to the desired tissue and thus heal neurological diseases that were formerly incurable. The BBB represents the border between the circulating blood and the fluid in the central nervous system. It functions to protect the sensitive nerve cells from foreign substances and infections from the blood. Whether nanoparticles enter the central nervous system unintentionally and induce health problems is also being debated.

Dec 8th, 2010

Nanorattles are promising as effective drug delivery system

nanorattleSilica nanomaterials have shown great promise for delivering anticancer and other water-insoluble drugs into human cancer cells. The high surface area, tunable pore diameter, and uniform mesoporous structure of the mesoporous silicas offer a unique advantage for loading and releasing large quantities of biomedical agents. These properties are beneficial for designing stimuli-response drug release and allow mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSN) to be loaded with a drug. Especially MSNs with hollow and rattle structure show particularly higher drug loading efficiency because the interstitial hollow space can selectively and efficiently accommodate drug molecules. In what represents a significant progress of in vivo cancer therapy with mesoporous silica nanomaterials, researchers have demonstrated that silica nanorattles show advantages for in vivo enhancement of therapy efficacy and reducing the systematic toxicity of antitumor drugs.

Dec 7th, 2010

Nanoscopic patterning of nonplanar surfaces

nanopatterningProjection photolithography is mostly limited to flat surfaces. However, many emerging areas of micro- and nanotechnology applications, be it in optics, imaging, sensors or bioengineering, increasingly require the fabrication of microscopic and nanoscopic patterns on nonplanar surfaces. Contact printing and imprinting methods can cope with certain curved surfaces but appear to be restricted to those having a constant magnitude of curvature and a large radius of curvature relative to the arc length at least in one dimension. Researchers have now demonstrated that hexagonal noncontiguously packed (HNCP) colloidal crystals trapped at the air-water interface can be directly transferred onto solid substrates to give HNCP and distorted HNCP patterns. This bottom-up method uses self-assembled nanoparticle arrays and is not limited to flat surfaces at all.

Dec 6th, 2010

Dip-pen nanolithography as EBL alternative for fabricating graphene devices

nanolithographyDip-Pen Nanolithography (DPN) is a scanning probe lithography technique in which the tip of an atomic force microscope (AFM) is used to deliver molecules to a surface, allowing nanostructured surface patterning on scales of under 100 nm. This direct-write technique offers high-resolution patterning capabilities for a number of molecular and biomolecular 'inks' on a variety of substrates, such as metals, semiconductors, and monolayer functionalized surfaces. It's becoming a work-horse tool for the scientist interested in fabricating and studying soft- and hard-matter on the sub-100nm length scale. Using DPN for fabricating graphene devices has not been previously shown. Researchers at Stanford University have now evaluated DPN as an alternative to conventional electron-beam lithography (EBL) for tailoring such devices.

Dec 3rd, 2010