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Category: nanotechnology

Immunotherapies, predominantly immune-checkpoint inhibitors and chimaeric antigen receptor T cells, have transformed oncology. Nonetheless, these systemically administered agents have several limitations, including the risk of off-target toxicities and a lack of activity owing to an inability to overcome an immunosuppressive tumour microenvironment (TME). In this Review, the authors describe the potential to overcome these challenges using functionalized nanomaterials that are designed to release a wide range of immunotherapeutic cargoes in response to specific TME characteristics, including hypoxia, differences in pH, the presence of specific enzymes, reactive oxygen species and/or high levels of extracellular ATP.

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A new collaboration between Brown University and TU Delft has brought us closer to interstellar travel using light-powered sails. By combining ultra-thin, highly reflective materials with AI-optimized nanoscale design, researchers created a revolutionary lightsail that’s cheaper, faster to make.

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These nano-PeLEDs feature pixel lengths as small as 90 nanometers, enabling an unprecedented pixel density of 127,000 pixels per inch (PPI). For comparison, a typical 27-inch 4K gaming monitor has a pixel density of just 163 PPI.

“Making electronic devices smaller is an everlasting pursuit for scientists and engineers,” said Professor Di Dawei, Deputy Director of the International Research Center for Advanced Photonics at Zhejiang University.

He explained that while micro-LEDs based on III-V semiconductors are considered state-of-the-art, their efficiency drops sharply when pixel sizes fall below 10 micrometers – a limitation that has hindered their use in ultra-high-resolution displays.

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Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects approximately 1% of people over the age of 60 and 5% of those over the age of 85. Current drugs for Parkinson’s disease mainly affect the symptoms and cannot stop its progression. Nanotechnology provides a solution to address some challenges in therapy, such as overcoming the blood-brain barrier (BBB), adverse pharmacokinetics, and the limited bioavailability of therapeutics. The reformulation of drugs into nanoparticles (NPs) can improve their biodistribution, protect them from degradation, reduce the required dose, and ensure target accumulation. Furthermore, appropriately designed nanoparticles enable the combination of diagnosis and therapy with a single nanoagent.

In recent years, gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have been studied with increasing interest due to their intrinsic nanozyme activity. They can mimic the action of superoxide dismutase, catalase, and peroxidase. The use of 13-nm gold nanoparticles (CNM-Au8®) in bicarbonate solution is being studied as a potential treatment for Parkinson’s disease and other neurological illnesses. CNM-Au8® improves remyelination and motor functions in experimental animals.

Among the many techniques for nanoparticle synthesis, green synthesis is increasingly used due to its simplicity and therapeutic potential. Green synthesis relies on natural and environmentally friendly materials, such as plant extracts, to reduce metal ions and form nanoparticles. Moreover, the presence of bioactive plant compounds on their surface increases the therapeutic potential of these nanoparticles. The present article reviews the possibilities of nanoparticles obtained by green synthesis to combine the therapeutic effects of plant components with gold.

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University of Queensland researchers are designing nanotechnology they believe could improve how we treat the most aggressive form of breast cancer.

Professor Chengzhong (Michael) Yu and his team are developing novel nanoparticles that could dramatically increase the effectiveness of immunotherapies when treating triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC).

TNBC is aggressive, fast-growing and accounts for 30 per cent of all breast cancer deaths in Australia each year, despite making up only 10 to 15 per cent of new cases.

Professor Yu, from UQ’s Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), said a new solution was needed because TNBC cancer cells lacked the proteins targeted by some of the treatments used against other cancers.

UQ researchers are designing nanotechnology they believe could improve how we treat the most aggressive form of breast cancer.

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Conventional curved lenses, which direct light by refraction in glass or plastic, are often bulky and heavy, offering only limited control of light waves. Metasurfaces, in contrast, are flat and consist of an array of tiny structures known as meta-atoms. Meta-atoms influence light at a subwavelength scale and thus allow for highly precise control of the phase, amplitude, and polarization of light.

“Using metasurfaces, we can influence the temporal shift, intensity, and direction of oscillation of light waves in a targeted way,” says Dr. Maryna Leonidivna Meretska, Group Leader at KIT’s Institute of Nanotechnology.

“Thanks to its multiplex control capabilities, i.e., the simultaneous and targeted influencing of various parameters, a single metasurface can replace multiple . Thus, the size of the optical system can be reduced without affecting its performance.”

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Researchers from the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) and Lehigh University have developed a nanostructured copper alloy that could redefine high-temperature materials for aerospace, defense, and industrial applications.

Their findings, published in the journal Science, introduce a Cu-Ta-Li (copper-tantalum-lithium) alloy with exceptional thermal stability and , making it one of the most resilient copper-based materials ever created.

“This is cutting-edge science, developing a new material that uniquely combines copper’s excellent conductivity with strength and durability on the scale of nickel-based superalloys,” said Martin Harmer, the Alcoa Foundation Professor Emeritus of Materials Science and Engineering at Lehigh University and a co-author of the study. “It provides industry and the military with the foundation to create new materials for hypersonics and high-performance turbine engines.”

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How gravity causes a perfectly spherical ball to roll down an inclined plane is part of the elementary school physics canon. But the world is messier than a textbook.

Scientists in the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have sought to quantitatively describe the much more complex rolling physics of real-world objects. Led by L. Mahadevan, the Lola England de Valpine Professor of Applied Mathematics, Physics, and Organismic and Evolutionary Biology in SEAS and FAS, they combined theory, simulations, and experiments to understand what happens when an imperfect, spherical object is placed on an inclined plane.

Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the research, which was inspired by nothing more than curiosity about the everyday world, could provide fundamental insights into anything that involves irregular objects that roll, from nanoscale cellular transport to robotics.

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Metals like silver, gold and copper can kill bacteria and viruses. An electric current can also eliminate microorganisms. A team of U of A researchers combined the two approaches and created a new type of antimicrobial surface.

“It is a ,” said physicist Yong Wang, one of the lead researchers on the project. “It’s not like 1+1=2. When we combine the two, it’s much more effective.”

In , the new technology, which uses thin nanowires of silver to carry a microampere electric current, eliminated all the E. coli bacteria on glass surfaces.

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