[extropy-chat] The Nanogirl News~

Sun Jul 24 01:37:30 UTC 2005

The Nanogirl News
July 23, 2005

Nanowires In Blood Vessels May Help Monitor, Stimulate Neurons In The Brain. Working with platinum nanowires 100 times thinner than a human hair--and using blood vessels as conduits to guide the wires--a team of U.S. and Japanese researchers has demonstrated a technique that may one day allow doctors to monitor individual brain cells and perhaps provide new treatments for neurological diseases such as Parkinson's. Writing in the July 5, 2005, online issue of The Journal of Nanoparticle Research, the researchers explain it is becoming feasible to create nanowires far thinner than even the tiniest capillary vessels. That means nanowires could, in principle, be threaded through the circulatory system to any point in the body without blocking the normal flow of blood or interfering with the exchange of gasses and nutrients through the blood-vessel walls. (ScienceDaily 7/19/05) http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/07/050718234252.htm

UCLA chemists create nano valve. UCLA chemists have created the first nano valve that can be opened and closed at will to trap and release molecules. The discovery, federally funded by the National Science Foundation, will be published July 19 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "This paper demonstrates unequivocally that the machine works," said Jeffrey I. Zink, a UCLA professor of chemistry and biochemistry, a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA, and a member of the research team. "With the nano valve, we can trap and release molecules on demand. We are able to control molecules at the nano scale. (Medicalnewstoday 7/17/05) http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=27532

JILA study of RNA dynamics may help in drug design. Biophysicists have developed a method for studying, in real time, a nanoscale "docking and undocking" interaction between small pieces of ribonucleic acid (RNA), a technique that may be broadly useful in studying structural changes in RNA that affect its function. The research at JILA, a joint institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and University of Colorado at Boulder, may have applications in the design of effective new drugs based on small RNA strands. (Eurekalert 7/14/05) http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-07/nios-jso071405.php

Scientists making self-cleaning building products. From catalytic converters to alternative fuels, the fight against big-city smog has for years been fought inside combustion engines and exhaust pipes. Now, scientists are taking the fight to the streets by developing "smart" building materials designed to clean the air with a little help from the elements. Using technology already available for self-cleaning windows and bathroom tiles, scientists hope to paint up cities with materials that dissolve and wash away pollutants when exposed to sun and rain. (Clarionledger 7/23/05)
http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050723/BIZ/507230323/1005
Or at CNN: http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/07/22/smog.scrubbing.surface.ap/

Nano-surgeons break the atomic bond. The science of the small has moved a huge step forward following work in a subterranean Birmingham laboratory, reports Roger Highfield. The ultimate in surgery has been carried out in a vibration-free bunker in deepest Birmingham. Not only have scientists working there managed to remove a single atom of matter, measuring about a tenth of a millionth of a millimetre across, but they have achieved this feat even though their subject was thrashing around wildly. The feat is the ultimate in the science of the small, nanotechnology, that the practitioners hope will one day help to remove contaminants from the environment. One can also see it as an extreme version of precision chemistry, a far cry from what usually happens in a laboratory.
(TelegraphUK 7/20/05) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/2005/07/20/cfnano20.xml&sSheet=/connected/2005/07/20/ixconnrite.html

Molecular Logic Gate Operates In Nanospace. Computation molecule is confined within a detergent micelle. Chemists in Northern Ireland and Japan have designed a fluorescent molecule that carries out a logical computation in the nanospace of a membrane (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2005, 127, 8920). The system operates as a two-input AND logic gate, in which two conditions must both be satisfied to produce an output. (C&Enews 6/20/05) http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/83/i25/8325notw4.html

The first nanoparticle drug delivery system reaches the market. On 8th February 2005, the first nanoparticulate drug delivery product, Abraxane for the treatment of breast cancer was launched by Abraxis Oncology, a division of American Pharmaceutical Partners, Inc. The initial announcement in late 2004 saw the company's share prices rise by 50% and required the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to create a new class of therapeutic products. Operating at scales of billionths of a metre, nanoparticle drug delivery systems involve binding a therapeutic compound to a nanoparticle, or encasing it within a nanoshell. Common materials in development include gold or silicon nanoparticles, with the Abraxane system using a nanoparticle shell constructed from albumin. A key advantage of nanoshells is that they can be targeted to specific cell populations through conjugation with a monoclonal antibody. 
(Pharmalicensing 7/19/05) http://pharmalicensing.com/features/disp/1121690117_42dba205262cb

Nano-Tex makes nasty stains disappear like magic. Matt Hurwitz flies around the country spilling things on himself. That cheap red wine tucked into his oversized suitcase isn't for drinking. Neither is the grape juice. Point a camera at this guy and he cheerfully sloshes red wine over shirt, tie and pants. Whoa! What kind of a magic trip is this? Hurwitz is a man on a mission with a message. He's out to tell the world about fabrics treated with Nano-Tex, a nanotechnology treatment originated in California to "bathe" fabrics with nano molecules ("1 million times smaller than a grain of sand," he explains). (SeattlePI 7/9/05) http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/lifestyle/231842_stains09.html?source=rss

Nobel Prize winner to join cancer research team. A Nobel laureate who has leukemia has joined an all-star team of researchers testing a Washington County native's novel cancer treatment. John Kanzius, 61, of Millcreek, Erie County, formerly of South Strabane, is seeking five patents for his radio-wave cancer treatment that could offer an alternative to surgery and chemotherapy. University of Pittsburgh Medical Center began testing his inventions on rats in May, and University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, the nation's top-ranked cancer center, plans to begin testing it on rabbits and pigs. Now Richard E. Smalley, winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize in chemistry for creating carbon-based molecules known as buckyballs and nanotubes, will collaborate with M.D. Anderson on Kanzius' inventions. Smalley, founder of the Rice University Carbon Nanotechnology Laboratory in Houston, has the same B-cell leukemia afflicting Kanzius. (PostGazette 7/22/05) http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05203/541885.stm

New Method Purifies Nanoparticles. To meet the stringent purity requirements of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, pharmaceutical manufacturers will need robust, economical methods for cleaning up and recovering nanoparticles. While many methods exist for purifying small amounts of nanoparticles, such techniques are often difficult or uneconomical to use on even the modest scale needed to produce an approved pharmaceutical or imaging agent. (National Cancer Institute 7/18/05)
http://nano.cancer.gov/news_center/nanotech_news_2005-07-18c.asp

Disease diagnosis, bioengineering covered at state nano summit, USA. Research into the evolution of protein design by a University of Houston professor will be featured among nearly 20 presentations at the 2005 Nano Summit Research Conference July 28. Kurt L. Krause, an associate professor of biology and biochemistry at UH, will give a presentation at 11 a.m. on the "Role of Protein Design in Bionanotechnology." Sponsored by the Nanotechnology Foundation of Texas, the 2005 Nano Summit is a daylong forum for Texas natural science, engineering and medical researchers to meet and exchange information on their respective areas of expertise. (Medicalnewstoday 7/23/05) http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=27876

In the July 8 issue of Science, scientists from the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience Delft and Philips present the first superconducting transistors based on semiconductor nanowires. These nanoscale superconductor/semiconductor devices enable the fabrication of new nanoscale superconducting electronic circuits and at the same time they provide new opportunities for the study of fundamental quantum transport phenomena. (PhysOrg 7/8/05) http://www.physorg.com/news5043.html

NanoBio Corporation, announced today that it has successfully completed its Phase 2 study of NB-001 in patients with herpes labialis (cold sores) and is moving ahead with plans to conduct Phase 3 clinical trials next year. NB-001 is a topical emulsion comprised of nanometer-size water/oil droplets coated with a surfactant that has demonstrated potent anti-viral, anti-bacterial and anti-fungal activity in previous studies. These uniformly small antimicrobial particles are designed to accelerate the healing of skin ulcers by killing the herpes viruses at the lesion site. (Nanotechnology Now 7/22/05) http://www.nanotech-now.com/news.cgi?story_id=10677

Industrial Nanotech Inc. said it is testing a prototype of Nansulate Translucent to be delivered via a spray can. The company says the spray delivery method of the nanotechnology coating was engineered for household and industrial applications that can benefit from the smaller quantity offered and the ease of application that comes from a spray can. (Smalltimes 7/21/05)
http://www.smalltimes.com/document_display.cfm?section_id=46&document_id=9593

The market for the instruments and tools needed to work on the nanoscale faces substantial challenges in the future, experts told UPI's Nano World. Atomic-force microscopes, or AFMs, and other tools that experiment on carbon nanotubes and other areas outside the semiconductor industry "are the things that make nanotechnology possible to begin with," said Nathan Tinker, co-founder and executive vice president of the NanoBusiness Alliance in New York City."They represent the state of the art, and the ability for nanotechnology to drive forward institutionally across industrial sectors."Nanotech analysis group Lux Research, also in New York, has estimated the global impact of nanotech-enabled goods at $2.6 trillion by 2015...Still, the costs for ramping up the mostly research-oriented tools used to work on the nanoscale to large-scale production processes are going to be substantial, Tinker said.Moreover, this ramping up is only a fraction of the challenge ahead. "The big problem seems to me in getting these machines to the point of reliability needed at an industrial scale," he said." (PhysOrg 7/22/05) http://www.physorg.com/news5379.html

'Tall' crystals from tiny templates. Ames Lab Researchers Modify Old Technique to Make 3-D Multilayered Structures. Achieving a first in the world of novel optical materials, researchers at the U. S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory are making 3-D photonic band gap crystals four millimeters square (approximately one-eighth of an inch square) and 12 layers high without benefit of a "clean room" environment or the multimillion dollar equipment traditionally required to create such structures. The fundamental research, supported by the Basic Energy Sciences Office of the DOE's Office of Science, holds potential for significantly reducing the costs associated with fabricating PBG crystals, devices that make it possible to route, manipulate and modify the properties of light. (AmesLab 7/21/05) http://www.ameslab.gov/final/News/2005rel/tallcrystals.htm

Nano-imprint makes its mark. Nano-imprint lithography (NIL) could become more than just a novel process - it could replace conventional lithography completely. Although most of the semiconductor industry is still learning to build chips with circuits as narrow as 90 nanometres, Hewlett-Packard researcher Stan Williams is using a novel process called nano-imprint lithography (NIL) to make experimental memory chips with tiny electrical pathways less than half that size. "We're now using imprint lithography to routinely make real, operating circuits with a half-pitch [width] of 30 nanometres," says Williams, a senior fellow and director of quantum science research at HP Labs. (ElectronicsWeekly 7/21/05) http://62.189.48.35/Articles/2005/07/21/35899/Nano-imprintmakesitsmark.htm

Gina "Nanogirl" Miller
Nanotechnology Industries
http://www.nanoindustries.com
Personal: http://www.nanogirl.com/index2.html
Foresight Senior Associate http://www.foresight.org
Nanotechnology Advisor Extropy Institute  http://www.extropy.org
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"Nanotechnology: Solutions for the future."
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