Lifeboat Foundation

Using bacteria to aid in the design of superior biomedical implants capable of resisting colonization by infectious bugs.

Dr. Pushkar Lele, assistant professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University, is developing novel insights in cellular mechanics with bacteria to aid in the design of superior biomedical implants capable of resisting colonization by infectious bugs. Lele’s group also focuses on unraveling the fundamental principles underlying interactions in biological soft-matter to build bio-nanotechnology-based molecular machines. Lele’s lab currently focuses on a unique electric rotary device found in bacteria — the flagellar motor.

According to Lele, it is well established how motile bacteria employ flagellar motors to swim and respond to chemical stimulation. This allows bacteria to search for nutrients and evade harmful chemicals. However, in his recent work, Lele has now demonstrated that the motor is also sensitive to mechanical stimulation and identified the protein components responsible for the response. Sensing initiates a sensitive control of the assemblies of numerous proteins that combine to form the motor. Control over motor assemblies facilitates fine-tuning of cellular behavior and promotes chances of survival in a variety of environments.

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Iridium oxide (IrO₂) nanoparticles are useful electrocatalysts for splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen — a clean source of hydrogen for fuel and power. However, its high cost demands that researchers find the most efficient structure for IrO₂ nanoparticles for hydrogen production.

A study conducted by a team of researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Argonne National Laboratory, published in Journal of Materials Chemistry A, describes a new empirical interatomic potential that models the IrO₂ properties important to catalytic activity at scales relevant to technology development. Also known as a force field, the interatomic potential is a set of values describing the relationship between structure and energy in a system based on its configuration in space. The team developed their new force field based on the MS-Q force field.

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Gotta luv this.

An international team of researchers including the Lomonosov Moscow State University physicists has developed a completely new type of drug carrier for targeted delivery to the sick organ — the gel nano-capsules with a double shell. The results of the study were published in Scientific Reports.

Results are in from a study on the similarities and differences of the nanostructure surfaces.

There is a clear difference between a snake’s skin and moth’s eyes. Scientists at Kiel University have developed a new technique that brings this so-called ‘apples and oranges’ to a common level. This unique approach has given way to an entirely new and comparative outlook on biological surfaces, and provides a better understanding of how these surfaces actually work.

Cambridge’s new nano-scale light-powered piston engine that may one day energize devices to treat diseases directly or deliver drugs.

At the University of Cambridge researchers have developed a nano-scale light-powered piston engine that may one day energize devices to treat diseases directly or deliver drugs in powerful new ways. The device consists of charged gold nanoparticles within a polymer that bends and relaxes in response to heat changes. The polymer absorbs water when cooled, expanding in size, while heating the gold nanoparticles using a laser raises the temperature of the polymer, shedding the absorbed water and relaxing in response. This process happens in a fraction of a second, and as long as a laser is made to flip between being on and off, the engine keeps working.

According to the researchers, the force generated given the weight of the device is quite huge, at least a hundred times greater than existing motors or even muscle cells.

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The Illinois-based Northwestern University has utilized 3D printing technology to research a variety of vital applications, from 3D printing fuel cells to 4D printing materials on the nanoscale. Now, researchers from the prestigious institution are looking at 3D printing technology through a unique lens—a terahertz lens, to be exact. Generally unknown within the electromagnetic spectrum, hidden in between the more commonly known wavelengths of microwaves and infrared, lies the information-packed terahertz spectrum. The terahertz is not only a forgotten frequency, it’s also rarely studied, let alone well understood, yet it has high value in applications regarding imaging and communications.

One research group, led by Northwestern University’s Cheng Sun, has used metamaterials and a unique style of SLA technology called projection micro-stereolithography to manufacture a novel lens capable of working with terahertz frequencies. The 3D printed terahertz gradient-refractive index lens has better imaging capabilities than other commonly used lenses, and also enables researchers to make more advances with the relatively unknown world of the terahertz.

Quantum Sensors enables precise imaging of magnetic fields of superconductors.

Scientists at the Swiss Nanoscience Institute and the Department of Physics at the University of Basel have developed a new method that has enabled them to image magnetic fields on the nanometer scale at temperatures close to absolute zero for the first time. They used spins in special diamonds as quantum sensors in a new kind of microscope to generate images of magnetic fields in superconductors with unrivaled precision. In this way the researchers were able to perform measurements that permit new insights in solid state physics, as they report in Nature Nanotechnology.

Researchers in the group led by the Georg-H. Endress Professor Patrick Maletinsky have been conducting research into so-called nitrogen-vacancy centers (NV centers) in diamonds for several years in order to use them as high-precision sensors. The NV centers are natural defects in the diamond crystal lattice. The electrons contained in the NVs can be excited and manipulated with light, and react sensitively to electrical and magnetic fields they are exposed to. It is the spin of these electrons that changes depending on the environment and that can be recorded using various measurement methods.

Maletinsky and his team have managed to place single NV spins at the tips of atomic force microscopes to perform nanoscale magnetic field imaging. So far, such analyses have always been conducted at room temperature. However, numerous fields of application require operation at temperatures close to absolute zero. Superconducting materials, for example, only develop their special properties at very low temperatures around −200°C. They then conduct electric currents without loss and can develop exotic magnetic properties with the formation of so-called vortices.

A new water-based coating could be added to the production process of metals, ceramics or glass. This will prevent the spread of the deadly supergbugs and could also kill disease-causing pathogens.

DNA used in a thermometer.

A thermometer 20,000-times smaller than a human hair has been developed by researchers using DNA that is capable of measuring temperatures within living cells.

The thermometer, unveiled this week in the journal Nano Letters, was built by scientists at the University of Montreal and is expected to improve human understanding of nanotechnologies.

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