#Telomeres Implicated In Premature Aging Scientists have established successfully a comprehensive model of rare accelerated aging disorder, Hutchinson-gilford progeria syndrome (HGPS), opening up the possibility of treatment for the rare disease.
Their work, published in elife, also sheds light on the mechanisms of aging and human health.
HGPS is an extremely rare genetic disease which causes patients to start aging rapidly when they are around one year old.
Symptoms include stunted growth and joint abnormalities, and patients often die of heart failure by their teenage years.
One in four million children suffer from HGPS, which currently has no effective treatment. The syndrome is caused by a mutated protein called progerin
which induces DNA damage, triggers premature cellular aging and slows down cell proliferation, resulting in accelerated aging.
It was thought previously that progerin did so through causing the nucleus to be deformed, thereby weakening the ability of cells to divide
and proliferate. But there is more to HGPS than meets the eye. This study proposes a radically different model,
in which progerin is linked to telomeresepetitive DNA sequences that protect the ends of human chromosomes
and shorten each time a cell divides, limiting a cell's regenerative capacity. Progerin induces a reduction in heterochromatin, a tightly packed form of DNA
making telomeres in the cell more fragile and susceptible to damage. The damaged telomeres in turn trigger premature cellular aging.
While a few studies had reported that telomerase appeared to rescue progerin-induced DNA damage, no study thus far had provided conclusive evidence
or elucidated the underlying reasons. The study now demonstrates that telomeres are indeed closely related to HGPS
and gene expression differences induced by progerin. However, telomerase could not rescue the loss of heterochromatin.
Therapies incorporating LAP2ALPHA may be administered to early-diagnosis HGPS patients to minimise telomere damage, while older patients, who have undergone already telomere damage,
thus counteract the effects of progerin on cellular aging, and greatly increase their chances of survival past their teenage years.
and aging, given that telomere damage can cause accelerated aging. Such findings pave the way towards the future possibility of slowing down the aging process,
At the same time, while telomere damage already occurs in normal aging, increased damage has been associated with lifestyle choices such as smoking and obesity.
thus contribute to managing the overall issue of aging as well e
#Next Generation Nebulizer Could Replace Jabs Researchers have developed a nebulizer that could one day deliver lifesaving cancer drugs
and vaccines traditionally given by injection. Cheap, lightweight and portable, the advanced nebulizer delivers precise drug doses to patients with life-threatening
or debilitating lung conditions including cancer, tuberculosis, asthma and cystic fibrosis. But the Respitetm nebulizer also has the potential to be used to administer insulin to people with diabetes
or to painlessly vaccinate infants currently subjected to needles. Professor Leslie Yeo, Director of RMIT University Micronanophysics Research Laboratory, said the Respite technology had the potential to revolutionize how patients were treated with drugs
including people with lung cancer whose poor survival rates have stayed stable despite significant therapeutic advances in recent years. nything we can nebulize,
we can potentially deliver, Yeo said. Yeo commented that conventional puffers only manage to get 30 percent of the drugs into the lungs,
the rest of the drug gets lost in the mouth. This is a problem when the drug delivered is expensive due to the wastage.
Respitetm allows allows the dose to be adjusted based on a patient's size, age, gender, physiological profile and disease severity.
Recent trials in Melbourne also showed sheep given a DNA flu vaccine via a nebulizer had comparable immune responses to animals injected with the vaccine.
despite the significant therapeutic advances achieved in recent years and currently, there are no personalized delivery devices for inhaled cancer drugs to improve these clinical outcomes,
In the Labasianscientist (Oct 13, 2015)- A team of scientists from Duke-NUS Graduate Medical school Singapore (Duke-NUS) and the University of Michigan at Ann arbor have discovered a molecular switch that regulates the body's circadian clock
This switch could be a potential drug target to treat circadian rhythm disorders caused by jet lag, shift work or metabolic disorders.
and led by Professor David Virshup from Duke-NUS and Professor Daniel Forger from Michigan, the findings shed light on how PER2 regulates our circadian clock.
which phosphates are added at key sites to influence the function of PER2. This hosphoswitchleads to two alternative fates for PER2:
Usually, the rate of a biochemical reaction increases as the temperature rises, so in this case the speed of the body clock should increase
shift work and, perhaps, seasonal affective disorder. The study also provides a mathematical model that accurately predicts the behavior of the clock under different circumstances.
and Technology (KAIST) mathematician Assistant professor Kim Jae Kyoung, will be useful in determining when drugs should be administered to modify circadian rhythms
In the Labasianscientist (Oct 13, 2015)- Researchers at the University of Tokyo and Miyazaki University have produced hydrogen under natural sunlight at an energy conversion efficiency of 24.4 percent,
using high efficiency solar cells to power water electrolysis. Their results, published in Applied Physics Express,
The demand for hydrogen as a clean fuel for vehicles and other applications is expected to increase.
A team of researchers led by Associate professor Masakazu Sugiyama and Project Professor Katsushi Fujii from The University of Tokyo and Associate professor Kensuke Nishioka from Miyazaki University have doubled now more than the solar conversion efficiency to 24.4 percent.
They used concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) modules, which includes a photovoltaic cell using a high-quality semiconductor crystal similar to the ones for lasers
and LEDS operating under the focal point of an optical lens. The solar-to-electricity conversion efficiency of this CPV module is as high as 31 percent.
The researchers also reduced energy loss by improving the connection between the CPV modules and electrolyzers, resulting in a solar-to-hydrogen energy conversion efficiency above 24 percent t
#Tiny'Nanoneedles'Prompt Parts of the Body to Generate New Blood vessels The researchers, from Imperial College London and Houston Methodist Research Institute in the USA, hope their nanoneedle technique could ultimately help damaged organs
and nerves to repair themselves and help transplanted organs to thrive. The nanoneedles work by delivering nucleic acids to a specific area.
Nucleic acids are the building blocks of all living organisms and they encode, transmit and express genetic information.
Scientists are currently investigating ways of using nucleic acids to reprogram cells to carry out different functions.
The nanoneedles are tiny porous structures that act as a sponge to load significantly more nucleic acids than solid structures.
This makes them more effective at delivering their payload. They can penetrate the cell, bypassing its outer membrane,
to deliver nucleic acids without harming or killing the cell. The nanoneedles are made from biodegradable silicon,
meaning that they can be left in the body without leaving a toxic residue behind.
The silicon degrades in about two days, leaving behind only a negligible amount of a harmless substance called orthosilicic acid.
In a trial described in Nature Materials, the team showed they could deliver the nucleic acids DNA
and sirna into human cells in the lab, using the nanoneedles. They also showed they could deliver nucleic acids into the back muscles in mice.
After seven days there was a sixfold increase in the formation of new blood vessels in the mouse back muscles
using nanoneedles, to provide transplanted organs or future artificial organ implants with the necessary connections to the rest of the body,
so that they can function properly with a minimal chance of being rejected.""This is a quantum leap compared to existing technologies for the delivery of genetic material to cells
and tissues,"said Ennio Tasciotti, Co-Chair, Department of Nanomedicine at Houston Methodist Research Institute and co-corresponding author of the paper."
"By gaining direct access to the cytoplasm of the cell we have achieved genetic reprogramming at an incredible high efficiency.
giving us endless possibilities in sensing, diagnosis and therapy. And all of this thanks to tiny structures that are up to 1, 000 times smaller than a human hair."
"Professor Molly Stevens, co-corresponding author from the Departments of Materials and of Bioengineering at Imperial College London, said:"
but we are pleased that the nanoneedles have been successful in this trial in mice. There are a number of hurdles to overcome
and we haven't yet trialled the nanoneedles in humans, but we think they have enormous potential for helping the body to repair itself."
"The researchers are now aiming to develop a material like a flexible bandage that can incorporate the nanoneedles.
and reset the cell programming. Dr Ciro Chiappini, first author of the study from the Department of Materials, added:"
Perhaps in the future it may be possible for doctors to apply flexible bandages to severely burnt skin to reprogram the cells to heal that injury with functional tissue instead of forming a scar.
Alternatively, we may see surgeons first applying the nanoneedle bandages inside the affected region to promote the healthy integration of these new organs and implants in the body.
#Microbubble Technology for Delivery of Nanoparticles to Tumours Biomedical researchers led by Dr. Gang Zheng at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre have converted successfully microbubble technology already used in diagnostic imaging into nanoparticles that stay
trapped in tumours to potentially deliver targeted, therapeutic payloads. The discovery, published online today in Nature Nanotechnology, details how Dr. Zheng and his research team created a new type of microbubble using a compound called porphyrin-a naturally occurring pigment in nature that harvests light.
In the lab in preclinical experiments, the team used low-frequency ultrasound to burst the porphyrin containing bubbles
and observed that they fragmented into nanoparticles. Most importantly the nanoparticles stayed within the tumour and could be tracked using imaging."
"Our work provides the first evidence that the microbubble reforms into nanoparticles after bursting and that it also retains its intrinsic imaging properties.
We have identified a new mechanism for the delivery of nanoparticles to tumours, potentially overcoming one of the biggest translational challenges of cancer nanotechnology.
In addition, we have demonstrated that imaging can be used to validate and track the delivery mechanism, "says Dr. Zheng, Senior Scientist at the Princess Margaret and also Professor of Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto.
Conventional microbubbles, on the other hand, lose all intrinsic imaging and therapeutic properties once they burst, he says,
in a blink-of-an-eye process that takes only a minute or so after bubbles are infused into the bloodstream."
"So for clinicians, harnessing microbubble to nanoparticle conversion may be a powerful new tool that enhances drug delivery to tumours,
prolongs tumour visualization and enables them to treat cancerous tumours with greater precision.""For the past decade, Dr. Zheng's research focus has been on finding novel ways to use heat,
light and sound to advance multi-modality imaging and create unique, organic nanoparticle delivery platforms capable of transporting cancer therapeutics directly to tumours.
Source: http://www. uhn. ca a
#Geometrically Encoded Magnetic Sensors (GEMS) for High-resolution Remote Biological Sensing To date, most efforts to image highly localized biochemical conditions such as abnormal ph
*and ion concentration--critical markers for many disorders--rely on various nanosensors that are probed using light at optical frequencies.
But the sensitivity and resolution of the resulting optical signals decrease rapidly with increasing depth into the body.
That has limited most applications to less obscured, more optically accessible regions. The new shape-shifting probe devices, described online in the journal Nature,
"Instead of optically based sensing, the shape-changing probes are designed to operate in the radio frequency (RF) spectrum,
specifically to be detectable with standard nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) equipment. In these RF ranges, signals are, for example,
not appreciably weakened by intervening biological materials.""As a result, they can get strong, distinctive signals from very small dimensions at substantial depths or in other locations impossible to probe with optically based sensors.
The novel devices, called geometrically encoded magnetic sensors (GEMS), are microengineered metal-gel sandwiches about 5 to 10 times smaller than a single red blood cell, one of the smallest human cells.
Each consists of two separate magnetic disks that range from 0. 5 to 2 micrometers (millionths of a meter) in diameter
and are just tens of nanometers (billionths of a meter) thick. See animation. Between the disks is a spacer layer of hydrogel,
***a polymer network that can absorb water and expand significantly; the amount of expansion depends on the chemical properties of the gel and the environment around it.
Conversely, it can also shrink in response to changing local conditions. Swelling or shrinking of the gel changes the distance (and hence, the magnetic field strength) between the two disks,
Scanning the sample with a range of frequencies quickly identifies the current shape of the nanoprobes,
the scientists tested the sensors in solutions of varying ph, in solutions with ion concentration gradients,
and the change over time was sensed by the GEMS and recorded through real-time shifting in resonant frequencies.
Yet local ph changes can provide invaluable early signals of many pathologies. For example, the ph around a cancer cell is slightly lower than normal,
the presence of an unseen tumor or show whether an infection has developed around a surgical implant."
"Our data were taken in vitro. And some potential applications of the sensors may not be biological at all.
But a long-term goal is to improve our techniques to the point at which GEMS can be employed for biomedical uses."
"That would require, among other things, further miniaturization. The 0. 5 to 2 m diameter GEMS in the experiments are already small enough for many in vitro and other possible non-biological applications,
as well as possibly for some in vivo cellular related applications. But preliminary estimates by the experimenters indicate that the sensors can be reduced substantially from their current size,
and might conceivably be made smaller than 100 nanometers in diameter. That would open up many additional biomedical applications.
One of the most significant features of GEMS is that they can be tuned"in fabrication to respond to different biochemical states
and to resonate in different parts of the RF spectrum by altering the gel composition and the magnet shapes and materials,
respectively So placing two different populations of GEMS at the same site makes it possible to track changes in two different variables at the same time--a capability the researchers demonstrated by placing GEMS with two different dimensions in the same location and detecting
the signals from both simultaneously.""The idea is that you could design different sensors to measure different things,
effectively measuring a panel of potential biomarkers simultaneously, rather than just one, to better differentiate between different pathologies,
"Zabow says.""We think that these sensors can potentially be adapted to measure a variety of different biomarkers,
possibly including things such as glucose, local temperatures, various ion concentrations, possibly the presence or absence of various enzymes and so forth."
"Ron Goldfarb, leader of NIST's Magnetics Group, notes that,"the work on geometrically encoded magnetic sensors by Gary Zabow
and colleagues is a natural extension of research published by the team, along with NIST's John Moreland, in 2008.
That work showed how micromagnets can act as'smart tags'to potentially identify particular cells, tissues or physiological conditions.
Functionally, the GEMS in the current effort are advanced more in that they change their shape in response to stimuli;
in order to make these sensors widely available to researchers.""Note:**ph is a measure of the acidity or alkalinity of a substance,
Shape-changing magnetic assemblies as high-sensitivity NMR-readable nanoprobes. Nature, Published online March 16, 2015. doi:
***Hydrogels are linked cross networks of polymers that can absorb various amounts of water depending on their chemical composition and structure.
The hydrogels used in the NIST-NIH project were engineered to swell in neutral environments and to shrink in low-ph environments.
#Graphene Manufacturer Angstron Develops Cost-Effective Thermal Foil Sheets for Smartphones Graphene Manufacturer Angstron Develops Cost-Effective Thermal Foil Sheets for Smartphones Published on March 30,
2015 at 8: 42 AM Most smartphone users swipe and tap their way from app to app,
navigating their mini mobile computing world with ease. Very few think about the technology beneath their screens that conducts heat away from internal electronic components
and batteries to help maintain optimal performance. With the number of smartphone users expected to reach more than 2 billion worldwide by 2016,
manufacturers are being challenged to find new thermal management methods. Dayton Ohio-based Angstron Materials, Inc. has developed a family of cost-effective thermal foil products that can be customized for handheld devices and other products.
The graphene manufacturer foil sheets have been qualified for use by a major mobile electronics company. Angstron thermal foils are available in a variety of grades.
Thinner than other products on the market, the foil sheets give manufacturers greater design flexibility than competing methods.
or greater thermal conductivity. iniaturization results in less space to dissipate heat generated from today high-performance processors,
Angstron is able to tailor its thermal foil sheets in thicknesses ranging from 5 um to 40 um with thermal conductivity between 800 W/m-K and 1,
which are suited for use in a range of applications including tablets, lap tops, flat screen TVS and EMI shielding s
#Breakthrough in DNA Science Opens the Way for Practical Nanomachines with Moving Parts The latest DNA nanodevices created at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM)- including a robot with movable arms,
They demonstrate a breakthrough in the science of using DNA as a programmable building material for nanometer scale structures and machines.
This not only opens the way for practical nanomachines with moving parts but also offers a toolkit that makes it easier to program their self-assembly.
as designed, with subnanometer precision. Yet all those advances employed"base-pairing"to determine how individual strands
"To enable a wider range of DNA nanomachines with moving parts and potentially useful capabilities,
the team adapted two more techniques from nature's biomolecular toolkit: the way proteins use shape complementarity to simplify docking with other molecules,
and their tendency to form relatively weak bonds that can be broken readily when no longer needed.
and bachelor's student Andrea Neuner from TUM's Munich School of engineering-took inspiration from a mechanism that allows nucleic acid molecules to bond through interactions weaker than base-pairing.
In nature, weak bonds can be formed when the RNA-based enzyme RNASE P"recognizes"so-called TRANSFER RNA;
To create a dynamic DNA nanomachine, the researchers begin by programming the self-assembly of 3d building blocks that are shaped to fit together.
A weak, short-ranged binding mechanism called nucleobase stacking can then be activated to snap these units in place.
"The team produced a series of DNA devices-ranging from micrometer-scale filaments that might prefigure technological"flagella"to nanoscale machines with moving parts-to demonstrate the possibilities
For example, transmission electron micrographs of a three-dimensional, nanoscale humanoid robot confirm that the pieces fit together exactly as designed.
Another method for switching a DNA nanodevice between its different structural states-by simply raising
"Temperature cycling is a way to put energy into the system, "Dietz adds, "so if the reversible conformational transition could be coupled to some continously evolving process,
we basically now have a way not just to build nanomachines, but also to power them.""
""A snap"-like child's play There is yet another dimension to the flexibility gained by adding shape-complementary components and weak bonding to the DNA NANOTECHNOLOGY toolkit.
Programming self-assembly by base-pairing alone is like writing computer code in machine language. The hope is that this new approach will make it easier to bend DNA origami toward practical ends,
in much the same way the advent of higher-level computer programming languages spurred advances in software engineering.
#Breakthrough, Low-cost Method to Build DNA NANOTUBES Block By Block Researchers at Mcgill University have developed a new,
low-cost method to build DNA NANOTUBES block by block a breakthrough that could help pave the way for scaffolds made from DNA strands to be used in applications such as optical and electronic devices or smart drug-delivery systems.
have constructed previously nanotubes using a method that relies on spontaneous assembly of DNA in solution.
we can now build long nanotubes block by block, said Amani Hariri, a Phd student in Mcgill Department of chemistry and lead author of the study. y using a fluorescence microscope we can further visualize the formation of the tubes at each stage of assembly,
as each block is tagged with a fluorescent compound that serves as a beacon. We can then count the number of blocks incorporated in each tube as it is constructed.
which enables scientists to peer into the nanoworld by turning the fluorescence of individual molecules on and off.
Hariri research is supervised jointly by chemistry professors Gonzalo Cosa and Hanadi Sleiman, who co-authored the new study.
The custom-built assembly technique developed through this collaboration ives us the ability to monitor the nanotubes as wee building them,
who holds the Canada Research Chair in DNA Nanoscience. The resulting esigner nanotubes she adds,
promise to be far cheaper to produce on a large scale than those created with so-called DNA origami,
another innovative technique for using DNA as a nanoscale construction material. Funding for the research was provided by the Natural sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, Nanoquébec, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Fonds de recherché du Québec Nature
#Electroluminescence with Phosphor Nanoparticles Holds Promise for Modern Lighting Light-emitting diodes (LEDS) are the modern lighting devices used in lamps, signals, signs or displays.
By contrast, organic semiconducting light-emitting materials (OLEDS) can be incorporated in thin layers and used on curved surfaces.
However, OLEDS for large-area illumination are cost-intensive at present owing to their low efficiency and short lifetime.
One promising alternative for modern lighting is electroluminescence. Special nanoparticles, so-called phosphors, are excited in an electric field to emit light.
Researchers at the INM Leibniz Institute for New Materials have developed now a new method that enables electroluminescence on large
curved surfaces in a cost-effective way: in this case, the light-emitting layer and all other components are produced by means of wet-chemical, printable methods.
The researchers from the INM will be presenting their results from 13 to 17 april 2015 in Hall 2 at the stand B46 of the Hannover Messe in the context of the leading trade fair for R
the absorbed energy is converted efficiently into light and appreciable heating is avoided. On application of an AC voltage, light is emitted from the electroluminescent layer. e embed luminous particles in the form of functionalized zinc sulphide nanoparticles as phosphors into the binder layer,
explains de Oliveira hese are doped with copper or manganese. At present this allows the generation of green and blue-green light.
The electroluminescent light sheets developed at the INM can be connected directly to the customary mains voltage of 230 volts.
Rectifiers, ballast capacitors or other switching units that first adapt the voltage can be omitted. The researchers are currently working on further functionalization of the phosphor nanoparticles. ur goal is to generate white light by means of an altered doping
or by introducing coloured pigments into the luminous layer, says physicist de Oliveira. At the same time the developers want to alter the materials in such a way that the light sheets can be used even at a lower mains voltage.
INM conducts research and development to create new materials for today tomorrow and beyond. Chemists, physicists, biologists, materials scientists and engineers team up to focus on these essential questions:
Which material properties are new, how can they be investigated and how can they be tailored for industrial applications in the future?
New materials for energy application, new concepts for medical surfaces, new surface materials for tribological systems and nano safety and nano bio.
Nanocomposite Technology, Interface Materials, and Bio Interfaces. Source: http://www. inm-gmbh. de e
#Cerium-Based Material Made into Nanometer-Sized Particles to Produce Key Ingredient for Nylon Production The Critical Materials Institute,
a U s. Department of energy Innovation Hub led by the Ames Labratory, has created a new chemical process that makes use of the widely available rare-earth metal cerium to improve the manufacture of nylon.
The process uses a cerium-based material made into nanometer-sized particles with a palladium catalyst to produce cyclohexanone, a key ingredient in the production of nylon.
we managed to find a reaction that works very well at room temperature and ambient pressure, said CMI
and demand of rare-earth metals. he research group focused on three or four different catalytic reactions used in high production volume chemicals,
who is also an adjunct assistant professor of chemistry at Iowa State university. e are the only CMI scientists looking at catalysis,
But rare-earth metals like cerium, which is as abundant as copper, are primary products of mining for other, more valuable rare-earth elements.
With minimal demand for these abundant rare earths, they are stockpiled. Finding widely marketable uses for these stockpiled materials makes the best use of all mining resources,
and improves the economic feasibility of mining overall. Slowing said the technology also has other possible applications,
like the treatment of biomass. The technology is discussed in the paper elective Hydrogenation of Phenol Catalyzed by Palladium on High Surface Ceria at Room temperature and Ambient Pressure, by a team that also included Nicholas C. Nelson, Sebastian Manzano
and Aaron D. Sadow from Ames Laboratory, Steven Overbury from Oak ridge National Laboratory, and was published in ACS Catalysis http://pubs. acs. org/doi/abs/10.1021/cs502000j The Critical Materials Institute is a Department of energy Innovation Hub led by the U s. Department of energy's Ames Laboratory.
CMI seeks ways to eliminate and reduce reliance on rare-earth metals and other materials critical to the success of clean energy technologies.
Ames Laboratory is a U s. Department of energy Office of Science national laboratory operated by Iowa State university.
Ames Laboratory creates innovative materials technologies and energy solutions. We use our expertise, unique capabilities and interdisciplinary collaborations to solve global problems s
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