#Genisphere Reports Successful Treatment of Posterior Capsular Opacification using 3dna Drug Delivery Platform Genisphere LLC,
provider of the 3dna nanotechnology platform, reported today it has achieved specific immunodepletion of problematic Myo/Nog cells implicated in posterior capsular opacification (PCO), a clouding of the eye lens
which can be a complication of cataract surgery. The company envisions a wide application of this immunodepletion strategy in other fibrotic diseases and cancer,
and has completed recently in-licensing intellectual property and additional assets for targeting Myo/Nog cells for therapeutic purposes from LIMR Development Inc. LDI),
a for-profit subsidiary of the Lankenau Institute for Medical Research where an early stage of the technology was developed.
Myo/Nog cells were discovered in the laboratory of Dr. Mindy George-Weinstein, and named for their ability to form muscle (Myo) and their production of Noggin,
a disease that typically occurs in approximately 30%of adults and greater than 70%of children after cataract surgery.
when the mab was used as a targeting device on Genisphere's 3dna nanocarrier loaded with doxorubicin.
The targeted 3dna approach is similar to that of an antibody drug conjugate (ADC), but delivers 100 times more of the drug to the targeted cells than an ADC
and has observed no toxicity. Additional studies testing this formulation in rabbits undergoing cataract surgery are ongoing with Drs.
Liliana Werner and Nick Mamalis, Co-Directors of the Intermountain Ocular Research center at the University of Utah.
Dr. Werner commented, "This is a preventative treatment of PCO, and the preliminary efficacy and safety results look very promising."
"Dr. Mindy George-Weinstein, Professor of Biomedical sciences at the Cooper Medical school of Rowan University, stated,"Myo/Nog cells have also been found in a variety of tumors,
where we predict they contribute to tumor growth. This targeted 3dna immunodepletion strategy may be useful as an adjuvant therapy to reduce tumor expansion and recurrence."
"Dr. Robert Getts, Chief Science Officer of Genisphere, said, "Since the antibody has broad utility
and 3dna nanocarriers can deliver a variety of drug cargoes, we can easily generate targeted drugs for many of these indications."
"He added, "Genisphere's partnership model for development of nanotherapeutics has set the path forward for clinical testing and future commercialization of these and other candidates. t
#Groundbreaking Work with Two-Photon Microscopy Wins Brain Prize The 1 million euro Brain Prize has been awarded to four scientists three of them Cornell alumni for their groundbreaking work with two
-photon microscopy: Winfried Denk, Ph d. 9, Karel Svoboda 8, David Tank, M. S. 0, Ph d. 3 and Arthur Konnerth.
All three graduates who studied math, physics and applied and engineering physics at Cornell worked in the laboratory of Watt Webb,
professor emeritus of applied and engineering physics, where multiphoton microscopy for biological applications was pioneered. hese alumni embody the ebb Groupstyle of mixing physics,
engineering and biology together to achieve their goal, says Warren R. Zipfel, associate professor of biomedical engineering and a former Webb research associate. or decades,
Watt lab was the place to be at Cornell if you loved playing with lasers and optics and applying them to biological questions.
Zipfel still has the world first two-photon microscope in a case near his office,
built by Denk out of an early confocal microscope canbox. Denk took the first two-photon microscopy images with the help of Frank Wise, the Samuel B. Eckert Professor of Engineering,
who built the femtosecond laser needed to make two-photon microscopy work. Solving the mystery of how circuits in the brain produce behavior,
thoughts and feelings is one of the most important scientific frontiers in the 21st century.
Two-photon microscopy is a transformative tool in brain research, combining advanced techniques from physics and biology to allow scientists to examine the finest structures of the brain in real time. ee very proud of the work these alumni are doing,
says Lois Pollack, director and professor of applied and engineering physics. hey are examples for the next generation of students we are now training,
who work at the interface between the life sciences and the physical, computational and engineering sciences. hese recipients of the Brain Prize reflect Cornell long history of fruitful collaborations across campus,
adds Andrew Bass, professor of neurobiology and behavior in the College of Arts and Sciences and senior associate vice provost for research. e know that the technological breakthroughs
and discoveries needed to understand and combat neurological diseases and disorders will come from interdisciplinary interactions and ground-breaking discoveries in basic,
fundamental science between neurobiologists, engineers, computational biologists, physicists and chemists. The Brain Prize, for scientists making an outstanding contribution to European neuroscience
and who are still active in research, will be presented May 7 in Copenhagen by Crown prince Frederik of Denmark.
Linda B. Glaser is a staff writer for the College of Arts and Sciences a
#Advanced Infrared Imaging Technique Scans Samples to Directly Measure Cell Composition One infrared scan can give pathologists a window into the structures
thanks to an imaging technique developed by University of Illinois researchers and clinical partners. Breast tissue is stained computationally using data from infrared imaging without actually staining the tissue,
enabling multiple stains on the same sample. From left, the image shows a Hematoxylin and Eosin stain (pink-blue), molecular staining for epithelial cells (brown color) and Masson's trichrome (blue, red at right).
Credit: Rohit Bhargava, University of Illinois Using a combination of advanced microscope imaging and computer analysis,
the new technique can give pathologists and researchers precise information without using chemical stains or dyes.
Led by Rohit Bhargava, U. of I. professor of bioengineering and member of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology,
doctors and researchers use stains or dyes that stick to the particular structure or molecule they are looking for.
Doctors also have to choose which things to test for, because it not always possible to obtain multiple samples for multiple stains from one biopsy.
The new, advanced infrared imaging technique uses no chemical stains, instead scanning the sample with infrared light to directly measure the chemical composition of the cells.
The computer then translates spectral information from the microscope into chemical stain patterns, without the muss or fuss of applying dyes to the cells. e're relying on the chemistry to generate the ground truth
and act as the upervisorfor a supervised learning algorithm, said David Mayerich, first author of the study.
and now is a professor at the University of Houston. ne of the bottlenecks in automated pathology is the extensive processing that must be applied to stained images to correct for staining artifacts and inconsistencies.
The ability to apply stains uniformly across multiple samples could make these initial image processing steps significantly easier and more robust.
This allows the user to simply tune to a required stain for as many different stains as are necessary all without damaging the original tissue sample,
which can then be used for other tests. his approach promises to have immediate and long-term impact in changing pathology to a multiplexed molecular science in both research and clinical practice,
The National institutes of health supported this work. The Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana, Illinois, and the University of Illinois Cancer Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago were partners in this work e
#Ingenious Microfluidic Device to Detect and Extract Biomolecules from Fluid Mixtures Employing an ingenious microfluidic design that combines chemical and mechanical properties,
a team of Harvard scientists has demonstrated a new way of detecting and extracting biomolecules from fluid mixtures.
The approach requires fewer steps, uses less energy, and achieves better performance than several techniques currently in use
and could lead to better technologies for medical diagnostics and chemical purification. A team of Harvard scientists has demonstrated a new way of detecting
and extracting biomolecules from fluid mixtures. Illustration courtesy of Peter Mallen, Harvard Medical school. The biomolecule sorting technique was developed in the laboratory of Joanna Aizenberg, Amy Smith Berylson Professor of Materials science at Harvard School of engineering and Applied sciences (SEAS) and Professor in the Department of chemistry and Chemical Biology.
Aizenberg is also co-director of the Kavli Institute for Bionano Science and Technology and a core faculty member at Harvard Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, leading the Adaptive Materials Technologies platform there.
The new microfluidic device, described in a paper appearing today in the journal Nature Chemistry,
is composed of microscopic insembedded in a hydrogel that is able to respond to different stimuli, such as temperature, ph, and light.
Special DNA strands called aptamers, that under the right conditions bind to a specific target molecule,
are attached to the fins, which move the cargo between two chemically distinct environments. Modulating the ph levels of the solutions in those environments triggers the aptamers to atchor eleasethe target biomolecule.
After using computer simulations to test their novel approach, in collaboration with Prof. Anna C. Balazs from the University of Pittsburgh, Aizenberg team conducted proof-of-concept experiments in which they successfully separated thrombin, an enzyme in blood plasma that causes the clotting of blood
from several mixtures of proteins. Their research suggests that the technique could be applicable to other biomolecules,
or used to determine chemical purity and other characteristics in inorganic and synthetic chemistry. ur adaptive hybrid sorting system presents an efficient chemo-mechanical transductor, capable of highly selective separation of a target species from a complex
mixturell without destructive chemical modifications and high-energy inputs, Aizenberg said. his new approach holds promise for the next-generation, energy-efficient separation and purification technologies and medical diagnostics.
The system is dynamic; its integrated components are highly tunable. For example, the chemistry of the hydrogel can be modified to respond to changes in temperature, light, electric and magnetic fields,
and ionic concentration. Aptamers, meanwhile, can target a range of proteins and molecules in response to variations in ph levels, temperature,
and salt. he system allows repeated processing of a single input solution, which enables multiple recycling
and a high rate of capture of the target molecules, said lead author Ximin He, Assistant professor of Materials science and engineering at Arizona State university and formerly a postdoctoral research fellow in Aizenberg group at Harvard.
Conventional biomolecule sorting systems rely on external electric fields infrared radiation, and magnetic fields, and often require chemical modifications of the biomolecules of interest.
That means setups can be used only once or require a series of sequential steps. In contrast, said Ankita Shastri, a graduate student in Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard and a member of Aizenberg group,
the new catch-transport -and-release system s more efficientequiring minimal steps and less energy,
and effectivechieving recovery of almost all of the target biomolecule through its continuous reusability. The authors say that the system could provide a means of removing contaminants from waternd even be tailored to enable energy-efficient desalination of seawater.
It could also be used to capture valuable minerals from fluid mixtures. Other contributors to the work include Lynn M Mcgregor and Yolanda Vasquez from Harvard university;
Ya Liu, Amitabh Bhattacharya, Yongting Ma, and Olga Kuksenok from the University of Pittsburgh; Valerie Harris, Hanqing Nan,
and Maritza Mujica from Arizona State university; and Michael Aizenberg from the Wyss Institute a
#Ultra-Thin Layers of Silicon Create Rainbow of Optical Colors A new technology, which creates a rainbow of optical colors with ultra-thin layers of silicon,
has been demonstrated recently by a research group at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). Vibrant optical colors are generated from ultra-thin single layer silicon films deposited on a thin aluminum film surface with a low cost manufacturing process.
The optical colors are controlled by the thickness of silicon films. The thickness of the silicon films ranges from 20 to 200 nanometers for creating different colors.
For reference, 100 nanometers is about 1/1000 of the thickness of a single sheet of paper.
One nanometer is about two atomic layers of silicon. The silicon color coating process can be applied on almost any material surface.
In fact, the team has colored quarters turning them into a variety of colors.""The reason we chose silicon is not only
because silicon is a low cost material and has been used widely in electronics industry, but also most importantly, silicon is an indirect bandgap semiconductor material with both high index of refraction and low optical absorption in the visible spectrum.
The combination of high index of refraction and low absorption enables strong optical wave interference inside ultra-thin silicon films,
a physical process that results in colors,"says Dr. Junpeng Guo, professor of electrical engineering and optics,
who has published the result with his graduate student, Seyed Sadreddin Mirshafieyan, in a recent issue of Optics Express, vol. 22, issue 25, p. 31545 (2014.
The work was highlighted also and reported by Laser Focus World magazine. Colors seen from flowers in nature
and chemical materials are caused by wavelength selective light absorption in organic molecules. Currently, colors on computer and iphone screens come from dye materials pre-placed on the pixels.
Colors of chemical dyes only work in a limited range of temperatures around room temperature. The demonstrated silicon colors can sustain high temperatures and harsh environment."
"The reason these colors are so vibrant is because one wavelength of light is absorbed completely,
"explains Dr. Guo, while his student holds a collection of color samples.""And the colors are very durable.
A lot of colors you see in nature are due to wavelength selective light absorption in organic molecules which cannot withstand high temperatures,
"he says. Ultraviolet light destroys organic dye molecules over time, leading to color change and fading.
The new technology may hold promise for many applications such as for jewelry, automotive interior trim, aviation, signage, colored keypads, wearable and electronic displays.
Source: http://www. uah. edu u
#Goethe University Chemists Synthesise a Platonic solid Featuring an Si20 Dodecahedron Goethe University chemists have managed now to synthesise a compound featuring an Si20 dodecahedron.
The Platonic solid, which was published in the"Angewandte Chemie"journal, is not just aesthetically pleasing, it also opens up new perspectives for the semiconductor industry.
The Si20 dodecahedron is roughly as large as the C60 molecule. However, there are some crucial differences between the types of bonding:
and form double bonds. In the silicon dodecahedron, in contrast, all atoms have a coordination number of four
and are connected through single bonds, so that the molecule is also related to dodecahedrane (C20h20).""In its day, dodecahedrane was viewed as the'Mount everest'of organic chemistry,
In contrast, our Si20 cage can be created in one step starting from Si2 building blocks, "explains Prof.
Matthias Wagner of the Goethe University Institute of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry. The Si20 hollow bodies,
which have been isolated by his Phd student, Jan Tillmann, are filled always with a chloride ion. The Frankfurt chemists therefore suppose that the cage forms itself around the anion,
Quantum chemical calculations carried out by Professor Max C. Holthausen's research group at Goethe University show that the substitution pattern that was observed experimentally indeed produces a pronounced stabilisation of the Si20 structure.
In future, Tillmann and Wagner are planning to use the surface-bound Cl3si anchor groups to produce three dimensional nanonetworks out of Si20 units.
"Spatially strictly limited silicon nanoparticles display fundamentally different properties to conventional silicon wafers, "explains Matthias Wagner.
thus opens up the possibility of studying the fundamental electronic properties of cage-like Si nanoparticles compared to crystalline semiconductor silicon.
http://www. goethe-university-frankfurt. de e
#N1 Technologies Seeks Patent for Nano Engineered Tungstenglass The directors and management of N1 Technologies Inc. have filed just a Patent for a revolutionary nano engineered super glass called"Tungstenglass."
The initial target market is Cell Phone and Tablet glass surfaces. Tungstenglass is based a borosilicate glass that is infused with tungsten and carbon nanotubes.
The composition enhances the protective qualities of the glass by providing improved resistance to impact and scratching,
while because of the electrical properties of the Tungsten and Carbon nanotubes the electrical conductivity is improved making for a more sensitive surface for Human fingers."
www. N1technologies. com and www. Tungstenglass. com N1 Technologies Inc. is a Global leader in Nanotechnology research and Development.
enabling researchers to observe internal features such as nanoscale cracks and voids that ultimately lead to deformation and failure at the macroscale.
This capability supports"materials by design,"a concept that enables the development of unique new materials for function-specific applicability, such as lighter, stronger fiber composites for airplane wings;
more durable concrete for building materials; and biomimetic materials reproducing the advanced mechanical properties of many natural structures.
The University of Manchester in Manchester, UK has performed 3d in situ imaging of crack growth using Xradia Ultra Load Stage in nanoindentation mode to understand how cracks grow in dentin, the nanocomposite that forms the bulk of teeth.
Philip Withers, Professor of Materials science and Director of the Manchester Henry Moseley X-ray Imaging Facility, says,
"In situ nanomechanical testing in the Xradia Ultra X-ray microscope has enabled us to link the nanoscale 3d structure of a material directly to its performance.
For the first time we can now undertake time-lapse 3d imaging with phase contrast to follow the nucleation
foams, metal alloys, and single microcrystals. A team led by Brian M. Patterson uses the stage to better understand damage initiation
and quantifying 3d nanostructures under load. This is a completely unique capability that offers new opportunities to connect small scale evolution processes with those observed in micron scale XRM and bulk material testing."
offering new capabilities to observe internal processes at nanoscale resolution. Until now, electron microscopy techniques provided resolution down to the nanometer range
but are limited to surface imaging (SEM) or required extremely thin samples whose mechanical behavior will be affected strongly by surface effects (TEM).
a strain gauge force sensor and anvil sets that can be configured for three different operating modes, compression, tension, and indentation.
visit http://info. xradia. com/Xradia-Ultra-Load-Stage. html. ZEISSTHE Carl Zeiss Group is an international leader in the fields of optics and optoelectronics.
In fiscal year 2011/12 the company's approximately 24,000 employees generated revenue of nearly 4. 2 billion euros.
and produces planetariums, eyeglass lenses, camera and cine lenses and binoculars as well as solutions for biomedical research, medical technology and the semiconductor, automotive and mechanical engineering industries.
ZEISS is present in over 40 countries around the globe with about 40 production facilities, over 50 sales and service locations and service locations and approximately 20 research and development sites.
Microscopythe Microscopy business group at ZEISS is the world's only manufacturer of light, X-ray and electron microscopes.
The company's extensive portfolio enables research and routine applications in the life and materials sciences.
Users are supported for software for system control, image capture and editing. The Microscopy business group has sales companies in 33 countries.
Application and service specialists support customers around the globe in demo centers and on site.
Additional production and development sites are in Oberkochen, Gottingen and Munich, as well as in Cambridge in the UK and Peabody, MA and Pleasanton, CA in the USA.
800 employees and generates revenue of 650 million euros. Source: http://www. zeiss. com/xr r
#Super-Resolution Microscopy Helps Visualise and Count the Smallest Units in the Genome Now, for the first time,
which, packaged together, form our genome. This study was possible thanks to the use of super-resolution microscopy,
In combination with innovative quantitative approaches and numerical simulations, they were also able to define the genome architecture at the nanoscale.
Biologists and physicists have been working together to take a step forward in chromatin fibre observations and studies. y using the STORM technique, a new super-resolution microscopy method,
and even count nucleosomes across the chromatin fibers and determine their organisation. STORM overcomes the diffraction limit that normally restricts the spatial resolution of conventional microscopes
Pia Cosma, group leader and ICREA research professor at the CRG explains, e found that stem cells have a different chromatin structure than somatic (specialised) cells.
Even though all the cells in our body have the same genetic information, they are not expressing all the genes at the same time.
or less accessible to the molecule that reads the genome: the RNA polymerase. Depending on the specialisation of the cells,
This new work published in the prestigious journal Cell, establishes a new understanding of how the chromatin fibre is assembled
thus having the capacity of becoming a standard method of quality control of stem or pluripotent cells before their use in cell therapy or research in biomedicine.
This work has been carried out by scientists from the Centre for Genomic Regulation Maria Aurelia Ricci and ICREA Research Prof.
The outcome of this study has shown the successful collaboration between biologists and physicists from two of the leading research institutes of their respective fields in Europe,
#Innovative Fabrication Technique for Hybrid Nanostructure Supercapacitor Electrode Offsetting this promise is the fact that,
while supercapacitors have the potential to charge faster and last longer than conventional batteries, they also need to be much larger in size
and mass in order to hold the same electric energy as batteries. Thus, many scientists are working to develop green, lightweight, low-cost supercapacitors with high performance.
Now two researchers from the S n. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences, India, have developed a novel supercapacitor electrode based on a hybrid nanostructure made from a hybrid nickel oxide-iron oxide
exterior shell and a conductive iron-nickel core. In a paper published this week in the Journal of Applied Physics
from AIP Publishing, the researchers report the fabrication technique of the hybrid nanostructure electrode. They also demonstrate its superior performance compared to existing, non-hybrid supercapacitor electrodes.
Since nickel oxide and iron oxide are environmental friendly and cheap materials that are widely available in nature,
the novel electrode promises green and low-cost supercapacitors in future.""This hybrid electrode shows the superior electrochemical performance in terms of high capacitance the ability to store electrical charge of nearly 1415 farad per gram, high current density of 2. 5 ampere per gram,
low resistance and high power density,"said Ashutosh K. Singh, the primary researcher at the Department of Condensed Matter Physics and Material Sciences at the S n. Bose National Centre
for Basic Sciences.""It also has a long-term cycling stability, in other words, the electrode could retain nearly 95 percent of initial capacitance after cycling
or charging and discharging 3, 000 times.""The Promise of Supercapacitorssupercapacitors are used electronic devices to store an extremely large amount of electrical charges.
They are also known as electrochemical capacitors, and they promise high power density, high rate capability, superb cycle stability and high energy density.
In energy storage devices, storing an electrical charge is called"energy density,"a distinction from"power density, "which refers to how quickly energy is delivered.
Conventional capacitors have high power density but low energy density, which means they can quickly charge
and discharge and release a burst of electric power in a short time, but they can't hold a large amount of electric charges.
Conventional batteries on the other hand, are the opposite. They have high energy density or can store a lot of electric energy, but can take hours to charge and discharge.
Supercapacitors are a bridge between conventional capacitors and batteries, combining the advantageous properties of high power, high energy density and low internal resistance,
which may replace batteries as a fast, reliable and potentially safer power source for electric and portable electronic devices in future, said Singh.
In supercapacitors, high capacitance, or the ability to store an electrical charge, is critical to achieve higher energy density.
Meanwhile, to achieve a higher power density it is critical to have a large electrochemically accessible surface area, high electrical conductivity and short ion diffusion pathways.
Nanostructured active materials provide a means to these ends. How Scientists Built the New Electrodeinspired by previous research on improving conductivity via doping different metal oxide materials, Singh and Kalyan Mandal, another researcher and a professor at the S n. Bose
National Centre for Basic Sciences, mixed nickel oxide and iron oxide as a hybrid material and fabricated the novel core/shell nanostructure electrode."
"By changing the materials and morphologies of the electrode, one can manipulate the performance and quality of the supercapacitors,
"Singh said. In Singh's experiment, the core/shell hybrid nanostructure was fabricated through a two-step method.
Using a standard electro-deposition technique, the researchers grew arrays of iron-nickel nanowires inside the pores of anodized alumina oxide templates,
then dissolved the templates to obtain the bare hybrid nanowires. After that, the researchers exposed the nanowires in an oxygen environment at high temperature (450 degreescelsius) for a short time,
eventually developing a highly porous iron oxide-nickel oxide hybrid shell around the iron-nickel core."
"The advantage of this core/shell hybrid nanostructure is that the highly porous shell nanolayer provides a very large surface area for redox reactions
and reduces the distance for ion diffusion process, "said Singh. He explained that supercapacitors store charges through a chemical process known as a redox reaction,
which involves a material giving up electrons and transporting ions through another material at the interface between electrode and electrolyte.
Larger redox reaction surfaces are essential for achieving a higher power density for supercapacitors.""Moreover, the conductive Fe-Ni core provides a highway to accelerate the transport of electrons to the current collector,
which would improve the conductivity and electrochemical properties of the electrode, realizing high-performance supercapacitors,"Singh noted.
How the New Electrode Performedusing techniques called cyclic voltammetry and galvanostatic charge/discharge methods, Singh and Mandal studied the electrochemical properties of the hybrid material electrode.
Comparing with the counterpart, non-hybrid electrodes like nickel/nickel oxide and iron/iron oxide core/shell nanostructure electrodes, the hybrid material electrode demonstrated higher capacitance,
higher energy density and higher charging/discharging time.""For example, the current density of the hybrid electrode is three and 24 times higher than that of nickel/nickel oxide and iron/iron oxide electrodes, respectively,
"Singh said.""The comparative results show remarkable enrichment in the electrochemical activities of nickel/nickel oxide
and iron/iron oxide electrodes after combining them together, which suggests the hybrid electrode's better supercapacitive properties."
"One feature of Singh's fabrication technique is that it doesn't require extra binder materials.
According to Singh, binding materials are used commonly in the fabrication of carbon or graphene based supercapacitors for attaching redox active material on the current collector.
Without the mass of binding materials, the hybrid electrode is a good candidate to make lightweight supercapacitors."
"The remarkable electrochemical performances and material properties suggest that the iron oxide-nickel oxide hybrid core/shell nanostructure could be a reliable and promising candidate for fabricating the next generation lightweight, low-cost
and green supercapacitor electrodes for real life application, "Singh said. The researchers'next plan is to develop a whole supercapacitor device based on the hybrid electrode and test its functional performance,
a step closer to manufacturing production. Source: http://www. aip. org g
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011