#Advance in photodynamic therapy offers new approach to ovarian cancer The findings were published just in the journal Nanomedicine:
Nanotechnology, Biology and Medicine, and after further research may offer a novel mechanism to address this aggressive and often fatal cancer that kills 14,000 women in the United states each year.
Ovarian cancer has a high mortality rate because it often has metastasized into the abdominal cavity before it's discovered.
Toxicity and cancer-cell resistance can also compromise the effectiveness of radiation and chemotherapy that's often used as a follow-up to surgery.
The new approach being developed by researchers from the OSU College of Pharmacy and the University of Nebraska takes existing approaches to photodynamic therapy
and makes them significantly more effective by adding compounds that make cancer cells vulnerable to reactive oxygen species,
and also reducing the natural defenses of those cells.""Surgery and chemotherapy are the traditional approaches to ovarian cancer,
but it's very difficult to identify all of the places where a tumor has spread,
and in some cases almost impossible to remove all of them, "said Oleh Taratula, an assistant professor in the Oregon State university/Oregon Health & Science University college of Pharmacy."
"Photodynamic therapy is a different approach that can be used as an adjunct to surgery right during the operation,
and appears to be very safe and nontoxic, "Taratula said.""In the past its effectiveness has been limited, but our new findings may make this technology far more effective than it's ever been before."
"Using the new approach, a patient is given first a photosensitizing compound called phthalocyanine, which produces reactive oxygen species that can kill cells
when they are exposed to near-infrared light. In addition, a gene therapy is administered that lowers the cellular defense against reactive oxygen species. Both the phthalocyanine
and genetic therapy, composed of"small, interfering RNA,"are attached to what researchers call"dendrimer-based nanoplatforms,
"a nanotechnology approach developed by OSU researchers. It delivers the compounds selectively into cancer cells, but not healthy cells.
Compared to existing photodynamic therapies, this approach allows the near-infrared light to penetrate much deeper into abdominal tissues,
and dramatically increases the effectiveness of the procedure in killing cancer cells. Using photodynamic therapy alone,
some tumors in laboratory animals began to regrow after two weeks. But with the addition of the combinatorial genetic therapy to weaken the cancer cell defenses,
there was no evidence of cancer recurrence. During the procedures, mice receiving the gene therapy also continued to grow
and gain weight, indicating a lack of side effects.""Cancer cells are very smart, "Taratula said.""They overexpress certain proteins, including one called DJ1,
that help them survive attack by reactive oxygen species that otherwise might kill them. We believe a key to the success of this therapy is that it takes away those defensive mechanisms."
"The overexpression of DJ1, researchers said in their study, is associated with invasion, metastasis, resistance to cancer therapies,
and overall cancer cell survival. That excess of DJ1 is silenced by the genetic therapy composed of sirna.
The findings of this research, Taratula said, could also build upon some other recent advances in photodynamic therapy, in
which a different compound called naphthalocyanine could be administered prior to surgery, causing the cancer cells to"glow
"and fluoresce when exposed to near-infrared light. This provides a literal road map for surgeons to follow,
showing which tissue is cancerous and which is not. There's no reason that approach couldn't be combined with the newest advance
Taratula said, providing multiple mechanisms to improve surgical success and, with minimal side effects, help eradicate any remaining cancer cells that were removed not completely."
"Our study established a prospective therapeutic approach against ovarian cancer, "the researchers wrote in their conclusion."
"The tumors exposed to a single dose of a combinatorial therapy were eradicated completely from the mice
#New optical chip lights up the race for quantum computer The microprocessor inside a computer is a single multipurpose chip that has revolutionised people's life,
allowing them to use one machine to surf the web, check emails and keep track of finances.
Now, researchers from the University of Bristol in the UK and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) in Japan, have pulled off the same feat for light in the quantum world by developing an optical chip that can process photons in an infinite number
of ways. It's a major step forward in creating a quantum computer to solve problems such as designing new drugs
superfast database searches, and performing otherwise intractable mathematics that aren't possible for super computers.
The fully reprogrammable chip brings together a multitude of existing quantum experiments and can realise a plethora of future protocols that have not even been conceived yet, marking a new era of research for quantum scientists and engineers at the cutting edge of quantum technologies.
The work is published in the journal Science on 14 august. Since before Newton held a prism to a ray of sunlight and saw a spectrum of colour,
scientists have understood nature through the behaviour of light. In the modern age of research scientists are striving to understand nature at the quantum level
and to engineer and control quantum states of light and matter. A major barrier in testing new theories for quantum science and quantum computing is the time
and resources needed to build new experiments, which are typically extremely demanding due to the notoriously fragile nature of quantum systems.
This result shows a step change for experiments with photons, and what the future looks like for quantum technologies.
Dr Anthony Laing, who led the project, said:""A whole field of research has essentially been put onto a single optical chip that is easily controlled.
The implications of the work go beyond the huge resource savings. Now anybody can run their own experiments with photons,
much like they operate any other piece of software on a computer. They no longer need to convince a physicist to devote many months of their life to painstakingly build
and conduct a new experiment.""The team demonstrated the chip's unique capabilities by reprogramming it to rapidly perform a number of different experiments, each
of which would previously have taken many months to build. Bristol Phd student Jacques Carolan, one of the researchers, added:"
"Once we wrote the code for each circuit, it took seconds to re-programme the chip,
and milliseconds for the chip to switch to the new experiment. We carried out a year's worth of experiments in a matter of hours.
What we're really excited about is using these chips to discover new science that we haven't even thought of yet."
"The device was made possible because the world's leading quantum photonics group teamed up with Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT), the world's leading telecommunications company.
Professor Jeremy O'brien, Director of the Centre for Quantum Photonics at Bristol University, explained:""Over the last decade, we have established an ecosystem for photonic quantum technologies,
allowing the best minds in quantum information science to hook up with established research and engineering expertise in the telecommunications industry.
It's a model that we need to encourage if we are to realise our vision for a quantum computer."
"The University of Bristol's pioneering'Quantum in the Cloud'is the first and only service to make a quantum processor publicly accessible
and plans to add more chips like this one to the service so others can discover the quantum world for themselves s
#A thin ribbon of flexible electronics can monitor health, infrastructure Stretchy, bendable electronics could have many uses, such as monitoring patients'health and keeping tabs on airplanes.
By combining thinned devices based on inorganic semiconductors with components & interconnects that are manufactured 3d printed/additively on nontraditional substrates,
Flexible Hybrid Electronics (FHE) can deliver significant size, weight, and power (SWAP) benefits without sacrificing performance.
FHE are expected to impact a range of Air force applications including: wearable electronics and sensors for monitoring airman health/performance;
conformal electronics and antennas for maximizing space efficiency and reducing aerodynamic drag; and inherently more durable circuits that will withstand the extreme strain, shock,
and vibration environments typical of Air force missions. Related to these goals, we are developing approaches to inject and print gallium-based liquid metal alloys into varied materials for stretchable and reconfigurable electronics.
For energy devices we have demonstrated solution-processable approaches to fabricate organic photovoltaic devices on nearly arbitrary surfaces including PET and polymer reinforced polymer composites.
We have fabricated also Li-ion batteries based on structurally resilient carbon nanotube-based electrodes that have survived thousands of flexing cycles.
The presentation will also discuss the development of silver inks as an interconnect material for flexible Si CMOS ICS on elastomers.
Finally initial molecular dynamics based approaches to model the interaction of inks on various surfaces will also be described.
A new world of flexible, bendable, even stretchable electronics is emerging from research labs to address a wide range of potentially game-changing uses.
The common, rigid printed circuit board is slowly being replaced by a thin ribbon of resilient, high-performance electronics.
Over the last few years, one team of chemists and materials scientists has begun exploring military applications in harsh environments for aircraft, explosive devices and even combatants themselves.
Researchers will provide an update on the latest technologies as well as future research plans, at the 250th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS.
ACS is the world's largest scientific society. The meeting takes place here through Thursday."
"Basically, we are using a hybrid technology that mixes traditional electronics with flexible, high-performance electronics and new 3-D printing technologies,"says Benjamin J. Leever, Ph d,
. who is at the Air force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air force base.""In some cases, we incorporate'inks,
'which are based on metals, polymers and organic materials, to tie the system together electronically. With our technology, we can take a razor-thin silicon integrated circuit, a few hundred nanometers thick,
and place it on a flexible, bendable or even foldable, plastic-like substrate material, "he says.
To allow electronics to be bendable or stretchable or even change their configuration after fabrication,
the Wright-Patterson team has turned to liquid gallium alloys as an electrical interconnect material, Leever says."
"While these liquid alloys typically oxidize within minutes and become essentially useless, "he says, "the team has been able to dramatically reduce the effects of the oxidation through the use of ionic species confined to the walls of microvascular channels within the flexible substrates."
"The result is thin, foldable material that allows the circuitry to fit into extremely tight spaces
and even to be integrated into complex curved surfaces, such as an airplane's wing, or even a person's skin.
In aircraft applications, Leever explains, the hybrid flexible system can be used to monitor stresses and strains and report this information through miniature embedded antennas to ground crews or a pilot.
The researchers also are developing the same approach to monitor pilots'health. This involves a biosensor system that can measure heartbeat,
hydration levels, sweat, temperature and other vital signs through miniature circuitry. The system would be embedded on a flexible
wearable patch and would include an antenna to transmit these biometric signals to the pilot or a ground team.
The patch will"breathe,"bend and stretch, and will provide real-time measurements of metrics that indicate fatigue or potential cognitive problems, Leever notes.
Another military application the Air force is pursuing is use of a flexible hybrid system in"bunker buster"bombs,
and could detonate the weapon after surviving the initial impact of ground contact after being dropped from aircraft.
Leever foresees use of flexible systems to monitor the conditions of bridges and other types of infrastructure in real time.
He also points to medical applications, such as physical feedback for athletes as they exercise and real-time hospital monitoring for caregivers concerned about changes in a patient's vital signs.
This type of monitoring dispenses with the need for the bulky electrodes and wiring that normally are associated with close medical surveillance."
"Overall, the military has the advantage of being able to move ahead with potentially higher risk research,
"he explains.""Commercial investors want a clear demonstration before making an investment. The military can pursue possibly transformational applications at earlier stages
if we see a promising approach to realize and advance a technology's revolutionary potential.
When we are successful, the commercial sector directly benefits.""Leever adds that the Wright-Patterson team is part of a newly created Department of defense-led Flexible Hybrid Electronics Manufacturing Innovation Institute,
which was announced by President Barack Obama last December. Over the next five years, $75 million will be offered in matching grants to spur domestic development of flexible hybrid electronics manufacturing g
#Major innovation in molecular imaging delivers spatial and spectral info simultaneously: Berkeley Lab scientist invents technique to combine spectroscopy with super-resolution microscopy,
enabling new ways to examine cell structures and study diseases Abstract: Using physical chemistry methods to look at biology at the nanoscale,
a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) researcher has invented a new technology to image single molecules with unprecedented spectral and spatial resolution,
thus leading to the first"true-color"super-resolution microscope. Major innovation in molecular imaging delivers spatial and spectral info simultaneously:
and study diseases Ke Xu, a faculty scientist in Berkeley Lab's Life sciences Division, has dubbed his innovation SR-STORM,
or spectrally resolved stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy. Because SR-STORM gives full spectral and spatial information for each molecule,
the technology opens the door to high-resolution imaging of multiple components and local chemical environments, such as ph variations, inside a cell.
Xu is also an assistant professor at UC Berkeley's Department of chemistry.""We measure both the position
Xu built on work he did as a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard with Xiaowei Zhuang, who invented STORM, a super-resolution microscopy method based on single-molecule imaging and photoswitching.
and back of the sample at the same time and achieved unprecedented optical resolution (of approximately 10 nanometers) of a cell.
"Next they dyed the sample with 14 different dyes in a narrow emission window and excited and photoswitched the molecules with one laser.
"That's useful because it means we had a way to do multicolor imaging within a very narrow emission window,
"So using this method we can look at interactions between four biological components inside a cell in three-dimension and at very high resolution of about 10 nanometers,
"The applications are mostly in fundamental research and cell biology at this point, but hopefully it will lead to medical applications.
This gives us new opportunities to look at cell structures, how they're built up, and whether there's any degradation of those structures in diseases."
"Many diseases are caused either by an invading pathogen or degradation of a cell's internal structure.
Alzheimer's, for example, may be related to degradation of the cytoskeleton inside neurons.""The cytoskeleton system is comprised of a host of interacting subcellular structures and proteins,
and make it work with conventional microscope systems, thus making it more broadly accessible. He is also trying to develop suitable dyes
and probes to monitor the local environment, such as the ph, in live cells at the nanometer scale e
#Artificial leaf harnesses sunlight for efficient fuel production Generating and storing renewable energy, such as solar or wind power, is a key barrier to a clean energy economy.
When the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP) was established at Caltech and its partnering institutions in 2010,
the U s. Department of energy (DOE) Energy Innovation Hub had one main goal: a cost-effective method of producing fuels using only sunlight, water,
and storing energy in the form of chemical fuels for use on demand. Over the past five years, researchers at JCAP have made major advances toward this goal,
and on budget,"says Caltech's Nate Lewis, George L. Argyros Professor and professor of chemistry,
or artificial leaf, is described in the August 24 online issue of the journal Energy and Environmental science.
The work was done by researchers in the laboratories of Lewis and Harry Atwater, director of JCAP and Howard Hughes Professor of Applied Physics and Materials science."
two electrodes--one photoanode and one photocathode--and a membrane. The photoanode uses sunlight to oxidize water molecules,
Semiconductors such as silicon or gallium arsenide absorb light efficiently and are used therefore in solar panels. However, these materials also oxidize
(or rust) on the surface when exposed to water, so cannot be used to directly generate fuel.
A major advance that allowed the integrated system to be developed was previous work in Lewis's laboratory,
which showed that adding a nanometers-thick layer of titanium dioxide (Tio2)--a material found in white paint
and many toothpastes and sunscreens--onto the electrodes could prevent them from corroding while still allowing light
and colleagues uses such a 62.5-nanometer-thick Tio2 layer to effectively prevent corrosion and improve the stability of a gallium arsenide-based photoelectrode.
Another key advance is the use of active, inexpensive catalysts for fuel production. The photoanode requires a catalyst to drive the essential water-splitting reaction.
Rare and expensive metals such as platinum can serve as effective catalysts, but in its work the team discovered that it could create a much cheaper,
active catalyst by adding a 2-nanometer-thick layer of nickel to the surface of the Tio2.
This catalyst is among the most active known catalysts for splitting water molecules into oxygen
protons, and electrons and is a key to the high efficiency displayed by the device.
The photoanode was grown onto a photocathode, which also contains a highly active, inexpensive, nickel-molybdenum catalyst,
and safety of the new system is the special plastic membrane that separates the gases
while still allowing the ions to flow seamlessly to complete the electrical circuit in the cell.
and work together to produce a high-performance, fully integrated system. The demonstration system is approximately one square centimeter in area,
converts 10 percent of the energy in sunlight into stored energy in the chemical fuel,
"Our work shows that it is indeed possible to produce fuels from sunlight safely and efficiently in an integrated system with inexpensive components,
"Because the work assembled various components that were developed by multiple teams within JCAP, coauthor Chengxiang Xiang,
#New material science research may advance tech tools The researchers manipulated a steel gray mineral called manganite,
which is used to build magnetic hard discs in computers. They created holes, or antidots, in thin films of manganite.
It was discovered that the edges of the antidots were magnetic.""The discovery of the magnetic edge states on the antidots made this work possible.
Nobody had seen ever this before,"said LSU Physics Professor Ward Plummer, a co-author on the study.
The magnetic phase state at the edges of the antidots raised the metal-to-insulator phase transition temperature of the manganite film.
The researchers were able to replicate this through simulations.""People have tried really to increase the temperature
head of the Department of physics at Fudan University and a co-author on the paper.""What you really would like to do is get this temperature above room temperature,
so you can switch the material by using a magnetic field, "Plummer said d
#Waste coffee used as fuel storage: Scientists have developed a simple process to treat waste coffee grounds to allow them to store methane Scientists have developed a simple process to treat waste coffee grounds to allow them to store methane.
2015 The results are published today, 03 september 2015, in the journal Nanotechnology. Methane capture and storage provides a double environmental return-it removes a harmful greenhouse gas from the atmosphere that can then be used as a fuel that is cleaner than other fossil fuels.
The process developed by the researchers, based at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST),
an author of the paper now based at Pohang University of Science and Technology, Korea."
"The waste material is free compared compared to all the metals and expensive organic chemicals needed in other processes-in my opinion this is a far easier way to go."
"The work also demonstrates hydrogen storage at cryogenic temperatures, and the researchers are now keen to develop hydrogen storage in the activated coffee grounds at less extreme temperatures.
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Vermont scientists invent new approach in quest for organic solar panels and flexible electronics University of Vermont scientists have invented a new way to create
what they are calling an electron superhighway in an organic semiconductor that promises to allow electrons to flow faster
and farther--aiding the hunt for flexible electronics, organic solar cells, and other low-cost alternatives to silicon.
To explore these organic materials, UVM graduate students (from left) Naveen Rawat and Lane Manning, and professors Randy Headrick and Madalina Furis, deployed this table-top scanning laser microscope.
Their latest finding is reported in the journal Nature Communications--and may someday not too far off, let you roll up your computer like a piece of paper.
But the basic science of how to get electrons to move quickly and easily in these organic materials remains murky.
To help, Furis and a team of UVM materials scientists have invented a new way to create
what they are calling"an electron superhighway"in one of these materials--a low-cost blue dye called phthalocyanine--that promises to allow electrons to flow faster and farther in organic semiconductors.
Their discovery, reported Sept. 14 in the journal Nature Communications, will aid in the hunt for alternatives to traditional silicon-based electronics.
HILLS AND POTHOLES Many of these types of flexible electronic devices will rely on thin films of organic materials that catch sunlight
and convert the light into electric current using excited states in the material called"excitons.""Roughly speaking, an exciton is displaced a electron bound together with the hole it left behind.
Increasing the distance these excitons can diffuse--before they reach a juncture where they're broken apart to produce electrical current--is essential to improving the efficiency of organic semiconductors.
the UVM team was able to observe nanoscale defects and boundaries in the crystal grains in the thin films of phthalocyanine--roadblocks in the electron highway."
and photoluminescence to optically probe the molecular structure of the phthalocyanine crystals.""Marrying these two techniques together is new;
"says Lane Manning'08 a doctoral student in Furis'lab and co-author on the new study.
and the boundaries in the crystals influence the movement of excitons. It's these boundaries that form a"barrier for exciton diffusion,
And then, with this enhanced view,"this energy barrier can be eliminated entirely, "the team writes.
the team worked in the lab of UVM physics and materials science professor Randy Headrick to successfully form films with jumbo-sized crystal grains and"small angle boundaries."
BETTER SOLAR CELLS Though the Nature Communications study focused on just one organic material, phthalocyanine, the new research provides a powerful way to explore many other types of organic materials, too--with particular promise for improved solar cells.
A recent U s. Department of energy report identified one of the fundamental bottlenecks to improved solar power technologies as"determining the mechanisms by
which the absorbed energy (exciton) migrates through the system prior to splitting into charges that are converted to electricity."
"The new UVM study--led by two of Furis'students, Zhenwen Pan G'12, and Naveen Rawat G'15--opens a window to view how increasing"long-range order"in the organic semiconductor films is a key mechanism that allows excitons to migrate farther."
"The molecules are stacked like dishes in a dish rack, "Furis explains, "these stacked molecules--this dish rack--is the electron superhighway."
--and can't be pushed by voltage like the electrons flowing in a light bulb--they can, in a sense, bounce from one of these tightly stacked molecules to the next.
This allows organic thin films to carry energy along this molecular highway with relative ease,
"One of today's big challenges is how to make better photovoltaics and solar technologies,"says Furis,
who directs UVM's program in materials science, "and to do that we need a deeper understanding of exciton diffusion.
That's what this research is about
#First realization of an electric circuit with a magnetic insulator using spin waves In our current electronic equipment,
information is transported via the motion of electrons. In this scheme, the charge of the electron is used to transmit a signal.
A spin wave is caused by a perturbation of the local magnetisation direction in a magnetic material.
This research demonstrates for the first time that it is possible to transmit electric signals in an insulating material.
electrical circuits based on spin waves have not been realised, since it turned out to be impossible to introduce a perturbation in the system large enough to create spin waves.
FOM workgroup leader prof. dr. Bart van Wees and his Phd student Ludo Cornelissen, both from the University of Groningen and FOM workgroup leader dr. Rembert
Duine from Utrecht University have succeeded to use spin waves in an electric circuit by carefully designing the device geometry.
and hence enables the spin waves to be used in an electric circuit. The spin wave circuit that the researchers built,
consists of a 200 nanometre thin layer of yttrium iron garnet (a mineral and magnetic insulator, YIG in short), with a conducting platinum strip on top of that on both sides.
The detection process is exactly opposite to the spin wave injection: a spin wave collides at the interface between YIG and platinum,
This influences the motion of the electron, resulting in an electric current that the researchers can measure.
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