National Nanotechnology Initiative

Some big 📰 news in this Director's Message takeover... https://bit.ly/4eI2dtr cc: Jared Ashcroft Peter Kazarinoff Janet Pinhorn

Researchers from the University of Mississippi have shown that using #glycopolymers – #polymers made with natural sugars like glucose – to coat #nanoparticles that deliver #cancer-fighting medication directly to #tumors reduces the body's #immune response to cancer treatment. The researchers tested glycopolymer-coated nanoparticle treatments in mice with #BreastCancer and found that more nanoparticles reached the tumors in the glycopolymer treatment compared to more conventional treatment that uses PolyethyleneGlycol-based nanoparticles. "Our findings highlight that the nanoparticles we're using significantly reduce unwanted immune responses while dramatically enhancing #DrugDelivery, both in cell and animal models,” said Kenneth Hulugalla, one of the scientists involved in this study. https://lnkd.in/dGNiqW4P (Work funded by The National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and the United States Department of Defense) Thomas Werfel Kenneth Hulugalla

#Copper plays a key role in the growth and development of cells. Because #cancer cells grow and multiply more rapidly than non-cancer cells, they have a significantly higher need for copper ions. Restricting their access to copper ions could be a new therapeutic approach. The problem is that it has, so far, not been possible to develop a system that binds copper ions with sufficient affinity to "take them away" from copper-binding biomolecules. Now, researchers from Stanford University School of Medicine and the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, Germany, have successfully developed such a system, which ensures that individual peptide molecules aggregate into #nanofibers once they are inside the tumor cells. In this form, the nanofiber surfaces have many copper-binding sites in the right spatial orientation to be able to grasp copper ions. https://lnkd.in/ebpM3wjB (Work funded by The National Institutes of Health)

During a NASA #microgravity flight, researchers from Iowa State University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison have tested how a #printer would work in the #ZeroGravity of space. The #ink used in this printer featured #silver #nanoparticles made with biobased #polymers. The printer uses a #3Dprinting process that jets ink under an #electric field, which could eliminate the need for #gravity to help deposit ink. If the technology used in this printer works in zero gravity, astronauts could use such a printer to make electric circuits for #spacecraft or equipment repairs or to manufacture high-value #electronic components. https://lnkd.in/gCEGgrx2 (Work funded by NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration) Fei Liu Shan Jiang Hantang Qin Tyler Kirscht liangkui jiang Xuepeng Jiang Matthew Marander Ricardo Ortega

Researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have discovered a new type of #nanoparticle, #PalladiumHydride, which contains #palladium and #hydrogen. Palladium hydride nanoparticles are typically structured symmetrically, looking like a cube with palladium atoms posted at each corner and centered on all six cubic faces. In contrast, the new nanoparticle’s structure is presumably the least symmetrical of all #crystal systems. To create this unusual nanoparticle, the researchers added #electrons to a solution containing palladium ions and water, and the electrons' negative charge pulled positive hydrogen ions from the water molecules, allowing the hydrogen ions to bond with the palladium ions. https://lnkd.in/gNMTsKvb (Work funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF)) Xiao Su Jaeyoung Hong

Scientists from Washington State University and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Berkeley Lab have discovered a way to make #ions move more than ten times faster in mixed organic ion-electronic #conductors. These conductors combine the advantages of the ion signaling used by many biological systems with the #electron signaling used by computers. The new development speeds up ion movement in these conductors by using molecules that attract and concentrate ions into a separate nanochannel creating a type of tiny “ion superhighway.” These types of conductors hold a lot of potential because they allow movement of both ions and electrons at once, which is critical for #battery charging and #EnergyStorage. https://lnkd.in/g4kVEwnb (Work funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)) Brian Collins

Physicists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology# (MIT) have taken a key step toward solving the puzzle of what leads #electrons to split into fractions of themselves. The new work is an effort to make sense of a discovery that was reported earlier this year by other physicists at MIT, who found that electrons appear to exhibit "#FractionalCharge" in #pentalayer #graphene – a configuration of five graphene layers that are stacked atop a similarly structured sheet of #BoronNitride. Through calculations of #quantum mechanical interactions, the scientists showed that the electrons form a sort of #crystal structure, the properties of which are ideal for fractions of electrons to emerge. “This crystal has a whole set of unusual properties that are different from ordinary crystals, and leads to many fascinating questions for future research,” said Senthil Todadri, the scientist who led the new study. https://lnkd.in/gZZy3pDC (Work funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF)) Long Ju

Researchers from New York University; the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN), a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science user facility at Brookhaven National Laboratory; and the National Institute for Materials Science in Tsukuba, Japan, have used a special #robotic system to assemble very large pieces of atomically clean #2Dmaterials into stacks. These materials, called #graphene #heterostructures, consist of sheets just a few atoms thick, have record-setting dimensions – as large as 7.5 square millimeters, which is very large in the world of #microelectronics. The robotic assembly tool helped the scientists discover a new interface cleaning mechanism that combines #mechanical and #thermal forces. Overall, this study opens a new opportunity to develop a more effective process to make large and clean layered heterostructure devices. https://lnkd.in/g8-NXHTi (Work funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)) Kevin Yager Davood Shahrjerdi

Cornell University researchers have made headway into understanding how twisted #bilayer #graphene becomes a #superconductor. In 2023, the scientists developed a theoretical formalism to compute the highest possible superconducting transition temperature in any material obtained by stacking and twisting #2Dmaterials. For the current work, the scientists applied this theoretical formalism to twisted bilayer graphene. “One of the remarkable properties of twisted bilayer graphene is the associated tunability,” said Debanjan Chowdhury, one of the scientists involved in this study. “You have unprecedented control over temperature and the twist angle – the tiny #electric fields that are applied to switch the material from being an #insulator versus a superconductor – making it very easy to explore all sorts of exciting regimes in this material.” https://lnkd.in/gYvRjNpv (Work funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF)) Juan Felipe Méndez-Valderrama Dan Mao

Researchers from Case Western Reserve University, the University of Virginia, Cleveland Clinic, the University of Maryland School of Medicine, University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center Inc., the Louis Stokes Veterans Affairs Medical Center (Cleveland, OH), and CVPath Institute, Inc. (Gaithersburg, MD) have identified a new target to treat #atherosclerosis, a condition where plaque clogs arteries and causes major cardiac issues, including #stroke and #HeartAttack. The researchers identified an #inflammation-reducing molecule, called #itaconate, and developed a new #lipid #nanoparticle-based treatment that allows itaconate to accumulate in plaque and #BoneMarrow, where it reduces inflammation. "We've found that itaconate is crucial to the diet's ability to stabilize plaques and reduce inflammation, which has been a mystery until now," said Andrei Maiseyeu, one of the scientists involved in this study. "This discovery marks a major leap forward in the understanding of how diet-induced plaque resolution occurs at a molecular level."  https://lnkd.in/e5MVZ7Ww (Work funded by The National Institutes of Health)