protein separation by nano bio

In this article,the synthesis of bifunctional Au-Fe3O4 nanoparticles that are formed by chemical bond linkage are reported. Due to the introduction of Au nanoparticles, the resulting bifunctional Au-Fe3O4 nanoparticles can be easily modified with other functional molecules to realize various nanobiotechnological separations and detections. Here, as an example, we demonstrate that as-prepared Au-Fe3O4 nanoparticles can be modified with nitrilotriacetic acid molecules through Au–S interaction and used to separate proteins simply with the assistance of a magnet. Bradford protein assay and sodium dodecyl sulfate–polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis were performed to examine the validity of the separation procedure, and the phosphate determination method suggested that the as-separated protein maintained catalytic activity. This result shows the efficiency of such a material in protein separation and suggests that its use can be extended to magnetic separation of other biosubstances. Moreover, this synthetic strategy paves the way for facile preparation of diverse bifunctional and even multifunctional nanomaterials.

nano bio detector sensor

Human saliva plays a major role in lubricating the oral cavity, which in turn aids in various functions such as swallowing, speaking, and maintaining the integrity of the hard tissues of the teeth. In addition, saliva can now play a crucial role in the early diagnosis of heart attack, according to a multi-institutional study, the findings of which was presented at the recent annual meeting of the American Association for Dental Research at Dallas, Texas.
The study, led by Dr John McDevitt, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Texas at Austin, was done in collaboration with researchers from the University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and The University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio. The researchers developed nano-bio-chip sensor devices, biochemically programmed to detect blood serum proteins in saliva that are considered to be potential markers for cardiac diseases. Eighty patients who had symptoms of cardiac diseases were recruited for the study. Patients’ saliva was transferred from a tube to the nano-bio-chip, fitted to a credit card-sized lab card. The card was then inserted into an analyzer that provides the cardiac status of the patients within 15 minutes, along with identifying those at a higher risk of developing heart attack later in their life.
Cardiovascular diseases are the major cause of death among the United States population. Myocardial infarction, also known as heart attack, is caused due to decreased blood supply to the heart, leading to necrosis of the cardiac tissues. The National, Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI, 2004) estimated 1,200,000 cases of new and recurrent heart attacks in the US, annually. The symptoms include chest pain, usually described as tightness or squeezing across the anterior sternum that may radiate to the jaws, neck, arms, back and epigastrium; anxiety; lightheadedness; dyspnea; and wheezing. Most of the patients with heart attack do not show these specific symptoms and so get medical help only after irreversible damage is done to the cardiac tissues. If left untreated, the condition is fatal.
Previously, saliva has also been used in the detection of various diseased conditions including breast cancers, which are usually considered to be most difficult to detect. A study done by Streckfus CF, et al (Cancer Investigation, 2008) reported that saliva aids in early diagnosis of breast cancer. A group of Australian researchers led by Debattista J (Sexual Health, 2007) used the oral fluids for testing HIV antibodies. The researchers concluded that saliva can be a potential agent in testing HIV antibodies.
Saliva is considered as a potential diagnostic tool for diagnosing certain disorders as it can be obtained easily and also due to fact that there is a positive correlation between many parameters in serum and saliva. Now, salivary analysis, with the newly invented nano-bio-chip, can produce promising results for the early diagnoses of the cardiovascular diseases, thereby drastically reducing the complications and improving the patient’s prognosis and survival.

nano fights against cancer

They are only a few nanometers in size, but their impact is tremendous: The tiny particles drive cancer cells to their death in no time at all. At nano tech 2006 in Japan from February 21 to 23 Fraunhofer researchers demonstrated the great efficiency of nanoscopic particles as a vehicle for drug delivery.
Medicines that will make their own way through the body and attack precisely the diseased cells on reaching their destination – such has been the dream of physicians and pharmacists since time immemorial. Fraunhofer researchers working in the Nanotechnology Alliance have now come a little closer to reaching this goal. They
have developed bio-functional nanoparticles that cause necrosis in cancer cells. “These cell-like structures have a solid nucleus surrounded by proteins that detect and destroy cancer cells,“ explains Dr. Günter Tovar of the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB.

So how does it work? “Communication in the human body is a biochemical process based on the exchange of molecules,“ says Tovar. “We are trying to understand these communication processes and harness them for our own purposes.“ The tumor necrosis factor TNF for instance, releases a molecule that attaches itself to the receptors of the cancer cell and passes on its deadly message. To introduce the biological messenger TNF into the body, Tovar and his colleagues at Stuttgart University have developed bio-functional nanoparticles. Known as nanocytes, these carry TNF proteins on their surface. “In producing these particles, we benefit from the self-organizing capability of the 'building blocks': Once a contact has been established between the particles and the proteins, the proteins grow and envelop the nuclei without any further effort on our part,“ the researcher explains. Tovar tested the finished nanoparticles in a Petri dish. His findings were most encouraging: cancer cells that came into contact with the particles did indeed perish. The researchers documented this process on video, and will be showing the film at the Fraunhofer stand at nano tech 2006.

It will be a while before nanocytes can be used in the battle against cancer. First of all, a great deal of time and effort must be invested in clinical studies. But meanwhile the bio-functional nanoparticles have already proved their mettle in practical applications – as a tool for cell research or as a component in reagents for medical analysis.

Nano in medicine

Nanotechnologies have already attracted over $3bn of global government funding as part of efforts to enhance a range of disciplines including pharmaceuticals, drug delivery and healthcare monitoring. Advances in nanomaterials, nanostructures and nanosystems are expected to drive the value of the global nanotechnology market to over a trillion dollars by 2015, but many companies are remaining cautious, preferring to monitor developments in academia prior to making substantial investments.
Despite such trepidation, the pharma industry is beginning to adopt nanotools throughout the R&D process to facilitate the high throughput screening of drug repositories, the identification of new drug targets and biomarkers for preclinical and clinical studies and the development of diagnostics and imaging agents. 'Nanotechnology' is a new report published by Business Insights that provides a comprehensive review of nanotechnology and it's role in the development of next-generation nanomedicines. The nanotools and detection systems currently driving nanotechnology are profiled and the applications of nanotechnologies within the R&D process are assessed.
This report measures the impact of nanotechnologies currently being applied to target cancer, cardiovascular disease and CNS disorders and also explores the implementation strategies of leading pharmaceutical, healthcare and nanotechnology start-ups. Use this new report to assess the future of nanotechnology within pharma R&D, identify the innovations driving growth within the market and examine the implementation strategies of leading companies.
Key Findings
-Nano-enabled delivery systems are the fastest growing form of nanotechnology amongst major pharma companies, helping to improve the targeted delivery of old, existing and shelved products. However many companies remain cautious, choosing to monitor the progress of nanotechnology prior to making significant investments.
- Optical imaging tags will help to identify diseases earlier and may avoid the need for expensive, high tech laser-based equipment. Diagnostic imaging of this kind is being increasingly applied to animals in preclinical dosing studies.
- Regulatory authorities are supporting nanotechnologies that can improve the development of pharmaceuticals and diagnostic agents. Many regulatory policies are currently being reassessed to ensure innovation and safety when utilising nanotechnologies.
- Many governments are keen to apply nanotechnology across pharmaceuticals, drug delivery and healthcare monitoring in an effort to reduce R&D costs and enhance levels of productivity.
-Nanomaterials are being utilised to develop more sensitive and specific POC diagnostic and biocompatible implants. Nanowires and cantilever assay systems will expand the market by helping to shift diagnostic tests from central laboratories to point of diagnostics.

Nanotools against cancer

It has proved difficult to channel pharmaceuticals into the brain. A type of cell barrier protects the brain from pathogens and many harmful molecules. This blood-brain barrier also denies access to many therapeutic substances.
Studies have shown that nanoparticles (diameter between 10 and 1000 nm) with distinct surface properties can overcome this barrier.
At the University of Frankfurt am Main, a team headed by Prof. Dr. Jörg Kreuter is successfully working on transfering substances into the brain with the aid of microscopically small plastic spheres.
Magnetic nanoparticles could also be of use in combating cancer, as shown by the so-called magnetic liquid hyperthermia developed by Dr. Andreas Jordan and co-workers at the Charite Hospital in Berlin: Firstly, iron oxide particles are selectively transported into the carcinoma. Then, an alternating magnetic field heats the nanoparticles and thus the cancer cells, which are killed by overheating.

Inhaling bubbles of nano iron Oxide to fight lung cancer

Inhalation, or respiratory, therapy is a fairly old discipline of medicine that dates back to ancient times (and not always for purely therapeutic effects; witness the hookah). In the late 18th century, earthenware inhalers became popular for the inhalation of air drawn through infusions of plants and other ingredients and about 50 years ago the first pressurized metered dose inhaler was put on the market. Especially people suffering from asthma are very familiar with inhalers - devices that help deliver a specific amount of medication to the lungs. The delivery of drugs via the pulmonary route is a potentially effective form of therapy not only for asthma but also for for patients with other chronic diseases, including the debilitating hereditary disease, cystic fibrosis, type I diabetes (insulin is absorbed well through the lungs), and recently lung cancer. During inhalation therapy the drugs are delivered in aerosol form, meaning that very small particles of the drug are suspended in air (liquid particles make mist, solid particles make fume or dust). Unfortunately, state the-of-the-art aerosol delivery technologies do not allow to target aerosols to specific regions of the lung. Researchers in Germany now have show that aerosols containing magnetic nanoparticles can be guided inside the lungs and thus offer a potential new route for lung cancer treatment.
Current aerosol delivery techniques only allow to target aerosol deposition in the central lung regions or lung periphery but not focused to desired lung regions. A new research effort by German researchers was designed to provide a potentially new technology to close this gap and to offer potentially more gentle treatment options for patients suffering from severe lung diseases such as lung cancer. At first glance it might seem weird that lung cancer, which very often is caused by inhaling carcinogenic particles found in polluted air and tobacco smoke, can be treated by just inhaling some more particles. Although aerosol therapy does work to some degree (" Aerosol Therapy for Malignancy Involving the Lungs"), as with all other current cancer drug therapies there are side effects caused by the administered drugs' damage to healthy tissue.
"Being able to target specific areas in the lung with cancer drug aerosols would avoid potential drug-related site effects in healthy tissue "Dr. Carsten Rudolph explains,"We were able to demonstrate theoretically by computer-aided simulation and for the first time experimentally in mice, that targeted aerosol delivery to the lung can be achieved with aerosol droplets comprising superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs), so-called nanomagnetosols, in combination with a target-directed magnetic gradient field."
Rudolph, together with colleagues from various universities in Munich and Berlin, and other institutions across Germany, shows that with their technique, higher doses of drugs can be delivered to the cancerous region without increasing side effects ("Targeted delivery of magnetic aerosol droplets to the lung").

nanothermite in drug delivery

The researchers explain that nanothermite composites, made of metallic fuel and inorganic oxidizer, have “outstanding” combustion characteristics. Mixing a low-density composite of copper oxide nanorods (fuel) and aluminum nanoparticles (oxidizer) results in a large contact area between the fuel and oxidizer. On the nanoscale, the low density and large contact area of the nanothermite composite can lead to a fast-propagating combustion.
The team tested the combustion in a shock tube studded with optical fibers and pressure sensors to measure the combustion wave speed. They found that the nano composites could generate combustion waves with velocities ranging from 1500 to 2300 meters per second, which is in the Mach 3 range. The power of these nano explosives could lead to a breakthrough in drug delivery for cancer and HIV, the researchers explain. First, drugs would be administered with a needle as usual, dispersing through the entire body. But then a hand-held device aimed at the tumor would send a pulse into the tumor. The shock waves created by the pulse would make tiny holes in the cells it was aimed at, allowing the drug to enter the tumor cells. Further, the force of the shock waves would push the drugs to those cells within milliseconds. The researchers have tested the method on animal tissue, and have demonstrated a 99% success rate – almost all of the cells have properly accepted the drugs. Healthy cells, on the other hand, demonstrate much fewer side effects than with conventional treatments such as chemotherapy. As Gangopadhyay explains, the nano explosives have some different characteristics than conventional explosives. “In conventional explosives, shock waves are generated during detonation,” she says. “In nanothermites, fast propagating chemical reactions can create shock waves without detonation.” Generating shock waves without detonation is the key to this technology, she says. If everything goes well, the researchers hope to have the device ready to use in two to five years. Besides biomedical applications, the nano explosives could be useful in other areas, such as geology and seismology. Originally, the technology was used in the Army for IED (improvised explosive device) detection, where shock waves sent into the ground could give an image of what lies beneath.

Nanoparticles, Proteins, and Nucleic Acids: Biotechnology Meets Materials Science

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Based on fundamental chemistry, biotechnology and materials science have developed over the past three decades into today's powerful disciplines which allow the engineering of advanced technical devices and the industrial production of active substances for pharmaceutical and biomedical applications. This review is focused on current approaches emerging at the intersection of materials research, nanosciences, and molecular biotechnology. This novel and highly interdisciplinary field of chemistry is closely associated with both the physical and chemical properties of organic and inorganic nanoparticles, as well as to the various aspects of molecular cloning, recombinant DNA and protein technology, and immunology. Evolutionary optimized biomolecules such as nucleic acids, proteins, and supramolecular complexes of these components, are utilized in the production of nanostructured and mesoscopic architectures from organic and inorganic materials. The highly developed instruments and techniques of today's materials research are used for basic and applied studies of fundamental biological processes

Iron Oxide in heart ailments

A heart attack is caused by the formation of cholesterol plaque located on the inner-walls of an artery to the heart (coronary artery). Cholesterol is a fatty chemical, a lipid in nature. Plaque formation partially or entirely occludes the artery obstructing flow of blood, thereby hampering the functioning of circulatory system. By-pass surgery is a surgical technique where a by-pass is created over the region where the plaque is formed to provide an additional route through which blood can flow in spite of the plaque occluded artery. The main objective is to remove this atherosclerotic plaque via use of electric current induced heating effect using the biocompatible iron-oxide nano-particles. The iron-oxide nano-particles of 8-20 nm in size are synthesized by co-precipitation method, where varying the pH and temperature in an aqueous solution controls the particle size and self-assembly properties. These nano-particles, enveloped in specific biocompatible polymer, are to be delivered at most 1 cm before the site of the plaque formation, where the blood flow is toward the plaque. The site-specific delivery is to be done using infusion pump. The nano-particles shall get dislodged from the enveloped molecule and shall get attached to the plaque. In presence of external magnetic field (similar to that of MRI) the super paramagnetic bio-compatible iron-oxide particles generates flow of electricity through the plaque, which may correspondingly exhibit a heat induced melting of the plaque. Hence a therapeutic procedure followed using this technique shall result in at least 60-70% removal of the atherosclerotic occlusion

Self replication and nanotechnology

The best survey of self-replication written to date is Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines, a book co-authored by Robert A. Freitas Jr. and Ralph C. Merkle, which describes all proposed and experimentally realized self-replicating systems that were publicly known as of 2004 ranging from nanoscale to macroscale systems, and presents for the first time a detailed 137-dimensional map of the entire kinematic replicator design space to assist future engineering efforts.
A crucial objective of nanotechnology is to make products inexpensively. While the ability to make a few very small, very precise molecular machines very expensively would clearly be a major scientific achievement, it would not fundamentally change how we make most products.
If we are to use positional assembly of molecular parts to efficiently build large structures (kilograms or more) then we will have to use some form of massive parallelism. One robotic arm would take forever to build a kilogram-sized object one molecular part at a time, so we'll need huge numbers of robotic arms working together. One general approach is to follow nature's example and design and build self replicating systems (this is the approach taken by Drexler's assembler: a small device able to manufacture other assemblers as well as valuable products). A different approach is to seek our inspiration from today's factories. This latter approach leads to various forms of convergent assembly. In convergent assembly, parts are assembled using robotic manufacturing systems, and then those (now larger) parts are passed along to other robotic manufacturing systems. Progressively larger parts are handled by progressively larger robotic arms, letting convergent assembly rapidly manufacture large objects (meters in size) starting from small components (nanometers or molecular in size). It seems most likely that some form of convergent assembly will be the dominant approach used in future molecular manufacturing systems. Among other advantages, convergent assembly offers a convenient way to flexibly build large components from small parts. We simply place the parts where we want them to go. Biologically inspired systems use much more indirect methods to form large complex structures, making them less efficient and more difficult to program. On the downside, explaining convergent assembly takes more time. We cannot point to an existing biological example to clarify what we are talking about, but must instead explain a new (and less familiar) manufacturing paradigm. This has slowed understanding of convergent assembly, despite its inherent technical advantages as a manufacturing technology.
This web page focuses on how self replicating systems might be used in manufacturing. If we did not know that such systems existed, many would argue that they were impossible.
Fortunately, we are surrounded and inspired by products that are marvelously complex and yet very inexpensive. Potatoes, for example, are made by intricate molecular machines involving tens of thousands of genes, proteins, and other molecular components; yet the result costs so little that we think nothing of mashing this biological wonder and eating it.
It's easy to see why potatoes and other agricultural products are so cheap: put a potato in a little moist dirt, provide it with some air and sunlight, and we get more potatoes. In short, potatoes are self replicating.
Just as the early pioneers of flight took inspiration by watching birds soar effortlessly through the air, so we can take inspiration from nature as we develop molecular manufacturing systems. Of course, "inspired by" does not mean "copied from." Airplanes are very different from birds: a 747 bears only the smallest resemblance to a duck even though both fly. The artificial self replicating systems that have been envisioned for molecular manufacturing bear about the same degree of similarity to their biological counterparts as a car might bear to a horse.
Horses and cars both provide transportation. Horses, however, can get their energy from potatoes, corn, sugar, hay, straw, grass, and countless other types of "fuel." A car uses only a single artifical and carefully refined source of energy: gasoline. Putting sugar or straw into its gas tank is not recommended!
The machines that people make tend to be inflexible and brittle in response to changes in their environments. By contrast, living biological systems are wonderfully flexible and adaptable. Horses can pick their way along a narrow trail or jump over shrubs; they get "parts" (from their food) in the same flexible way they get energy; and they have a remarkable self repair ability.
Cars, on the other hand, need roads on which to travel; have to be provided with odd and very unnatural parts; are often difficult to repair (let alone self repairing!); and in general are simply unable to cope with a complex environment. They work because we want them to work, and because we can fairly inexpensively provide carefully controlled conditions under which they can perform as we desire.
In the same way, the artifical self replicating systems that are being proposed for molecular manufacturing are inflexible and brittle. It's difficult enough to design a system able to self replicate in a controlled environment, let alone designing one that can approach the marvelous adaptibility that hundreds of millions of years of evolution have given to living systems. Designing a system that uses a single source of energy is both much easier to do and produces a much more efficient system: the horse pays for its ability to eat potatoes when grass isn't available by being less efficient at both. For artificial systems where we wish to decrease design complexity and increase efficiency, we'll design the system so that it can handle one source of energy, and handle that one source very well.
Horses can manufacture the many complex proteins and molecules they need from whatever food happens to be around. Again, they pay for this flexibility by having an intricate digestive system able to break down food into its constituent molecules, and a complex intermediary metabolism able to synthesize whatever they need from whatever they've got. Artificial self replicating systems will be both simpler and more efficient if most of this burden is off-loaded: we can give them the odd compounds and unnatural molecular structures that they require in an artifical "feedstock" rather than forcing the device to make everything itself -- a process that is both less efficient and more complex to design.
The mechanical designs proposed for nanotechnology are more reminiscent of a factory than of a living system. Molecular scale robotic arms able to move and position molecular parts would assemble rather rigid molecular products using methods more familiar to a machine shop than the complex brew of chemicals found in a cell. Although we are inspired by living systems, the actual designs are likely to owe more to design constraints and our human objectives than to living systems. Self replication is but one of many abilities that living systems exhibit. Copying that one ability in an artificial system will be challenge enough without attempting to emulate their many other remarkable abilities.
Complexity of self replicating systems
If our designs are going to be very different from the living systems that inspired us, what approach are we going to follow? The study of artificial self replicating systems was first pursued by von Neumann in the 1940's. Subsequent work, including a study by NASA in 1980, confirmed and extended the basic insights of von Neumann. More recent work by Drexler continued this trend and applied the concepts to molecular scale systems. The author has also contributed a few articles, including: Self Replicating Systems and Low Cost Manufacturing, Self Replicating Systems and Molecular Manufacturing and Design Considerations for an Assembler. (A web page on artificial self replication maintained by Moshe Sipper has links to and information on other references).
One conclusion from this body of work is that the design complexity of artificial self replicating systems need not be excessive. One of the simplest "self replicating systems" (when executed, it prints itself out on the standard output) is the following one line C program:
main(){char q=34,n=10,*a="main(){char q=34,n=10,*a=%c%s%c;printf(a,q,a,q,n);}%c";printf(a,q,a,q,n);}
(From Self-reproducing programs, Byte magazine, August 1980, page 74. Those interested in a deeper understanding of the recursion theorem and its applications are referred to Introduction to the Theory of Computation by Michael Sipser, 1996, PWS Publishing Company, chapter 6.)
Another conclusion is that "replicating" systems need not be "self replicating." This is best illustrated by exponential assembly, a process by which simple assembly stations on a surface make additional assembly stations on a facing surface. This process provides exponential growth (until the surfaces are fully occupied), but requires extensive non-"self" supporting infrastructure. This is in sharp contrast to biological self replication, where self sufficiency in the replicative process is taken for granted.
The following table illustrates the design complexity of several other systems: Complexity of self replicating systems (bits) Von Neumann's universal constructor ~500,000Internet worm (Robert Morris, Jr., 1988) ~500,000Mycoplasma genitalium 1,160,140E. Coli 9,278,442Drexler's assembler ~100,000,000Human ~6,400,000,000NASA Lunar Manufacturing Facility over 100,000,000,000
The estimate of the complexity of the internet worm is simply an approximation to the number of bits in the C source code. For the biological systems, the complexity is derived by multiplying the number of base pairs in the DNA times 2. For humans, the number of base pairs is for the haploid, rather than diploid, system. The complexity for the the NASA proposal was taken from Advanced Automation for Space Missions.
Mycoplasma genitalium is the simplest natural living system that can survive on a well defined chemical medium. Its genomic complexity of 1,160,140 bits (twice the 580,070 base pairs sequenced by TIGR) is less than 150 kilobytes -- about one tenth of a typical floppy disk. TIGR is pursuing the Minimal Genome Project to reduce to a minimum the number of genes required for a simple living system. (While viruses are simpler they require a living system to infect: they need additional molecular machinery provided in their environment. For this reason, we exclude them from the table).
The primary observation to be drawn from this data is that simpler designs and proposals for self replicating systems both exist and are well within current design capabilities. The engineering effort required to design systems of such complexity will be significant, but should not be greater than the complexity involved in the design of such existing systems as computers, airplanes, etc. A recent proposal is "Exponential growth of large self-reproducing machine systems," by Klaus S. Lackner and C. H. Wendt, Mathl. Comput. Modelling Vol. 21, No. 10, pages 55-81, 1995.
One last point: self replication is used here as a means to an end, not as an end in itself. A system able to make copies of itself but unable to make much of anything else would not be very useful and would not satisfy our objectives. The purpose of self replication in the context of manufacturing is to permit the low cost replication of a flexible and programmable manufacturing system -- a system which can be reprogrammed to make a very wide range of molecularly precise structures. This lets us economically build a very wide range of products.
Systems that function in a complex environment
If artificial self replicating systems will only function in carefully controlled artificial environments, how can we develop applications of nanotechnology that function in complex environments, such as the inside of the human body or a (rather messy) factory floor?
While self replicating systems are the key to low cost, there is no need (and little desire) to have such systems function in the outside world. Instead, in an artificial and controlled environment they can manufacture simpler and more rugged systems that can then be transferred to their final destination. Medical devices designed to operate in the human body don't have to self replicate: we can manufacture them in a controlled environment and then inject them into the patient as needed. The resulting medical device will be simpler, smaller, more efficient and more precisely designed for the task at hand than a device designed to perform the same function and self replicate. This conclusion should hold generally: optimize device design for the desired function, manufacture the device in an environment optimized for manufacturing, then transport the device from the manufacturing environment to the environment for which it was designed. A single device able to do everything would be harder to design and less efficient.
Conclusions
Self replication is an effective route to truly low cost manufacturing. Our intuitions about self replicating systems, learned from the biological systems that surround us, are likely to seriously mislead us about the properties and characteristics of artificial self replicating systems designed for manufacturing purposes. Artificial systems able to make a wide range of non-biological products (like diamond) under programmatic control are likely to be more brittle and less adaptable in their response to changes in their environment than biological systems. At the same time, they should be simpler and easier to design. The complexity of such systems need not be excessive by present engineering standards.

Drug delivery and Nanobiotechnology........

The emergence of nanotechnology is likely to have a significant impact on drug delivery sector, affecting just about every route of administration from oral to injectable, according to specialist market research firm NanoMarkets.
And the payoff for doctors and patients should be lower drug toxicity, reduced cost of treatments, improved bioavailability and an extension of the economic life of proprietary drugs, according to Michael Moradi, an associate analyst at the company."This is an impressive list [but] also impressive is the fact that many of the categories of nano-enabled drug delivery systems are already close to or at the point of marketing," unlike many of the 'futuristic' applications claimed for nanomedicine, he said.
NanoMarkets expects the dosing benefits of nano-enabled drug delivery systems to be extended to compounds used in treating both infectious disease and cancer, and has identified six types of drug delivery systems in which nanotechnology is likely to have a significant impact.
For injectable drugs, nanotechnology is already generating new dosage forms that are easier to administer, more pleasant for the patient receive and confer a competitive advantage in the marketplace.
For example, at the start of 2005, Johnson & Johnson revealed that Elan's NanoCrystal technology would be used in a Phase III clinical trial for an injectable formulation of paliperidone palmitate, a drug for schizophrenia, notes Moradi. This is a new 'nano formulation' of an older drug which overcomes the original's insolubility, by reducing the particle size to under 200 nm.
Nanotechnology is also opening up new opportunities in implantable delivery systems, which are often preferable to the use of injectable drugs, because the latter frequently display first-order kinetics (the blood concentration goes up rapidly, but drops exponentially over time). This rapid rise may cause difficulties with toxicity, and drug efficacy can diminish as the drug concentration falls below the targeted range.
In contrast, implantable time release systems may help minimize peak plasma levels and reduce the risk of adverse reactions, allow for more predictable and extended duration of action, reduce the frequency of re-dosing and improve patient acceptance and compliance.
Nanotechnology adds to these the benefits, says Moradi. Citing pSivida's BioSilicon product, he notes that this nanostructured material effectively stores an active compound in nanosised pockets that release minute amounts of drug as the silicon dissolves. pSivida is currently exploring biodegradable implantable methods for tissue engineering and ophthalmic delivery.
Nano-implants will also be used in the not-too-distant future for treating cancer. Among the first nanoscale devices to show promise in anti-cancer therapeutics and drug delivery are structures called nanoshells, which NanoMarkets believes may afford a degree of control never before seen in implantable drug delivery products.
Nanoshells typically have a silicon core that is sealed in an outer metallic core. By manipulating the ratio of wall to core, the shells can be precisely tuned to scatter or absorb very specific wavelengths of light. For example, gold encased nanoshells have been used to convert light into heat, enabling the destruction of tumours by selective binding to malignant cells. A physician can use infrared rays to pass harmlessly through soft tissue, while initiating a lethal application of heat when the nanoshells are excited.

Vote for your favorite Nano-Art work

NanoArt is a new art discipline at the intersections of Art, Science and Technology, and relates to the micro or nanosculptures (atomic and molecular sculptures) created by artists or scientists through chemical or physical processes and visualized with powerful research tools like scanning electron or atomic force microscopes. The scientific images of these structures are captured and further processed using different artistic techniques to convert them into artworks showcased for large audiences.
37 nanoartists from 13 countries and 4 continents sent 121 NanoArt works to this second edition of the international competition. Public online voting is now open through March 31, 2008 at www.nanoart21.org. Judging is via the Internet and decided by the site visitors. This site was founded by the artist and scientist Cris Orfescu (www.absolutearts.com/nanoart) to promote worldwide the NanoArt as a reflection of the technological movement. NanoArt is a more appealing and effective way to communicate with the general public and to inform people about the new technologies of the 21st Century and should raise the public's awareness of Nanotechnology and its impact on our lives.
To vote for your favorite NanoArt work you can also visit directly the competition albums' site at http://nanoart21.org/index.html and follow these 3 easy steps:
1. click on the album s thumbnail to open album
2. click on the artwork s thumbnail to see the large image
3. click on the number of stars you would like to rank that artwork

Scientists create beating heart in laboratory

University of Minnesota researchers have created a beating heart in the laboratory.
By using a process called whole organ decellularization, scientists from the University of Minnesota Center for Cardiovascular Repair grew functioning heart tissue by taking dead rat and pig hearts and reseeding them with a mixture of live cells. The research has been published online in the January 13 issue of Nature Medicine.
“The idea would be to develop transplantable blood vessels or whole organs that are made from your own cells,” said Doris Taylor, Ph.D., director of the Center for Cardiovascular Repair, Medtronic Bakken professor of medicine and physiology, and principal investigator of the research.
Nearly 5 million people live with heart failure, and about 550,000 new cases are diagnosed each year in the United States. Approximately 50,000 United States patients die annually waiting for a donor heart.
It seems decellularization may be a solution – essentially using nature’s platform to create a bioartifical heart, she said. Decellularization is the process of removing all of the cells from an organ – in this case an animal cadaver heart – leaving only the extracellular matrix, the framework between the cells, intact.

After successfully removing all of the cells from both rat and pig hearts, researchers injected them with a mixture of progenitor cells that came from neonatal or newborn rat hearts and placed the structure in a sterile setting in the lab to grow. The results were very promising, Taylor said. Four days after seeding the decellularized heart scaffolds with the heart cells, contractions were observed. Eight days later, the hearts were pumping.
“Take a section of this ‘new heart’ and slice it, and cells are back in there,” Taylor said. “The cells have many of the markers we associate with the heart and seem to know how to behave like heart tissue.”


“We just took nature’s own building blocks to build a new organ,” said Harald C. Ott, M.D., co-investigator of the study and a former research associate in the center for cardiovascular repair, who now works at Massachusetts General Hospital. “When we saw the first contractions we were speechless.”
Researchers are optimistic this discovery could help increase the donor organ pool.
In general, the supply of donor organs is limited and once a heart is transplanted, individuals face life-long immunosuppression, often trading heart failure for high blood pressure, diabetes, and kidney failure, Taylor said.
Researchers hope that the decellularization process could be used to make new donor organs. Because a new heart could be filled with the recipient’s cells, researchers hypothesize it’s much less likely to be rejected by the body. And once placed in the recipient, in theory the heart would be nourished, regulated, and regenerated similar to the heart that it replaced.
“We used immature heart cells in this version, as a proof of concept. We pretty much figured heart cells in a heart matrix had to work,” Taylor said. “Going forward, our goal is to use a patient’s stem cells to build a new heart.”
Although heart repair was the first goal during research, decellularization shows promising potential to change how scientists think about engineering organs, Taylor said.
“It opens a door to this notion that you can make any organ: kidney, liver, lung, pancreas – you name it and we hope we can make it,” she said.
Researchers of the Center for Cardiovascular Repair team were assisted in their study by researchers from the University of Minnesota Department of Biomedical Engineering, who helped analyze data.

NanoBio - recent advances

NANOBIOTECH ·First 'nano' technologies yield fruit in the lab and clinic with the promise of more to come.From R&D analysis and pathogen detection to clinical diagnosis and drug delivery, the biomedical applications of nanotechnology, while still in their infancy, are starting to yield real results. While much of the work is the province of academia, increasingly clinical labs as well as biotech and pharmaceutical companies are getting involved. Among several recent notable announcements:

· Johnson & Johnson and Roche licensed Elan's NanoCrystal technology, which enhances the performance of drugs with poor water-solubility.

· Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital announced in PLoS Medicine that an injectable solution of magnetic nanoparticles can be used to track cancer in patients, reducing the need for surgery.

Technology and Mankind..........

In some 200 years or so, nanotechnology and Bio technology, many of which we have no inkling of at this time, will have allowed us to abandon our limited, short lived, mortal bodies. When mankind achieves immortality on their own, with no relying on the off chance that this or that superstition might gain you some mythical heaven, will collapse. Nanotechnology and similar technologies will find, and undo the flaws that evolution left us that causes, aging and eventual death. We will invent new manners of temporal existance. We will be able to enhance our senses, we will enhance our understanding of the Universe by enhancing our minds in ways that would take evolution tens of millions of years to do, if it ever did. We will be able to plug into the wisdom and scince of mankind in a more direct manner that going to a library, lack of rationality will no longer be welcome in comparison to rational science that will give us immortality and the Universe as our immoratl playground.

History Of Nano-Biotechnology

By the 1990s, scientists began to design experiments to specifically couple biology with nanofabricated devices and tools. Though the length scales were compatible, there were significant challenges involved. Biological systems are fundamentally wet and organic, whereas most nanofabricated systems are hydrophobic and made of inorganic materials (usually silicon-based). Though ideas of nanobiotechnology had circulated among the scientific community and general public for many years, actual progress in this field only began when the initial seminal advances of each contributory field (biotechnology and nanotechnology) had come to fruition by the early 1990s. These developments attracted many scientists interested in the interface between the two. However, one major problem was how to physically couple the two divergent systems. Some scientists circumvented this problem by creating nanomachines made solely of natural molecules; two notable examples were Nadrian Seeman's complex 3-D structures created solely of DNA and Leonard Adleman's utilization of DNA to perform computation. Others discovered or developed new coupling chemistries in order to covalently bond organic and inorganic substrates. The collaboration of scientists from both fields has been important for refining tools used for nanobiotechnology and in building the path towards functional hybrid devices. For example, Carlo Montemagno of UCLA recently created hybrid nanomachines composed of an inorganic nanopropeller with a biomolecular motor that could use adenosine triphosphate (ATP) for energy. Other device researchers have created more complex hybrid functional micro-electro mechanical systems (MEMS) and even nano-electro mechanical systems (NEMS) devices composed of a combination of synthetic and biological components.