Publishing in Nature, Stanford researcher Steven Block has produced an amazing new tool for the nanoscale, accurate down to one angstrom, or one-tenth of a nanometer. From the detailed press release: ” ‘This technical achievement will no doubt lead to new information about the molecular machinery that carries out basic cellular processes, particularly those related… Continue reading Atomic precision achieved in real-time protein imaging
For those interested in the longer-term applications of advanced nanotech to medicine — Over at Nanotech.biz, Sander Olson interviews (part 1 and part 2) Robert Freitas, prolific author of Nanomedicine and many other works on related topics: “…I immediately realized that medicine would be the single most important application area of this new technology. In… Continue reading Interview of Nanomedicine author Robert Freitas
Wired News surveys current work on nanotech for cancer treatment: “It’s a space-opera scene we know by heart: The hero’s tiny craft faces off against the vast enemy ship. Now scale down the set a billion times or so, and replace Luke Skywalker’s X-wing and the Death Star with a clump of drug-bearing molecules and… Continue reading NCI goal for nanotech: "eliminating suffering and death from cancer by 2015"
Liveblogging the Foresight Conference. Today is the last day of the research sessions, and Teri Odom of Northwestern just overwhelmed us with a quick summary of her work, both bottom-up and top-down. Normally I am a bottom-up fan, but I especially like her work using lithography to make pyramidal nanoparticles. Basically you make a layer… Continue reading Nanopyramids from Teri Odom
Yet another new technique is looking promising for using carbon nanotubes to treat cancer. From Betterhumans, on work at University of Delaware: “When the UD researchers saw the explosions, they realized it might be possible to use the microscopic bombs to kill cancer cells. They recreated the explosions in solutions including water, phosphate and salt,… Continue reading Nanobombs to fight cancer
From Internetnews.com: ” ‘Nanotechnology will undoubtedly be used in some form — either as a vaccine, a treatment, a delivery method for a drug, or as a means to detect, control or limit the spread of the influenza,’ Adrian Burden, CEO of Singular ID, told internetnews.com…Christine Peterson, founder of the Foresight Nanotech Institute, notes that… Continue reading Nanotech vs. bird flu
From Smalltimes: The U.S. National Cancer Institute has made first-year awards totaling $26.3 million to seven Centers for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence: UNC, UCSD, Emory/Georgia Tech, MIT/Harvard, Northwestern, Caltech, and Washington U. Wonderful program, but the name is a bit awkward: “Cancer Nanotechnology”. But not as awkward as the name of NCI’s main nanotech program: NCI… Continue reading $26.3 million for 7 Centers for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence
From Medical News Today, a report on work by Foresight Feynman Prize winner Charles Lieber of Harvard: “Harvard University researchers have found that molecular markers indicating the presence of cancer in the body are readily detected in blood scanned by special arrays of silicon nanowires — even when these cancer markers constitute only one hundred-billionth… Continue reading Early signs of cancer found by nanowires
See the report by Ottilia Saxl, founder and CEO of the Institute of Nanotechnology, UK, for the European Commission Expert Group on Key Technologies for Europe. Titled Nanotechnology – a Key Technology for the Future of Europe (PDF), it includes on pages 26-28 a scenario of the role of nanotech in 2025. The technology will… Continue reading European view of nanotech in 20 years
On Athenaweb (free registration req’d), a new site brought to you by the European Commission, is a five-minute video called The Principle of Nanotechnology with enjoyable nano graphics, worth viewing. That the audio is in German is not a problem, since those of us who are language-challenged can simply enjoy the video portion. If you’re… Continue reading Fun nano video from Germany
