Jenny Hogan blogs for Nature.com: “The historic city of Edinburgh in Scotland is this week hosting hundreds of scientists and politicians discussing “Nanotechnology and the Health of the EU Citizen in 2020” [pdf] at the aptly named EuroNanoForum 2005 meeting… “[Using iron oxide nanoparticles to treat cancer], we are told, is the first anti-cancer therapy… Continue reading Medical nanotech conference blogged at Nature.com
VC (and Foresight Participating Member) Norm Wu continues his series of articles on nanotech over at ExtremeNano, this time covering how it will be used in future medical diagnostics, imaging and therapeutics. A sample: “In yet another potentially high impact nanotherapeutic approach, Professor Reza Ghadiri and his group at Scripps Research Institute have developed nanobiotic… Continue reading Mini-tutorial on nanotech for medicine, part 1
So glad to see my alma mater joining the club of schools doing beautiful nanotech research against cancer: “Imagine a cancer drug that can burrow into a tumor, seal the exits and detonate a lethal dose of anti-cancer toxins, all while leaving healthy cells unscathed. MIT researchers have designed a nanoparticle to do just that…… Continue reading Elegant anti-cancer nanotech from MIT
From the BBC, on work by Stanford’s Hongjie Dai: “Nanotechnology has been harnessed to kill cancer cells without harming healthy tissue. The technique works by inserting microscopic synthetic rods called carbon nanotubules into cancer cells. When the rods are exposed to near-infra red light from a laser they heat up, killing the cell, while cells… Continue reading Nanotech and cancer: more encouraging results
Just back from a meeting of ICON in Houston (agenda in PDF format). I went out a day early to sit in on a meeting focused on Rice University’s CBEN, which included a high-level summary of their research plus some in-depth examples. Especially impressive was the research on gold nanoshells to treat cancer, and work… Continue reading CBEN: near-term nanotech for health and environment
A partnership of 25 scientists from The Burnham Institute, University of California Santa Barbara, and The Scripps Research Institute will use a $13 million NIH award to design nanotechnologies to detect, monitor, treat, and eliminate “vulnerable” plaque, the probable cause of death in sudden cardiac arrest. The project team will work on three innovative solutions… Continue reading Nanomachines to mount attack on atherosclerotic plaque
It doesn’t quite meet the “under 100 nm” requirement, but the internal parts must: The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that a robot combined with a swallowable camera could give doctors a better look inside the small intestine. This medical robot, dubbed ‘bugbot,’ is being developed at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in its NanoRobotics Lab. It will… Continue reading Medical bugbot from CMU NanoRobotics Lab
Posted by Robert Bradbury: Jonathan Despres writes “Computer science student to compete in world semifinals of microsoft competition HOUSTON, May 11, 2005 – Building and controlling a team of nanorobots to seek and destroy infected tissue within a simulated terminally ill patient, a University of Houston computer science student and his teammate have advanced to… Continue reading Saving virtual lives with nanorobots
Posted by Robert Bradbury: Brian Wang writes Aubrey de Grey who founded “The Methuselah Mouse Prize” spoke about life extension at a Senior Associates gathering. There has been recent development in the area of life extension. A mouse with the ability to mop up free radicals at the cellular level – and live longer as… Continue reading Mouse life extended 20%
Roland Piquepaille writes "Nano-sized particles embedded with bright, light-emitting molecules have enabled researchers to visualize a tumor more than one centimeter below the skin surface using only infrared light. An interdisciplinary team from the Universities of Pennsylvania and Minnesota have imaged tumors within living rats by embedding fluorescent materials into cell-like vesicles called polymersomes, which are composed of two layers of self-assembling copolymers. According to the researchers, this imaging process has the potential to go even deeper. And "it should also be possible to use an emissive polymersome vesicle to transport therapeutics directly to a tumor, enabling us to actually see if chemotherapy is really going to its intended target." Read this overview for other details and references, including a picture showing how these nanoparticles are used to image a tumor beneath the skin of a living rat."
