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Nano World Off The Radar For Most
Lakhtakia, working with Debashish Munshi, associate professor, management communications and Priya Kurian, senior lecturer, political science and public policy, University of Waikato, New Zealand, and Robert V. Bartlett, the Gund Professor of Liberal Arts, University of Vermont, looked at how technologists/scientists, business and industry leaders, government agencies, social science researchers, fiction writers, political activists, science journalists and writers and the general public view nanotechnology. The U.S. established an Interagency Working Group on Nanotechnology in 1996 and in 2000 the National Nanotechnology Initiative began coordinating efforts in nanotechnology.
Some social scientists find nanotechnology interesting and beneficial, but others equate nanotech with areas they found frightening such as genetic engineering or cloning. A Canadian activist group produced a series of reports on the social implications of nanotechnology and urges caution in using nanotechnology. They also cover the reports evaluating nanotechnology, such as the Canadian reports on social implications. “The paucity of debate and critical analysis on the implications of nanotechnology in the popular media is reflected in the general lack of public awareness of the implications of nanotechnology,” according to the researchers. “Schools must find a way to interweave science, engineering, liberal arts, literature and history so that emerging fields like nanotechnology, biotechnology and cognitive science can be understood and evaluated by the general public,” Lakhtakia of Penn State says.
Science writers and journalists report the scientific research as it comes into the literature. They also cover the reports evaluating nanotechnology, such as the Canadian reports on social implications. Science writers have not yet produced broad evaluations of the field, but have begun to evaluate the business aspects in the cautionary context of a dot.com bust.??
Among social scientists, little work on nanotechnology exists. While some have begun to study the area, there is little published. Reports from government agencies, scientists and business interests form the basis of the little that does exist. Some social scientists find nanotechnology interesting and beneficial, but others equate nanotech with areas they found frightening such as genetic engineering or cloning. Currently no nanotechnology law exists and legal experts believe that current law is sufficient to handle future needs with modification.??
Beyond The Hype And The Scare Stories, How Safe Are Nanoparticles?
More specific concerns have been voiced by various parties — including the UK Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering — about exposure to manufactured nano-sized particles and the possible harmful effects on human health.
The future success of nanotechnology will depend on rational and informed work to understand and minimize these potential adverse effects on health and the environment.
“We need to understand both how harmful a substance is, and how much of it can get into the body, if risk is to be understood and managed,” says Maynard. Maynard then reviews what has been established about the behavior of nanomaterials in the body, considering how nanoparticles may get into the body via the lungs, skin, or digestive system as well as possible toxic effects. “Not only is it necessary to consider the potential for engineered nanomaterials to be released in a form that leads to exposure, chemical and structural transformations between the point of release and the point of exposure will also likely determine health impact,” explains Maynard. While the potential harmful effects of nanoparticles in the environment are often highlighted, one beneficial proposed application is the removal of contaminants from groundwater.
Nanoparticles may have greater reactivity, and so toxicity, than larger sized particles. Because of their size, nanoparticles may also evade some of the body’s natural defense systems and accumulate in some tissues. But currently, there is little information on the impact of engineered nanoparticles, and what there is can be contradictory.
Study Points Way To Communicating Nanotech
Yet survey results show that public audiences largely lack awareness and understanding of nanotechnology concepts, says Olivia Castellini, a former postdoctoral researcher with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) Interdisciplinary Education Group. “In the very near future, the public will be asked to make a variety of decisions about nanotechnology, including whether or not to purchase nanotechnology products, how nanotechnology should be regulated-if at all-and whether public funding should be used to support nanotechnology research,” she says. Now an exhibit developer in the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry Department of Science and Technology, Castellini led a study in which she and three undergraduate interns surveyed 495 people ages 7 to 91 to test their knowledge of atoms, nanotechnology and size scale, and to assess their attitudes toward nanotechnology. Our most significant finding is that public knowledge of fundamental science concepts related to nanotechnology varies a great deal based on age and educational experience
“The study was really crucial for our appreciation for what the public knows about nanotechnology and for our appreciation of the difficulties we would face in developing exhibits that involve a size scale that’s smaller than you can see,” says Crone, who directs the MRSEC Interdisciplinary Education Group. Communication strategies that emerged from the study also enabled group members to deliver more meaningful nanotechnology information in face-to-face interactions with audiences like schoolchildren, K-12 teachers and the public Rather, says Castellini, researchers first should assess how much their audiences know about basic nanotechnology concepts such as atoms and size scale, and conduct a review, if necessary.
Future Blood Tests May Use Tiny Bar-codes To Speed Disease Diagnosis
Analyzing a blood sample for the presence of disease markers, either in a doctor’s office or on the battlefield, could soon become as quick and easy as scanning the bar-code of a grocery item. Using nanotechnology, researchers at Northwestern University have developed a way to label tiny disease markers in blood with unique DNA tags, which they call bio-bar-codes. Unlike conventional tests that require one or more vials of blood, the new test allows a single drop of blood to paint a patient’s comprehensive disease profile in about the same amount of time it takes for a routine doctor’s visit. If one is trying to detect exposure to anthrax, for instance, a set of probes is prepared that represents a unique molecular tag for anthrax-related DNA. The gold nanoparticle is also attached to hundreds of DNA bar-code sequences that are unique identification tags for the anthrax target DNA.
Researchers Create Lung Cancer ‘Cluster Bombs’
Based on what we’ve been able to do so far, we have practical hopes that a new lung delivery platform for lung cancer can be established. Wilson Roa, a U of A oncology professor–have applied for a patent on the lung cancer nanoparticle drug delivery system. However, the difference between regular drugs and “nanoparticle cluster bombs,” Loebenberg said, comes when the powder arrives in the lungs, where it dissolves into nanoparticles upon contact with moisture in the lung–usually mucous. This drug and this delivery system have a lot of potential–there are a lot of different things we can do as we’re able to control where and when the nanoparticles release their payload,” said Finlay, who also has a patent pending on a new inhaler to go with the nanoparticle drug platform.
Practitioners, academics and scientists contributed to the report
The Nanotechnology-Biology Interface: Exploring Models for Oversight,” and their conclusions raise issues for government bodies, scientists, the private sector and consumers. According to the report, the applications of nanotechnology require revised risk models and standards of safety.Because of these and other issues, the report suggests increased funding for health and environmental safety research on nanoparticles and requests that basic information on the nature and toxicity of nanomaterials be made available to the general public before the products enter the market. We need more dialogue on the many issues surrounding the nanotechnology-biology interface
The report concludes that we need better institutions for discussing societal issues surrounding the nanotechnology-biology interface.
New Nanotechnology Able To Examine Single Molecules, Aiding In Determining Gene Expression
A new nanotechnology that can examine single molecules in order to determine gene expression, paving the way for scientists to more accurately examine single cancer cells, has been developed by an interdisciplinary team of researchers at UCLA’s California Nanosystems Institute (CNSI), New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, and Veeco Instruments, a nanotechnology company.
With their new approach, the researchers of the work reported in Nanotechnology were able to isolate and identify individual transcript molecules–a sensitivity not achieved with earlier methods.
We are likely to see more of these kinds of highly multi-disciplinary research aimed at single molecule sequencing, genomics, epigenomic, and proteomic analysis in the future,” added Bud Mishra, a professor of Computer Science, Mathematics, and Cell Biology from NYU’s Courant Institute and School of Medicine.
By 2015, the National Science Foundation estimates that the nanotechnology sector will employ more than 2 million workers.
Because nanotechnology is a way of doing or making things rather than a discrete technology, there will never be a one-solution-fits-all approach for nanotechnology and nanomaterials workplace safety,” states Maynard. “That is why the federal government needs to invest a minimum of $100 million over two years in targeted risk research in order to begin to fill in our occupational safety knowledge gaps and to lay a strong, science-based foundation for safe nanotechnology workplaces
DNA Molecules Used To Assemble Nanoparticles
Nanometer-scaled dendrimers can be assembled in many configurations by using attached lengths of single-stranded DNA molecules, which naturally bind to other DNA strands in a highly specific fashion.
It is possible to build a single dendrimer carrying many different kinds of molecules such as contrast agents and drugs, but the synthesis process is long and difficult, requiring months for each new molecule added to the dendrimer in sequential steps.
For a paper published Jan. 21 in the journal Chemistry and Biology, U-M Biomedical Engineering graduate student Youngseon Choi built nanoparticle clusters of two different functional dendrimers, one designed for imaging and the other for targeting cancer cells.
In a solution of two different kinds of single dendrimers, these dangling lengths of DNA, typically 34-66 bases long, found complementary sequences on other dendrimers and knitted together, forming barbell shaped two-dendrimer complexes with folate on one end and fluorescence on the other end.
An array of single-functional dendrimers, such as targets, drugs, and contrast agents, and the ability to link them together quickly and easily in many different ways would enable a clinic to offer 25 different “flavors” of dendrimer with only ten synthesis steps, Baker said.
Baker foresees a nanoparticle cluster in which a single dendrimer carries three single-strands of DNA, each with a sequence specific to the DNA attached to other kinds of dendrimers.
Researchers Make Nanosheets That Mimic Protein Formation
University of Michigan researchers have discovered a way to make nanocrystals in a fluid assemble into free-floating sheets the same way some protein structures form in living organisms.
“This establishes an important connection between two basic building blocks in biology and nanotechnology, that is, proteins and nanoparticles, and this is very exciting for assembling materials from the bottom up for a whole slew of applications ranging from drug delivery to energy,” said Sharon Glotzer, professor of chemical engineering and materials science and engineering.
We were aware of certain proteins in living organisms that self-assemble into layers, called S-layers,” Kotov said. S-layer proteins comprise the outermost cell envelope of a wide variety of bacteria and other single-celled, prokaryotic organisms called archaea, and they are able to form 2-d sheets with square, hexagonal, and other packings at surfaces and interfaces, as well as suspended in fluid. The group sought to make the connection between the forces governing S-layer protein assembly and the forces governing the nanoparticle assembly.
Post doctoral researcher Zhenli Zhang of Glotzer’s group tried various combinations of forces based on information gleaned from experiments performed by post doctoral Zhiyong Tang of Kotov’s group.
Top 10 Nanotech Applications To Aid Poor
That remarkable piece of plastic is called a “lab-on-a-chip” and it is one of the revolutionary products and processes currently emerging from nanotechnology research with the potential to transform the lives of billions of the world’s most vulnerable inhabitants.
In a new study by researchers at the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics (JCB), published in PLoS Medicine, the open access global health journal, an international panel of 63 experts were asked to rank the nanotechnology applications they think are most likely to benefit developing countries in the areas of water, agriculture, nutrition, health, energy and the environment in the next 10 years. Photo courtesy of Public Library of Science
Nanotechnology and Medicine
Nanotechnology, “the manufacturing technology of the 21st century,” should let us economically build a broad range of complex molecular machines (including, not incidentally, molecular computers). It will let us build fleets of computer controlled molecular tools much smaller than a human cell and built with the accuracy and precision of drug molecules. Current Tags: molecular, cell
NetSuite Case Study: La Jolla Institute for Molecular Medicine
Overview: Researchers at La Jolla Institute for Molecular Medicine search for cures for cancer and cardiovascular diseases.Although La Jolla Institute for Molecular Medicine considered other solutions, NetSuite offered the best value, providing customization flexibility for the unique needs of biotech while delivering an affordable price.
Pass the water. In a surprising twist, some sea snakes prove dependent on fresh water to stay hydrated.Credit: Kelvin Aitken / Peter Arnold Inc.
Sea Snakes Conquered by Salt
By Elizabeth Pennisi
ScienceNOW Daily News
5 January 2007
PHOENIX, ARIZONA–Shipwrecked sailors shouldn’t drink ocean water no matter how thirsty they get. And neither should sea snakes. Contrary to the current dogma, at least some of these serpentine mariners must have freshwater to survive. Research shows that without it, at least one group of sea snakes–and likely others–will gradually waste away, researchers reported here yesterday at the annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. The need for access to fresh water may limit where these snakes can live, explaining their patchy distribution along certain coastlines.All organisms must work to keep dehydration in check. Kidneys concentrate urine to conserve water, and many marine animals have special adaptations for getting rid of the excess salt taken in from the surrounding environment. Sea snakes–dozens of species of which live in the open ocean, while a few others hang out inshore–have a gland under their tongues for this purpose. Researchers have long assumed that this gland worked so well that the snakes could get away with sipping salt water whenever they needed a drink.
But Harvey Lillywhite, an ecological physiologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville, began to suspect otherwise when he had trouble keeping file snakes, which live almost fulltime in the ocean, alive in his lab. He discovered the snakes did fine once he put them in fresh water and began to wonder if the same was true of other marine snakes.
With the help of Ming Tu from the National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei, Lillywhite and his colleagues collected three species of sea kraits, snakes that live in the coastal waters of islands off Taiwan but, at the very least, come ashore to lay their eggs, usually in rocky caves close to the intertidal zone. Two of the species also visit land occasionally. All have the brine-secreting gland, suggesting they are well adapted to constant immersion in salt water.
For their experiments, the researchers first took the snakes out of water long enough to allow them to dehydrate. They then put the snakes in different concentrations of seawater. None of the dehydrated snakes tried to drink anything that was 50% or more salt water (They live in full-strength seawater.) But they did gulp down water fresh water and imbibed 25% saltwater concentrations, Lillywhite reported.
In a second study, Lillywhite’s team tracked the weight of the snakes for 10 days. For the experiment, they kept the snakes in the seawater without food. The researchers placed half of the snakes in fresh water every other day for an hour. All the snakes experienced dehydration and lost weight, but the ones exposed to fresh water lost significantly less, says Lillywhite.
The results help explain the demographics of these Taiwanese snakes, Lillywhite says. They tend to be most plentiful along the shore, where there are springs or other sources of fresh water nearby. Furthermore, there are more sea snake species in areas with higher mean annual rainfalls, notes Lillywhite. Under calm conditions, thin layers of rain will float on top of the salt water, apparently providing ample supplies for the snakes.
It’s a “major finding,” says Harold Heatwole, an ecologist at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Physiologist Lisa Hazard from Montclair State University in Upper Montclair, New Jersey, agrees. “He shows pretty clearly that [sea snakes] have to have access to fresh water,” she says. Current Tags: water, sea snake, fresh
Molecular basis for learning, memory found in mice
European scientists have proved there is a shared molecular basis for mice’s ability to learn, form memories and recall them.
Minichiello’s group determined that mice with defective TrkB molecules were unable to activate an important signaling pathway, and were also unable to learn. In addition, they found that the cells with defective TrkB molecules were unable to generate a normal LTP recall response (remembering) when presented with a familiar situation.
In other words, the ability to learn, and the ability to recall something that had been learned, was impaired in mice without healthy TrkB molecules.
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