Archive for the 'Nanotechnology' Category
April 25th, 2011 by admin
New research from a team of scientists at Stanford has advanced the field drug development significantly. The team has developed a new biosensor microchip that has the potential to speed up the entire process of drug development. These microchips are packed with highly sensitive “nanosensors” and they analyze how proteins bind to one another. This is a very important step for understanding the efficiency and possible side effects of a potential medication.
Continue reading ‘Researchers Develop New Biosensor Microchip to Boost the Process of Drug Development’
April 25th, 2011 by admin
By combining nanotechnology and medical research, Sandia National Laboratories, the University of New Mexico, and the UNM Cancer Research and Treatment Center, have successfully been able to produce a highly efficient strategy that makes use of nanoparticles to kill cancerous cells with a wide variety of drugs.
Continue reading ‘Using Nanoparticles to Kill Cancer Cells’
April 11th, 2011 by admin
A biochemist from the Purdue University has proved that with the use of nanotechnology, it is possible to understand whether or not cancer medicines are going to hit their targets, and thus lower the amount of side effects these drugs have. W. Andy Tao, an associate professor of biochemistry analytical chemistry, has produced a nanopolymer that has the capability to be coated with medicines, enter the cells and then removed to understand which are the proteins in the cells that the drug has entered into. Since these nanopolymers are soluble in water, they make a better delivery system for drugs that do not dissolve in water very efficiently.
Continue reading ‘Dealing with Cancer Side Effects with Nanopolymers’
March 15th, 2011 by admin
Every vaccine scientist wants to discover just one thing – how to stimulate immunity that lasts for a lifetime! There are many live vaccines, such as the ones for smallpox and yellow fever that are able to stimulate immunity against the disease that lasts for many decades. However, in spite of the success of such vaccines, researchers are still unable to manufacture a vaccine that will provide lifetime immunity. Furthermore, vaccine scientists are also not able to understand how vaccines such as the smallpox one, induces such long lasting immunity.
Continue reading ‘Now – Nanoparticles for Long Lasting Immunity’
March 11th, 2011 by admin
While it might seem unbelievable, MIT engineers have announced that they have managed to design a new type of nanoparticles that could effectively and safely deliver vaccines for diseases such as malaria and HIV. HIV is known to be one of the biggest killers in the world and till now no one has been able to successfully create a vaccine for combating this deadly virus.
Continue reading ‘New Nanoparticles from MIT could lead to Vaccines for HIV, Malaria and Others’
February 23rd, 2011 by admin
Researchers at MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have shown that they can deliver the cancer drug cisplatin much more effectively and safely in a form that has been encapsulated in a nanoparticle targeted to prostate tumor cells and is activated once it reaches its target. Using the new particles, the researchers were able to successfully shrink tumors in mice, using only one-third the amount of conventional cisplatin needed to achieve the same effect. That could help reduce cisplatin’s potentially severe side effects, which include kidney damage and nerve damage.
Continue reading ‘Delivering a Potent Cancer Drug with Nanoparticles can Lessen Side Effects’
February 2nd, 2011 by admin
Another week, another nano-prefixed word to add to the lexicon: NanoPopcorn. This one comes courtesy of researchers at Jackson State University in Mississippi who created a popcorn-shaped nanoparticle that can perform three separate tasks. First, it can detect as few as 50 prostate cancer cells, then it switches into thermal scalpel mode to cook the cancer cells to death, and it can track the response of cancer cells to the therapy.
Continue reading ‘NanoPopcorn Targets, Cooks and Tracks Prostate Cancer Cells’
January 25th, 2011 by admin
There are many possible ways to kill a cancer cell, and one of them is to cook them to death. There are nanoparticles worth their weight in gold to do just that. Researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen are experimenting with tiny gold particles’ ability to melt the lipid membranes surrounding cells, paving the way for pinpoint precision when attacking tumors.
Continue reading ‘Hot Gold Nanoparticles Can Cook Cancer Cells’
November 29th, 2010 by admin
A $145-million U.S. Federal Government effort to harness the power of nanotechnology to improve the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of cancer is producing innovations that will radically improve care for the disease. That’s the conclusion of an update on the status of the program, called the National Cancer Institute Alliance for Nanotechnology in Cancer. It appears in a monthly journal published by the American Chemical Society.
Continue reading ‘Nanotechnology Promises Big Benefits for Cancer Patients’
September 23rd, 2010 by admin
In its report on Suzhou Natong Bionanotechnology’s microneedle technology, the Wall Street Journal hits on an interesting problem in the drug-delivery world: Is it a device or a drug? Since often the delivery technology often enters the body along with the drug, the old categories often do not work.
Continue reading ‘Chinese Company Big on Microneedles’
