Category Archives: Nano Medicine

Category: Science & Technology Posted: May 8, 2012 08:02AM Author: Guest_Jim_*

When most people think of the potential uses for microsubmarines, which are one tenth the width of a human hair in length, they most likely envision the tiny vessel swimming through the human body, delivering medicine wherever it is needed. Scientists are not like most people though. As reported in the American Chemical Society's journal Nano, these technological marvels can be used to clean up oil spills.

Despite their incredibly small size, these submarines can travel with great speed through water. This allows them to quickly grab a droplet of oil and move it to where it can actually be recollected. To help with collecting the oil, the outside of the submarines have been coated in a superhydrophobic material that also absorbs oil.

Already the microsubs have proven effective at cleaning up olive oil and motor oils spills in a laboratory. Potentially we will find these machines in the oceans when a massive spill occurs, or in factories, to clean up contaminated water before it can leak out.

Link:
Cleaning Up Oil Spills with Microsubmarines

Newswise UALR - The University of Arkansas at Little Rock - has opened its new home for the Center for Integrative Nanotechnology Sciences. The five-story, $15 million building is a working symbol of Arkansas major stake in atomic-sized technology that will make a giant difference to the future of central Little Rock.

Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe, U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, and U.S. Congressman Tim Griffin were on hand for the May 2 opening ceremonies, citing the centers mission to take discoveries in the lab and turn them into new products, new businesses, and new jobs.

We no longer have to take a backseat to any state in the nation,Gov. Beebe said. The United States has invested more than any other nation in nanotechnology, and Arkansas has kept pace. We are one of the few states in the nation where it is really happening.

The new center combines three major roles of the university education, research, and economic development to recruit and inspire a generation of scientists, nurture their research, and apply it to create new marketable products that launch new businesses and create new jobs for Arkansas.

What we are doing here is quite unique. It is to combine education with research and economic development, said Dr. Alexandru Biris,director of the new center and the UALR Sturgis Chair inNanotechnology.Students from the high school to the post-doctoral level are already interacting with researchers and representatives of local companies to find answers and expand the understanding of how the properties of elements behave at the atomic scale and apply knowledge to development new products, enterprises, and jobs.

We are trying to grow the next generation of scientists in Arkansas,Biris said. We are taking students we have met and turning them into scientists, doctors, researchers highly educated individuals(without whom) it will be very difficult to advance economically.

Scientists and students at the new UALR center are wrapping a few atoms of gold in a graphite nanotube a few atoms thick to hunt and kill cancer cells without affecting healthy tissue. Working with colleagues at the cross-town sister school, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, they already have succeeded with rats.

Although she is only a freshman, Natasha Sra of Cherokee Village in northeast Arkansas, is learning and discovering along with doctors and post-docs on the project.

She never heard of nanotechnology before she enrolled in the ArkansasSchool for Science, Mathematics, and the Arts and her teacher pointed her to a summer program for high schoolers at the UALR nanotechnology center. Now a freshman at UALR, the chemistry and biology major is working on novel research on how low-levels frequency on nano particles affect breast cancer cells.

The center also offers its research assistance and lab facilities to local companies, making locating and expanding businesses in centralArkansas more attractive to high-tech firms.

Read the original here:
New Nanotechnology Center Opens in Little Rock

by Ananda KANNANGARA

Education Minister Bandula Gunawardane has focused attention on expanding children's knowledge on nano science since educationists are of the view that nano technology-based industries will be set up in the country within the next 15 years.

According to the Education Ministry, nano science was to be introduced as a subject at the GCE Ordinary Level and Advanced Level examinations several years ago, but due to lack of trained teachers the proposal was put off.

A senior Science and Technology Ministry official said, nano technology is taught to children from their younger days in many developed and developing countries, as this technology will be increasingly used in science, medicine, motor mechanism and associated fields during the next few decades.

Minister Gunawardane told the Sunday Observer that it would take a few years to introduce the subject of nano technology to the school curriculum due to the non-availability of trained instructors.

Meanwhile, Dr. Prabath Hewageegana of the Department of Physics, University of Kelaniya has proposed that nano science be taught in schools so that students acquire a basic knowledge of the subject as they have acquired sound knowledge in the field of Information Technology.

He said strengthening nano science education in schools from now on is crucial for sustainable development in the field and Sri Lanka could easily develop a pool of professionals and a workforce to meet future needs.

He said State intervention is important in this regard and more research funds should also be made available to research institutions such as universities.

The rest is here:
Nano science, focus of Education Ministry

Newswise FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. An interdisciplinary team of engineers at the University of Arkansas has developed a wireless health-monitoring system that gathers critical patient information, regardless of the patients location, and communicates that information in real time to a physician, hospital or the patient herself.

The system includes a series of nanostructured, textile sensors integrated into a conventional sports bra for women and vest for men. Via a lightweight and wireless module that snaps onto these garments, the sensors communicate with system software that relies on a smart phone to collect information, compress it and send it over a variety of wireless networks.

Our e-bra enables continuous, real-time monitoring to identify any pathophysiological changes, said Vijay Varadan, Distinguished Professor of electrical engineering. It is a platform on which various sensors for cardiac-health monitoring are integrated into the fabric. The garment collects and transmits vital health signals to any desired location in the world.

The system monitors blood pressure, body temperature, respiratory rate, oxygen consumption, some neural activity and all the readings provided by a conventional electrocardiograph (ECG), including the ability to display inverted T waves, which indicate the onset of cardiac arrest. The system does not require a cuff or any extra accessories to measure blood pressure and could therefore replace conventional blood-pressure monitors. It could also replace the cumbersome combination of ECG sensors and wires attached to patients while they walk on treadmills.

The sensors, which are smaller than a dime, include gold nanowires, as well as flexible, conducting textile nanosensors. The sensors are made of arrays of gold nano-electrodes fabricated on a flexible substrate. The textile sensors are woven into the bra material. These sensors do not require conventional sticky electrodes or the use of gel.

Electrical signals and other physiological data gathered by the sensors are sent to the snap-on wireless module, the contents of which are housed in a plastic box that is slightly smaller than a ring box. As the critical wireless component, the module is essentially a low-powered laptop computer that includes an amplifier, an antenna, a printed circuit board, a microprocessor, a Bluetooth module, a battery and various sensors. The size of the module depends heavily on power consumption and minimum battery size. Varadan said that anticipated battery and Bluetooth upgrades will allow the researchers to build a smaller 1.5 inches long, 0.75 inch wide and 0.25 inch deep lighter and flexible module that will replace the rigid box.

Data from the sensors then stream to commercially available cell phones and hand-held devices, which expand the use of the system beyond health care. By carrying a cell phone, athletes can monitor all signs mentioned above and other metrics, such as number of calories burned during a workout. To render clean data, the software includes filtering algorithms to mitigate problems due to motion of the hand-held device during exercise.

Whether on a computer or cell phone, the software is set up so that users can view all data on one screen or window, or they can view each measurement on its own unique window. The software also includes a global positioning system that tracks the exact latitude and longitude of the patient or athlete. The geographic information is transferred to a cloud cluster and stored in a secured database that doctors or other health-care personnel can access to view location of the patient as well as historic or real-time ECG data. The system can also be programmed to send emergency messages, via voice or text messaging, if it detects extreme or abnormal conditions.

Varadan has not yet published findings on the e-bra, but results on the system, which he calls an e-Nanoflex Sensor System, were published in the Journal of Nanotechnology in Engineering and Medicine. The research is supported by the Global Institute for Nanotechnology in Engineering and Medicine.

Varadan holds the College of Engineerings Twenty-First Century Endowed Chair in Nano- and Bio-Technologies and Medicine and the colleges Chair in Microelectronics and High Density Electronics. He is director of the High Density Electronics Center and the Center for Wireless Nano-, Bio- and Info-Tech Sensors and Systems, which is funded by the National Science Foundation. Varadan is also a professor of neurosurgery in the College of Medicine at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, Ark.

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Engineers Develop Textile Sensors that Monitor Cardiac Signs and Communicate with Smart Phones

3 May 2012

A team of scientists has developed microsubmarines that could help clean up oil spills.

According to a statement, a team of scientists has reported the development and successful testing of the first self-propelled microsubmarines designed to pick up droplets of oil from contaminated waters and transport them to collection facilities.

The report published in the journal ACS Nano concludes that these tiny machines could play an important role in cleaning up oil spills such as the 2010 Deepwater Horizon incident in the Gulf of Mexico.

Joseph Wang and his team, from the University of California San Diegos nano-engineering department, developed so-called microsubmarines, which require very little fuel and move ultrafast, to see whether these small engines could help clean up oil.

Tests showed that the cone-shaped microsubmarines can collect droplets of olive oil and motor oil in water and transport them through the water.

The microsubs have a special surface coating, which makes them superhydrophobic or extremely water-repellent and oil-absorbent.

These results demonstrate the potential of the superhydrophobic-modified microsubmarines for facile, rapid and highly efficient collection of oils in oil-contaminated water samples, said the researchers.

Different versions of micro-engines have been developed, including devices that could transport medicine through the bloodstream to diseased parts of the body. But no one has ever shown that these devices which are about 10 times smaller than the width of a human hair could help clean up oil spills.

The project received funding from the National Science Foundation, NATO Science for Peace and Security Program, Spanish MICINN, Beatriu de Pins (Government of Catalonia) and University of Alcal (Madrid).

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Tiny submarines could help clean oil-contaminated waters

HOLLISTON, Mass., May 3, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Harvard Bioscience, Inc. (HBIO - News), a global developer, manufacturer, and marketer of a broad range of tools to advance life science research and regenerative medicine, today reported unaudited financial results for the three months ended March 31, 2012.

First Quarter Reported Results

Revenues for the three months ended March 31, 2012 were $28.3 million, an increase of $2.0 million, or 7.6%, compared to revenues of $26.3 million for the three months ended March 31, 2011. Currency exchange rates had a negative 1.0% effect on revenues in the first quarter of 2012 compared with the first quarter of 2011. The Company's acquisitions of CMA Microdialysis AB ("CMA") in July 2011 and AHN Biotechnologie GmbH ("AHN") in February 2012 had a positive 4.4% effect on revenues. Excluding the effects of currency changes and acquisitions, the Company's organic revenue growth for the first quarter of 2012 was 4.2% over the same period in the previous year.

Net income, as measured under U.S. generally accepted accounting principles ("GAAP"), was $0.5 million, or $0.02 per diluted share for the three months ended March 31, 2012 compared to $1.7 million, or $0.06 per diluted share, for the same period in 2011. The unfavorable year-to-year quarterly GAAP earnings comparison was primarily due to increased spending in the Company's development-stage Regenerative Medicine Device ("RMD") business.

On a non-GAAP adjusted basis, earnings per share for our core Life Science Research Tools ("LSRT") business for the first quarter of 2012 were $0.09 per diluted share compared with $0.08 per diluted share for the first quarter of 2011. Non-GAAP adjusted earnings per share for our RMD business for the first quarter of 2012 was a loss of $0.03 per diluted share, compared with a loss of $0.01 per diluted share for the first quarter of 2011, and reflected greater activities in developing this new initiative. The Company's total non-GAAP adjusted earnings per share, reflecting LSRT and RMD combined, were $0.06 per diluted share for the first quarter of 2012 compared with $0.07 per diluted share for the first quarter of 2011.

Commenting on the Company's performance Chane Graziano, CEO, stated, "We are pleased with our first quarter 2012 performance. Overall our organic growth in orders was 6% and for revenues was 4% versus the first quarter of 2011, fueled by demand in each of our four major product groups. During the first quarter of 2012 we hired a new general manager at our Denville Scientific subsidiary and introduced an exciting new nano spectrophotometer product at our Biochrom subsidiary. We expect each to have a significant impact in the second half of 2012."

Mr. Graziano continued "In the second quarter of 2012, we expect revenues to be in the $28-$29 million range and we expect non-GAAP diluted earnings per share for our core LSRT business to be in the 9-10 cents per share range. In RMD, we expect second quarter operating expenses to be about 4 cents per diluted share. For the year, we are maintaining our guidance at $115-$120 million range for revenues and 39-42 cents non-GAAP diluted earnings per share range for our core LSRT business. We also continue to expect our RMD operating expenses to be about 13 cents per diluted share this year."

Our second quarter 2012 revenue and earnings guidance was calculated using exchange rates (USD 1.62/GBP and USD 1.32/Euro) approximating April 27, 2012 rates and assumes a continuation of the business conditions as we see them at this time. The non-GAAP adjusted earnings per diluted share guidance excludes amortization of intangible assets, impact of future acquisitions, acquisition costs, any future restructuring actions, and stock-based compensation expense recognized under the provisions of FASB ASC Topic 718, "Compensation -- Stock Compensation." See the table below for a reconciliation of our estimated non-GAAP adjusted earnings per diluted share to our estimated GAAP earnings per diluted share. See Exhibits 4, 5 and 6 for reconciliations of GAAP to non-GAAP adjusted operating income, GAAP to non-GAAP adjusted net income and GAAP diluted earnings per common share to non-GAAP adjusted diluted earnings per common share for the three months ended March 31, 2012 and 2011, respectively.

Operating Results for Continuing Operations

Three months ended March 31, 2012 compared to three months ended March 31, 2011:

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HBIO Reports First Quarter 2012 Revenue Growth of 8% Over First Quarter 2011