'World's best microscope' up and running

I want one!!!...

The world's most powerful transmission electron microscope has been turned on in the US, with single-atom resolution bringing within reach the ability to analyse chemicals simply by looking at them.

The Transmission Electron Aberration-corrected Microscope (TEAM 0.5) has been installed at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, having been developed in collaboration with the US Department of Energy (DOE), the University of Illinois and two microscopy firms: the FEI Company and Germany's CEOS.
Traditionally TEM and scanning TEM microscopes have suffered from somewhat limited resolution that stopped frustratingly short of allowing researchers to study materials accurately at the atomic level. This latest development has managed to reach a resolution of 0.5 Angstroms (A) (0.05nm) or one quarter of the diameter of a carbon atom.
The increased resolution of the TEAM microscope should enable scientists in all disciplines to characterise atomic scale structure and chemistry more accurately than ever before.

The director of the TEAM Project, Uli Dahmen, explained that the microscope is the world's best thanks to the equipments resolution, improved contrast and low signal-to-noise ratio.

"[It] brings us within reach of meeting the great challenge posed by the famous physicist Richard Feynman in 1959: the ability to analyse any chemical substance simply by looking to see where the atoms are.

link to full article

Nanoparticles Generate Supersonic Shock Waves to Target Cancer

I read the following article and found myself wondering how explosions were going to be used to treat cancer...I guess it's going to be a nanotech world...

By mixing nanomaterials that act as fuel and oxidizer, researchers have created a combustible nano explosive that can generate shock waves with Mach numbers up to 3.

The team of researchers, a collaboration from the University of Missouri-Columbia (UMC) and the U.S. Army, hope that this nano-sized “smart bomb” can target drug delivery to cancer cells, and leave healthy cells unharmed. Their study is published in a recent issue of Applied Physics Letters.

"Nanoengineered thermites can produce shock waves, and their properties are similar to some primary lead-based explosives,” Shubhra Gangopadhyay, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UMC, told PhysOrg.com. “Hence these materials may be able to replace lead-based primary explosives. We are also able to integrate this material with micro-chip technology and produce shock waves using these compact micro-chip systems. This micro system has many applications in defense, as well as in life sciences, such as targeted drug and gene delivery.”

link to full article

Nanotechnology Roadmap...Where's Pharm Bio???

Here a link to Guy Kawasaki's blog regarding a Nanotech Roadmap completed by the Batelle Memorial Institute...

Guy labels it "must-read"...I agree...I find this technological frontier fascinating...if only I could understand the material, (it was a struggle to get through the Executive Summary...)

I do have one or two questions...

Primarily, where's the Pharm Bio industry in all of this?... similar to the Human Genome, Nanotechnology appears to present great promise in the areas of health and life science...there just doesn't seem to be that much on these areas in the report...the participants tend to be from a variety of universites, or "labs" and "institutes", with not one pharma company on the list...the closest thing is an organization called the American Academy of Nanomedicine.

The table of contents list 39 individual articles produced by the Working groups which address specific issues...of this, 5 articles appear to deal with DNA, biology, life sciences, etc...(It is sometimes hard to tell just from the titles of the articles, and I am, quite frankly, not going to read the whole report). This hardly seems like this area is getting the focus it would appear to deserve (if all of the promise of the technology comes to pass) from the Pharm Bio side anyway...

I just haven't heard of any signifcant research efforts based on these ideas from any industry players...perhaps these efforts are underway, and I am just not aware of it...or maybe the Big Pharma companies are still stuck in the "chase the molecule" model? Perhaps this is an example of why drug pipelines are so dry...perhaps someone with more experience on the research side of the industry could provide a more current update of the current status of these efforts...

Secondly, could someone read the executive summary on this document and explain what it means to the Pharm Bio industry? Are we going to get our drug products from little desk-top factories? If so, how soon?, and will it cost less?

Maybe nanotechnology and future medicine will solve all our problems...only the future will tell, just ask Ray


some related links...

Guy's Blog- not to science oriented, he's a venture capitalist...

Batelle Memorial Institute

Foresight Institute

American Academy of Nanomedicine

Nanotech is promising, but faces hurdles

The latest editorial from John Carroll at FierceBio, as usual, an interesting read...

Dwight Seferos, PhD, a researcher at the International Institute for Nanotechnology at Northwestern University, held a sizable audience in thrall for nearly an hour at the 13th European Federation of Biotechnology meeting in Barcelona.

He had a good topic. Researchers at the institute have used oligonucleotides--a short piece of DNA known for its ability to bind to complementary DNA--to effectively disperse nanomaterials inside a variety of cell lines. There's good potential to use this technology to dispatch nanoparticles inside a patient's body to deliver therapeutic agents, Seferos told the group. The same approach, for example, could be effective in targeting cancer cells, killing them or leaving them vulnerable to chemotherapy.

Chad Mirkin, the director of the institute and a founder of Nanosphere and NanoInk, has been a leader in using atomic force microscope tips to make nanoscale materials, putting on one atomic layer at a time as he delves into a world that is one to 100 nanometers in size.

Translating that kind of technology to the bedside won't be easy, though--particularly in Europe, where government regulators have turned a cold shoulder to expensive new therapies. That message was sent loud and clear just a few hours after Seferos wrapped his presentation.

link to full article

Betting on Nanotech Therapies

I'm hoping nanotechnology comes up with some breakthroughs...

"There's an entire wave of important therapeutics [coming] using nanotechnology," said Jim Matheson, general partner of Flagship Ventures, Cambridge, Mass., which is contributing funding for one such venture.

By packaging drugs with nano-agents that home in on tumors directly, several start-ups hope to knock out cancer cells while triggering relatively few side effects. A number of these companies plan to begin clinical trials shortly.

These companies' work represents some of the latest strategies in the long quest to better target drugs with agents known as nanoparticles. A milestone came in 1995 with the U.S. approval of Doxil, which encapsulates the chemotherapy doxorubicin into a tiny fat bubble, or liposome, and another layer of hair-like strands made from a type of rubber.

link to full article

FDA Regulations- the hits just keep coming...

The FDA has enough on it's plate lately...imported food inspections, drug safety, internal direction and leadership, etc. etc...without having another whole area to begin to regulate...

but that's exactly what's happening with the wonderful world of the very small...nanotechnology, for the rest of us...

FDA press release regarding regulation of nanotech issues...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)'s Nanotechnology Task Force today released a report that recommends the agency consider developing guidance and taking other steps to address the benefits and risks of drugs and medical devices using nanotechnology.

It looks like it's gonna be busy times at the FDA...

enjoy...

Nanoparticles get a free ride

A breakthrough discovery in the US could see nanoparticles hitching a ride on red blood cells to become an ultimate drug delivery mechanism.

Nanoparticles have long been seen as a promising frontier for intravascular drug delivery but advances in the technology have been limited by the problem that nanoparticles are quickly removed from the blood rendering them ineffective in delivering drugs.

But researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara, have found a solution to the problem - attaching nanoparticles to the surface of red blood cells (RBCs) dramatically increases the in vivo lifetime of the nanoparticles.

The research is published in the July 07 issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine.

"Attachment of polymeric nanoparticles to red blood cells combines the advantages of the long circulating lifetime of the red blood cell, and their abundance, with the robustness of polymeric nanoparticles," research team leader Dr Samir Mitragotri said is a statement.

link to full article

New hope for TB with nano drug delivery

"nanoparticles are submicron-sized polymeric colloidal particles within which the therapeutic agent is encapsulated, or adsorbed or conjugated into the surface..."

What? Oh, well, I'm just glad to see progress with a new technology...

South African researchers have provided a glimmer of hope for the millions of people in the developing world struck down by tuberculosis (TB) by developing a nano-sized drug delivery platform that could make all the difference in the battle against drug resistant forms of the disease.

The consortium of researchers, lead by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), has successfully managed to encapsulate four first-line anti-TB drugs within a nano-sized polymeric shell, which could revolutionise the delivery of TB drugs and have a significant impact on the efficacy of therapeutic treatments in developing countries.

One of the major advantages of the new technique is that it would reduce the drug regimen for TB sufferers from four different drugs every day for up to six months, to a single treatment every seven days for just six weeks.

"The difficulty in treating TB results from patient non-compliance to the treatment regime," lead researcher on the project at CSIR, Dr Hulda Swai, explained to in-PharmaTechnologist.com.

link to full article

New vaccine technology holds double promise

Have you ever seen the term "ever-lasting gobb-stopper" in a serious medical story???...

05/03/2007 - A new nanotechnology-based vaccine delivery method could allow the development of single-dose vaccines as well as new vaccines in disease areas of unmet need.

Research presented at last week's ASM Biodefense and Emerging Disease Research Meeting revealed that a biodegradable polymer in a microsphere formulation could be used to develop time-released vaccines, thus reducing the need for vaccine booster shots, as well as stimulate an immune response that traditional vaccines do not.

"Current vaccines are good at producing antibodies that block entry into the cell. In the case of some diseases, such as malaria or tuberculosis, antibody vaccines just aren't effective," said Jenny Wilson-Welder, a lead researcher on the study conducted at Iowa State University.

The polymer, called polyandydride, is already being used as a delivery system for a brain cancer drug designed to inhibit tumor growth but this is the first time its application in vaccines has been shown.

"It's like an everlasting gobstopper or a bar of soap. It wears away slowly over time, delivering its payload," says Wilson-Welder.

link to full story

Nanotech website for Bio/ Medicine

A website I just found with a page to focus on Bio/ Medicine aspects of the nanotechnology industry

nanotechwire.com/biomedicine

the site also covers a lot of other aspects of nanotech...