From an article written by Akshat Rathi: Jeffrey Hall, a retired professor at Brandeis University, shared the 2017 Nobel Prize in medicine for discoveries elucidating how our internal body clock works. He was honored along with Michael Young and his close collaborator Michael Roshbash. Hall said in an interview from his home in rural Maine [...]
A powerful new way of analysing how drugs interact with molecules in the body could aid the design of better treatments with fewer side-effects. Most pharmaceuticals work by binding to a small site on the large proteins they target, causing the protein to change shape and so also its activity. To find drugs that act [...]
UAlberta researchers have created two new imaging agents that could help physicians visualize the formation of tumour-associated blood vessels, keep track of tumour growth and possibly generate new therapies (Nanoscale, "Viral nanoparticles decorated with novel EGFL7 ligands enable intravital imaging of tumor neovasculature"). "Blood vessel growth is critical to tumour growth," said John Lewis, the [...]
Scientists have found a way of mimicking our body's natural healing process, using cell derived nano-sized particles called vesicles, to repair damaged tissue. The paper, published in Scientific Reports ("Annexin-enriched osteoblast-derived vesicles act as an extracellular site of mineral nucleation within developing stem cell cultures"), describes a new approach to bone regeneration; stimulating cells to [...]
Seeing is believing when it comes to nanoparticle self-assembly. A team of University of Illinois engineers is observing the interactions of colloidal gold nanoparticles inside tiny aquariumlike sample containers to gain more control over the self-assembly process of engineered materials. Self-assembling colloidal nanoparticles are one of the things that make stuff like LED displays, solar [...]
Combined photoacoustic imaging and photothermal therapy for cancer was created by Sangyong Jon, a Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at KAIST, along with his team using Bilirubin (BR) nanoparticles. The properties of a bile pigment referred to as BR, which exerts powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects, were applied by the team to this [...]
A research team at the University of York has discovered that genes are regulated by unique structures called ‘nano footballs’. Although these structures have similar appearance like footballs, they are 10 million times smaller than the average ball. Transcription factors are special chemicals that are found inside the cells and play a role in gene [...]
Breast cancer that spreads usually infiltrates bone, causing fractures and severe pain. In such cases, chemotherapy is ineffective as the environment of the bone protects the tumor, even as the drug has toxic side effects elsewhere in the body. Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a nanoparticle that can [...]
Chemical engineer and prolific inventor Robert S. Langer of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology -- known as the “Edison of medicine” -- is the recipient of the $250,000 Kabiller Prize in Nanoscience and Nanomedicine for 2017, Northwestern University’s International Institute for Nanotechnology announced. The Kabiller Prize is the largest monetary award in the world for [...]
A synthetic DNA-targeting molecule could pave the way for tissue regeneration. Stem cells can be triggered to change into heart muscle cells by a new method involving synthetic molecules. The method overcomes challenges facing current approaches and can be fine-tuned to prompt the formation of a variety of cell types. Human induced pluripotent stem cells [...]
