tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/nanotechnology-34/articlesNanotechnology – The Conversation2024-02-23T12:57:14Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2234042024-02-23T12:57:14Z2024-02-23T12:57:14ZNanotechnology promises to help farmers cut pesticide use – but could also make chemicals more toxic<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576824/original/file-20240220-23-kaqnct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nano-enabled pesticides may be efficient but could be hazardous to the surrounding environment beyond target crop pests. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/farmer-agronomist-spraying-pesticide-on-field-1843140232">NataliAlba/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nanotechnology has pervaded numerous industrial sectors over the past decades. Although many of us may not be aware of it, nanomaterials are now embedded within <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-guide-to-the-nanotechnology-used-in-the-average-home-59312">many of the the products</a> we use in our daily lives. <a href="https://www.azonano.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=5829">Recent developments</a> suggest that agriculture could be next in line. </p>
<p>Pesticide products based on nanoscale materials – nano-enabled pesticides – are currently heralded as a promising new solution that could enhance the protection of crops from pests and disease, while posing minimal risk to the environment.</p>
<p>But, together with a team of environmental scientists, we argue in this <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.3c10207">new study</a> that despite <a href="https://www.azonano.com/news.aspx?newsID=38847">claimed sustainability benefits</a>, adding nanomaterials to this equation is likely to do more harm than good. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nanowerk.com/spotlight/spotid=7853.php">High expectations and bold promises</a> of enhanced efficiency and sustainability have surrounded nanotechnology since its initial large-scale commercialisation two decades ago. There is little doubt that nanotechnology has delivered on some of these criteria. Spectacular examples include <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-ways-nanotechnology-is-securing-your-future-55254">applications in solar cells</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/lithium-air-a-battery-breakthrough-explained-50027">batteries</a> that help society transition away from fossil fuels. </p>
<p>At the same time, there is <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-nanotechnology-is-more-than-just-a-buzzword-97376">ample evidence</a> of cases where the prefix “nano” has been over-hyped for <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-bs-and-the-science-of-nanotechnology-97317">marketing</a> rather than scientific purposes. These range from overpromised efficacy of nanoparticles for <a href="https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/nanoparticles-mix-it-reality">cancer-targeting applications</a> to downright scams where nano-products are sold under the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2021/12/28/feds-crack-down-on-nano-silver-covid-treatmentonly-the-latest-unproven-cure/?sh=5071fdbf3bbf">claim of curing COVID</a>. </p>
<p>More importantly, there are instances where the <a href="https://theconversation.com/nanomaterials-are-changing-the-world-but-we-still-dont-have-adequate-safety-tests-for-them-101748">risks</a> of nanomaterials to human and environmental health outweigh their benefits. Concerns regarding genotoxicity – or damage to DNA – recently resulted in a <a href="https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/news/titanium-dioxide-e171-no-longer-considered-safe-when-used-food-additive">ban of titanium dioxide nanoparticles</a> for use as food colourants in the EU. </p>
<p>Pesticides of any class warrant particular caution when it comes to risks to human health and the environment. In contrast to the majority of chemicals we produce, pesticides are designed to be toxic and are purposefully released to the environment. </p>
<p>Only a small fraction of pesticide applied reaches the pests being targeted under conventional agricultural practices – on average that volume ranges from <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10668-011-9325-5">less than 1%</a> up to <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Wenjun-Zhang-10/publication/323302056_Global_pesticide_use_Profile_trend_cost_benefit_and_more/links/5a8cda3fa6fdcc786eafe3d7/Global-pesticide-use-Profile-trend-cost-benefit-and-more.pdf">approximately 25%</a>. The remaining fraction of applied pesticides often ends up <a href="https://phys.org/news/2021-03-global-farmland-high-pesticide-pollution.html">polluting soils, groundwater and surface water</a>. This poor efficiency represents a significant loss from both an economic and environmental perspective. It’s a waste. </p>
<h2>The promise of nano-enabled pesticides</h2>
<p>Nano-enabled pesticides claim to address this lack of efficiency. Packaging pesticide molecules in nanoscale carriers – less than <a href="https://youtu.be/38Vi8Dm0kdY?feature=shared">one hundredth of the size of a grain of sand</a> – could make pesticides stick or adhere better to crops. It could also improve their absorption into the tissues of pests.</p>
<p>The nanoscale carriers can be tailored to release the pesticide molecules they carry more slowly or restrict their release to occur only under the desired conditions. Consequently, nano-enabled pesticides could be equally or even more effective than conventional pesticide products when applied in lower volumes and less frequently. This cuts the amount of pesticide being released into the surrounding environment.</p>
<p>But reducing volumes is only part of the solution. As illustrated in our paper, many of the properties that improve the performance of nano-enabled pesticides in pest control may equally exacerbate their impacts on organisms other than the pests being targeted. Plainly put, little is gained from lowering levels of pollution, when the pollutants themselves are more harmful. </p>
<p>To illustrate, nano-enabled pesticides that are more readily taken up in the tissues of targeted pests can often be assumed to be more readily taken up by other organisms as well. Similarly, using nanoscale carriers to extend the durability of pesticides after application also increases the time pesticides will pollute the soil and freshwater. This has an impact on aquatic life, pollinators and natural predators of pest organisms. </p>
<p>The nanoscale carriers that are used may affect the environment as well. In a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0269749123008965?via%3Dihub">study published last year</a>, we demonstrated that nanoscale carriers can adversely affect freshwater zooplankton in the long term. The behaviour of nanomaterials in the environment also tends to be less well known and harder to predict than for conventional chemicals. Due to their minuscule size, accurate routine monitoring of nanomaterial residues in the environment or on food is unfeasible. </p>
<h2>Proceed with caution</h2>
<p>The first nano-enabled pesticides have already entered the market in <a href="https://farmtario.com/news/vive-crop-protection-receives-first-canadian-product-registration/">Canada</a> and the <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/vive-crop-protection-receives-epa-approval-for-the-worlds-first-three-way-biological-chemical-and-allosperse-fungicide-301286798.html">US</a>. More products and <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-020-0110-1">other regions</a> such as the EU are likely to follow soon. </p>
<p>For better or worse, the agricultural sector could be on the cusp of a new era for pesticides. By acting now, regulators can prevent nano-enabled pesticides from becoming a regrettable path in the future of farming. Our paper outlines the benefits of nano-enabled pesticides, but emphasises their environmental risks and how these should be assessed.</p>
<p>While our role as environmental scientists is to improve our understanding of these consequences, we urge regulators to consider these risks when evaluating whether nano-enabled pesticides should be bought to market. </p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martina G. Vijver receives funding from European Union's ERC-consolidator grant agreement No 101002123.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Nederstigt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Nano-enabled pesticides could pose huge risks and they aren’t being regulated effectively enough yet.Tom Nederstigt, Postdoctoral research fellow, Leiden UniversityMartina G. Vijver, Professor of Ecotoxicology, Leiden UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2223732024-02-01T17:33:59Z2024-02-01T17:33:59ZThe first Neuralink brain implant signals a new phase for human-computer interaction<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572513/original/file-20240131-19-40gn6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C0%2C5765%2C3994&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Neuralink is developing devices that enable direct communication between the human brain and computers.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/the-first-neuralink-brain-implant-signals-a-new-phase-for-human-computer-interaction" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/neuralink-implants-brain-chip-first-human-musk-says-2024-01-29">first human has received a Neuralink brain chip implant</a>, according to co-founder Elon Musk. The neurotechnology company has started its first human trial since <a href="https://www.reuters.com/science/elon-musks-neuralink-gets-us-fda-approval-human-clinical-study-brain-implants-2023-05-25/">receiving approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration</a> in 2023.</p>
<p>The trial’s focus is on an implant that could potentially allow people with <a href="https://neuralink.com/patient-registry/">severe physical disabilities to control digital devices using their thoughts</a>. The study involves <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/musks-neuralink-start-human-trials-brain-implant-2023-09-19/">implanting a brain chip</a> — called a brain-computer interface implant — in the region of the brain that controls movement intention. </p>
<p>Musk has said the patient who received the implant — <a href="https://www.cnet.com/health/medical/neuralinks-brain-chip-is-now-in-a-human-your-skull-is-safe-for-now/">fittingly named Telepathy</a> — is “recovering well” and that “initial results show promising neuron spike detection.” No other details about the trial have been provided yet.</p>
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<p>This development is more than just a technical milestone; it represents a major leap in potential human-computer interaction, raising important questions about the integration of advanced technology with the human body and mind.</p>
<h2>Neuralink’s mission</h2>
<p>Neuralink’s <a href="https://neuralink.com/">stated mission</a> is to “create a generalized brain interface to restore autonomy to those with unmet medical needs today and unlock human potential tomorrow.” This mission communicates two key approaches. </p>
<p>In the short term, the focus will be on individuals with medical needs. The long-term vision extends far beyond this, alluding to a goal of augmenting human potential. This suggests Neuralink envisions a future where its technology transcends medical use and becomes a tool for cognitive and sensory enhancement in the general population.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A video from Neuralink about its first human clinical trial.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The evolution of Neuralink presents a range of possible future scenarios. The first scenario envisions successful trials leading to adoption in niche markets, signifying a breakthrough but with restricted scope. </p>
<p>The second, more optimistic scenario, involves widespread acceptance after successful human trials, with the potential to revolutionize our interaction with technology. And the third — a more pessimistic view — considers the venture’s failure, driven by many societal, technological, legal and medical factors. </p>
<h2>The realistic scenario</h2>
<p>In the most realistic scenario, Neuralink is expected to achieve success by focusing on medical applications for individuals with severe disabilities. This targeted approach is likely to <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18179367">resonate with consumers in need of life-changing technologies</a>, which will drive early adoption within this specific demographic. </p>
<p>In this case, wider acceptance from the broader consumer base will hinge on various factors, including the technology’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.17705/1CAIS.05019">perceived usefulness</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2015.12.010">privacy implications and the overall risk-benefit perception</a>.</p>
<p>Socially, Neuralink’s trajectory will be significantly influenced by <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies5040031">public and ethical discussions</a>. Issues surrounding data security, long-term health implications and equitable access will likely dominate public discourse. </p>
<p>Widespread acceptance of Neuralink’s technology will depend on its medical efficacy and safety, combined with Neuralink’s ability to address ethical concerns and gain public trust.</p>
<h2>The optimistic scenario</h2>
<p>In the optimistic scenario, Neuralink’s technology transcends its initial medical applications and integrates into everyday life. This scenario envisions a future where the technology’s benefits are clearly demonstrated and recognized beyond its medical use, generating interest across various sectors of society.</p>
<p>Consumer interest in Neuralink would extend beyond those with medical needs, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.13040">driven by the appeal of enhanced cognitive abilities and sensory experiences</a>. As people become more familiar with the technology, concerns about invasiveness and data privacy may decrease, especially if Neuralink can provide robust safety and security assurances.</p>
<p>From a societal standpoint, the optimistic scenario sees Neuralink as a catalyst for positive change. The technology could bridge gaps in human potential, offering new ways of interaction and communication. </p>
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<img alt="A middle-aged man in a suit gestures while speaking" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572512/original/file-20240131-17-g477cl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572512/original/file-20240131-17-g477cl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572512/original/file-20240131-17-g477cl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572512/original/file-20240131-17-g477cl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572512/original/file-20240131-17-g477cl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572512/original/file-20240131-17-g477cl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572512/original/file-20240131-17-g477cl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Elon Musk, co-founder of Neuralink, speaking at VivaTech, one of Europe’s largest tech and start-up fairs, in June 2023 in Paris, France.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<p>Although ethical concerns would still exist, the potential benefits in education, workforce productivity and overall quality of life could outweigh them. Regulatory bodies might adopt more accommodating policies, influenced by public enthusiasm and the technology’s track record in improving lives.</p>
<p>In this scenario, Neuralink becomes a symbol of human advancement, seamlessly integrating into daily life and opening new possibilities in human-machine interaction. </p>
<p>Its success would set a precedent for other technologies at the intersection of biology and technology, like <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.pmbts.2021.01.002">gene editing technologies </a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1101/cshperspect.a034306">bioelectronic medicine</a>, paving the way for a future where such integrations are the norm.</p>
<h2>The pessimistic scenario</h2>
<p>In the pessimistic scenario, Neuralink will face significant challenges that hinder its widespread adoption and success. <a href="https://rdcu.be/dxnKL">This scenario considers the possibility of the technology failing to meet the high expectations set for it</a>, either due to technological limitations, safety concerns or ethical dilemmas.</p>
<p>From a technological standpoint, the complexity of interfacing directly with the human brain could be more complex than anticipated, leading to underwhelming performance or reliability issues. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies5040031">Physical and psychological safety concerns</a> might also be more significant than initially thought, with potential long-term health implications that could deter both consumers and medical professionals.</p>
<p>The invasive nature of the technology and privacy concerns related to brain data could lead to widespread public apprehension. This skepticism could be compounded if early applications of the technology are perceived as benefiting only a select few, <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/D/bo68657177.html">exacerbating social inequalities</a>.</p>
<p>Ethically, the prospect of brain-computer interfaces could raise questions about <a href="https://rdcu.be/dxstZ">human identity</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-018-9466-4">autonomy and the nature of consciousness</a>. These concerns might fuel public opposition, leading to stringent regulatory restrictions and slowing down research and development.</p>
<p>In this scenario, Neuralink’s ambitious vision might be curtailed by a combination of technological hurdles, public mistrust, ethical controversies and regulatory challenges, ultimately leading to the project’s stagnation or decline.</p>
<p>While Neuralink presents numerous possibilities, its journey isn’t merely about technological advancement. The outcome of this venture holds key implications for the future of neural interfaces and our understanding of human capabilities, underscoring the need for a thoughtful approach to such innovation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222373/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Omar H. Fares does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Neuralink’s first human trial is more than just a technical milestone; it represents a major leap in potential human-computer interaction.Omar H. Fares, Lecturer in the Ted Rogers School of Retail Management, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2167302023-11-01T10:10:34Z2023-11-01T10:10:34ZWe built a ‘brain’ from tiny silver wires. It learns in real time, more efficiently than computer-based AI<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556971/original/file-20231031-15-3i8f9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C7%2C2556%2C1908&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-42470-5">Zhu et al. / Nature Communications</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The world is infatuated with artificial intelligence (AI), and for good reason. AI systems can process vast quantities of data in a seemingly superhuman way.</p>
<p>However, current AI systems rely on computers running complex algorithms based on <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.11279">artificial neural networks</a>. These use <a href="https://www.numenta.com/blog/2022/05/24/ai-is-harming-our-planet/">huge amounts of energy</a>, and use even more energy if you are trying to work with data that changes in real time.</p>
<p>We are working on a completely new approach to “machine intelligence”. Instead of using artificial neural network software, we have developed a <em>physical</em> neural network in hardware that operates much more efficiently.</p>
<p>Our neural networks, made from silver nanowires, can learn on the fly to recognise handwritten numbers and memorise strings of digits. Our results are published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-42470-5">a new paper</a> in Nature Communications, conducted with colleagues from the University of Sydney and the University of California, Los Angeles.</p>
<h2>A random network of tiny wires</h2>
<p>Using nanotechnology, we made networks of silver nanowires about one thousandth the width of a human hair. These nanowires naturally form a random network, much like the pile of sticks in a game of pick-up sticks. </p>
<p>The nanowires’ network structure looks a lot like the network of neurons in our brains. Our research is part of a field called <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41928-021-00646-1">neuromorphic computing</a>, which aims to emulate the brain-like functionality of neurons and synapses in hardware. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556993/original/file-20231101-27-46gvu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A microscope photo showing a messy web of thin grey lines against a black background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556993/original/file-20231101-27-46gvu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556993/original/file-20231101-27-46gvu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556993/original/file-20231101-27-46gvu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556993/original/file-20231101-27-46gvu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556993/original/file-20231101-27-46gvu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556993/original/file-20231101-27-46gvu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556993/original/file-20231101-27-46gvu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Each nanowire is around one thousandth the width of a human hair, and together they form a random network that behaves much like the web of neurons in our brains.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-42470-5">Zhu et al. / Nature Communications</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Our nanowire networks display brain-like behaviours in response to electrical signals. External electrical signals cause changes in how electricity is transmitted at the points where nanowires intersect, which is similar to how biological <a href="https://qbi.uq.edu.au/brain-basics/brain/brain-physiology/action-potentials-and-synapses">synapses</a> work. </p>
<p>There can be tens of thousands of synapse-like intersections in a typical nanowire network, which means the network can efficiently process and transmit information carried by electrical signals.</p>
<h2>Learning and adapting in real time</h2>
<p>In our study, we show that because nanowire networks can respond to signals that change in time, they can be used for <a href="https://medium.com/value-stream-design/online-machine-learning-515556ff72c5">online machine learning</a>. </p>
<p>In conventional machine learning, data is fed into the system and processed in <a href="https://towardsdatascience.com/batch-mini-batch-stochastic-gradient-descent-7a62ecba642a">batches</a>. In the online learning approach, we can introduce data to the system as a continuous stream in time. </p>
<p>With each new piece of data, the system learns and adapts in real time. It demonstrates “on the fly” learning, which we humans are good at but current AI systems are not. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/networks-of-silver-nanowires-seem-to-learn-and-remember-much-like-our-brains-204115">Networks of silver nanowires seem to learn and remember, much like our brains</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The online learning approach enabled by our nanowire network is more efficient than conventional batch-based learning in AI applications. </p>
<p>In batch learning, a significant amount of memory is needed to process large datasets, and the system often needs to go through the same data multiple times to learn. This not only demands high computational resources but also consumes more energy overall. </p>
<p>Our online approach requires less memory as data is processed continuously. Moreover, our network learns from each data sample only once, significantly reducing energy use and making the process highly efficient.</p>
<h2>Recognising and remembering numbers</h2>
<p>We tested the nanowire network with a benchmark image recognition task using the <a href="https://paperswithcode.com/dataset/mnist">MNIST dataset</a> of handwritten digits. </p>
<p>The greyscale pixel values in the images were converted to electrical signals and fed into the network. After each digit sample, the network learned and refined its ability to recognise the patterns, displaying real-time learning.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557006/original/file-20231101-25-pghp65.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A grid of handwritten digits" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557006/original/file-20231101-25-pghp65.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557006/original/file-20231101-25-pghp65.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557006/original/file-20231101-25-pghp65.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557006/original/file-20231101-25-pghp65.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557006/original/file-20231101-25-pghp65.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557006/original/file-20231101-25-pghp65.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557006/original/file-20231101-25-pghp65.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The nanowire network learned to recognise handwritten numbers, a common benchmark for machine learning systems.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MNIST_database#/media/File:MnistExamplesModified.png">NIST / Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Using the same learning method, we also tested the nanowire network with a memory task involving patterns of digits, much like the process of remembering a phone number. The network demonstrated an ability to remember previous digits in the pattern. </p>
<p>Overall, these tasks demonstrate the network’s potential for emulating brain-like learning and memory. Our work has so far only scratched the surface of what neuromorphic nanowire networks can do.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216730/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zdenka Kuncic owns shares in Emergentia, Inc., and acknowledges support from the Australian-American Fulbright Commission.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ruomin Zhu receives the PREA scholarship from the University of Sydney. </span></em></p>A tangle of silver nanowires may pave the way to low-energy real-time machine learning.Zdenka Kuncic, Professor of Physics, University of SydneyRuomin Zhu, PhD student, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2157472023-10-20T12:25:50Z2023-10-20T12:25:50ZQuantum dots − a new Nobel laureate describes the development of these nanoparticles from basic research to industry application<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554426/original/file-20231017-23-nsxqeq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=617%2C37%2C7403%2C5450&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Louis Brus, center, shares Nobel recognition with two other quantum dots pioneers.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/screen-shows-this-years-laureates-us-chemist-moungi-bawendi-news-photo/1705016177?adppopup=true">Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The Nobel Prize in chemistry for 2023 goes to three scientists “for the <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2023/press-release/">discovery and synthesis of quantum dots</a>.” <a href="https://theconversation.com/becoming-a-nobel-laureate-louis-brus-on-his-discovery-of-quantum-dots-podcast-215915">The Conversation Weekly podcast</a> caught up with one of this trio, physical chemist <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=GT0oh5QAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Louis Brus</a>, who did foundational work figuring out that the properties of these nanoparticles depend on their size. Brus’ phone was off when the Nobel reps called to inform him of the good news, but now plenty of people have gotten through with congratulations and advice. Below are edited excerpts from the podcast.</em></p>
<p><strong>When you were working at Bell Labs in the 1980s and discovered quantum dots, it was something of an accident. You were studying solutions of semiconductor particles. And when you aimed lasers at these solutions, called colloids, you noticed that the colors they emitted were not constant.</strong></p>
<p>On the first day we made the colloid, sometimes the spectrum was different. Second and third day, it was normal. There certainly was a surprise when I first saw this change in the spectrum. And so, I began to try to figure out what the heck was going on with that.</p>
<p>I noticed that the property of the particle itself began to change at a very small size.</p>
<p><strong>What you’d found was a quantum dot: a type of nanoparticle that absorbs light and emits it at another wavelength. Crucially, the color of these particles changes depending on the actual size of the particle. How do you even see a quantum dot crystal, since one is just a few hundred thousandths the width of a human hair?</strong></p>
<p>Well, you can’t see them with an optical microscope because they’re smaller than the wavelength of light. There are ways to see them too, using other types of specialist microscopes, such as an electron microscope. And a common way of demonstrating them is to line up a row of brightly colored glass flasks each with a solution of different sized quantum dots inside it.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554425/original/file-20231017-21-wzhcci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="diagram of a molecule next to a soccer ball next to a planet" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554425/original/file-20231017-21-wzhcci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554425/original/file-20231017-21-wzhcci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=186&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554425/original/file-20231017-21-wzhcci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=186&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554425/original/file-20231017-21-wzhcci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=186&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554425/original/file-20231017-21-wzhcci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=234&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554425/original/file-20231017-21-wzhcci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=234&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554425/original/file-20231017-21-wzhcci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=234&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A quantum dot is a crystal that often consists of just a few thousand atoms. In terms of size, it has the same relationship to a soccer ball as a soccer ball has to the size of the Earth.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2023/press-release/">Johan Jarnestad/The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>One of your fellow laureates, <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2023/ekimov/facts/">Alexei Ekimov</a>, was a Russian scientist, and he’d actually observed quantum dots in colored glass, but you weren’t aware of his findings at the time?</strong></p>
<p>Yes, that’s right. The Cold War was going on at that time, and he published in the Russian literature, in Russian. And he wasn’t allowed to travel to the West to talk about his work.</p>
<p>I asked around among all the physicists, was there any work on small particles? I was trying to make a model of the quantum size effects. And they told me no, nobody’s really working on this. Nobody had seen his articles, basically.</p>
<p>I was part of the U.S. chemistry community, doing synthetic chemistry in the laboratory. He was in the glass industry in the Soviet Union, working on industrial technology.</p>
<p>When I eventually found his articles in the technological literature, I wrote a letter to the Soviet Union, with my papers, just to say hello to Ekimov and his colleagues. When the letter came, the KGB came to talk to the Russian scientists, trying to figure out why they had any contact with anybody in the West. But in fact they had never talked to me or anyone in the West when my letter arrived in the mail.</p>
<p><strong>Have you met him since?</strong></p>
<p>Yes, they were able to come out of the Soviet Union during Glasnost, this would be the late 1980s. There’s Ekimov, and then there is his theoretical collaborator <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=upaytw8AAAAJ&hl=en">Sasha Efros</a>, who now works at the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03179-z">U.S. Naval Research Lab</a>. I met them as soon as they came to the U.S.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Listen to the interview with Louis Brus on The Conversation Weekly podcast. Each week, academic experts tell us about the fascinating discoveries they’re making to understand the world and the big questions they’re still trying to answer.</em></p>
<iframe src="https://embed.acast.com/60087127b9687759d637bade/652ff01993a2360012ccc1a9" frameborder="0" width="100%" height="190px"></iframe>
<p></p>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-561" class="tc-infographic" height="100" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/561/4fbbd099d631750693d02bac632430b71b37cd5f/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<hr>
<p><strong>One of the issues with quantum dots, when you first observed them, was how to actually produce them and keep them stable. Then, in the 1990s, your fellow laureate, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=8086TkwAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Moungi Bawendi</a>, figured this out. What do you think is the most striking thing that you’ve seen quantum dots used in so far?</strong></p>
<p>Usually when a new material is invented, it takes a long time to figure out what it’s really good for. Research scientists, they have ideas, you might use it for this, you might use it for that. But then, if you talk to people in the actual industry, who deal every day with manufacturing problems, these ideas are often not very good.</p>
<p>But the knowledge that we gained, the scientific principles, could be used to help to design new devices.</p>
<p>As far as first applications, people began to try to use them in biological imaging. Biochemists attach quantum dots to other molecules to help map cells and organs. They’ve even been used to detect tumors, and to help guide surgeons during operations.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554428/original/file-20231017-19-jmznq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="7 glowing vials" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554428/original/file-20231017-19-jmznq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554428/original/file-20231017-19-jmznq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554428/original/file-20231017-19-jmznq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554428/original/file-20231017-19-jmznq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554428/original/file-20231017-19-jmznq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554428/original/file-20231017-19-jmznq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554428/original/file-20231017-19-jmznq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Quantum dot particles were continually improved so they would reliably emit very particular colors.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/quantum-dot-royalty-free-image/1311600163?adppopup=true">Tayfun Ruzgar/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And as scientists kept working to synthesize quantum dots, the quality of the particles kept improving. They were emitting pure colors, rather than distributions of light – like maybe red with a little bit of green, or maybe red with some pink. When you got a better particle, it would be just pure red, for instance.</p>
<p>So then people made the connection to the display industry – computer displays and television displays. In this application, you want to convert electricity into three colors: red, green and blue. You can make up any kind of image, starting with just those three colors in different proportions.</p>
<p>It takes a lot of courage. You have to invest a lot of money to develop the technology, and maybe at the end of it, it’s not good enough, and it will not replace what you already have. And there’s a lot of credit due to the Samsung Corporation in Japan. Hundreds of billions of dollars were invested in the technology of these particles to get them to the point where they could begin to manufacture displays and flat-panel TVs using quantum dots.</p>
<p><strong>Your work is an example of the importance of basic research, of being curious, trying to solve mysteries without a particular endpoint or industrial application in sight. What message would you have for a young chemist starting out today working on such basic research?</strong></p>
<p>The world is a huge place, and you could do basic research in a huge number of different areas. You want to pick a problem where, if you are spectacularly successful and you actually discover something really interesting, it might have some application in the world.</p>
<p>For better or for worse, you have to make a choice in the beginning, and it takes some intuition.</p>
<p>A good way to do it is you pick a subject that you know is important to technology, but there’s no understanding of the science at the present time. It’s a complete black box. Nobody understands the basic principles. That kind of problem, you can begin to take it apart and look to see what the basic steps are.</p>
<p><strong>What changes for you now that you’ve won the Nobel Prize?</strong></p>
<p>Well, this Nobel Prize, for better or for worse, has a special meaning in people’s minds all over the world. Yesterday when the mailman came I happened to be at the front door and he recognized me because my face was in the local newspaper. And he said, “I’ve never shaken the hand of a Nobel laureate before.”</p>
<p>For better or for worse, this is where I am right now, in a special category whether I like it or not. I still have my office in the university, but I don’t have a research group. I’m trying to leave that to the younger people. So this recognition probably means less for my research than it would if I was 40 years old.</p>
<p>I have received congratulations by email from a number of people who won the prize in past years. Their main recommendation is you must learn to say no. People will ask you to do all kinds of crazy things, and your time will be entirely taken up with these honorific university visits and giving little speeches. In order to have a real life and to be productive, you have to say no to all of these extraneous invitations.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554429/original/file-20231017-21-zysnay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="elaborate stage ceremony" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554429/original/file-20231017-21-zysnay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554429/original/file-20231017-21-zysnay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554429/original/file-20231017-21-zysnay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554429/original/file-20231017-21-zysnay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554429/original/file-20231017-21-zysnay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554429/original/file-20231017-21-zysnay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554429/original/file-20231017-21-zysnay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Nobel Prize awards ceremony in Stockholm is a black-tie affair.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/general-view-of-the-nobel-prize-awards-ceremony-at-news-photo/1448161113?adppopup=true">Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>And they also told me to have fun in Sweden! It’s an extremely elaborate schedule of events for that week in December when this award ceremony is. Extremely fancy. American culture, physics culture is different – if you win a prize from the American Physical Society, it’s a very low-key event. You just show up in an auditorium. It’s not even necessary to wear a suit.</p>
<p>So I will take my family, my grandchildren to Sweden and we’ll try to enjoy this as a great vacation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215747/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louis Brus does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Louis Brus explains some of the foundational research – and how even the letter carrier wants to shake your hand when you’ve just won a Nobel Prize.Louis Brus, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, Columbia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2149762023-10-05T09:20:07Z2023-10-05T09:20:07ZNobel prize in chemistry awarded for ‘quantum dot’ technology that gave us today’s high definition TVs<p>The 2023 Nobel prize in chemistry <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2023/press-release/">has been awarded</a> to a trio for the discovery and development of particles so tiny they were once thought too small to be possible. They are widely used in television screens, LED lights and to guide surgeons removing cancer tumours.</p>
<p><a href="https://chemistry.mit.edu/profile/moungi-bawendi/">Moungi G. Bawendi</a> from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US, <a href="https://www.chem.columbia.edu/content/louis-e-brus">Louis E. Brus </a>from Columbia University in the US and <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2023/ekimov/facts/">Alexei I. Ekimov</a> from Nanocrystals Technology Inc. in New York in the US will share the prize sum of 11 million Swedish kronor (£822,910).</p>
<p>The trio all contributed to the discovery and development of quantum dots, which are nanoparticles (particles between one to 100 nanometres in size) so small that their size actually determines their properties. </p>
<p>Such particles obey the rules of quantum mechanics, governing nature on the smallest of scales, meaning they have optical and electronic properties that are different from those of larger particles. </p>
<p>For example, quantum dots absorb light and emit it at another wavelength – with the resulting colour depending on the particle’s size.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-future-is-bright-the-future-is-quantum-dot-televisions-35765">The future is bright, the future is ... quantum dot televisions</a>
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</em>
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<p>The work started in the early 1980s when Ekimov discovered how to create coloured glass using nanoparticles of copper chloride. A few years later, Brus was the first scientist to prove that nanoparticles in a fluid exhibit quantum effects.</p>
<p>In 1993, Bawendi revolutionised the chemical production of quantum dots, which meant they could be used for practical applications such as in technology and healthcare. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Drawing of quantum dots absorbing light." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552064/original/file-20231004-19-ych3n5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552064/original/file-20231004-19-ych3n5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552064/original/file-20231004-19-ych3n5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552064/original/file-20231004-19-ych3n5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552064/original/file-20231004-19-ych3n5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552064/original/file-20231004-19-ych3n5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552064/original/file-20231004-19-ych3n5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">How quantum dots absorb light.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Johan Jarnestad/The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>So why are quantum dots so important in the fields of display devices and medical imaging?</p>
<p>As technology for home and commercial use has increased in complexity, so has the resolution and contrast performance of display screens. High definition displays were introduced from 2003 to 2009 where they became the dominant display type available to the public. The successor, ultra high definition, has become today’s standard. </p>
<p>Quantum dots helped increase the range of display colours to more accurately reflect the range of colours the human eye can naturally perceive. </p>
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<p>A major problem for technology researchers was how to increase the pallet of colours and sub-colours to do this. Quantum dots give us that flexibility and control.</p>
<p>Quantum dots ultimately offer more accuracy when developing technologies because you can change their properties, such as colour, by changing their size. </p>
<p>Nanotechnology techniques allow us to create molecules of different sizes, to emit different wavelengths of light more accurately and consistently. Quantum dots are bringing us much closer to display screens that reproduce the full range of colours humans can discern. </p>
<p>Quantum dots have been a game changer for medical imaging, too. They have helped create more advanced systems for tumour detection, to study human cells, angiograms (a type of X-ray to examine blood vessels) and even camera-guided surgery and robotic surgery. </p>
<p>Researchers studying the immune system and chemical reactions in the body rely on quantum dots to illustrate their studies more accurately. </p>
<p>We still have not realised the full potential of quantum dots. They have already made their mark on the technology and medical sectors. But they also have the potential to create more accurate imaging for other sectors too, such as astronomy. They might even help create next generation solar cell technology to improve solar cell efficiency for power production.</p>
<p>Not so long ago, we didn’t know quantum dots had different frequencies. Now they are an important part of the technology in our TVs, our lights and the medical science that treats and diagnoses diseases. It’s hard to say how we will be using quantum dots in the future - the limit may be our imagination.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214976/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laurence Murphy consults for JVC , Pansonic and SMPTE.</span></em></p>Quantum dot technology has also helped revolutionise medical imagining.Laurence Murphy, Senior Lecturer & Researcher in Media Technology, University of SalfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2150152023-10-04T21:19:46Z2023-10-04T21:19:46ZQuantum dots are part of a revolution in engineering atoms in useful ways – Nobel Prize for chemistry recognizes the power of nanotechnology<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552184/original/file-20231004-19-i1snbm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=143%2C24%2C3655%2C2727&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Flasks of quantum dots fluorescing at the Nobel Prize announcement.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/laboratory-flasks-are-used-for-explanation-during-the-news-photo/1705001725">Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 2023 Nobel Prize for chemistry <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2007/summary/">isn’t the</a> <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1986/summary/">first Nobel</a> <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2010/summary/">awarded for</a> <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2016/summary/">research in</a> <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1996/summary/">nanotechnology</a>. But it is perhaps the most colorful application of the technology to be associated with the accolade.</p>
<p>This year’s prize recognizes <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=8086TkwAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Moungi Bawendi</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=GT0oh5QAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Louis Brus</a> and <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2023/ekimov/facts">Alexei Ekimov</a> for the <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2023/press-release/">discovery and development of quantum dots</a>. For many years, these <a href="https://doi.org/10.1021/acsanm.0c01386">precisely constructed nanometer-sized particles</a> – just a few hundred thousandths the width of a human hair in diameter – were the darlings of nanotechnology pitches and presentations. As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=b8NhWc4AAAAJ&hl=en">researcher</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_D._Maynard">adviser</a> on nanotechnology, <a href="https://2020science.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/maynard-ucla-090417-handouts.pdf">I’ve even used them myself</a> when talking with developers, policymakers, advocacy groups and others about the promise and perils of the technology.</p>
<p>The origins of nanotechnology predate Bawendi, Brus and Ekimov’s work on quantum dots – the physicist Richard Feynman speculated on what could be possible through nanoscale engineering <a href="http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/1976/">as early as 1959</a>, and engineers like Erik Drexler were speculating about the possibilities of atomically precise manufacturing <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/42881/engines-of-creation-by-k-eric-drexler/">in the the 1980s</a>. However, this year’s trio of Nobel laureates were part of the earliest wave of modern nanotechnology where researchers began <a href="https://andrewmaynard.substack.com/p/living-in-a-material-world">putting breakthroughs in material science to practical use</a>.</p>
<p>Quantum dots brilliantly <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/fluorescence">fluoresce</a>: They absorb one color of light and reemit it nearly instantaneously as another color. A vial of quantum dots, when illuminated with broad spectrum light, shines with a single vivid color. What makes them special, though, is that their color is determined by how large or small they are. Make them small and you get an intense blue. Make them larger, though still nanoscale, and the color shifts to red.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552172/original/file-20231004-26-sy0ozo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="diagram of colorful circles of different sizes" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552172/original/file-20231004-26-sy0ozo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552172/original/file-20231004-26-sy0ozo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=186&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552172/original/file-20231004-26-sy0ozo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=186&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552172/original/file-20231004-26-sy0ozo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=186&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552172/original/file-20231004-26-sy0ozo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=234&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552172/original/file-20231004-26-sy0ozo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=234&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552172/original/file-20231004-26-sy0ozo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=234&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The wavelength of light a quantum dot emits depends on its size.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2015.00480">Maysinger, Ji, Hutter, Cooper</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This property has led to many arresting images of rows of vials containing quantum dots of different sizes going from a striking blue on one end, through greens and oranges, to a vibrant red at the other. So eye-catching is this demonstration of the power of nanotechnology that, in the early 2000s, quantum dots became iconic of the strangeness and novelty of nanotechnology.</p>
<p>But, of course, quantum dots are more than a visually attractive parlor trick. They demonstrate that unique, controllable and useful interactions between matter and light can be achieved through engineering the physical form of matter – modifying the size, shape and structure of objects, for instance – rather than playing with the chemical bonds between atoms and molecules. The distinction is an important one, and it’s at the heart of modern nanotechnology.</p>
<h2>Skip chemical bonds, rely on quantum physics</h2>
<p>The wavelengths of light that a material absorbs, reflects or emits are usually determined by the chemical bonds that bind its constituent atoms together. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/synthetic-dye">Play with the chemistry of a material</a> and it’s possible to fine-tune these bonds so that they give you the colors you want. For instance, some of the earliest dyes <a href="https://thedreamstress.com/2013/09/terminology-what-are-aniline-dyes-or-the-history-of-mauve-and-mauveine/">started with a clear substance such as aniline</a>, transformed through chemical reactions to the desired hue.</p>
<p>It’s an effective way to work with light and color, but it also leads to products that <a href="https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/chemistry/colourful-chemistry-artificial-dyes">fade over time as those bonds degrade</a>. It also frequently involves using chemicals that are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-822850-0.00013-2">harmful to humans and the environment</a>.</p>
<p>Quantum dots work differently. Rather than depending on chemical bonds to determine the wavelengths of light they absorb and emit, they rely on very small clusters of semiconducting materials. It’s the <a href="https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/what-quantum-dot">quantum physics of these clusters</a> that then determines what wavelengths of light are emitted – and this in turn depends on how large or small the clusters are.</p>
<p>This ability to tune how a material behaves by simply changing its size is a game changer when it comes to the intensity and quality of light that quantum dots can produce, as well as their resistance to bleaching or fading, their novel uses and – if engineered smartly – their toxicity.</p>
<p>Of course, few materials are completely nontoxic, and quantum dots are no exception. Early quantum dots were often based on cadmium selenide for instance – the component materials of which are toxic. However, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/are-quantum-dot-tvs-and-their-toxic-ingredients-actually-better-for-the-environment-35953">potential toxicity of quantum dots needs to be balanced</a> by the likelihood of release and exposure and how they compare with alternatives. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552185/original/file-20231004-21-o7term.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="people walk past colorful multi-screen display at a trade show" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552185/original/file-20231004-21-o7term.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552185/original/file-20231004-21-o7term.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552185/original/file-20231004-21-o7term.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552185/original/file-20231004-21-o7term.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552185/original/file-20231004-21-o7term.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552185/original/file-20231004-21-o7term.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552185/original/file-20231004-21-o7term.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Quantum dots are now a normal part of many consumer items, including televisions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/trade-visitors-walk-past-televisions-with-quantum-dots-news-photo/1040134228">Soeren Stache/picture alliance via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Since its earlier days, quantum dot technology has evolved in safety and usefulness and has found its way into an increasing number of products, from <a href="https://www.wired.com/2015/01/primer-quantum-dot/">displays</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemrev.2c00695">lighting</a>, to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-88431-0.00025-9">sensors</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.2147/IJN.S357980">biomedical applications</a> and more. In the process, some of their novelty has perhaps worn off. It can be hard to remember just how much of a quantum leap the technology is that’s being used to promote the <a href="https://www.cnet.com/tech/home-entertainment/this-top-secret-prototype-display-will-blow-your-mind/">latest generation of flashy TVs</a>, for instance.</p>
<p>And yet, quantum dots are a pivotal part of a technology transition that’s revolutionizing how people work with atoms and molecules.</p>
<h2>‘Base coding’ on an atomic level</h2>
<p>In my book “<a href="https://andrewmaynard.net/films-from-the-future/">Films from the Future: the Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi Movies</a>,” I write about the concept of “<a href="https://andrewmaynard.substack.com/p/how-our-mastery-of-biological-physical-and-cyber-base-code-is-transforming-how-we-think-about-b2eae9d589d0">base coding</a>.” The idea is simple: If people can manipulate the most basic code that defines the world we live in, we can begin to redesign and reengineer it. </p>
<p>This concept is intuitive when it comes to computing, where programmers use the “base code” of 1’s and 0’s, albeit through higher level languages. It also makes sense in biology, where scientists are becoming increasingly adept at reading and writing the base code of DNA and RNA – in this case, using the chemical bases adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine as their coding language. </p>
<p>This ability to work with base codes also extends to the material world. Here, the code is made up of atoms and molecules and how they are arranged in ways that lead to novel properties.</p>
<p>Bawendi, Brus and Ekimov’s work on quantum dots is a perfect example of this form of material-world base coding. By precisely forming small clusters of particular atoms into spherical “dots,” they were able to tap into novel quantum properties that would otherwise be inaccessible. Through their work they demonstrated the transformative power that comes through coding with atoms.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552183/original/file-20231004-25-wr0i0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="alt" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552183/original/file-20231004-25-wr0i0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552183/original/file-20231004-25-wr0i0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552183/original/file-20231004-25-wr0i0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552183/original/file-20231004-25-wr0i0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552183/original/file-20231004-25-wr0i0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=646&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552183/original/file-20231004-25-wr0i0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=646&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552183/original/file-20231004-25-wr0i0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=646&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An example of ‘base coding’ using atoms to create a material with novel properties is a single molecule ‘nanocar’ crafted by chemists that can be controlled as it ‘drives’ over a surface.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://news.rice.edu/news/2020/rice-rolls-out-next-gen-nanocars">Alexis van Venrooy/Rice University</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They paved the way for increasingly sophisticated nanoscale base coding that is now leading to products and applications that would not be possible without it. And they were part of the inspiration for a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02146-4">nanotechnology revolution</a> that is continuing to this day. Reengineering the material world in these novel ways far transcends what can be achieved through more conventional technologies.</p>
<p>This possibility was captured in a 1999 U.S. National Science and Technology Council report with the title <a href="https://trid.trb.org/view/636880">Nanotechnology: Shaping the World Atom by Atom</a>. While it doesn’t explicitly mention quantum dots – an omission that I’m sure the authors are now kicking themselves over – it did capture just how transformative the ability to engineer materials at the atomic scale could be.</p>
<p>This atomic-level shaping of the world is exactly what Bawendi, Brus and Ekimov aspired to through their groundbreaking work. They were some of the first materials “base coders” as they used atomically precise engineering to harness the quantum physics of small particles – and the Nobel committee’s recognition of the significance of this is well deserved.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215015/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Maynard has previously received funding for nanotechnology-based work from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Pew Charitable Trusts</span></em></p>Quantum dots are a prime example of the way nanotechnology engineers materials at an atomic scale.Andrew Maynard, Professor of Advanced Technology Transitions, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2108722023-10-02T15:06:38Z2023-10-02T15:06:38ZNavigating the risks and benefits of AI: Lessons from nanotechnology on ensuring emerging technologies are safe as well as successful<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550432/original/file-20230926-17-jzcbex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C0%2C3000%2C1994&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The course of nanotechnology, like the carbon nanotubes in this laboratory, has been guided by many stakeholders.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/researcher-deals-with-a-wafer-arrayed-with-carbon-nanotubes-news-photo/1227278541">VCG/VCG via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Twenty years ago, nanotechnology was the artificial intelligence of its time. The specific details of these technologies are, of course, a world apart. But the challenges of ensuring each technology’s responsible and beneficial development are surprisingly alike. Nanotechnology, which is <a href="https://www.nano.gov/about-nanotechnology">technologies at the scale of individual atoms and molecules</a>, even carried its own existential risk in the form of “<a href="https://science.howstuffworks.com/gray-goo.htm">gray goo</a>.”</p>
<p>As potentially transformative AI-based technologies continue to emerge and gain traction, though, it is not clear that people in the artificial intelligence field are applying the lessons learned from nanotechnology.</p>
<p>As scholars of <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=b8NhWc4AAAAJ&hl=en">the future</a> <a href="https://search.asu.edu/profile/867279">of innovation</a>, we explore these parallels in a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-023-01481-5">new commentary in the journal Nature Nanotechnology</a>. The commentary also looks at how a lack of engagement with a diverse community of experts and stakeholders threatens AI’s long-term success.</p>
<h2>Nanotech excitement and fear</h2>
<p>In the late 1990s and early 2000s, nanotechnology transitioned from a radical and somewhat fringe idea to mainstream acceptance. The U.S. government and other administrations around the world ramped up investment in what was claimed to be “<a href="https://clintonwhitehouse4.archives.gov/media/pdf/nni.pdf">the next industrial revolution</a>.” Government experts made compelling arguments for how, in the words of a foundational report from the <a href="https://trid.trb.org/view/636880">U.S. National Science and Technology Council</a>, “shaping the world atom by atom” would positively transform economies, the environment and lives.</p>
<p>But there was a problem. On the heels of <a href="https://www.economist.com/special/1999/06/17/food-for-thought">public pushback against genetically modified crops</a>, together with lessons learned from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/455290a">recombinant DNA</a> and the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xgen.2022.100150">Human Genome Project</a>, people in the nanotechnology field had growing concerns that there could be a similar backlash against nanotechnology if it were handled poorly.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DAOFpgocfrg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A whiteboard primer on nanotechnology – and its responsible development.</span></figcaption>
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<p>These concerns were well grounded. In the early days of nanotechnology, nonprofit organizations such as the <a href="https://www.etcgroup.org/content/size-matters">ETC Group</a>, <a href="https://foe.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/legacy/Nanomaterials_sunscreens_and_cosmetics.pdf">Friends of the Earth</a> and others strenuously objected to claims that this type of technology was safe, that there would be minimal downsides and that experts and developers knew what they were doing. The era saw <a href="https://www.wired.com/2005/06/when-nanopants-attack/">public protests against nanotechnology</a> and – disturbingly – even a bombing campaign by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2013.201">environmental extremists that targeted nanotechnology researchers</a>.</p>
<p>Just as with AI today, there were <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137293688_5">concerns about the effect on jobs</a> as a new wave of skills and automation swept away established career paths. Also foreshadowing current AI concerns, worries about existential risks began to emerge, notably the possibility of self-replicating “nanobots” converting all matter on Earth into copies of themselves, resulting in a planet-encompassing “gray goo.” This particular scenario was even highlighted by Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy in a <a href="https://www.wired.com/2000/04/joy-2/">prominent article in Wired magazine</a>.</p>
<p>Many of the potential risks associated with nanotechnology, though, were less speculative. Just as there’s a growing focus on <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2023/06/02/the-15-biggest-risks-of-artificial-intelligence/?sh=3afff5b12706">more immediate risks associated with AI</a> in the present, the early 2000s saw an emphasis on examining tangible challenges related to ensuring the <a href="https://royalsociety.org/%7E/media/royal_society_content/policy/publications/2004/9693.pdf">safe and responsible development of nanotechnology</a>. These included potential health and environmental impacts, social and ethical issues, regulation and governance, and a growing need for public and stakeholder collaboration.</p>
<p>The result was a profoundly complex landscape around nanotechnology development that promised incredible advances yet was rife with uncertainty and the risk of losing public trust if things went wrong.</p>
<h2>How nanotech got it right</h2>
<p>One of us – Andrew Maynard – was at the forefront of addressing the potential risks of nanotechnology in the early 2000s as a researcher, co-chair of the interagency <a href="https://www.nano.gov/about-nni/working-groups/nehi">Nanotechnology Environmental and Health Implications</a> working group and chief science adviser to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication-series/project-emerging-nanotechnologies">Project on Emerging Technology</a>.</p>
<p>At the time, working on responsible nanotechnology development felt like playing whack-a-mole with the health, environment, social and governance challenges presented by the technology. For every solution, there seemed to be a new problem. </p>
<p>Yet, through engaging with a wide array of experts and stakeholders – many of whom were not authorities on nanotechnology but who brought critical perspectives and insights to the table – the field produced initiatives that laid the foundation for nanotechnology to thrive. This included <a href="https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/2004/12/06/daily13.html">multistakeholder partnerships</a>, <a href="https://www.iso.org/committee/381983/x/catalogue/">consensus standards</a>, and initiatives spearheaded by global bodies such as the <a href="https://www.oecd.org/science/nanosafety/44108334.pdf">Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development</a>. </p>
<p>As a result, many of the technologies people rely on today are underpinned by advances in <a href="https://www.nano.gov/about-nanotechnology/applications-nanotechnology">nanoscale science and engineering</a>. Even some of the advances in AI <a href="https://physicsworld.com/a/moores-law-further-progress-will-push-hard-on-the-boundaries-of-physics-and-economics/">rely on nanotechnology-based hardware</a>.</p>
<p>In the U.S., much of this collaborative work was spearheaded by the cross-agency <a href="https://www.nano.gov/">National Nanotechnology Initiative</a>. In the early 2000s, the initiative brought together representatives from across the government to better understand the risks and benefits of nanotechnology. It helped convene a broad and diverse array of scholars, researchers, developers, practitioners, educators, activists, policymakers and other stakeholders to help map out strategies for ensuring socially and economically beneficial nanoscale technologies.</p>
<p>In 2003, the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/108th-congress/senate-bill/189">21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act</a> became law and further codified this commitment to participation by a broad array of stakeholders. The coming years saw a growing number of federally funded initiatives – including the Center for Nanotechnology and Society at Arizona State University (where one of us was on the board of visitors) – that cemented the principle of broad engagement around emerging advanced technologies.</p>
<h2>Experts only at the table</h2>
<p>These and similar efforts around the world were pivotal in ensuring the emergence of beneficial and responsible nanotechnology. Yet despite similar aspirations around AI, these same levels of diversity and engagement are missing. AI development practiced today is, by comparison, much more exclusionary. The White House has <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/05/04/readout-of-white-house-meeting-with-ceos-on-advancing-responsible-artificial-intelligence-innovation/">prioritized consultations with AI company CEOs</a>, and <a href="https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/committee-activity/hearings/oversight-of-ai-principles-for-regulation">Senate hearings</a> have <a href="https://theconversation.com/experts-alone-cant-handle-ai-social-scientists-explain-why-the-public-needs-a-seat-at-the-table-210848">drawn preferentially on technical experts</a>. </p>
<p>According to lessons learned from nanotechnology, we believe this approach is a mistake. While members of the public, policymakers and experts outside the domain of AI may not fully understand the intimate details of the technology, they are often fully capable of understanding its implications. More importantly, they bring a diversity of expertise and perspectives to the table that is essential for the successful development of an advanced technology like AI. </p>
<p>This is why, in our Nature Nanotechnology commentary, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41565-023-01481-5">we recommend learning from the lessons of nanotechnology</a>, engaging early and often with experts and stakeholders who may not know the technical details and science behind AI but nevertheless bring knowledge and insights essential for ensuring the technology’s appropriate success.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">UNESCO calls for broad participation in deciding AI’s future.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The clock is ticking</h2>
<p>Artificial intelligence could be the most transformative technology that’s come along in living memory. Developed smartly, it could positively change the lives of billions of people. But this will happen only if society applies the lessons from past advanced technology transitions like the one driven by nanotechnology.</p>
<p>As with the formative years of nanotechnology, addressing the challenges of AI is urgent. The early days of an advanced technology transition set the trajectory for how it plays out over the coming decades. And with the recent pace of progress of AI, this window is closing fast.</p>
<p>It is not just the future of AI that’s at stake. Artificial intelligence is only one of many transformative emerging technologies. <a href="https://quantumconsortium.org/">Quantum technologies</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-gene-editing-and-how-could-it-shape-our-future-199025">advanced genetic manipulation</a>, <a href="https://brain.ieee.org/topics/neurotechnologies-the-next-technology-frontier/">neurotechnologies</a> and more are coming fast. If society doesn’t learn from the past to successfully navigate these imminent transitions, it risks losing out on the promises they hold and faces the possibility of each causing more harm than good.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210872/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Maynard has received funding from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation for research on the potential risks and benefits of nanotechnology. He was previously the co-chair of the Nanotechnology Environmental and Health Implications Working Group, and was Chief Science Advisor to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sean Dudley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Two decades ago, the nanotechnology revolution avoided stumbling by bringing a wide range of people to the table to chart its development. The window is closing fast on AI following suit.Andrew Maynard, Professor of Advanced Technology Transitions, Arizona State UniversitySean Dudley, Chief Research Information Officer and Associate Vice President for Research Technology, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2110202023-09-07T12:22:12Z2023-09-07T12:22:12ZNanoparticles will change the world, but whether it’s for the better depends on decisions made now<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546538/original/file-20230905-24-72bk24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C4%2C1595%2C1192&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nanoparticles are a thousand times smaller than a human hair. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Illustration by Stephanie King, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Technologies based on nanoscale materials – for example, particles that are more than 10,000 times smaller than the period at the end of this sentence – play a growing role in our world. </p>
<p>Carbon nanofibers <a href="https://www.me.washington.edu/news/article/2021-03-22/how-washington-became-global-epicenter-advanced-carbon-fiber">strengthen airplanes and bicycle frames</a>, silver nanoparticles <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/silver-nanoparticles-in-clothing-pose-no-new-risk/">make bacteria-resistant fabrics</a>, and moisturizing nanoparticles called nanoliposomes are <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/gels8030173">used in cosmetics</a>.</p>
<p>Nanotechnology is also revolutionizing medicine and pushing the boundaries of human performance. If you received a COVID-19 vaccine in the United States, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-021-00946-9">it contained nanoparticles</a>. </p>
<p>In the future, nanotechnology may allow doctors to better <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm7120490">treat brain diseases and disorders</a> like cancer and dementia because nanoparticles pass easily through the blood-brain barrier. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.jpost.com/health-science/new-eyedrops-could-repair-corneas-make-glasses-unneccessary-543344">Nanoparticles in eye drops</a> may temporarily correct vision. And strategically implanted nanoparticles in the eyes, ears or brain may enable <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2019.01.038">night vision</a> or hearing that’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1021/nl4007744">as good as a dog’s</a>. Nanoparticles could even allow people to control their smart homes and cars <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389%2Ffnins.2018.00843">with their brains</a>. </p>
<p>This isn’t science fiction. These are all active areas of research.</p>
<p>But frameworks for assessing the safety and ethics of nanoparticles have not kept pace with research. As <a href="https://www.pnnl.gov/people/kristin-omberg-phd">a chemist</a> working in bioscience, I am worried by this limited oversight. Without updated frameworks, it’s hard to tell whether nanotechnology will make the world a better place.</p>
<h2>Nano – what and why?</h2>
<p>Any particle or material <a href="https://www.nano.gov/about-nanotechnology/just-how-small-is-nano">between 1 and 100 nanometers</a> in one dimension can be classified as “nano.” The period at the end of this sentence is 1,000,000 nanometers, and a human hair is about 100,000 nm in diameter. Both are much too large to be considered “nano.” A single coronavirus is about 100 nanometers in diameter, and soot particles from forest fires can be <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fmats.2021.695485">as small as 10 nanometers in diameter</a> – two examples of naturally occurring nanoparticles.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">This video shows how small nanoparticles are, compared with other objects.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nanoparticles can also be produced in a laboratory. The adenovirus vectors, nanolipoparticles and mRNA <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-021-00946-9">used in COVID-19 vaccines</a> are engineered nanoparticles. The zinc oxide and titanium dioxide used in <a href="https://www.racgp.org.au/afp/2016/june/the-safety-of-nanoparticles-in-sunscreens-an-updat">sheer mineral sunscreens</a> are also engineered nanoparticles, as is the <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/ma12152493">carbon nanofiber in airplanes and bicycle frames</a>.</p>
<p>Nanoparticles are useful because they have different properties than larger materials, even when they have <a href="https://www.nano.gov/about-nanotechnology/what-is-so-special-about-nano">the same chemical composition</a>. For example, large particles of zinc oxide can’t be dissolved in water and are used as pigment in white paint. </p>
<p>Nanoscale zinc oxide is used in sunscreen, where it looks nearly transparent but reflects sunlight away from your skin to prevent sunburn. </p>
<p>Nanoscale zinc oxide also exhibits <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s11671-018-2532-3">antifungal and antibacterial properties</a> that could be useful for making antimicrobial surfaces, but the reason for its antimicrobial properties is not completely understood. </p>
<p>And therein lies the problem. While many scientists are interested in exploiting the positive properties of nanomaterials, my colleagues and I are concerned that scientists still <a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/hs.2022.0014">don’t know enough about their behavior</a>.</p>
<h2>Nanotechnology safety</h2>
<p>Nanoparticles are attractive to biomedical researchers because they can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt.3330">slip through cell membranes</a>. The antimicrobial properties of nanoscale zinc oxide are probably related to their ability to cross bacterial cell membranes. But these nanoparticles can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/jat.4216">cross human cell membranes</a> as well.</p>
<p>In the United States, zinc oxide is “<a href="https://www.fda.gov/drugs/news-events-human-drugs/update-sunscreen-requirements-deemed-final-order-and-proposed-order">generally recognized as safe and effective</a>” by the Food and Drug Administration for products like sunscreen because it’s unlikely – in sunscreen – to be toxic to humans. </p>
<p>However, although scientists understand the health effects of large particles of zinc oxide fairly well, they <a href="https://theconversation.com/nanomedicines-for-various-diseases-are-in-development-but-research-facilities-produce-vastly-inconsistent-results-on-how-the-body-will-react-to-them-196652">don’t fully understand</a> the health effects of nanoscale zinc oxide. Laboratory studies using human cells have produced conflicting results, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390%2Fijms21176305">ranging from inflammation to cell death</a>.</p>
<p>I’m a big believer in sunscreen. But I also worry about the environmental effects of particles that are <a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/news/sunscreen-corals.html">known to cross cell membranes</a>. </p>
<p>Hundreds of tons of nano-zinc oxide are produced each year, and it doesn’t degrade easily. If we don’t understand its behavior better, there’s no way to predict whether it will eventually become a problem – though increasing evidence suggests nano-zinc oxide from sunscreen is <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/scientists-are-unraveling-new-dangers-sunscreen-coral-reefs-180969627/">damaging coral reefs</a>.</p>
<h2>Nanotechnology ethics</h2>
<p>Nanoparticles’ ability to cross cell membranes does make them effective in therapeutics like vaccines. Nanoparticles show promise for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186%2Fs12951-023-01994-0">regenerating skeletal muscles</a>, and they could one day treat muscular dystrophy, or the natural atrophy that comes with age.</p>
<p>But COVID-19 vaccines provide a cautionary tale – nanoparticle-enabled COVID-19 vaccines were quickly adopted by the United States and Europe, but lower income countries had <a href="https://doi.org/10.2217%2Fnnm-2021-0024">far less access</a> due to patent protections on the vaccine and a lack of production and storage infrastructure. </p>
<p>Nanoparticles may also allow for human performance enhancements, ranging from <a href="https://www.jpost.com/health-science/new-eyedrops-could-repair-corneas-make-glasses-unneccessary-543344">better eyesight</a> to soldiers engineered to be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.medntd.2021.100095">more effective in combat</a>. </p>
<p>Without an ethical framework for their use, performance-enhancing nanotechnologies that are accessible only in certain places could deepen wealth gaps between high- and low-income countries.</p>
<h2>Emerging oversight</h2>
<p>Today, different countries treat nanoparticles differently. For example, the European Union’s <a href="https://health.ec.europa.eu/scientific-committees/scientific-committee-consumer-safety-sccs_en">Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety</a> has banned the use of nanoscale zinc oxide in aerosol sunscreens across the E.U., citing their potential to get into lung cells and, from there, move to other parts of the body. The United States has not taken similar action.</p>
<p>The European Union has established a <a href="https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/laboratories-and-facilities/jrc-nanobiotechnology-laboratory_en">nanobiotechnology laboratory</a> to study the health and environmental effects of nanoparticles. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The EU’s nanobiotechnology laboratory is working to improve understanding of nanoparticles and their effects on larger biological systems.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the United States, the <a href="https://www.nano.gov/about-nni">National Nanotechnology Initiative</a>, a coordinated government-sponsored research and development effort, is working to bring legal and ethical experts <a href="https://www.nano.gov/you/ethical-legal-issues">together with scientists</a>. They’ll weigh the benefits and risks of nanotechnologies and disseminate information to other scientists and the public. </p>
<p>Overcoming the disparity in nanoparticle-enabled vaccine distribution is another issue altogether. The World Health Organization’s COVAX program sought to ensure <a href="https://www.who.int/initiatives/act-accelerator/covax">fair and equitable access</a> to COVID-related therapeutics. Similar measures should be considered for all nanotechnology-enabled medicine so everyone can benefit.</p>
<p>Synthetic biology is a field that is experiencing similarly rapid growth. For the past 20 years, the nonprofit <a href="https://igem.org/">iGEM Foundation</a> has held an annual worldwide student competition, which it uses as a platform to teach young scientists to think about the broader implications of their work. </p>
<p>The iGEM Foundation requires participants to consider safety, security and whether their project is “<a href="https://responsibility.igem.org/human-practices/what-is-human-practices">good for the world</a>.” The nanotechnology research community would benefit greatly from adopting a similar model. Nanotechnologies that change the world for the better require coordinating science and ethics to shape how they are used and controlled long after we create them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211020/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kristin Omberg has received funding from the Departments of Energy and Defense for research at the intersection of biology and nanotechnology. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Fellow of and active volunteer in the American Chemical Society.</span></em></p>Nanoparticles have contributed to profound medical advances like the COVID-19 vaccine, but without oversight, they pose ethical and environmental issues.Kristin Omberg, Group Leader, Chemical and Biological Signatures, Pacific Northwest National LaboratoryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2054612023-09-06T12:26:19Z2023-09-06T12:26:19ZCould a single drug treat the two leading causes of death in the US: cancer and cardiovascular disease?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545343/original/file-20230829-19-am4x6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2158%2C1387&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Identifying the commonalities between cardiovascular disease and cancer could lead to improved treatments for both.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/heart-treatment-concept-royalty-free-image/1291438248">Sveta Zi/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>What would you guess are the two biggest killers in the world? Based on media coverage, maybe you guessed gun violence, accidents or COVID-19. But the top two killers are actually cardiovascular disease and cancer. These two diseases combined account for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.120.051451">nearly 50% of deaths in the U.S</a>. </p>
<p>Cardiovascular disease and cancer seem to be quite different on the surface. But <a href="https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.0c00245">newly discovered parallels</a> between the origins and development of these two diseases mean that some treatments may be effective against both. </p>
<p>I am a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=wD6KbXkAAAAJ&hl=en">biomedical engineer</a> who has spent two decades studying and developing ways to improve how drugs travel through the body. It turns out that tiny, engineered nanoparticles that can target specific immune cells may be a way to treat both cancer and cardiovascular disease.</p>
<h2>Cardiovascular disease and cancer</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/atherosclerosis">Atherosclerosis</a> is the most deadly form of cardiovascular disease. It <a href="https://doi.org/10.1161/hc0902.104353">results from</a> inflammation and the buildup of fat, cholesterol and <a href="https://www.khanacademy.org/science/biology/macromolecules/lipids/a/lipids">other lipids</a> in the blood vessel wall, forming a plaque. Most heart attacks are caused by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.114.302721">plaque rupture</a>. The body’s attempt to heal the wound can form a blood clot that blocks blood vessels and result in a heart attack.</p>
<p>On the other hand, cancer usually arises from genetic mutations that make cells divide uncontrollably. Unrestrainable, rapid cell growth that is untreated can be destructive because it is difficult to stop without harming healthy organs. Cancer can start from and occur in <a href="https://theconversation.com/every-cancer-is-unique-why-different-cancers-require-different-treatments-and-how-evolution-drives-drug-resistance-199249">any organ of the body</a>. </p>
<p>Although cardiovascular disease and cancer appear to have different origins and causes, they <a href="https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.115.020406">share many risk factors</a>. For example, obesity, smoking, chronic stress and certain lifestyle choices like poor diet are linked to both diseases. Why might these two diseases share similar risk factors? </p>
<p>Many of the similarities between cardiovascular disease and cancer can be traced to inflammation. Chronic inflammation is a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1161/hc0902.104353">primary cause of atherosclerosis</a> by damaging the cells lining the blood vessels and progressively worsening plaques. Likewise, chronic inflammation can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.immuni.2019.06.025">initiate cancer</a> by increasing mutations and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01322">support cancer cell survival and spread</a> by increasing the growth of the blood vessels that feed them nutrients and suppressing the body’s immune response.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Cardiovascular disease and cancer share many risk factors.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Treating two conditions at once</h2>
<p>Research hints that therapies designed for cancer can also help treat atherosclerosis. </p>
<p>One example is drugs that target immune cells called macrophages in tumors and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2009.05.045">cause them to eat</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1172/jci81603">cancer cells</a>. It turns out a similar drug can cause macrophages to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nature18935">clear dead and dying cells</a> in atherosclerosis, which shrinks plaques. </p>
<p>Another example are antiglycolytic therapies that prevent the breakdown of glucose. <a href="https://www.khanacademy.org/science/ap-biology/chemistry-of-life/properties-structure-and-function-of-biological-macromolecules/a/carbohydrates">Glucose, or sugar</a>, is the body’s main source of energy. These drugs can make diseased <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccell.2016.10.006">tumor blood vessels</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.8b08875">atherosclerotic blood vessels</a> look more “normal,” essentially reversing the disease process in those vessels. They can also reduce inflammation in atherosclerosis.</p>
<p>Although <a href="https://doi.org/10.1161/CIR.0000000000000678">currently marketed treatments</a> like statins and fibrates can lower lipid levels and blood clotting in atherosclerosis, these drugs have not sufficiently addressed the risk of death from cardiovascular disease. To improve outcomes, clinicians are increasingly using multiple drugs directed against different targets. One intriguing class of treatments is sodium glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors, which are traditionally used to treat diabetes. Researchers have shown that these drugs both provide significant protection from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1161/CIR.0000000000000678">cardiovascular disease</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1511698112">treat cancer</a>. </p>
<p>Clinical trials on statins and sodium glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors indicate a close overlap between inflammation, metabolism and cardiovascular disease that suggests new treatment opportunities. One example is immunotherapies that “inhibit the inhibition” of immunity – that is, they take off the brakes that tumors place on the immune system. This approach to <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2021.731798">treat cancer</a> also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s44161-023-00232-y">reduced atherosclerotic</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-020-3111-3">plaques in</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-019-0619-3">animal studies</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMc2029834">reduced vascular inflammation</a> in a small study in people. </p>
<h2>A nanomedical Trojan horse</h2>
<p>A recent discovery showed that nanotubes – a very small particle made of carbon that is over 10,000 times thinner than a human hair – can go into specific immune cells, travel through the bloodstream and enter tumors <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038%2Fnnano.2014.62">as a Trojan horse</a>. These nanotubes can carry anything that researchers put on them, including drugs and imaging contrast agents.</p>
<p>The immune cells carrying the nanotubes naturally <a href="https://doi.org/10.4049/jimmunol.0902583">home in on tumors</a> through the inflammatory response. Since cancer and atherosclerosis are both inflammatory diseases, my research team and I have been studying whether nanotube-loaded immune cells may also serve as delivery vehicles to plaques. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Nanoparticles can be used to “eat” the plaques that cause heart disease.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nanotubes can be loaded with a therapy that stimulates immune cells to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-019-0619-3">“eat” plaque debris</a> and thus reduce plaque size. Moreover, restricting drug delivery specifically to those immune cells reduces the risk of off-target side effects. These nanotubes can also be used to improve <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202101005">diagnosis of cardiovascular disease</a> by highlighting plaques.</p>
<p>Another way nanoparticles can enter tumors is by squeezing through openings in new blood vessels grown in inflammatory conditions. This is known as the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/s0168-3659(99)00248-5">enhanced permeation and retention effect</a>, where larger molecules and nanoparticles accumulate in tissues with leaky blood vessels and remain there for some time because of their size. First <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.bpj.2018.07.038">discovered in cancer</a>, researchers are applying this effect to improve drug delivery for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1322725111">cardiovascular disease</a>, which can also involve <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biomaterials.2016.05.018">leaky blood vessels</a>.</p>
<h2>Improving drug development</h2>
<p>The molecular pathways cancer and cardiovascular disease share have important regulatory implications. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/90-of-drugs-fail-clinical-trials-heres-one-way-researchers-can-select-better-drug-candidates-174152">costs involved</a> in getting drugs into the clinic are enormous. The possibility of <a href="https://theconversation.com/repurposing-generic-drugs-can-reduce-time-and-cost-to-develop-new-treatments-but-low-profitability-remains-a-barrier-174874">applying the same drug</a> to two different patient populations offers big financial and risk-reduction incentives. It also offers the potential for simultaneous treatment for patients with both diseases.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/nanoparticles-are-the-future-of-medicine-researchers-are-experimenting-with-new-ways-to-design-tiny-particle-treatments-for-cancer-180009">Nanoparticle-based cancer drugs</a> first <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jconrel.2012.03.020">entered the clinic in 1995</a>, and researchers have developed many others since. But there is currently only <a href="https://doi.org/10.1592/phco.28.5.570">one cardiovascular nanodrug</a> approved by the Food and Drug Administration. This suggests opportunity for new <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41569-021-00594-5">nanotherapy approaches</a> to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s44161-023-00232-y">improve cardiovascular drug</a> efficacy and reduce side effects.</p>
<p>Because of the parallels between cancer and cardiovascular disease, cancer nanodrugs may be strong drug candidates to treat cardiovascular disease and vice versa. As basic science discovers other molecular parallels between these diseases, patients will be the beneficiaries of better therapies that can treat both.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205461/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bryan Smith receives funding from the National Institutes of Health (the National Cancer Institute) and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. He has received funding from the American Heart Association, the American Association for Cancer Research, and the Ralph and Marian Falk Medical Research Trust. </span></em></p>Cardiovascular disease and cancer share many parallels in their origins and how they develop. Nanoparticles offer one potential way to effectively treat both with reduced side effects.Bryan Smith, Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2027562023-05-22T04:14:32Z2023-05-22T04:14:32ZWhere have all the Luddites gone? Exploring what makes us human – and whether modern technology threatens to destroy it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526362/original/file-20230515-23727-om8jpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=285%2C38%2C3949%2C2781&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The great – if sometimes overlooked – 20th-century philosopher and cultural critic <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-an-obscure-austrian-philosopher-saw-through-our-empty-rhetoric-about-sustainability-77884">Günther Anders</a> once proposed that our modern age is characterised by a dangerous and pervasive “<em>Apocalypse-Blindheit</em>”: a blindness to the apocalypse. </p>
<p>Writing in the midst of the 20th-century nuclear arms race, he suggested an unquestioning faith in science and progress prevents us from seeing the technological catastrophe spreading out all around us.</p>
<p>The reality of human-created climate change has, in recent years, perhaps begun to cure this condition. And there are at least some indications a significant number of people are becoming aware of the mess we’re in.</p>
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<p><em>Review: Here Be Monsters: Is Technology Reducing Our Humanity – Richard King (Monash University Press)</em></p>
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<p>But, as Richard King notes in his sweeping and ambitious <a href="https://publishing.monash.edu/product/here-be-monsters/">Here Be Monsters</a>, our philosophical or intellectual responses to technology have not really kept pace with events.</p>
<p>Instead, what King calls “the techno-critical tradition”, or a tradition of thinkers who view technological modernity as fundamentally damaging and foreboding, has more or less disappeared.</p>
<p>Thus, once-towering philosophers of technology – figures like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Mumford">Lewis Mumford</a>, who was already warning in the 1950s that unrestricted technological expansion threatened the durability of both the human and the natural worlds, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Postman">Neil Postman</a>, who in the 1980s described modern society as a “technopoly” in which human behaviour is thoroughly governed and regulated by machines - hardly receive any attention at all.</p>
<p>And the more “techno-critical” elements of those who <em>are</em> studied widely (notably the ubiquitous <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Arendt">Hannah Arendt</a>) are quickly glossed over or pushed to the margins.</p>
<p>Why, then, have full-throated critiques of technology become so scarce at the exact moment when they might seem most pertinent? Where have all the Luddites gone?</p>
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<h2>Recovering human nature</h2>
<p>King argues one crucial reason for the decline of the techno-critical tradition is its tendency to rely on the concept of human nature. </p>
<p>We can only maintain our technologies corrupt us if we have some relatively fixed sense of who we would be without them.</p>
<p>But, particularly in the rarefied atmosphere of universities, the concept of human nature has been decidedly unfashionable (indeed all but forbidden) for nearly half a century. It has become commonplace to suggest every definition of the human, no matter how loose or how broad, exists primarily to exclude its opposite. We define the “human”, the argument goes, to mark off forms of life that can be labelled <em>inhuman</em>, and thus justify their elimination.</p>
<p>As King sees it, the widespread abandonment of the concept of human nature might be well-intentioned. But it has inadvertently left us vulnerable to an unthinking veneration of technology - one particularly amendable to the interests of capitalism.</p>
<p>For to strip the human of all natural limits is to present it as nothing more than what King calls a “blank slate” – a programmable machine capable of being engineered for optimal production and consumption, void of any essential needs or desires.</p>
<p>“The danger,” King writes:</p>
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<p>is not that we create a monster that runs amok, or a plague of zombies, or a rogue AI – or a planet of the apes, for that matter – but that we begin to see ourselves and others as something less than fully human, as machines to be rewired or recalibrated in line with the dominant ideological worldview. </p>
<p>In that case, we would <em>already</em> have arrived at a perilous situation – a situation where our perception of ourselves as bounded by and connected through nature had given way to the “post-humanist” view that humans are fleshy automata, subject to endless modification.</p>
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<p>For King, this danger is at a historical tipping point. And we must face it immediately. Doing so, however, will require more than an examination of technology itself.</p>
<p>It will require what King dubs a “radical humanism”, and a fundamental reassessment of what we are – including our relations with ourselves, with one another, and with our common world.</p>
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<h2>Homo Faber, or the tool-making animal</h2>
<p>Here Be Monsters proposes to develop nothing less than a new definition of human nature.</p>
<p>King, of course, is fully aware of the immensity of the task, and he is careful to qualify his approach in important ways. He acknowledges, for example, the basic difficulty of distinguishing between nature and culture. Any consistent understanding of the former would eventually have to envelop the latter.</p>
<p>It’s part of human nature to produce culture, King allows. The human is “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_faber">homo faber</a>”, he proposes, “man the maker”. And “no less than the instinct for self-preservation or sexual desire, technological creativity is fundamental to our being”.</p>
<p>But from King’s perspective, there is a qualitative difference between building tools that harness the power of nature (for example, a windmill) and using technology to alter its very fabric (for example, splitting the atom).</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526359/original/file-20230515-24689-pj3w3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526359/original/file-20230515-24689-pj3w3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526359/original/file-20230515-24689-pj3w3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526359/original/file-20230515-24689-pj3w3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526359/original/file-20230515-24689-pj3w3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526359/original/file-20230515-24689-pj3w3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526359/original/file-20230515-24689-pj3w3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526359/original/file-20230515-24689-pj3w3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">King sees a qualitative difference between creating tools that harness the power of nature and those that alter its very fabric.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Charlie Riedel/AP</span></span>
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<p>The line might be hard to pinpoint. But as King sees it, in the age of nuclear energy, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, machine learning, and much more, it was crossed long ago.</p>
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<p>King similarly acknowledges his tendency to frame the problem in ways that primarily concern the wealthy inhabitants of the <a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/global-north-countries">Global North</a> - and that the same issues will look entirely different from the perspective of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_North_and_Global_South">Global South</a>. It must be infuriating to hear those who have already reaped most of the benefits of technological development now insist that limits be placed on those who have paid most of the costs.</p>
<p>“Nevertheless,” King insists, “the Global North and Global South […] are at very different stages of development”. And precisely because it has advanced further into the belly of the beast, “the North has problems the South doesn’t have, or has to a lesser degree”. The North, in other words, should not be seen as a model, but as a warning. </p>
<h2>Social, embodied, creative</h2>
<p>Following these introductory remarks, King divides his book into three parts. Each addresses a crucial aspect of the human experience, and the way modern technology threatens to destroy it.</p>
<p>The first part describes humans as essentially social creatures, who require both the physical presence of other humans and a robust political community in order to become themselves.</p>
<p>It argues that social media, algorithmic manipulation, and what King calls “technologies of absence” corrupt this aspect of our existence.</p>
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<span class="caption">A crowd in Tokyo earlier this month. Humans are essentially social creatures, writes King.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kimimasa Mayama/AP</span></span>
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<p>The second part takes up the related question of our embodiment. King proposes neither the mind nor the body can be reduced to mechanistic calculations, and warns against the pernicious effects of attempting to do so.</p>
<p>For King, when we view our mind as nothing more than a large calculator and our body as an object to be constructed and reconstructed at will, we risk losing sight of the very limits that make it possible for us to flourish.</p>
<p>Finally, the third part explores the human capacity for free creation and “the pleasures of practical activity”. Here King seeks to revitalise the familiar Marxist theme of alienation, or the sense in which technological modes of production distance us from the products of our labour. And he begins to sketch out the parameters of what he calls “a new relationship with technology”.</p>
<p>As King sees it, we stand on the verge of a precipice. The technologies we have constructed to make our way in the world are very close to depriving us of any world whatsoever.</p>
<p>“In order to avoid this trap,” King concludes, “we will need to develop a radical humanism that puts the social and creative needs of human beings front and centre” – one that, once again, “is not afraid […] to invoke the concept of human nature”.</p>
<h2>Historicising the human</h2>
<p>Here Be Monsters deals extensively with specific technologies, offering a kind of pessimistic catalogue of their worst potential. But some of its most intriguing arguments concern philosophical and ideological positions that were established long before the advent of either the atomic or the digital age. </p>
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<p>King spends a considerable amount of time dismantling the platitudes of utilitarianism, liberalism, and capitalism. </p>
<p>And he shows how these phenomena, which have their roots in the 17th and 18th centuries, provided the intellectual and material foundations of what we now call “neoliberalism”. This is a way of thinking that King takes to be fundamentally at odds with human wellbeing, and with the project of humanity as such. </p>
<p>The problem is, we cannot really historicise one concept of the human – namely the neoliberal concept, which treats humans as self-interested, profit-maximising machines – without historicising the concept of “humanity” as a whole.</p>
<p>That is to say, while the biological species “human being” has obviously existed for a very long time, the notion that all members of that species share a common world, that we all have some common interests, and even that we all possess common rights, is not that old at all.</p>
<p>In this sense, it might be best to think of our humanity, not as an object we might investigate and describe, like a part of the natural world, but more like a response to a crisis or an event. </p>
<p>As we arguably witnessed for fleeting moments during the COVID pandemic, humanity is called into existence – and we belong to it – when something larger than life grips us all, and we are compelled to act in concert.</p>
<p>The question is whether we will ever be able to do this in the sustained manner required to address the overwhelming existential catastrophes outlined by King.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202756/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charles Barbour does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new book argues our philosophical and intellectual responses to technology have not kept pace with events.Charles Barbour, Associate Professor, Philosophy, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1979972023-03-13T13:36:22Z2023-03-13T13:36:22ZFrom waste to clean water: tiny carbon particles can do the job<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512388/original/file-20230227-20-kep09i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Clean water is in short supply around the world. But it doesn't have to be.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">borgogniels/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many futuristic novels and films have explored what the world might look like without water. But water scarcity isn’t a problem for the far-off future: it’s already here.</p>
<p>In its <a href="https://www.unwater.org/publications/summary-progress-update-2021-sdg-6-water-and-sanitation-all">2021 report</a> UN Water outlined the scale of the crisis: 2.3 billion people live in water-stressed countries and 733 million of those people are in “high and critically water-stressed countries”.</p>
<p>In 2018 Cape Town, where I live and conduct my research, residents found themselves staring down “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/04/back-from-the-brink-how-cape-town-cracked-its-water-crisis">day zero</a>”, when household water supplies would run dry. Good rains spared the South African city, but now other parts of the country face <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-10-04-day-zero-comes-to-parts-of-joburg-as-water-cuts-roll-through-city-and-taps-run-dry/">similarly dire</a> predictions of empty taps. </p>
<p>This scenario is threatening to play out across Africa. In the <a href="https://climatechampions.unfccc.int/is-eastern-africas-drought-the-worst-in-recent-history-and-are-worse-yet-to-come/">Horn of Africa</a> region, for example, large areas of Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya have seen four consecutive rainy seasons pass without decent rains. The rise of “<a href="https://www.afdb.org/en/news-and-events/particularly-exposed-climate-shocks-african-cities-are-turning-adaptation-and-resilience-56462">megacities</a>” in Africa – with millions moving into city areas – puts further pressures on already limited infrastructure.</p>
<p>And the crisis extends <a href="https://www.unwater.org/publications/summary-progress-update-2021-sdg-6-water-and-sanitation-all">far beyond the African continent</a>. </p>
<p>There is no one solution for this grim reality. A multi-pronged approach will be necessary, as Cape Town’s experience <a href="https://www.businessinsider.co.za/water-tips-2022-10">illustrated</a>.</p>
<p>Technology will be a key part of solving the global water scarcity crisis. Technological solutions can run the gamut from the most basic, like water leak detectors for households, to highly sophisticated, like ways to <a href="https://borgenproject.org/top-4-technologies-solving-water-scarcity/">pull moisture out of the air</a> to produce clean drinking water, or convert the planet’s abundant salt water into fresh water.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/cben.202100003">recent paper</a> colleagues and I outlined another potentially powerful technology: carbon nanomaterials, which have <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221478532100420X">been shown</a> to remove organic, inorganic and biological pollutants from water. </p>
<h2>Contamination threatens water sources</h2>
<p>Contamination is one of the factors putting strain on water sources. All water supplies contain some microbes and pathogens. But industrial waste is a huge problem: vehicles release heavy metal pollutants, for instance, and <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/news/latest-news/research-news/2018/2018-05/the-heat-of-acid-mine-drainage.html#:%7E:text=The%20water%20becomes%20acidic%20and,the%20drinking%20water%20supply%20system">acid mine drainage</a> seeps into water sources. This results in contaminated ground and surface water that cannot be safely used for most human activities, much less for drinking or washing food.</p>
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<p>Some current technologies make the treatment of water too expensive. Others are simply not up to the job and are unable to remove microorganisms. In removing organic pollutants like pharmaceutical waste, organic dyes, plastics and detergents from wastewater, for instance, some conventional techniques such as membrane filtration have been found wanting. </p>
<p>That’s where carbon nanomaterials come in. With others, I am exploring their use and finding that they are more efficient and economically viable than conventional materials.</p>
<h2>Nanomaterials</h2>
<p>Nanomaterials are broadly defined as materials that contain particles of between 1 and 100 nanometres (nm) in size. One nanometre equals one-billionth of a metre. Different nanomaterials are composed of different atoms – some, like those I research, are made up of carbon atoms.</p>
<p>Carbon is, by mass, the second most abundant <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/most-abundant-element-in-the-universe-602186">element</a> in the human body after oxygen. It is also a common element of all known life. Carbon nanotechnologies are environmentally friendly because they hold less risk of secondary pollution than some adsorbents (solid substances used to remove contaminants from liquid or gas).</p>
<p>Engineered into nanomaterial form, carbon nanomaterials are being <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nanomaterials-could-combat-climate-change-and-reduce-pollution/">hailed</a> by many scientists around the world for their superior physical and chemical properties. They are increasingly prized for their potential to remove heavy metals from water thanks to their large <a href="https://www.diffen.com/difference/Absorption_vs_Adsorption">surface area and adsorption</a> capabilities, their nano-scaled size and their chemical properties. </p>
<p>Carbon nanomaterials have all been <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2053-1591/ac48b8#:%7E:text=Carbon%20nanomaterials%20are%20applied%20in,with%20the%20rise%20of%20nanotechnology.">shown</a> to be effective in the treatment of wastewater.</p>
<h2>Tackling water scarcity</h2>
<p>I work with carbon-coated magnetic nanomaterials. This blended composite plays a crucial role in decontaminating water. At the same time, it removes materials such as heavy metals. That makes it ideal for water treatment, as do its easy, fast recovery and recyclability, thanks to what’s known as magnetic filtration. In this process, the magnetic nanomaterials added to the contaminated water are recovered after treatment by an external strong magnet. The recovered materials can be regenerated and be reused again.</p>
<p>Carbon-based nanomaterials still have shortcomings. Nanomaterials tend to clump together into large particles, reducing their capacity to adsorb (attract and hold) pollutants. And nanoparticles are not always fully recovered from treated water, leading to secondary contamination. We’re still not sure how to separate exhausted – fully utilised – nanomaterials from treated water.</p>
<p>The work continues in our lab and others all over the world. Scientists dislike timelines, since breakthroughs rarely happen within set deadlines. But our hope is that more and more advances will be made with carbon-based nanonmaterials in the years to come, giving the world an important tool to tackle water scarcity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197997/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Salam Titinchi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Technology will be a key part of solving the global water scarcity crisis.Salam Titinchi, Professor, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1966522023-01-05T13:26:24Z2023-01-05T13:26:24ZNanomedicines for various diseases are in development – but research facilities produce vastly inconsistent results on how the body will react to them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502207/original/file-20221220-6047-jjdm3d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2048%2C1637&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nanoparticles (white disks) can be used to deliver treatment to cells (blue).</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/KjvnhT">Brenda Melendez and Rita Serda/National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fchem.2018.00360">Nanomedicines</a> took the spotlight during the COVID-19 pandemic. Researchers are using these very small and intricate materials to develop diagnostic tests and treatments. Nanomedicine is already used for various diseases, such as the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-020-0757-7">COVID-19 vaccines</a> and therapies for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2017.167">cardiovascular disease</a>. The “nano” refers to the use of particles that are only a few hundred nanometers in size, which is <a href="https://www.nano.gov/nanotech-101/what/nano-size">significantly smaller than</a> the width of a human hair.</p>
<p>Although researchers have developed <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s40820-022-00922-5">several methods</a> to improve the reliability of nanotechnologies, the field still faces one major roadblock: a lack of a standardized way to analyze <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tibtech.2016.08.011">biological identity</a>, or how the body will react to nanomedicines. This is essential information in evaluating how effective and safe new treatments are. </p>
<p>I’m a researcher studying <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=D-qg1JwAAAAJ&hl=en">overlooked factors in nanomedicine development</a>. In our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-34438-8">recently published research</a>, my colleagues and I found that analyses of biological identity are highly inconsistent across proteomics facilities that specialize in studying proteins.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Gold is one of the materials used in nanotechnologies.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Inconsistent results</h2>
<p>Nanomedicines, just like with all medications, are surrounded by proteins from the body once they come into contact with the bloodstream. This protein coating, known as a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2020.12.108">protein corona</a>, gives nanoparticles a biological identity that determines how the body will recognize and interact with it, like how the immune system has specific reactions against certain pathogens and allergens.</p>
<p>Knowing the precise type, amount and configuration of the proteins and other biomolecules attached to the surface of nanomedicines is critical to determine safe and effective dosages for treatments. However, one of the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-27643-4">few available approaches</a> to analyze the composition of protein coronas requires instruments that many nanomedicine laboratories lack. So these labs typically send their samples to separate proteomics facilities to do the analysis for them. Unfortunately, many facilities use <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-019-0037-y">different sample preparation methods and instruments</a>, which can lead to differences in results.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502192/original/file-20221220-20-iflyr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Cryo-electron microscopy images of protein coronas on nanoparticles" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502192/original/file-20221220-20-iflyr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502192/original/file-20221220-20-iflyr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502192/original/file-20221220-20-iflyr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502192/original/file-20221220-20-iflyr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502192/original/file-20221220-20-iflyr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502192/original/file-20221220-20-iflyr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502192/original/file-20221220-20-iflyr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Protein coronas give nanoparticles their biological identities. Images A to C show nanoparticles without protein coronas, while images D to F show proteins (black dots) coating the surface of the particles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-34438-8">Ashkarran et al. (2022)/Nature Communications</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We wanted to test how consistently these proteomics facilities analyzed protein corona samples. To do this, my colleagues and I sent biologically identical protein coronas to 17 different labs in the U.S. for analysis. </p>
<p>We had striking results: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-34438-8">Less than 2%</a> of the proteins the labs identified were the same. </p>
<p>Our results reveal an extreme lack of consistency in the analyses researchers use to understand how nanomedicines work in the body. This may pose a significant challenge not only to ensuring the accuracy of diagnostics, but also the effectiveness and safety of treatments based on nanomedicines.</p>
<h2>Why standardize nanomedicine?</h2>
<p>Researchers have been working to improve the safety and efficacy of nanomedicine through various approaches. These include modifying study protocols, methodologies and analytical techniques to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-018-0246-4">standardize the field</a> and improve the reliability of nanomedicine data.</p>
<p>Aligned with these efforts, my team and I have identified several critical but often overlooked factors that can influence the performance of a nanomedicine, such as a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-23230-9">person’s sex</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1039/C4BM00131A">prior medical conditions</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1039/C9NH00097F">disease type</a>. Taking these factors into account when designing studies and interpreting results could enable researchers to produce more reliable and accurate data and lead to better nanomedicine treatments.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196652/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Morteza Mahmoudi receives funding from the U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (grant DK131417). He is affiliated with PGWC, NanoServ, and Target's Tip. He is a co-founder and director of the Academic Parity Movement (<a href="http://www.paritymovement.org">www.paritymovement.org</a>), a non-profit organization dedicated to addressing academic discrimination, violence and incivility. He receives royalties/honoraria for his published books, plenary lectures, and licensed patents. </span></em></p>The proteins that cover nanoparticles are essential to understanding how they work in the body. Across 17 proteomics facilities in the US, less than 2% of the identified proteins were identical.Morteza Mahmoudi, Assistant Professor of Radiology, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1866442022-07-14T20:02:00Z2022-07-14T20:02:00ZBreakthrough in gas separation and storage could fast-track shift to green hydrogen and significantly cut global energy use<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474051/original/file-20220714-9155-2h5fff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C11%2C3556%2C2095&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2016, experts writing in <em>Nature</em> listed <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/532435a">seven breakthroughs</a> in how we process chemicals that could change the world for the better. We believe we’ve just ticked one of those off the list. </p>
<p>We found a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1369702122001614?via%3Dihub">highly efficient</a> and entirely novel way to separate, purify, store and transport huge amounts of gas safely, with no waste. </p>
<p>Why is this breakthrough so important? We believe it will help overcome the key challenge of hydrogen storage by allowing us to safely store and transport huge quantities of green hydrogen as a solid at a fraction of the energy cost. This will allow us to accelerate uptake of green hydrogen, as well as allow oil refineries to use much, much less energy, and make processing many other gases easier. </p>
<p>Right now, breaking crude oil into petrol and other gases in oil refineries relies on the hugely energy intensive process of cryogenic distillation. This accounts for <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/532435a">up to 15%</a> of the world’s energy use. By contrast, we estimate our new method would cut this energy use by up to 90%. </p>
<p>This method offers the world a solid storage method for gases with a far higher capacity than any previous material. The absorbed gases can be recovered via a simple heating process leaving both the gases and the powder unchanged, allowing for immediate use or re-use.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474037/original/file-20220714-17678-ktt0iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Night scene of refinery" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474037/original/file-20220714-17678-ktt0iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474037/original/file-20220714-17678-ktt0iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474037/original/file-20220714-17678-ktt0iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474037/original/file-20220714-17678-ktt0iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474037/original/file-20220714-17678-ktt0iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474037/original/file-20220714-17678-ktt0iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474037/original/file-20220714-17678-ktt0iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Oil refineries use vast amounts of energy to turn crude oil into gas, petrol and diesel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty</span></span>
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<h2>What did we find?</h2>
<p>The breakthrough is so significant – and such a departure from accepted wisdom on gas separation and storage – that our research team repeated our experiment 20 to 30 times before we could truly believe it ourselves. </p>
<p>So how does it work? Our new approach uses a new method called “ball milling” to store gas in a special nanomaterial at room temperature. This method relies on mechanochemical reactions, meaning machinery is used to produce unusual reactions. </p>
<p>The special ingredient in the process is boron nitride powder, which is great for absorbing substances because it is so small yet has a large amount of surface area for absorption. </p>
<p>To make this work, boron nitride powder is placed into a ball mill – a grinder containing small stainless-steel balls in a chamber – along with the gases that need to be separated. As the chamber spins at progressively higher speeds, the collision of the balls with the powder and the wall of the chamber triggers a special mechanochemical reaction, resulting in gas being absorbed into the powder. </p>
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<img src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/2182/gas.gif?1657772575" width="100%">
<figcaption>In this process, steel balls spun at high speed work to separate gases.</figcaption>
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<p>Better, one type of gas is always absorbed more quickly, separating it out from the others, and allowing it to be easily removed from the mill. You can repeated this process over several stages to separate out the gases you want, one by one. You can store the gases in the powder for transport, and separate them back into gas. And better still, boron nitride powder can be used to carry out the same gas separation and storage process up to 50 times.</p>
<p>The process requires no harsh chemicals and creates no by-products. It doesn’t require energy-intensive settings like high pressure or low temperatures, offering a much cheaper and safer way to develop things like hydrogen powered vehicles. </p>
<p>This ball-milling gas absorption process uses around 77 kilojoules per second to store and separate 1,000 litres of gases. That’s roughly the energy needed to drive the average electric vehicle 320 kilometres. It’s at least 90% less energy than the cryogenic distillation method used in oil refineries. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/oil-companies-are-going-all-in-on-petrochemicals-and-green-chemistry-needs-help-to-compete-153598">Oil companies are going all-in on petrochemicals – and green chemistry needs help to compete</a>
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<p>That’s why we believe this breakthrough may tick off one of the seven chemical separation method improvements which could change the world – specifically, improving separation of olefin-paraffin, a key part of the petrochemical industry. </p>
<p>This is the culmination of 30 years work in nanomaterials and mechanochemistry by researchers at Deakin University’s Institute for Frontier Materials. </p>
<h2>How will this help us switch to clean energy?</h2>
<p>The gas crisis facing Australia’s east coast has drawn attention to our reliance on these fuels. In response, there have been growing calls to hasten the switch to cleaner gas fuels such as green hydrogen. </p>
<p>The problem is storage. Storing enormous quantities of hydrogen for practical use is very challenging. At present, we store hydrogen in a high-pressure tank or by cooling the gas down to a liquid form. Both require large amounts of energy, as well as dangerous processes and chemicals. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474036/original/file-20220714-9357-9akftr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Hydrogen filling station korea" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474036/original/file-20220714-9357-9akftr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474036/original/file-20220714-9357-9akftr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474036/original/file-20220714-9357-9akftr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474036/original/file-20220714-9357-9akftr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474036/original/file-20220714-9357-9akftr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474036/original/file-20220714-9357-9akftr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474036/original/file-20220714-9357-9akftr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">While nations like Korea have pursued hydrogen, the challenges of storage have slowed down uptake.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>That’s where this method could help accelerate uptake of hydrogen, by enabling safe and efficient solid-state storage technology on a large scale. When stored as a powder, hydrogen is extremely safe. To retrieve the gas, you simply heat the powder in a vacuum. </p>
<p>This new process can achieve unprecedented gas storage capability, well above any known porous materials. For instance, our new process can store 18 times more acetylene than the highest uptake achieved by metal-organic frameworks, another approach using porous materials. </p>
<p>The remarkably high gas storage capability is due to the novel way gas molecules stick to the powder during the ball milling process, which does not break the gas molecules. </p>
<p>For this process to be able to scale, however, we have to perfect the milling process. There’s a sweet spot in milling which creates the weaker chemical reactions we want – without producing stronger reactions which can destroy the gas molecules. We will also have to figure out how to get the best storage rate for each material based on milling intensity and pressure of the gases. </p>
<p>With industry support, our novel process can be scaled rapidly to provide practical solutions to ensure we never have to face another gas crisis – and can speed up decarbonisation. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/green-hydrogen-is-coming-and-these-australian-regions-are-well-placed-to-build-our-new-export-industry-174466">Green hydrogen is coming – and these Australian regions are well placed to build our new export industry</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186644/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ying Ian Chen receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Srikanth Mateti receives funding from Australian Research Council</span></em></p>Our new approach lets us separate, store and transport tricky gases like hydrogen as a solid - and for a fraction of the energy.Ying Ian Chen, Director, ARC Research Hub for Safe and Reliable Energy, Deakin UniversitySrikanth Mateti, Research fellow, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1826862022-06-08T13:57:17Z2022-06-08T13:57:17ZHow nanotechnology can revive Nigeria’s textile industry<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463265/original/file-20220516-12-9rfjk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Yannick Folly/AFP via Getty Images </span> </figcaption></figure><p>Nigeria’s cotton production has fallen steeply in recent years. It once supported the <a href="https://allianceforscience.cornell.edu/blog/2019/04/nigeria-moves-revive-textile-industry/">largest</a> textile industry in Africa. The fall is due to weak demand for cotton and to poor yields resulting from planting <a href="https://www.sunnewsonline.com/how-nigerias-losing-6-5bn-cotton-export-revenue/#:%7E:text=Lack%20of%20improved%20seeds%2C%20access,export%20opportunities%20in%20cotton%20annually.">low-quality cottonseeds</a>. For these reasons, farmers switched from cotton to other crops.</p>
<p>Nigeria’s cotton <a href="https://msmestoday.com/agribusiness/production/nigerias-cotton-production-to-account-for-20-29-of-africas-production-by-2029/">output</a> fell from 602,400 tonnes in 2010 to 51,000 tonnes in 2020. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the country’s <a href="https://allianceforscience.cornell.edu/blog/2019/04/nigeria-moves-revive-textile-industry/">textile industry</a> had 180 textile mills employing over 450,000 people, supported by about 600,000 cotton farmers. <a href="https://oxfordbusinessgroup.com/analysis/fabric-society-textiles-look-make-comeback-thanks-abundance-raw-materials">By 2019</a>, there were 25 textile mills and 25,000 workers. </p>
<p>The industry competes in a global textile market that was <a href="https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/textile-market">valued</a> at US$ 993.6 billion in 2021 and is expected to grow at a rate of 4.0% from 2022 to 2030. Once the continent’s leader, Nigeria <a href="https://www.vanguardngr.com/2019/12/nigeria-spends-4-billion-to-import-textiles-yearly/">spends</a> on average US$4 billion a year to import textiles that it could produce itself. Imports put pressure on foreign exchange reserves, jobs and local demand for cotton.</p>
<p>Technical innovation could make the textile sector more competitive – not only by <a href="https://jcottonres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s42397-021-00092-6">improving cotton</a> production but also by improving textile quality. This can be achieved in Nigeria. </p>
<p>Nowadays, textiles’ properties can be greatly improved through nanotechnology – the use of extremely small materials with special properties. Nanomaterials like graphene and silver nanoparticles <a href="https://www.azonano.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=5501">make</a> textiles stronger, durable, and resistant to germs, radiation, water and fire.</p>
<p>Adding nanomaterials to textiles <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1387700322002350">produces</a> nanotextiles. These are often “smart” because they respond to the external environment in different ways when combined with electronics. They can be <a href="https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.5123575">used</a> to harvest and store energy, to release drugs, and as sensors in different applications. </p>
<p>Nanotextiles are increasingly used in defence and healthcare. For hospitals, they are used to <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3688167/">produce</a> bandages, curtains, uniforms and bedsheets with the ability to kill pathogens. The <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1038209/global-nanotextiles-market-value/">market value</a> of nanotextiles was US$5.1 billion in 2019 and could reach US$14.8 billion in 2024. </p>
<p>At the moment, Nigeria is not benefiting from nanotextiles’ economic potential as it produces none. With over <a href="https://www.unfpa.org/data/world-population/NG">216 million people</a>, the country should be able to support its textile industry. It could also explore <a href="https://www.cbn.gov.ng/MonetaryPolicy/afcfta.asp">trading opportunities</a> in the African Continental Free Trade Agreement to market innovative nanotextiles. </p>
<h2>Nanotextiles in Nigeria</h2>
<p>Our nanotechnology research group has made the first attempt to produce nanotextiles using cotton and silk in Nigeria. We used <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352186421007252">silver</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1387700322002350">silver-titanium oxide</a> nanoparticles produced by locust beans’ wastewater. <a href="https://www.feedipedia.org/node/268">Locust bean</a> is a multipurpose tree legume found in Nigeria and some other parts of Africa. The seeds, the fruit pulp and the leaves are used to prepare foods and drinks. </p>
<p>The seeds are used to <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/655/1/012012/meta">produce</a> a local condiment called “iru” in southwest Nigeria. The processing of iru generates a large quantity of wastewater that is not useful. We used the wastewater to reduce some compounds to produce silver and silver-titanium nanoparticles in the laboratory.</p>
<p>Fabrics were dipped into nanoparticle solutions to make nanotextiles. Thereafter, the nanotextiles were exposed to known bacteria and fungi. The growth of the organisms was monitored to determine the ability of the nanotextiles to kill them.</p>
<p>The nanotextiles prevented growth of several pathogenic bacteria and black mould, making them useful as antimicrobial materials. They were active against germs even after being washed five times with detergent. Textiles without nanoparticles did not prevent the growth of microorganisms.</p>
<p>These studies showed that nanotextiles can kill harmful microorganisms including those that are resistant to drugs. Materials such as air filters, sportswear, nose masks, and healthcare fabrics produced from nanotextiles possess excellent antimicrobial attributes. Nanotextiles can also promote wound healing and offer resistance to radiation, water and fire. </p>
<p>Our studies established the value that nanotechnology can add to textiles through hygiene and disease prevention. Using nanotextiles will promote good health and well-being for sustainable development. They will assist to reduce infections that are caused by germs.</p>
<p>Despite these benefits, nanomaterials in textiles can have some unwanted effects on the environment, health and safety. Some nanomaterials can harm human health causing irritation when they come in contact with skin or inhaled. Also, their release to the environment in large quantities can harm lower organisms and reduce growth of plants. We recommend that the impacts of nanotextiles should be evaluated case by case before use.</p>
<h2>Reviving Nigeria’s textile sector</h2>
<p>In addition to <a href="https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2021/06/02/emefiele-revival-of-cotton-textile-industries-critical-for-economic-recovery/">government’s efforts</a> to revive Nigeria’s textile sector, opportunities in nanotechnology should be explored. Smart nanotextiles that can compete favourably with foreign textiles could be produced locally. </p>
<p>Agriculture can <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnano.2020.579954/full">benefit</a> from nanopesticides, nanofungicides and nanofertilizers boosting crop yield. This has been <a href="https://jcottonres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s42397-021-00092-6">applied</a> to cotton farming. Nanotechnology is also useful to <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214785320326341">treat effluents</a> of the textile industry in an eco-friendly manner. </p>
<p>Together with higher cotton production, nanotextile products can return Nigeria’s textile industry to glory. This is a unique way to improve Nigeria’s economy by nanotechnology.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nanotechnology-has-much-to-offer-nigeria-but-research-needs-support-180918">Nanotechnology has much to offer Nigeria but research needs support</a>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Agbaje Lateef receives funding from TETFund. </span></em></p>Together with higher cotton production, nanotextile products can boost Nigeria’s textile industry and the economy.Agbaje Lateef, Professor of Microbiology, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1800092022-05-04T18:02:21Z2022-05-04T18:02:21ZNanoparticles are the future of medicine – researchers are experimenting with new ways to design tiny particle treatments for cancer<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461078/original/file-20220503-38813-i2h2zm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2121%2C1412&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nanoparticles can help cancer drugs home in on tumors and avoid damaging healthy cells.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/destruction-of-a-cancer-cell-illustration-royalty-free-illustration/713780459">Kateryna Kon/Science Photo Library via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When you hear the word “nanomedicine,” it might call to mind scenarios like those in the 1966 movie “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO5E4wkg0hA">Fantastic Voyage</a>.” The film portrays a medical team shrunken down to ride a microscopic robotic ship through a man’s body to clear a blood clot in his brain. </p>
<p>Nanomedicine has not reached that level of sophistication yet. Although scientists can generate nanomaterials smaller then several nanometers – the “nano” indicating one-billionth of a meter – today’s nanotechnology has not been able to generate functional electronic robotics tiny enough to inject safely into the bloodstream. But since the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2006.115">concept of nanotechnology</a> was first introduced in the 1970s, it has made its mark in many everyday products, including electronics, fabrics, food, water and air treatment processes, cosmetics and drugs. Given these successes across different fields, many medical researchers were eager to use nanotechnology to diagnose and treat disease.</p>
<p>I am a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Ufab1aYAAAAJ&hl=en">pharmaceutical scientist</a> who was inspired by the promise of nanomedicine. <a href="https://pharmacy.umich.edu/sun-lab">My lab</a> has worked on developing cancer treatments using nanomaterials over the past 20 years. While nanomedicine has seen many successes, some researchers like me have been disappointed by its <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jconrel.2019.05.044">underwhelming overall performance</a> in cancer. To better translate success in the lab to treatments in the clinic, we proposed a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.9b09713">new way to design</a> cancer drugs using nanomaterials. Using this strategy, we <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.abl3649">developed a treatment</a> that was able to achieve full remission in mice with metastatic breast cancer. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">While nanomedicine isn’t “Fantastic Voyage,” it shares the film’s treatment goal of delivering a drug exactly where it needs to go.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>What is nanomedicine?</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.9b09713">Nanomedicine</a> refers to the use of materials at the nanoscale to diagnose and treat disease. Some researchers define nanomedicine as encompassing any medical products using nanomaterials smaller than 1,000 nanometers. Others more narrowly use the term to refer to injectable drugs using nanoparticles smaller than 200 nanometers. Anything larger may not be safe to inject into the bloodstream.</p>
<p>Several nanomaterials have been successfully used in vaccines. The most well-known examples today are the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpharm.2021.120586">Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 mRNA vaccines</a>. These vaccines used a nanoparticle made of of lipids, or fatty acids, that helps carry the mRNA to where it needs to go in the body to trigger an immune response.</p>
<p>Researchers have also successfully used nanomaterials in diagnostics and medical imaging. <a href="https://www.fda.gov/media/145080/download">Rapid COVID-19 tests</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/s1028-4559(08)60127-8">pregnancy tests</a> use gold nanoparticles to form the colored band that designates a positive result. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s13244-019-0771-1">Magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI</a>, often uses nanoparticles as contrast agents that help make an image more visible.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Gold is one type of nanoparticle whose uses researchers are testing in a range of contexts.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Several nanoparticle-based drugs have been approved for cancer treatment. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jconrel.2012.03.020">Doxil (doxorubicin)</a> and <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.4172%2F2157-7439.1000164">Abraxane (paclitaxel)</a> are chemotherapy drugs that use nanomaterials as a delivery mechanism to improve treatment efficacy and reduce side effects.</p>
<h2>Cancer and nanomedicine</h2>
<p>The potential of nanomedicine to improve a drug’s effectiveness and reduce its toxicity is attractive for cancer researchers working with anti-cancer drugs that often have strong side effects. Indeed, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jconrel.2020.07.007">65% of clinical trials using nanoparticles</a> are focused on cancer.</p>
<p>The idea is that nanoparticle cancer drugs could <a href="https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.9b09713">act like biological missiles</a> that destroy tumors while minimizing damage to healthy organs. Because tumors have leaky blood vessels, researchers believe this would allow nanoparticles to <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1021%2Facs.bioconjchem.6b00437">accumulate in tumors</a>. Conversely, because nanoparticles can circulate in the bloodstream longer than traditional cancer treatments, they could accumulate less in healthy organs and reduce toxicity. </p>
<p>Although these design strategies have been successful in mouse models, most nanoparticle cancer drugs have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.9b09713">not been shown</a> to be more effective than other cancer drugs. Furthermore, while some nanoparticle-based drugs can reduce toxicity to certain organs, they may increase toxicity in others. For example, while the nanoparticle-based <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s13577-012-0057-0">Doxil</a> decreases damage to the heart compared with other chemotherapy options, it can increase the risk of developing <a href="https://www.cancer.net/coping-with-cancer/physical-emotional-and-social-effects-cancer/managing-physical-side-effects/hand-foot-syndrome-or-palmar-plantar-erythrodysesthesia">hand-foot syndrome</a>.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The COVID-19 mRNA vaccines spurred excitement about nanoedicine’s potential applications to other diseases.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Improving nanoparticle-based cancer drugs</h2>
<p>To investigate ways to improve how nanoparticle-based cancer drugs are designed, my research team and I <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biomaterials.2021.120910">examined how well</a> five approved nanoparticle-based cancer drugs accumulate in tumors and avoid healthy cells compared with the same cancer drugs without nanoparticles. Based on the findings of our lab study, we proposed that designing nanoparticles to be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.9b09713">more specific</a> to their intended target could improve their translation from animal models to people. This includes creating nanoparticles that address the shortcomings of a particular drug – such as common side effects – and home in on the types of cells they should be targeting in each particular cancer type.</p>
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<p>Using these criteria, we designed a <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.abl3649">nanoparticle-based immunotherapy</a> for metastatic breast cancer. We first identified that breast cancer has a type of immune cell that suppresses immune response, helping the cancer become resistant to treatments that stimulate the immune system to attack tumors. We hypothesized that while drugs could overcome this resistance, they are unable to sufficiently accumulate in these cells to succeed. So we designed nanoparticles made of a common protein called albumin that could deliver cancer drugs directly to where these immune-suppressing cells are located.</p>
<p>When we tested our nanoparticle-based treatment on mice genetically modified to have breast cancer, we were able to eliminate the tumor and achieve complete remission. All of the mice were still alive 200 days after birth. We’re hopeful it will eventually translate from animal models to cancer patients.</p>
<h2>Nanomedicine’s bright but realistic future</h2>
<p>The success of some drugs that use nanoparticles, such as the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02483-w">COVID-19 mRNA vaccines</a>, has prompted excitement among researchers and the public about their potential use in treating various other diseases, including talks about a future <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/d41573-021-00110-x">cancer vaccine</a>. However, a vaccine for an infectious disease is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12943-021-01335-5">not the same</a> as a vaccine for cancer. Cancer vaccines may require different strategies to overcome treatment resistance. Injecting a nanoparticle-based vaccine into the bloodstream also has different design challenges than injecting into muscle.</p>
<p>While the field of nanomedicine has made good progress in getting drugs or diagnostics out of the lab and into the clinic, it still has a long road ahead. Learning from past successes and failures can help researchers develop breakthroughs that allow nanomedicine to live up to its promise.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180009/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Duxin Sun receives funding from NIH, FDA and Pharmaceutical Industries for his lab research at The University of Michigan. </span></em></p>The COVID-19 mRNA vaccines put nanomedicine in the spotlight as a potential way to treat diseases like cancer and HIV. While the field isn’t there yet, better design could help fulfill its promise.Duxin Sun, Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1814172022-04-26T12:14:00Z2022-04-26T12:14:00ZHow Robert Langer, a pioneer in delivering mRNA into the body, failed repeatedly but kept going: ‘They said I should give up, but I don’t like to give up’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458348/original/file-20220415-26-upvb6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C16%2C5640%2C3740&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Robert Langer</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/robert-langer-of-mits-langer-labs-is-photographed-on-april-news-photo/472982424?adppopup=true">Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The mRNA vaccines developed against COVID-19 owe a lot to the work of Robert Langer, a pioneer in the delivery of mRNA. <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=5HX--AYAAAAJ&hl=en">Langer</a>, who is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology David H. Koch Institute Professor and director of the Langer Lab, helped lay the foundation for the underlying delivery mechanism that has led to the development of the first commercial mRNA vaccines, which can be used for a variety of infectious diseases and conditions. Langer is a co-founder of Moderna, the biotech company that developed an mRNA vaccine against COVID-19. He also has authored more than 1,500 scientific papers and is the most-cited engineer in history.</em></p>
<p><em>Langer published the first paper to show that it was possible to deliver nucleic acids like RNA and DNA to the body via tiny particles. He spoke in March 2022 at the <a href="https://www.imaginesolutionsconference.com/">2022 Imagine Solutions Conference</a> in Naples, FL. about his journey from a chemical engineering doctorate to helping develop technology for various lifesaving treatments.</em></p>
<p><em>Below are some highlights from the discussion. Answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.</em></p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Robert Langer speaks at the Imagine Solutions Conference 2022.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>How did you end up where you are in your field?</h2>
<p><strong>Robert Langer:</strong> My story is not straightforward by any means. I got my doctorate in chemical engineering from MIT in 1974. One of the things I thought about doing was education, because when I was a graduate student at MIT I helped start a school in Cambridge, The Group School. And I got very involved in developing new chemistry and math curricula. </p>
<p>And I wrote to all these colleges and none of them wrote me back, so I started to think, well, what other way could I use my science and engineering education to help people? And I thought about medicine. I wrote to a lot of hospitals and medical schools. They didn’t write back to me either.</p>
<p>And then one day one of the people at my MIT lab said, “Bob, you know, there’s a surgeon named <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.0806582105">Judah Folkman</a> in Boston and sometimes he hires unusual people.”</p>
<h2>From 1974 to 1977 you worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Children’s Hospital Boston and at Harvard Medical School under Folkman. How did your work with Folkman influence your career?</h2>
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<span class="caption">Dr. Judah Folkman (1933-2008) explored the role of blood vessels in disease and faced heavy skepticism.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/dr-judah-folkman-explored-the-role-of-blood-vessels-in-news-photo/474014739?adppopup=true">Bill Greene/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Dr. Folkman’s idea of how tumors grew was actually quite controversial. His theory was that tumors secreted a chemical signal, which he called TAF, tumor angiogenesis factor. And that would cause blood vessels to grow to the tumor. The tumor then could spread through those blood vessels. That’s a process called metastasis, which often kills people.</p>
<p>His theory was that if you could stop blood vessels maybe that would be a new way to stop cancer. To solve this problem we had to deliver large molecules to the body through tiny particles. Nobody before us had done that, and we were told it was impossible.</p>
<p>I spent about two years working in the laboratory, and I found over 200 different ways to get this to not work. Eventually I was able to make little microspheres, or nanospheres. We published our findings in the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/263797a0">journal Nature</a>. This was the first time nucleic acids had ever been delivered through tiny particles for any period of time.</p>
<h2>What was the process for obtaining the patent?</h2>
<p>Folkman and I filed for a patent, but the patent examiner rejected it five years in a row. And all the people at the hospital told me I was wasting a lot of money for the hospital. They said I should give up, but I don’t like to give up.</p>
<p>When we first started doing this, everybody told me it was impossible and that it could never work. So I did what’s called a science citation search, looking back at our 1976 Nature paper. One of the papers I found was really helpful. I had no idea it was even written but I found that five of the top material scientists in the world said that Folkman and I had shown some surprising results that clearly demonstrate that this idea could work.</p>
<p>We showed that to the examiner and he said, well, that’s interesting. He said, I’ll allow the patent if you can get written affidavits from these five people that they really wrote it. So I wrote them and they wrote back and sent the affidavits. We got this really broad patent, and with that patent I got involved in starting companies. </p>
<h2>What did this process teach you?</h2>
<p>I learned that if you’re not your own champion, nobody else will be. So I got involved in patenting things, and my students were very interested in seeing their work make a difference. That’s what led to a number of different companies, some of which we started and others which we guided, developing many products used today. My story is sort of one person’s example of how you can try to use science to help relieve suffering and prolong life.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 150,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-150ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181417/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Langer co-founded Moderna. For a list of entities with which R.L. is, or has been recently involved, compensated or uncompensated, see:
<a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/yc3xqb5s8s94v7x/Rev%20Langer%20COI.pdf?dl=0">https://www.dropbox.com/s/yc3xqb5s8s94v7x/Rev%20Langer%20COI.pdf?dl=0</a>
</span></em></p>Moderna co-founder Robert Langer developed the process that made COVID-19 vaccines possible. He spoke about his journey helping develop the science for various lifesaving treatments.Robert Langer, Institute Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1809182022-04-20T14:06:14Z2022-04-20T14:06:14ZNanotechnology has much to offer Nigeria but research needs support<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457961/original/file-20220413-14-e8u8fy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nigeria's nanotechnology journey has been slow. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/nanotechnology-news-photo/179795914?adppopup=true">BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nanotechnology is one of the engines of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Fourth-Industrial-Revolution-2119734">fourth industrial revolution</a>. The <a href="https://www.uneca.org/niif2020">global market</a> of nanotechnology-enabled products stood at approximately US$1.6 trillion in 2014. In one <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781119371762.ch1">estimate</a>, the industry could generate 6 million jobs and account for 10% of global GDP by 2030.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nano.gov/nanotech-101/what/definition">Nanotechnology</a> creates, uses and studies materials at nanoscale - one nanometre is a billionth of a metre. Some of these materials occur in nature. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1381117704000839">DNA</a>, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23504415/">proteins</a> and <a href="https://www.nanowerk.com/spotlight/spotid=1635.php">viruses</a> are examples. Others can be created by slicing larger molecules into smaller ones or by building up atoms into nanoparticles. </p>
<p>Nanomaterials have special physical, optical, biological, chemical, electrical and mechanical attributes. For instance, <a href="https://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/new-inventions/graphene.htm">graphene</a> is a very light nanomaterial but is several hundred times stronger than steel. </p>
<p>The field of nanotechnology has blossomed to encompass physics, chemistry, engineering, materials and biological sciences. It has applications in agriculture, industry, medicine, the environment and consumer products. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11051-017-4056-7">big players</a> in nanotechnology investments are the US, Japan, the EU and South Korea. Along with China, <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11051-017-4056-7">they accounted for 72.12%</a> of the nanotech patents in the US patent and trademark office in 2016. Brazil, Russia and India are also <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11192-012-0651-7">very active</a>. </p>
<p>Egypt, South Africa, Tunisia, Nigeria and Algeria <a href="https://www.uneca.org/niif2020">lead</a> the field in Africa. Since 2006, South Africa has been developing scientists, providing infrastructure, establishing centres of excellence, developing national policy and setting regulatory standards for nanotechnology. <a href="https://www.nsti.org/directory/countries/ZA">Companies</a> such as Mintek, Nano South Africa, SabiNano and Denel Dynamics are applying the science. </p>
<p>In contrast, Nigeria’s nanotechnology journey, which started with a national initiative <a href="https://naseni.org/centers/coex-na">in 2006</a>, has been slow. It has been dogged by uncertainties, poor funding and lack of proper coordination. Still, scientists in Nigeria have continued to place the country on the map through publications. </p>
<p>In addition, research clusters at the <a href="http://nanotechunn.com/new/">University of Nigeria, Nsukka</a>, <a href="https://lautechnanotech.com/">Ladoke Akintola University of Technology</a> and others have organised conferences. Our research group also founded an <a href="https://stnanojournal.org/publication#:%7E:text=Nano%20Plus%3A%20Science%20and%20Technology%20of%20Nanomaterials%20is%20a%20bimonthly,in%20all%20areas%20of%20nanotechnology.">open access journal</a>, Nano Plus: Science and Technology of Nanomaterials.</p>
<h2>Nanotechnology in Nigeria</h2>
<p>To get an idea of how well Nigeria was performing in nanotechnology research and development, we turned to SCOPUS, an academic <a href="https://educalingo.com/en/dic-en/scopus#:%7E:text=Scopus%20is%20a%20bibliographic%20database,%2C%20medical%2C%20and%20social%20sciences.">database</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11051-021-05322-1">Our analysis</a> shows that research in nanotechnology takes place in 71 Nigerian institutions in collaboration with 58 countries. South Africa, Malaysia, India, the US and China are the main collaborators. Nigeria ranked fourth in research articles published from 2010 to 2020 after Egypt, South Africa and Tunisia. </p>
<p>Five institutions contributed 43.88% of the nation’s articles in this period. They were the University of Nigeria, Nsukka; Covenant University, Ota; Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso; University of Ilorin; and University of Lagos. </p>
<p>The number of articles published by Nigerian researchers in the same decade was 645. Annual output grew from five articles in 2010 to 137 in the first half of 2020. South Africa published 2,597 and Egypt 5,441 from 2010 to 2020. The global total was 414,526 articles. </p>
<p>The figures show steady growth in Nigeria’s publications. But the performance is low in view of the fact that the country has the <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1242428/number-of-universities-in-africa/">most</a> universities in Africa. </p>
<p>The research performance is also low in relation to <a href="https://nationalpopulation.gov.ng/statistics/">population</a> and <a href="https://country.eiu.com/nigeria">economy</a> size. Nigeria produced 1.58 articles per 2 million people and 1.09 articles per US$3 billion of GDP in 2019. South Africa recorded 14.58 articles per 2 million people and 3.65 per US$3 billion. Egypt published 18.51 per 2 million people and 9.20 per US$3 billion in the same period.</p>
<p>There is no nanotechnology patent of Nigerian origin in the US patents office. Standards don’t exist for nano-based products. South Africa had <a href="https://statnano.com/report/s103">23 patents</a> in five years, from 2016 to 2020. </p>
<p>Nigerian nanotechnology research is limited by a lack of sophisticated instruments for analysis. It is impossible to conduct meaningful research locally without foreign collaboration on instrumentation. The absence of national policy on nanotechnology and of dedicated funds also hinder research.</p>
<h2>Benefits of nanotechnology</h2>
<p>The size of Nigeria’s <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/2/17/africas-largest-economy-nigeria-tops-growth-forecasts">economy</a> points to great potential for research and the development of patents and products.</p>
<p>Nanotechnology would benefit Nigeria in several ways. In agriculture, nanomaterials can be exploited as slow release fertilisers and eco-friendly agents against pests and diseases. There are applications in renewable and clean energy generation, through biofuels and solar panels. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-new-energy-technologies-can-help-south-africa-ease-its-energy-crunch-54254">How new energy technologies can help South Africa ease its energy crunch</a>
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<p>In security, nanomaterials in gadgets and vehicles can enhance protection and capabilities of personnel. For example, there is potential for smart uniforms with ultraviolet protection, antimicrobial properties, camouflaging, and resistance to water and fire.</p>
<p>Nanomaterials can make drinking water safe through disinfection and removal of chemical pollutants. In healthcare, antimicrobial nanofabrics can help prevent hospital-acquired infections. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nanomedicine-could-revolutionise-the-way-we-treat-tb-heres-how-101262">Nanomedicine could revolutionise the way we treat TB. Here's how</a>
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<p>Through numerous applications, Nigeria can use nanotechnology to deliver on <a href="https://sdgs.un.org/goals">development goals</a>. Ending <a href="https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal1">poverty</a> and promoting <a href="https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal9">sustainable industrialisation</a> are just two. </p>
<h2>Moving forward in nanotechnology</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.nta.ng/news/technology/20180220-fg-inaugurates-national-steering-committee-on-development-of-nanotechnology/">In February 2018</a>, Nigeria’s science and technology minister unveiled a national steering committee on nanotechnology policy. But the policy is yet to be approved by the federal government. In September 2021, I presented a memorandum to the national council on science, technology and innovation to stimulate national discourse on nanotechnology. </p>
<p>Government should implement the outcomes of these efforts without delay. It can:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>approve a national policy,</p></li>
<li><p>set up an agency to coordinate implementation,</p></li>
<li><p>make funds available for infrastructure, and</p></li>
<li><p>establish a centre of excellence. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>The country’s trading and diplomatic partners may be of aid. The private sector also has a part to play. It can provide funds for research, offer scholarships and donate instruments. Adopting nanotechnology in commercial activities will also promote its development in Nigeria.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180918/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Agbaje Lateef receives funding from TETFund. </span></em></p>As a major contributor of knowledge, Nigeria could make giant strides in nanotechnology – which in turn could help various industries blossom.Agbaje Lateef, Professor of Microbiology, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1739792022-01-06T14:39:16Z2022-01-06T14:39:16ZGreat balls of fire: How heating up testicles with nanoparticles might one day be a form of male birth control<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439249/original/file-20220103-36920-yu4j17.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C9485%2C5800&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Warming the testicles using nanorods affects sperm production.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 175px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/great-balls-of-fire--how-heating-up-testicles-with-nanoparticles-might-one-day-be-a-form-of-male-birth-control" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Women have a variety of methods for contraception, but only two methods are commonly available to men: condoms and vasectomies. Both methods have their drawbacks. </p>
<p>Condoms can break, and some men <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0536.1989.tb03173.x">are allergic to the latex in standard condoms</a>. Vasectomies are surgical procedures that can be <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.4103/1008-682X.175090">painful</a> and <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.4103/1008-682X.175091">difficult to reverse</a>. </p>
<p>So the search for <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.4103/2230-8210.102991">alternative male contraceptive options continues</a>, and one method currently being investigated is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3701">nanocontraception</a>.</p>
<h2>An on/off switch</h2>
<p>Nanocontraception is based on the idea that nanoparticles — here, about 100 nanometres in diameter, or roughly one-thousandth the width of a piece of paper or of a strand of human hair — can somehow be delivered to the testicles, where they can be warmed.</p>
<p>If you could warm up the testicles just a bit, you would have a way to turn sperm production on and off at will because the warmer they get, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1530/jrf.0.1140179">the less fertile they become</a>. But it’s a delicate process because the testicles can be irreversibly destroyed if they become too warm; the tissue dies and can no longer produce sperm, even when the testicles return to their normal temperature.</p>
<p>Using nanotechnology to warm testicles was first studied in 2013 on mice by biologist Fei Sun and his multidisciplinary research team. His early experiments <a href="https://doi.org/10.1021/nl400536d">involved injecting nanoparticles directly into mouse testicles</a>. These nanoparticles were long nanorods (or nanocylinders) of gold atoms — imagine a tube 120 gold atoms long with a diameter of 30 gold atoms — coated with a few long polymer chains on their surface. They looked like oblong bacteria with hairs sticking out.</p>
<p>Infrared radiation was then used on the mice’s testicles. This caused the nanoparticles to warm from around 30 C to between 37 and 45 C. The exact temperature depended on both the concentration of nanoparticles injected and the intensity of the radiation.</p>
<p>The radiation caused heat lesions on the skin surrounding the mice’s testicles, so it was assumed that this procedure was painful for the animals, even though there was no reliable way to measure their pain. The researchers decided to look for other ways to inject the nanoparticles.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439252/original/file-20220103-23-e6nw1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A hand wearing a latex glove holds a white lab mouse" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439252/original/file-20220103-23-e6nw1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439252/original/file-20220103-23-e6nw1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439252/original/file-20220103-23-e6nw1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439252/original/file-20220103-23-e6nw1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439252/original/file-20220103-23-e6nw1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439252/original/file-20220103-23-e6nw1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439252/original/file-20220103-23-e6nw1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Researchers used mice to test nanotechnology as a method of male birth control.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Iron rods</h2>
<p>In July 2021, Sun’s team <a href="https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.1c02181">published a paper on their latest findings</a>. The nanorods in the new method are composed of magnetic iron oxide instead of gold, and they are coated with citric acid instead of ethylene glycol — but they have the same size and shape as the earlier nanorods.</p>
<p>These magnetic nanoparticles were injected into mice’s veins, and then the animals were anesthetized. A magnet was then placed next to their testicles for four hours, drawing the nanoparticles there.</p>
<p>This procedure — injection followed by magnetic targeting — was performed daily for one to four days.</p>
<p>After the last day of treatment, an electric coil was wrapped around the testicles, through which a current was passed. This induced a magnetic field that heated up the nanorods and, therefore, the testicles. Similar temperature increases — from a baseline of 29 C to between 37 and 42 C — were observed through this method. The more days a mouse had been injected with nanorods, the hotter its testicles became.</p>
<p>Hotter testicles led to their atrophy and shrinkage, but they showed gradual recovery both 30 and 60 days after treatment as long as testicle temperatures didn’t reach 45 C. Fertility was down seven days after treatment — in some cases, fertility was completely eliminated — but it also showed gradual (though not complete) recovery after 60 days.</p>
<p>Although fertility was not back to normal levels, there was no noticeable difference in the litter size of females impregnated by the treated mice and no morphological defects were observed in any of the mice pups. There seemed to be no difference in the sperm that did make it through.</p>
<p>And Sun and his colleagues found that, unlike the gold nanorods that stayed indefinitely in mouse testicles, the iron nanorods were gradually eliminated into the liver and spleen, and later fully eliminated from the body. This reduced the risk for long-term toxicity.</p>
<h2>Controlled breeding</h2>
<p>The cost and the irreversibility of surgical castration <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1098612X15594994">lead many pet owners to look for alternative methods of contraception</a>. Nanocontraception is ready to be used on household pets, says Sun, and adds that this method is already being used on cats in China. </p>
<p>Surgical castration is less popular in Europe than in North America, so nanocontraception might be of greater interest there, says David Powell, director of the Reproductive Management Center of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums in St. Louis, Mo. “There’s really not a big pet contraception market in the U.S.,” says Powell.</p>
<p>He adds that contraception is not typically used with agricultural animals like sheep and cows. “They are reared for consumption and slaughter, so the agriculture industry is not doing much, if any, research on animal contraception.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439196/original/file-20220103-25-cxsk5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A male lion and a cub" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439196/original/file-20220103-25-cxsk5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439196/original/file-20220103-25-cxsk5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439196/original/file-20220103-25-cxsk5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439196/original/file-20220103-25-cxsk5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439196/original/file-20220103-25-cxsk5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439196/original/file-20220103-25-cxsk5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439196/original/file-20220103-25-cxsk5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Viable contraception for animals can be a valuable tool for animal conservation and breeding programs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“Zoos are a very small market, and so drug companies don’t have a lot of motivation to make animal contraceptives,” says Powell. But some of them do, and the <a href="https://www.aza.org/reproductive-management-center/">Reproductive Management Center</a> collects data to evaluate how contraceptives work on different species.</p>
<p>Nanocontraception could be a part of zoos’ reproductive toolkit one day. But before this happens, says Powell, further studies would need to establish how painful it is and in which species the iron nanorods can be used. Research has indicated that some mammals — such as rhinoceroses, lemurs and dolphins — might accumulate iron, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1638/2011-0152.1">which can be toxic in larger quantities</a>.</p>
<h2>Reversible options</h2>
<p>One potential advantage of nanocontraception is its reversibility, as zoos often try to precisely time breeding events over animals’ life cycles. But just how reversible it is needs further study. All of Sun’s experiments treated mice only once; they were never subjected to a second injection of nanoparticles after their testicles had healed.</p>
<p>Sun’s ultimate goal is human contraception, although he admits that’s still a long way off. As with zoo animals, detailed studies will be required to establish that nanocontraception is not toxic for men. It is also more difficult to put a man under anesthesia for four hours and wrap an electric coil around his testicles than it is to do the same thing on a mouse. Instead, Sun hopes to be able to deliver the magnetic nanorods orally and find another way to direct them to the testicles.</p>
<p>And it is uncertain how many men will be comfortable with shrunken testicles, even if they recover their original size with time. </p>
<p>Until then, better get those condoms out.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173979/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeffrey Mo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Growing applications of nanotechnology include using nanorods for male birth control. The technique has had some success in animals, and offers the potential of human male contraception.Jeffrey Mo, Global Journalism Fellow, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1684792021-12-20T20:48:42Z2021-12-20T20:48:42ZThe nanoparticles in mRNA vaccines are nothing to fear: We interact with many useful, tiny particles every day<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437870/original/file-20211215-19-6a71aq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C0%2C3244%2C2428&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">We interact with nanoparticles in multiple ways every day. The nanoparticles in this illustration are delivering drugs to cells.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 175px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/the-nanoparticles-in-mrna-vaccines-are-nothing-to-fear--we-interact-with-many-useful--tiny-particles-every-day" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Let’s be honest: there are many ways in which size matters, and for some purposes small is beautiful. However, sometimes very small things, like nanoparticles, are misunderstood.</p>
<p>In recent months, many people have had difficult conversations with friends and family members who were hesitant about taking the COVID-19 vaccine. In some cases, this hesitance arose because they have been led to believe that <a href="https://ca.style.yahoo.com/covid-19-vaccine-nanotechnology-microchip-theories-214017318.html">vaccines can’t be trusted because they contain nanoparticles</a>. It is lipid nanoparticles — called liposomes — that <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-happens-when-the-covid-19-vaccines-enter-the-body-a-road-map-for-kids-and-grown-ups-164624">carry the mRNA molecule</a> in the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. </p>
<h2>The nanoparticles in mRNA vaccines</h2>
<p>Those <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/kaitlyn_sadtler_and_elizabeth_wayne_how_the_covid_19_vaccines_were_created_so_quickly">liposomes act as vehicles delivering the viral protein template</a> to where it can interact with the immune system and trigger the production of antibodies. Their small size allows them to do that job faster and more effectively. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410911/original/file-20210712-19-geybnm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410911/original/file-20210712-19-geybnm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410911/original/file-20210712-19-geybnm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410911/original/file-20210712-19-geybnm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410911/original/file-20210712-19-geybnm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410911/original/file-20210712-19-geybnm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410911/original/file-20210712-19-geybnm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://theconversation.com/ca/topics/vaccine-confidence-in-canada-107061">Click here for more articles in our series about vaccine confidence.</a></span>
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<p>Liposomes are minuscule droplets of fat that mimic the membranes of our cells. This allows the particles to not only travel to their destination in the body without triggering an immune reaction, but also to fuse with our cells that can then uptake the mRNA molecule and synthesize the protein for which it codes. Once delivery is complete, these lipid nanoparticles are degraded by our body just like any other lipid. </p>
<p>This technology has been made possible through years of concerted efforts by the scientific community. These types of nanoparticles are a potentially useful vehicle for all sorts of other medicines. These include <a href="https://theconversation.com/3-mrna-vaccines-researchers-are-working-on-that-arent-covid-157858">other vaccines</a>, and also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1124/pr.115.012070">promising cancer treatments</a>.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/covid-19-vaccines-how-pfizers-and-modernas-95-effective-mrna-shots-work-149957">COVID-19 vaccines: How Pfizer's and Moderna's 95% effective mRNA shots work</a>
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<p>As scientists who <em>make</em> nanoparticles, we had hoped that at least our loved ones would be less fearful of our work. Thankfully, they are all now fully vaccinated, but vaccine hesitancy stemming from the novelty of the terms nanoparticles and nanotechnology leaves us concerned. </p>
<p>With the rise of COVID cases due to the Omicron variant, efforts to address vaccine hesitancy across the globe need to be ramped up, including information about nanoparticles. The terms nanoparticles and nanotechnology may be uncommon to a lot of people, but humans have been interacting with nanoparticles for millennia, and each one of us comes into contact with nanotechnology-based products every single day. </p>
<h2>Nanoparticles</h2>
<p>One of the authors — Keroles Riad — mass-produces nanoparticles by literally <a href="https://www.concordia.ca/cunews/offices/vprgs/sgs/public-scholars-20/2021/03/16/i-set-things-on-fire-intentionally.html">setting chemicals on fire</a> (very satisfying). This process — called flame spray pyrolysis — can produce special nanoparticles called <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsomega.0c06227">quantum dots</a>, which are used in lithium batteries and gas-sensing devices. But nanotechnology has uses in every aspect of our lives, affecting things like our wine, our guts and our climate.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LfMrMsBPezs?wmode=transparent&start=3842" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>The nanoparticles in mRNA vaccines are not the first nanoparticles used for health applications. For instance, co-author Sylvie Ouellette is currently synthesizing lipid nanodiscs <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYBmI_cfRQQ">in her lab</a>. This consists of breaking down the lipid layer of <em>E. coli</em> bacteria into small pieces, to study the proteins it contains as if they were still in their natural environment. Since these proteins are involved in antibiotic resistance, lipid nanodiscs are an important tool in the fight against infection. </p>
<p>Sylvie has also studied <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-10872-3">gold nanoparticles</a> to assess their usefulness in diagnosing and treating cancer and other health conditions.</p>
<p>Nanoparticles have been used for centuries. In fourth century China, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.culher.2012.02.001">nanoparticles were made via flame and used as inks</a>. </p>
<p>Gold nanoparticles have been at the core of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1166/jbn.2011.1205">Ayurveda, a traditional Indian healing practice</a>, for thousands of years. Although the jury is still out as to whether these gold nanoparticles in and of themselves confer healing properties, the method by which they are synthesized has paved the way for their use in modern medicine. They are now studied as a vehicle <a href="https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.molpharmaceut.8b00810">to target medically active compounds to tissue or cells involved in various diseases such as cancer</a>.</p>
<h2>How small is a nanometer?</h2>
<p>“Nano” comes from a <a href="https://nanoscience.ch/en/about-us/nanosciences/what-does-nano-mean/">Greek word meaning “dwarf</a>.” In essence, it means “very small.” A nanometer is 70,000 times smaller than the thickness of a human hair. A nanoparticle is anything that is so small that its size ranges from one to a few hundred nanometers. If you cut a block of wood to pieces that are about 0.0000001 centimetres (one nanometer), you will have made nanoparticles. </p>
<p>Nanoparticles can be made out of almost anything, from metals to fat. They can form naturally or inadvertently, and can also be synthesized in research or industrial laboratories. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A line of containers containing different coloured powders." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438370/original/file-20211219-13-1ecv083.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438370/original/file-20211219-13-1ecv083.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=107&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438370/original/file-20211219-13-1ecv083.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=107&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438370/original/file-20211219-13-1ecv083.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=107&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438370/original/file-20211219-13-1ecv083.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=134&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438370/original/file-20211219-13-1ecv083.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=134&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438370/original/file-20211219-13-1ecv083.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=134&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Different coloured copper oxide quantum dots from Keroles’s lab.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Andrew Kingsley Jeyaraj)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Perhaps one of the most common nanoparticles today is <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4360/13/4/538/htm">carbon black</a>, which is used to reinforce our car tires and improve their wear resistance, <a href="https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/carbon-black-market">constituting a US$17.5 billion dollar industry in 2018</a>. We <a href="https://coatings.specialchem.com/selection-guide/complete-guide-on-titanium-dioxide">paint the walls in our homes</a> with titanium white nanoparticles. The pills we swallow to treat our headaches or serious illnesses are usually <a href="https://tdma.info/the-crucial-role-of-titanium-dioxide-in-modern-pharmaceuticals/">coated</a> with silica or titanium nanoparticles. </p>
<p>More recently, several brands of anti-aging creams have boasted higher efficacy thanks to their <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.1201/9780429291470-7/liposomes-cosmetics-guy-vanlerberghe">active compounds being contained in liposomes</a> — the same type of nano-sized fat particles that are at the core of the mRNA COVID vaccines. </p>
<p>Given the broad incidence and wide variety of nanoparticles, there are also some that are not beneficial. For example, the <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.7554%2FeLife.09623">nano-sized soot particles from cigarettes</a> that smokers inhale are very harmful to the lungs. </p>
<p>Other types of soot nanoparticles enter the atmosphere when planes and cargo ships burn fuel, where they are the third major contributor to the climate crisis. However, unlike other greenhouse gases, <a href="https://carleton.ca/eptl/research/">soot’s stay in the atmosphere is only a few weeks long</a> (compared to a hundred years in the case of carbon dioxide). That means that if we were to stop emitting soot today, the benefits would be immediate. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-9-psychological-barriers-that-lead-to-covid-19-vaccine-hesitancy-and-refusal-168643">The 9 psychological barriers that lead to COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and refusal</a>
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<p>Small is good when used beneficially, but nanoparticles can sometimes trigger fear or mistrust. Just like the conversations we’ve had with our own families, helping people understand how nanoparticles are part of our everyday lives may help dissolve some of those fears.</p>
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<p><em>Do you have a question about COVID-19 vaccines? Email us at <a href="mailto:ca-vaccination@theconversation.com">ca-vaccination@theconversation.com</a> and vaccine experts will answer questions in upcoming articles.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168479/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Some vaccine hesitancy is based on a fear of the nanoparticles used in mRNA vaccines. But humans have been interacting with nanoparticles for millennia, and we use nanotechnology-based devices every day.Keroles Riad, Postdoctoral fellow, Chemical and Materials Engineering, Concordia UniversitySylvie Ouellette, PhD Candidate, Chemistry/Biochemistry, Concordia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1719622021-12-07T19:05:54Z2021-12-07T19:05:54ZLiquid marbles: how this tiny, emerging technology could solve carbon capture and storage problems<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436022/original/file-20211207-136652-std0y0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=19%2C14%2C3176%2C2112&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Carbon capture and storage (CCS) has been touted, again and again, as one of the critical technologies that could help Australia reach its climate targets, <a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-net-zero-plan-fails-to-tackle-our-biggest-contribution-to-climate-change-fossil-fuel-exports-170646">and features</a> heavily in the federal government’s plan for net-zero emissions by 2050.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.industry.gov.au/policies-and-initiatives/australias-climate-change-strategies/reducing-emissions-through-carbon-capture-use-and-storage">CCS is generally when</a> emissions are captured at the source, such as from a coal-fired power station, trucked to a remote location and stored underground. </p>
<p>But critics say investing in CCS means betting on technology that’s not yet proven to work at scale. Indeed, technology-wise, the design of effective carbon-capturing materials, both solid and liquid, has historically been a challenging task. </p>
<p>So could it ever be a viable solution to the fossil fuel industry’s carbon dioxide emissions?</p>
<p>Emerging <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-09805-7">overseas research</a> shows “liquid marbles” – tiny droplets coated with nanoparticles – could possibly address current challenges in materials used to capture carbon. And <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11831-021-09683-7">our modelling research</a>, published yesterday, brings us a big step closer to making this futuristic technology a reality. </p>
<h2>Issues with carbon capture</h2>
<p>Under its <a href="https://www.industry.gov.au/data-and-publications/technology-investment-roadmap-first-low-emissions-technology-statement-2020">Technology Investment Roadmap</a>, the Morrison government considers CCS a <a href="https://www.industry.gov.au/policies-and-initiatives/australias-climate-change-strategies/reducing-emissions-through-carbon-capture-use-and-storage">priority low-emissions technology</a>, and <a href="https://www.industry.gov.au/policies-and-initiatives/australias-climate-change-strategies/reducing-emissions-through-carbon-capture-use-and-storage">is investing</a> A$300 million over ten years to develop it. </p>
<p>But the efficacy and efficiency of CCS has <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-oil-industrys-pivot-to-carbon-capture-and-storage-while-it-keeps-on-drilling-isnt-a-climate-change-solution-171791">long been controversial</a> due to its high-operational costs and scaling-up issues for a wider application. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-oil-industrys-pivot-to-carbon-capture-and-storage-while-it-keeps-on-drilling-isnt-a-climate-change-solution-171791">Why the oil industry's pivot to carbon capture and storage – while it keeps on drilling – isn't a climate change solution</a>
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<p>An ongoing problem, more specifically, is the effectiveness of materials used to capture the CO₂, such as absorbents. One example is called “<a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1176731">amine scrubbing</a>”, a method used since 1930 to separate, for instance, CO₂ from natural gas and hydrogen. </p>
<p>The problems with amine scrubbing include its high costs, corrosion-related issues and <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-oil-industrys-pivot-to-carbon-capture-and-storage-while-it-keeps-on-drilling-isnt-a-climate-change-solution-171791">high losses in materials and energy</a>. <a href="https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2021/LC/D0LC01290D">Liquid marbles</a> can overcome some of these challenges. </p>
<p>This technology can be almost invisible to the naked eye, with some marbles under 1 millimetre in diameter. The liquid it holds – most commonly water or alcohol – is on the scale of microlitres (a microlitre is one thousandth of a millilitre). </p>
<p>The marbles have an outer layer of nanoparticles that form a flexible and porous shell, preventing the liquid within from leaking out. Thanks to this armour, they can behave like flexible, stretchable and soft solids, with a liquid core.</p>
<h2>What do marbles have to do with CCS?</h2>
<p>Liquid marbles have many unique abilities: they can float, they roll smoothly, and they can be stacked on top of each other. </p>
<p>Other desirable properties include resistance to contamination, low-friction and flexible manipulation, making them appealing for applications such as gas capture, drug delivery and even as miniature bio-reactors. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/morrison-to-link-500-million-for-new-technologies-to-easing-way-for-carbon-capture-and-storage-171528">Morrison to link $500 million for new technologies to easing way for carbon capture and storage</a>
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<p>In the context of CO₂ capture, their ability to selectively interact with gases, liquids and solids is most crucial. A key advantage of using liquid marbles is their size and shape, because thousands of spherical particles only millimetres in size can directly be installed in large reactors.</p>
<p>Gas from the reactor hits the marbles, where it clings to the nanoparticle outer shell (in a process called “adsorption”). The gas then reacts with the liquid within, separating the CO₂ and capturing it inside the marble. Later, we can take out this CO₂ and store it underground, and then recycle the liquid for future processing. </p>
<p>This process can be a more time and cost-efficient way of capturing CO₂ due to, for example, the liquid (and potentially solid) recycling, as well as the marbles’ high mechanical strength, reactivity, sorption rates and long-term stability. </p>
<h2>So what’s stopping us?</h2>
<p>Despite recent progress, many properties of liquid marbles remain elusive. What’s more, the only way to test liquid marbles is currently through physical experiments conducted in a laboratory. </p>
<p>Physical experiments have their limitations, such as the difficulty to measure the surface tension and surface area, which are important indicators of the marble’s reactivity and stability. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436043/original/file-20211207-17-1xyjnv3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436043/original/file-20211207-17-1xyjnv3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436043/original/file-20211207-17-1xyjnv3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436043/original/file-20211207-17-1xyjnv3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436043/original/file-20211207-17-1xyjnv3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436043/original/file-20211207-17-1xyjnv3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436043/original/file-20211207-17-1xyjnv3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436043/original/file-20211207-17-1xyjnv3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A liquid marble, with lines indicating the trajectory of its internal flow.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nam-Trung Nguyen</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>In this context, our new <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11831-021-09683-7">computational modelling</a> can improve our understanding of these properties, and can help overcome the use of costly and time-intensive experiment-only procedures. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/carbon-capture-and-storage-where-should-the-world-store-co-its-a-moral-dilemma-167453">Carbon capture and storage: where should the world store CO₂? It's a moral dilemma</a>
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<p>Another challenge is developing practical, rigorous and large-scale approaches to manipulate liquid marble arrays within the reactor. Further computational modelling we’re currently working on will aim to analyse the three-dimensional changes in the shapes and dynamics of liquid marbles, with better convenience and accuracy. </p>
<p>This will open up new horizons for a myriad of engineering applications, including CO₂ capture.</p>
<h2>Beyond carbon capture</h2>
<p>Research on liquid marbles started off as just an inquisitive topic around 20 years ago and, since then, ongoing research has made it a sought-after platform with applications beyond carbon capture. </p>
<p>This cutting-edge technology could not only change how we solve climate problems, but environmental and medical problems, too. </p>
<p>Magnetic liquid marbles, for example, have demonstrated their potential in <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201604781">biomedical procedures</a>, such as drug delivery, due to their ability to be opened and closed using magnets outside the body. Other applications of liquid marbles include gas sensing, acidity sensing and pollution detection.</p>
<p>With more modelling and experiments, the next logical step would be to scale up this technology for mainstream use.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171962/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charith Rathnayaka is affiliated with QUT (Queensland University of Technology) as an Adjunct Lecturer. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emilie Sauret receives funding from the Australian Research Council (FT200100446).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nam-Trung Nguyen receives funding from Australian Research Council DP170100277 and DP180100055. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yuantong Gu has received funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>Critics say investing in carbon capture and storage means betting on technology that’s not yet proven to work at scale. Using liquid marbles could make a huge difference.Charith Rathnayaka, Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering, University of the Sunshine CoastEmilie Sauret, Professor, Queensland University of TechnologyNam-Trung Nguyen, Professor and Director of Queensland Micro- and Nanotechnology Centre, Griffith UniversityYuantong Gu, Professor, Mechanical Systems and Asset Management, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1658662021-11-12T13:36:08Z2021-11-12T13:36:08ZNeurotoxins in the environment are damaging human brain health – and more frequent fires and floods may make the problem worse<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428985/original/file-20211028-23-ey0fbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=242%2C177%2C3352%2C2204&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Wildfire smoke contains a mixture of toxic pollutants that can be harmful to both the lungs and the brain. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/california-wildfires-royalty-free-image/1281624333?adppopup=true">Bloomberg Creative/ Bloomberg Creative Photos via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the summer of 2021, a toxic, smoky haze stemming from <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/western-wildfires">Western wildfires</a> wafted across large parts of the United States, while hurricanes wrought extensive flooding in the southern and eastern U.S. Air quality websites such as <a href="https://www.airnow.gov">AirNow</a> warned of <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/07/21/1018865569/the-western-wildfires-are-affecting-people-3-000-miles-away">hazardous conditions</a> on the U.S. East Coast from Western forest fires 3,000 miles away, with recommendations to stay indoors. </p>
<p>Journalists reported the immediate impact of lives lost and homes and property destroyed, but more insidious dangers escaped notice. Few people realize that these <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/09/11/1035241392/climate-change-disasters-mental-health-anxiety-eco-grief">climate change-fueled</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2021/cop26-extreme-weather-climate-change-action/">disasters</a> – both fires and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10807030903051309">floods</a> – could <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10962247.2017.1401017">adversely affect human health</a> in longer-term ways. </p>
<p>I’m a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2017&q=Arnold+Eiser&hl=en&as_sdt=0,39">scientist-author</a> who studies the links between environmental factors and the development of neurological disorders, which is the <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538158074/Preserving-Brain-Health-in-a-Toxic-Age-New-Insights-from-Neuroscience-Integrative-Medicine-and-Public-Health">subject of my recent book</a>. My <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2017.06.032">research on this topic</a> adds to a growing body of evidence that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/15/climate/flooding-chemicals-health-research.html">more frequent environmental disasters</a> may be raising <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-015-4913-9">human exposure to neurotoxins</a>.</p>
<h2>Neurotoxic smoke</h2>
<p>Many scientists have identified links between <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bj.2018.06.001">air pollution</a> in various forms, including from <a href="https://theconversation.com/breathing-wildfire-smoke-can-affect-the-brain-and-sperm-as-well-as-the-lungs-166548">forest fire smoke</a>, and an increased risk and prevalence of adverse health effects, including brain disorders. </p>
<p>Wildfire smoke is a mixture of <a href="https://health.ny.gov/environmental/outdoors/air/smoke_from_fire">countless noxious chemical compounds</a>. Fires burning <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/09/fires-rage-around-the-world-where-are-the-worst-blazes%20and%20Australia">across the warming planet</a> – from California to Greece and Australia – are adding dangerous particulate matter to the atmosphere that includes <a href="https://doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.97204">neurotoxic heavy metals</a> such as mercury, lead, cadmium and manganese nanoparticles. <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-in-wildfire-smoke-a-toxicologist-explains-the-health-risks-and-which-masks-can-help-164597">These toxins</a> are an added environmental burden on top of the pollutants emitted by factories, power plants, trucks, automobiles and other sources. </p>
<p>The greatest potential for health problems comes from minuscule particles, smaller than 2.5 microns – or PM 2.5 (for context, the width of a human hair is typically 50 to 70 microns). This is, in part, because <a href="https://doi.org/10.1164/rccm.201903-0635LE">tiny particles are easily inhaled</a>; from the lungs, they enter the bloodstream and circulate widely throughout the body. <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2020.00155">In the brain</a> they may inflame the microglial cells, the brain’s defensive cells, causing harm to neurons instead of protecting them. Studies show that these extremely tiny particles may damage neurons or brain cells by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tins.2009.05.009">promoting inflammation</a>. Brain inflammation can lead to conditions <a href="https://doi.org/10.3233/JAD-180631">like dementia</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1097/JOM.0000000000000451">Parkinson’s disease</a>, a movement disorder in adults.</p>
<p>In addition, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2018.3101">prenatal</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1097/EDE.0000000000001109">early-life exposure</a> to air pollution has been linked to an increased risk of autism spectrum disorder in children. Research suggests that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.7508">air pollution exposure</a> during these critical periods, particularly in the third trimester of pregnancy and the first few months of life, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/tnsci-2016-0005">may impair normal neural development</a>. </p>
<h2>Waterborne neurotoxins</h2>
<p>As part of my book research, I investigated potential links between environmental neurotoxins and related health effects in Finland. Seeking unique environmental factors that might underlie the disproportionately high rates of fatal dementia that occurred in Finland in the past decade, I found that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2017.06.032">water pollution</a> – exacerbated by flooding, use of fertilizer and higher water temperatures – may be affecting brain health. </p>
<p>As I reviewed the environmental concerns in Finland, the widespread presence of <a href="https://www.usgs.gov/centers/kswsc/science/cyanobacterial-blue-green-algal-blooms-tastes-odors-and-toxins-0?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects">blue-green algae in waterways</a> stood out to me. Though it’s commonly called algae, blue-green algae is actually a type of bacteria called cyanobacteria. These toxic microorganisms thrive and proliferate in warm waterways when excessive nutrients, particularly phosphorus from fertilizer runoff, pour into fresh and brackish water. It produces <a href="https://www.epa.gov/cyanohabs/health-effects-cyanotoxins">cyanotoxins</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428983/original/file-20211028-23-lejb0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Blue-green algae bloom on surface of lake with trees in the distance." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428983/original/file-20211028-23-lejb0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428983/original/file-20211028-23-lejb0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428983/original/file-20211028-23-lejb0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428983/original/file-20211028-23-lejb0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428983/original/file-20211028-23-lejb0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428983/original/file-20211028-23-lejb0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428983/original/file-20211028-23-lejb0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Harmful blooms of blue-green algae on lakes and ponds can be toxic to humans and dogs alike.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sefton-park-lake-in-liverpool-which-has-been-closed-off-news-photo/1228294229?adppopup=true">Peter Byrne/PA Images via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>One of these cyanotoxins, β-methylamino-L-alanine, or BMAA, is linked to <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2020.00026">neurodegenerative disorders</a> including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease.
In particular I was struck by scientists’ finding high levels of BMAA in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0914417107">mollusks and fish found in the Baltic Sea</a>, which could potentially play a role in Finland’s high incidence of dementia, as fish is heavily consumed there.</p>
<p>Blue-green algae is found in <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/habs/index.html">rivers, lakes and seas</a>. Its presence is a widespread problem for humans, dogs and wildlife in the U.S. and Canada, as well as around the globe. In 2020, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-54234396">more than 300 elephants in Botswana died</a> after drinking from water sources contaminated by the cyanobacteria that cause these algal blooms. Blue-green algae is so widely present in Finland that scientists there have developed <a href="https://www.utu.fi/en/news/news/novel-testing-device-will-reveal-whether-water-contains-toxic-blue-green-algae">a quick test to determine whether it is present or not.</a></p>
<h2>Mold neurotoxins</h2>
<p>In Finland, warm, humid air creates the perfect conditions for mold to grow, and water-damaged buildings are particularly susceptible. Some species emit mycotoxins, or mold toxins. Long-term exposure to mycotoxins, even at low levels, can present <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00039896.2003.11879142">serious health hazards</a> for both people and animals. </p>
<p>Mold spores are tiny, making them easy to inhale or ingest. Inside the body they can trigger an immune response, leading to chronic inflammation. Ultimately, exposure to these spores may cause <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shaw.2020.01.003">cognitive impairment</a>, including memory loss, irritability, numbness, tremors and other symptoms. Such a situation is likely to develop after a region has experienced the flooding of residences or workplaces in the weeks after they have been damaged.</p>
<p>Mold toxins, particularly <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/mnfr.200600137">ochratoxin A</a>, can trigger inflammation that may harm neurons and brain function. It has been <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jns.2006.06.006">specifically implicated</a> in Parkinson’s disease. </p>
<h2>Reducing risk and a way forward</h2>
<p>Education, greater awareness of environmental health concerns and public action are the best ways to minimize risks from environmental neurotoxins.</p>
<p>By learning to recognize blue-green algae, people may avoid swimming or boating near it and avoid letting their pets near it too. Consumers can advocate for greater environmental monitoring of food and water sources. Exercise that involves sweating can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1155/2017/3676089">help eliminate neurotoxic substances</a>. But before you exercise outdoors, it is prudent to check air quality on an app or website like <a href="https://www.airnow.gov/">AirNow</a>, a partnership of federal, state, local and tribal agencies.</p>
<p>If environmental policies aren’t put into place to mitigate the health risks posed by environmental neurotoxins, <a href="https://doi.org/10.4172/2161-0460.1000249">research suggests</a> that we may continue to experience increases in a variety of neurodegenerative disorders as the toxins rise. Many of these conditions are labeled idiopathic, or lacking a known cause. The neurotoxic connection is rarely considered, and environmental health hazards are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-020-02458-x">often overlooked in American health care</a>. This is in large part because environmental health is rarely taught in medical education, which can lead to a lack of awareness about potential diagnoses related to an environmental illness.</p>
<p>The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is currently <a href="https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2021-10/draft-policy-assessment-for-the-reconsideration-of-the-pm-naaqs_october-2021_0.pdf">reevaluating</a> air quality standards for particulate matter. A new EPA <a href="https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2021-09/_epaoig_20210929-21-e-0264.pdf">inspector general report</a> calls for a strategic plan to control harmful algal blooms. Ohio, a leading state for public policy initiatives aimed at neurotoxic algal blooms, <a href="https://grist.org/politics/toxic-algae-blooms-are-multiplying-the-government-has-no-plan-to-help">now regulates</a> cyanotoxins in drinking water and advises farmers against adding fertilizer when the ground is saturated or when rain is in the forecast. </p>
<p>Since <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1468-9">climate change may be a driver for rising neurotoxins</a>, cutting greenhouse gas emissions and ensuring better environmental stewardship are essential to human health. Achieving this will require strong international and domestic efforts and a wide range of interventions by governments around the world. But all of these efforts must begin with a deeper and more widespread understanding of the profound nature of this problem – which should be a universal, nonpartisan concern. </p>
<p>[<em>Over 115,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-newsletter-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165866/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arnold R. Eiser does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Pollution from more frequent floods and wildfires – exacerbated by the warming climate – is threatening human health and poses particular risks to the brain.Arnold R. Eiser, Emeritus Professor of Medicine, Drexel UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1692622021-10-06T19:01:35Z2021-10-06T19:01:35ZWe created a microscope slide that could improve cancer diagnosis, by revealing the ‘colour’ of cancer cells<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424927/original/file-20211006-27-1r03a5g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C18%2C1478%2C1113&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When we look at biological cells under a microscope, they’re usually not very colourful. Normally, to visualise them we have to artificially add colour — typically by staining. By doing so, we can see their shape and arrangement in a tissue and determine whether they’re healthy or not. </p>
<p>Sometimes, though, cell structure alone isn’t enough to accurately identify disease — which can lead to misdiagnosis and potentially fatal consequences for a patient. But what if there was a way to not only see the structure of cells, but also determine whether they are abnormal, simply by looking at their intrinsic colour under a microscope? </p>
<p>This was our team’s goal as we developed a new medical diagnostic tool called the NanoMslide. We modified a standard microscope slide to turn it into a powerful tool for breast cancer detection. Our <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03835-2">research</a> is published today in Nature.</p>
<h2>Early detection is key</h2>
<p>It’s <a href="https://www.canceraustralia.gov.au/cancer-types/breast-cancer/statistics">estimated</a> one in eight Australian women will be diagnosed with breast cancer by age 85. As with most cancers, catching the disease early is critical. However, an accurate diagnosis of the earliest stages of breast cancer requires identifying small numbers of diseased cells throughout a tissue, which can be incredibly challenging. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424928/original/file-20211006-13-z19h5s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Human cancerous tissue viewed under miscroscope" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424928/original/file-20211006-13-z19h5s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424928/original/file-20211006-13-z19h5s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424928/original/file-20211006-13-z19h5s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424928/original/file-20211006-13-z19h5s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424928/original/file-20211006-13-z19h5s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424928/original/file-20211006-13-z19h5s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424928/original/file-20211006-13-z19h5s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Human cancerous tissue, viewed through a microscope with the NanoMslide applied.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424930/original/file-20211006-27-7p7upy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424930/original/file-20211006-27-7p7upy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424930/original/file-20211006-27-7p7upy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424930/original/file-20211006-27-7p7upy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424930/original/file-20211006-27-7p7upy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424930/original/file-20211006-27-7p7upy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424930/original/file-20211006-27-7p7upy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424930/original/file-20211006-27-7p7upy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Normal (non-cancerous) human tissue, viewed through a microscope with the NanoMslide applied.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The NanoMslide can manipulate light at the nanoscale, causing cells to “light up” with vivid colour contrast. This makes it easier to recognise potentially cancerous cells (or benign abnormalities) within the tissue. </p>
<p>By providing a way to instantly distinguish which cells could be cancerous, the tool may help to reduce current uncertainty around very early-stage breast cancer detection. With mammogram screening, distinguishing breast abnormalities from early breast cancers upon biopsy is very important, particularly as misdiagnosis rates can be as high as 15%.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/devastated-and-sad-after-36-years-of-research-early-detection-of-ovarian-cancer-doesnt-save-lives-160999">'Devastated and sad' after 36 years of research — early detection of ovarian cancer doesn't save lives</a>
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<h2>Major barriers in development</h2>
<p>Incorporating nanotechnology into medical diagnostics presents a number of challenges. It took us six years of development to ensure NanoMslide would work effectively. In the end it was a combination of cutting-edge nanofabrication, a significant amount of trial-and-error and a bit of good fortune that led to our breakthrough.</p>
<p>For decades, researchers have known cancer cells tend to interact with light in a way that’s different to healthy cells. This is due to a variety of factors, such as the distribution of protein inside the cell and differences in its overall shape. </p>
<p>The main challenge is these differences can be extremely subtle and can present in a variety of ways. Previous approaches to differentiating cancer cells (without using stains or labels) have tended to use specialised microscopy equipment, or complex techniques. </p>
<p>But these approaches are difficult to incorporate into existing pathology workflows and can require specialist training and knowledge. So we took a radically different approach. </p>
<h2>Success with human tissue</h2>
<p>Rather than focusing on developing a better microscope, we focused on improving the microscope slide instead. </p>
<p>By developing a special nanofabricated coating, we modified the surface of an ordinary microscope slide and transformed it into one huge sensor. What’s truly remarkable is the structures of the sensor are just a few hundred nanometres across, yet are repeated with amazing precision across an area of tens of centimetres, or more. </p>
<p>Maintaining this level of precision, which is necessary for reliable fabrication at this scale, has taken advances in nanofabrication techniques that have only become commercially available in the past six years.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424931/original/file-20211006-28-g3l0li.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424931/original/file-20211006-28-g3l0li.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424931/original/file-20211006-28-g3l0li.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424931/original/file-20211006-28-g3l0li.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424931/original/file-20211006-28-g3l0li.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424931/original/file-20211006-28-g3l0li.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424931/original/file-20211006-28-g3l0li.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424931/original/file-20211006-28-g3l0li.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The NanoMslide is a large sensor fitted with cutting-edge nanotechnology capabilities.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The sensor is activated by visible light. And when an object such as a tissue or single cell comes into contact with the sensor’s surface, colours are produced. It is this feature which we’ve been able to optimise to allow pathologists to detect cells that are likely cancerous, just by looking at them.</p>
<p>The dyes which are currently used to stain tissues (to visualise cell shape and architecture) normally present as one or two colours. The NanoMslide renders tissues in beautiful full-colour contrast, making it easier to differentiate multiple types of cell on a single slide. </p>
<p>For our study, we tested the slides with expert breast-cancer pathologists, using both a mouse model and patient tissue. By starting with a well-characterised small-animal model, our team of physicists, cancer researchers and breast pathologists was able to develop the technology further. </p>
<p>We eventually reached the point where we could be confident some of the specific colours visible were indicative of cancerous cells. This led to further pathology assessments with patient tissue, where there is more complexity to contend with in terms of diagnosis. </p>
<p>Yet, even in this more challenging setting, the NanoMslide performed strongly. It also outperformed some commercial biomarkers, which are used as an aid for borderline diagnoses (where cancer is difficult to tell apart from benign abnormalities).</p>
<h2>Like going from black and white to colour television</h2>
<p>Because the technology doesn’t rely on any special function, or specific molecular interactions, it could potentially be applied to other types of cancer — even other types of disease. Another application now being worked on is to examine the results of liquid biopsies, such as cheek swabs, for immediate point-of-care analysis.</p>
<p>In April, we were fortunate to benefit from the opening of a new instrument at the Australian National Fabrication Facility to enable the scaling-up of production. This means NanoMslide can be moved from small-scale to medium-scale manufacture, allowing us to explore a number of different applications, and produce the numbers of slides required for further clinical validation. </p>
<p>The technology could also be hugely beneficial to the growing digital-pathology space, where the vivid colours generated by NanoMslide could help develop next-generation artificial intelligence algorithms to identify signs of disease. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-why-do-people-get-cancer-106069">Curious Kids: Why do people get cancer?</a>
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</em>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169262/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian Abbey receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Belinda Parker receives funding from the DHHS, National Breast Cancer Foundation, Prostate Cancer Foundation Australia, Movember, and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Foundation. </span></em></p>The NanoMslide causes potentially cancerous cells to ‘light up’ with vivid colour contrast. It has already been successful in finding early-stage breast cancer cells in human tissue.Brian Abbey, Professor of Physics, La Trobe UniversityBelinda Parker, Senior Faculty/Laboratory Head, Peter MacCallum Cancer CentreLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1578392021-04-25T14:09:13Z2021-04-25T14:09:13ZTiny nanotechnologies are poised to have a huge impact on agriculture<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396443/original/file-20210422-19-znge1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C0%2C2991%2C1989&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nanotechnology can improve farming efficiency without the need for new infrastructure.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Science is about big ideas that change the world. But sometimes, big impacts come from the tiniest of objects.</p>
<p>Nanotechnology might sound like science fiction, but it represents technologies that have been developed for decades. Nanotechnological approaches have found real-world applications in a wide range of areas, from <a href="https://sustainable-nano.com/2018/11/28/nano-textiles/">composite materials in textiles</a> to <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.3389%2Ffmicb.2017.01014">agriculture</a>.</p>
<p>Agriculture is one of the oldest human inventions, but nanotech provides modern innovations that could dramatically improve the efficiency of our food supply and reduce the environmental impact of its production.</p>
<p>Agriculture comes with costs that farmers are only too familiar with: Crops require substantial amounts of water, land and fuel to produce. Fertilizers and pesticides are needed to achieve the necessary high crop yields, but their use comes with environmental side effects, even as many farmers <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-going-green-is-growing-on-u-s-farmers">explore</a> how <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferhicks/2016/12/31/take-a-look-at-how-technology-makes-smart-and-sustainble-farming/?sh=5b0ecfe73deb">new technologies</a> can reduce their impact. </p>
<h2>The tiniest of objects</h2>
<p>Nanotechnology is the science of objects that are a few nanometres — billionths of a metre — across. At this size, objects acquire unique properties. For example, the surface area of a swarm of nanoscale particles is enormous compared to the same mass collected into single large-scale clump. </p>
<p>Varying the size and other properties of nanoscale objects gives us an unprecedented ability to create precision surfaces with highly customized properties.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OLa8DQkKlyU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">An overview of the science of nanotechnology.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Employing particles</h2>
<p>Traditionally, applying chemicals involves first mixing the active ingredients in water and then spraying the mixture on crops. But the ingredients <a href="https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pi285">do not mix easily</a>, making this an inefficient process that requires large quantities of water.</p>
<p>To improve efficiency and reduce environmental impact, farmers need their fertilizers and pesticides to reach their crops and be absorbed into the plant exactly where they’re needed — into the roots or the leaves, for example. Ideally, they could use just enough of the chemical to enhance the crop’s yield or protect it from attack or infection, which would prevent excess from being wasted. </p>
<p>Custom-made nanoscale systems can use precision chemistry to achieve high-efficiency delivery of fertilizers or pesticides. These active ingredients can be encapsulated <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41578-020-00269-6">in a fashion similar to what happens in targeted drug delivery</a>. The encapsulation technique can also be used to increase the amount dissolved in water, reducing the need for large amounts. </p>
<h2>Current applications</h2>
<p>Starpharma, a pharmaceutical company, got into this game a few years ago, when it set up a division to apply its nanotechnological innovations to the agriculture sector. The company has since <a href="https://m.canadianinsider.com/agrium-announces-acquisition-of-starpharma-s-agrochemical-polymer-technology-business">sold its agrochemical business</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.psigryph.com">Psigryph</a> is another <a href="https://cou.ca/articles/food-security-project-at-university-of-guelph-going-global/">innovative nanotech company in agriculture</a>. Its technology uses biodegradable nanostructures derived from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scienta.2010.03.020">Montmonercy sour cherries extract</a> to deliver bioactive molecules across cell membranes in plants, animals and humans. </p>
<p>My lab has spent years working in nanoscience, and I am proud to see our fundamental understanding of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1139/cjc-2017-0444">manipulating polymer encapsulation at the nanoscale</a> make its way to applications in agriculture. A former student, Darren Anderson, is the CEO of Vive Crop Protection, <a href="https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/vive-crop-protection-places-no-27-on-the-globe-and-mail-s-second-annual-ranking-of-canada-s-top-growing-companies-862806260.html">named one of Canada’s top growing firms</a>: they take chemical and biological pesticides and suspend them in “nanopackets” — which act as incredibly small polymer shuttles — to make them easily reach their target. The ingredients can be controlled and precisely directed when applied on crops.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396663/original/file-20210422-24-8n3pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Row of sugar beet plants" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396663/original/file-20210422-24-8n3pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396663/original/file-20210422-24-8n3pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396663/original/file-20210422-24-8n3pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396663/original/file-20210422-24-8n3pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396663/original/file-20210422-24-8n3pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396663/original/file-20210422-24-8n3pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396663/original/file-20210422-24-8n3pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nanotechnologies can be used to precisely deliver pesticides — Vive Crop Protection’s nanopackets have been applied to sugar beets, potatoes and corn.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Existing infrastructure</h2>
<p>One bonus of these nanotech developments is that they don’t actually require any new equipment whatsoever, which is a tremendous advantage in the financially challenging agricultural industry. Farmers simply mix these products using less water and fuel to make efficiency gains.</p>
<p>Other agricultural uses for nanotech include <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-019-0471-5">animal health products</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-815781-7.22531-6">food packaging materials</a> and <a href="https://www.azonano.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=5647">nanobiosensors for detecting pathogens, toxins and heavy metals in soil</a>. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see the widespread use of these new applications in the near future.</p>
<p>As nanotechnologies take flight, this kind of productivity gain will be critical for farmers and a big deal for the rest of us, as the Earth’s population continues to grow and the effects of climate change become increasingly obvious. Farmers will need to do more with less.</p>
<p>Fortunately, a few billionths of a metre is the very definition of less. With the help of tiny nanotech, global agriculture is on the verge of some very big things.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157839/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>M Cynthia Goh was a co-founder of Vive Crop Protection but is not actively involved in the company. She receives funding from NSERC Canada and the Ontario Centre of Innovation.</span></em></p>Nanotechnology, which approaches materials at the scale of atoms and molecules, has numerous applications for food production. Applying nanotech could revolutionize the agricultural sector.M Cynthia Goh, Professor, Chemistry, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1330402020-09-24T12:21:12Z2020-09-24T12:21:12ZDynamic tattoos promise to warn wearers of health threats<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359680/original/file-20200923-17-1hotilu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6357%2C4902&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In the not-too-distant future, tattoos could become medical diagnostic devices as well as body art.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/cropped-view-of-female-doctor-in-white-coat-with-royalty-free-image/918494936?adppopup=true">LightFieldStudios/iStock via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the sci-fi novel <a href="https://www.nealstephenson.com/the-diamond-age.html">“The Diamond Age”</a> by Neal Stephenson, body art has evolved into “constantly shifting mediatronic tattoos” – in-skin displays powered by nanotech robopigments. In the 25 years since the novel was published, nanotechnology has had time to catch up, and the sci-fi vision of dynamic tattoos is starting to become a reality. </p>
<p>The first examples of color-changing nanotech tattoos have been developed over the past few years, and they’re not just for body art. They have a biomedical purpose. Imagine a tattoo that alerts you to a health problem signaled by a change in your biochemistry, or to radiation exposure that could be dangerous to your health.</p>
<p>You can’t walk into a doctor’s office and get a dynamic tattoo yet, but they are on the way. Early proof-of-concept studies provide convincing evidence that tattoos can be engineered, not only to change color, but to sense and convey biomedical information, including the onset of cancer. </p>
<h2>Signaling biochemical changes</h2>
<p>In 2017, researchers tattooed pigskin, which had been removed from the pig, with <a href="http://doi.org/10.1145/3123021.3123039">molecular biosensors that use color</a> to indicate sodium, glucose or pH levels in the skin’s fluids.</p>
<p>In 2019, a team of researchers expanded on that study to include <a href="http://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201904416">protein sensing and developed smartphone readouts for the tattoos</a>. This year, they also showed that <a href="http://doi.org/10.1016/j.snb.2020.128378">electrolyte levels could be detected with fluorescent tattoo sensors</a>. </p>
<p>In 2018, a team of biologists developed a <a href="http://doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.aap8562">tattoo made of engineered skin cells</a> that darken when they sense an imbalance of calcium caused by certain cancers. They demonstrated the cancer-detecting tattoo in living mice. </p>
<h2>UV radiation sensors</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.emergentnanomaterials.com/">My lab</a> is <a href="https://go.ted.com/carsonbruns">looking at tech tattoos from a different angle</a>. We are interested in sensing external harms, such as ultraviolet radiation. UV exposure in sunlight and tanning beds is the main risk factor for all types of skin cancer. Nonmelanoma skin cancers are the most common malignancies in the U.S., Australia and Europe. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358923/original/file-20200920-20-5f64p7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A four-panel series shows a UV-activated tattoo appearing in a star pattern, erased and then appearing in a dot pattern" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358923/original/file-20200920-20-5f64p7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358923/original/file-20200920-20-5f64p7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=151&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358923/original/file-20200920-20-5f64p7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=151&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358923/original/file-20200920-20-5f64p7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=151&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358923/original/file-20200920-20-5f64p7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=190&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358923/original/file-20200920-20-5f64p7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=190&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358923/original/file-20200920-20-5f64p7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=190&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">UV-activated tattoo ink is invisible until exposed to UV light.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jesse Butterfield/The Laboratory for Emergent Nanomaterials, University of Colorado Boulder</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To help address this problem, we developed <a href="https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.0c05723">an invisible tattoo ink that turns blue only in UV light</a>, alerting you when your skin needs protection. The tattoo ink contains a UV-activated dye inside of a plastic nanocapsule less than a micron in diameter – or thousandth of a millimeter – about the same size as an ordinary tattoo pigment.</p>
<p>The nanocapsule is needed to make the color-changing tattoo particles large enough. If tattoo pigments are too small, the immune system rapidly clears them from the skin and the tattoo disappears. They are implanted using tattoo machines in the same way as regular tattoos, but they last for only several months before they start to degrade from UV exposure and other natural processes and fade, requiring a “booster” tattoo. </p>
<p>I served as the first human test subject for these tattoos. I created “solar freckles” on my forearm – invisible spots that turned blue under UV exposure and reminded me when to wear sunscreen. My lab is also working on invisible UV-protective tattoos that would absorb UV light penetrating through the skin, like a long-lasting sunscreen just below the surface. We’re also working on “thermometer” tattoos using temperature-sensitive inks. Ultimately, we believe tattoo inks could be used to prevent and diagnose disease.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">In this TEDx talk, the author demonstrates the UV-detecting tattoo.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Temporary high-tech tattoos</h2>
<p>Temporary transfer tattoos are also undergoing a high-tech revolution. <a href="http://doi.org/10.1126/science.1206157">Wearable electronic tattoos</a> that can sense electrophysiological signals like heart rate and brain activity or monitor hydration and glucose levels from sweat are under development. They can even be used for <a href="https://duoskin.media.mit.edu/">controlling mobile devices</a>, for example shuffling a music playlist at the touch of a tattoo, or for <a href="http://www.hybrid-ecologies.org/projects/12-skintillates">luminescent body art</a> that lights up the skin. </p>
<p>The advantage of these wearable tattoos is that they can use battery-powered electronics. The disadvantage is that they are much less permanent and comfortable than traditional tattoos. Likewise, electronic devices that go underneath the skin are being developed by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3238552">scientists</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/2207676.2207745">designers</a> and <a href="https://wiki.biohack.me/wiki/index.php?title=Modifications_-_Implantable_Mods">biohackers</a> alike, but they require invasive surgical procedures for implantation. </p>
<p>Tattoos injected into the skin offer the best of both worlds: minimally invasive, yet permanent and comfortable. New <a href="http://doi.org/10.1063/1.5074176">needle-free tattooing methods</a> that fire microscopic ink droplets into the skin are now in development. Once perfected they will make tattooing quicker and less painful. </p>
<h2>Ready for everyday use?</h2>
<p>The color-changing tattoos in development are also going to open the door to a new kind of dynamic body art. Now that tattoo colors can be changed by an electromagnetic signal, you’ll soon be able to “program” your tattoo’s design, or switch it on and off. You can proudly display your neck tattoo at the motorcycle rally and still have clear skin in the courtroom. </p>
<p>As researchers develop dynamic tattoos, they’ll need to study the safety of the high-tech inks. As it is, little is known about the safety of the more than 100 different pigments used in normal tattoo inks. The <a href="https://www.fda.gov/cosmetics/cosmetic-products/tattoos-permanent-makeup-fact-sheet">U.S. Food and Drug Administration</a> has not exercised regulatory authority over tattoo pigments, citing other competing public health priorities and a lack of evidence of safety problems with the pigments. So U.S. manufacturers can put whatever they want in tattoo inks and sell them without FDA approval. </p>
<p>So far, there is <a href="http://doi.org/10.1586/edm.09.28">no evidence that tattoos cause cancer</a>, and <a href="http://doi.org/10.1111/phpp.12181">one study even found that black tattoos protect against UV-induced skin cancer</a>. Still, many tattoo inks <a href="http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0536.2007.01301.x">contain or degrade into substances that are known to be hazardous</a>, and health complications including infection, allergy and granuloma have been <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clindermatol.2007.05.012">found in about 2% of tattoos</a>. More research is needed to understand the long-term effects of nano- and microimplants in the skin in general. </p>
<p>A wave of high-tech tattoos is slowly upwelling, and it will probably keep rising for the foreseeable future. When it arrives, you can decide to surf or watch from the beach. If you do climb on board, you’ll be able to check your body temperature or UV exposure by simply glancing at one of your tattoos.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/133040/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carson J. Bruns does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Researchers are developing tattoo inks that do more than make pretty colors. Some can sense chemicals, temperature and UV radiation, setting the stage for tattoos that diagnose health problems.Carson J. Bruns, Assistant Professor, University of Colorado BoulderLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1451402020-09-07T13:13:34Z2020-09-07T13:13:34ZCoronavirus nanoscience: the tiny technologies tackling a global pandemic<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356743/original/file-20200907-16-7xd8as.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/antibodies-attacking-sarscov2-virus-conceptual-3d-1700617951">Kateryna Kon/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The world-altering coronavirus behind the COVID-19 pandemic is thought to be just <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2090123220300540">60 nanometres to 120 nanometres</a> in size. This is so mind bogglingly small that you could fit more than 400 of these virus particles into the width of a single hair on your head. In fact, coronaviruses are so small that <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-techniques-were-using-to-uncover-the-secrets-of-viruses-144363">we can’t see them</a> with normal microscopes and require much fancier electron microscopes to study them. How can we battle a foe so minuscule that we cannot see it?</p>
<p>One solution is to fight tiny with tiny. <a href="https://www.nano.gov/nanotech-101/what/definition">Nanotechnology</a> relates to any technology that is or contains components that are between 1nm and 100nm in size. Nanomedicine that takes advantage of such tiny technology is used in everything from plasters that contain anti-bacterial nanoparticles of silver to <a href="https://www.eurekaselect.com/132451/article">complex diagnostic machines</a>. </p>
<p>Nanotechnology also has an impressive record against viruses and has been used since the <a href="https://www.longdom.org/open-access/history-and-possible-uses-of-nanomedicine-based-on-nanoparticles-and-nanotechnological-progress-2157-7439-1000336.pdf">late 1880s</a> to separate and identify them. More recently, nanomedicine has been used to develop treatments for <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5507392/">flu, Zika and HIV</a>. And now it’s joining the fight against the COVID-19 virus, SARS-CoV-2.</p>
<h2>Diagnosis</h2>
<p>If you’re suspected of having COVID, swabs from your throat or nose will be taken and tested by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (<a href="https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/how-is-the-covid-19-virus-detected-using-real-time-rt-pcr">RT-PCR</a>). This method checks if genetic material from the coronavirus is present in the sample. </p>
<p>Despite being highly accurate, the test can take <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/testing-and-tracing/what-your-test-result-means/">up to three days</a> to produce results, requires high-tech equipment only <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14787210.2020.1776115">accessible in a lab</a>, and can only tell if you have an active infection when the test is taken. But antibody tests, which check for the presence of <a href="https://www.ouh.nhs.uk/patient-guide/leaflets/files/66122Pantibody.pd">coronavirus antibodies</a> in your blood, can produce results immediately, wherever you’re tested. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.livescience.com/antibodies.html">Antibodies</a> are formed when your body fights back against a virus. They are tiny proteins that search for and destroy invaders by hunting for the chemical markers of germs, called antigens. This means antibody tests can not only tell if you have coronavirus but if you have previously had it. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7241732/">Antibody tests use</a> nanoparticles of materials such as gold to capture any antibodies from a blood sample. These then slowly travel along a small piece of paper and stick to an antigen test line that only the coronavirus antibody will bond to. This makes the line visible and indicates that antibodies are present in the sample. These tests are more than <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7295501/">95% accurate</a> and can give results <a href="https://www.briancolemd.com/wp-content/themes/ypo-theme/pdf/fast-portable-tests-come-online-to-curb-coronavirus-pandemic.pdf">within 15 minutes</a>. </p>
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<h2>Vaccines and treatment</h2>
<p>A major turning point in the battle against coronavirus will be the development of a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51665497">successful vaccine</a>. Vaccines often contain an inactive form of a virus that acts as an antigen to train your immune system and enable it develop antibodies. That way, when it meets the real virus, your immune system is ready and able to resist infection. </p>
<p>But there are <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6180194/">some limitations</a> in that typical vaccine material can prematurely break down in the bloodstream and does not always reach the target location, reducing the efficiency of a vaccine. One solution is to enclose the vaccine material inside a nanoshell by a process called <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4464443/">encapsulation</a>. </p>
<p>These shells are made from fats called lipids and can be as thin as <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S154996341200754X?casa_token=MLdBN28OW80AAAAA:pUBR_sctSnKf52ryvEY_gTDb22AdCHHzc71DVcpFADw7OYEogopmjVs5kx-sIoytavAitMWxAA">5nm in diameter</a>, which is 50,000 times thinner than an egg shell. The nanoshells protect the inner vaccine from breaking down and can also <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6180194/">be decorated</a> with molecules that target specific cells to make them more effective at delivering their cargo. </p>
<p>This can improve the immune <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7325519/#ref233">response of elderly people</a> to the vaccine. And critically, people typically need lower doses of these encapsulated vaccines to develop immunity, meaning you can more quickly produce enough to vaccinate an <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19059004/">entire population</a>. </p>
<p>Encapsulation can also improve viral treatments. A major contribution to the deaths of virus patients in intensive care is “acute respiratory distress syndrome”, which occurs when the immune system produces an <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsnano.0c03697">excessive response</a>. Encapsulated vaccines can target specific areas of the body to deliver immunosuppressive drugs directly to targeted organs and helping regulate our immune system response.</p>
<h2>Transmission reduction</h2>
<p>It’s hard to exaggerate the importance of wearing face masks and washing your hands to reducing the spread of COVID-19. But typical face coverings can have trouble stopping the most penetrating particles of respiratory droplets, and many can only be used once. </p>
<p>New fabrics made from nanofibres 100nm thick and coated in titanium oxide can catch droplets smaller than 1,000nm and so they can be destroyed by <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11051-009-9820-x">ultraviolet (UV) radiation</a> from sunlight. <a href="https://news.kaist.ac.kr/newsen/html/news/?mode=V&mng_no=6530&skey=&sval=&list_s_date=&list_e_date=&GotoPage=1">Masks</a>, gloves and other personal protective equipment (PPE) made from such fabrics <a href="https://phys.org/news/2020-04-mask-material-virus-size-nanoparticles.html">can also be</a> washed and reused, and are more breathable.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Close-up of intricately woven fibres." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356749/original/file-20200907-18-1q0r6kr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356749/original/file-20200907-18-1q0r6kr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356749/original/file-20200907-18-1q0r6kr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356749/original/file-20200907-18-1q0r6kr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356749/original/file-20200907-18-1q0r6kr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356749/original/file-20200907-18-1q0r6kr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356749/original/file-20200907-18-1q0r6kr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">New fabrics made from coated nanofibres could produce better PPE.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/blue-3d-texturised-technological-seamless-breathing-1074160988">AnnaVel/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Another important nanomaterial is
<a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsnano.0c03697">graphene</a>, which is formed from a single honeycomb layer of carbon atoms and is <a href="https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2016/02/08/graphene-is-strong-but-is-it-tough/">200 times stronger</a> than steel but lighter than paper. Fabrics laced with graphene can capture viruses and <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28266670/">block them</a> from passing through. PPE containing graphene could be more <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/admi.201900622">puncture, flame, UV and microbe resistant</a> while also being light weight. </p>
<p>Graphene isn’t reserved for fabrics either. Nanoparticles could be placed on surfaces <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266608652030014X?via%253Dihub">in public places</a> that might be particularly likely to facilitate transmission of the virus.</p>
<p>These technologies are just some of the ways nanoscience is contributing to the battle against COVID-19. While there is no one answer to a global pandemic, these tiny technologies certainly have the potential to be an important part of the solution.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145140/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Josh Davies-Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Nanotechnology has an impressive record against viruses.Josh Davies-Jones, PhD Candidate in Chemistry, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.