Nanoparticles (white disks) can be used to deliver treatment to cells (blue).
Brenda Melendez and Rita Serda/National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health
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.
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.
We interact with nanoparticles in multiple ways every day. The nanoparticles in this illustration are delivering drugs to cells.
(Shutterstock)
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.
The limiting factor in cancer radiotherapy is that doses high enough to try to cure tumours also damage surrounding normal tissues.
(Shutterstock)
Higher doses of radiotherapy for cancer treatment destroy more healthy tissue as well as more tumour cells. Gold nanoparticles sensitize tumours to radiation, making treatment more effective.
Red quantum dots glow inside a rat brain cell.
Nanoscale Advances, 2019, 1, 3424 - 3442
These tiny nanoparticles might provide a new way to see what’s happening in the brain and even deliver treatments to specific cells – if researchers figure out how to use them safely and effectively.
Nanoparticles occur naturally in some foods, and others have them added.
from www.shutterstock.com
Nanoparticles are extremely tiny particles, with external dimensions smaller than 100 nanometres (0.0001 of a millimetre). Here’s what we know about nanotechnology in food.
These single-celled organisms naturally respond to the Earth’s weak magnetic field. Scientists are untangling how it all works, looking to future biomedical and other engineering applications.
Nanomedicine could scupper the need for TB patients to take multiple daily tablets with toxic side effects.
Daniel Irungu/EPA
There are countless nanoscopic architectures in nature, creating iridescence, sticky feet, magnetic navigation – and more.
Section of a tumor observed with an optical microscope. The two white forms with brown borders are blood vessels. Inside, gold nanoparticles accumulate against their walls.
Mariana Varna-Pannerec (ESPCI)
Gold can be used to make jewelry, but also to fight cancer. Several clinical trials are currently underway in the United States where patients are being treated with gold nanoparticles.
The colour of gold nanoparticles in suspension varies according to the size of the nanoparticles.
Valeg96
Less-toxic hair dye would be a great invention. But discounting the risks that come with nanoparticles could undermine other efforts to protect human health and environmental from their effects.
Delivering genetic material is a key challenge in gene therapy.
Invitation image created by Kstudio
One big challenge for gene therapies is delivering DNA or RNA safely to cells inside patients’ bodies. New nanoparticles could be an improvement over the current standard – repurposed viruses.
New ways to prepare and test nanoengineered particles are helping us understand how they can target diseases.
ACS
The more we learn about bio-nano science, the easier it will be to design nanoparticles that behave like we want them to.
The health scare surrounding nanoparticles might lead to people abandoning formula unnecessarily, with serious impacts on babies’ health.
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A widely publicised study that cast doubt on the safety of milk formula was misleading, based on dubiously reported studies and may have serious consequences.
Coating paper with an inexpensive thin film can allow users to print and erase a physical page as many as 80 times. That reduces both the cost and the environmental effects of paper use.
Professor & Chair in Air Quality and Health; Founding Director, Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE), Co-Director, Institute for Sustainability, University of Surrey, University of Surrey