September 23, 2008: Nanobiotix, an emerging nanomedicine company focused on cancer therapy, announced that the European Patent Office (EPO) has issued Patent No. 1744789 to the company, related to its “novel activable particles that can be used in the health sector.”

More specifically, the patent protects “composite particles that can generate free radicals or heat when excited by X-rays, and to the uses thereof in health, particularly human. The inventive particles comprise an inorganic-based, and optionally organic-based, nucleus and can be activated in vivo, in order to label or alter cells, tissues or organs. (The patent protection) also relates to methods for the production of said particles, and to pharmaceutical or diagnostic compositions containing same.”

“We are extremely pleased that our platform technology, nanoXray, is now patent-protected throughout the European Union. We are hopeful that we will soon receive similar patent protection in the United States as well,” said Laurent Levy, president and CEO of Nanobiotix and co-president of the French Technology Platform on Nanomedicine (FTPN). “NanoXray is designed to allow the precise destruction of cancer cells via the controlled application of an outside-the-body energy source-a standard X-ray. Protecting this intellectual property is key to long-term commercial success.”

“The nanoXray platform allows for the controlled generation of physical reactions in targeted cells when triggered by the application of an external energy source – a standard X-ray. This may have significant ramifications for cancer therapy in the not-too-distant future,” added Paras N. Prasad, co-founder of Nanobiotix and executive director of the Institute for Lasers, Photonics and Biophotonics at SUNY (Buffalo).

September 22, 2008: A consortium of UK universities is developing unique nanostructures that respond to stimuli, such as pH, heat, and light will pave the way for safer, greener and more efficient chemical reactors.

The work involves designing and producing molecular metal oxides and polymers as building blocks, and engineering those blocks to form nanoscale structures, which are responsive to internal and/or external stimuli. The nanostructures, which can be dispersed in fluid, or coated on the reactor walls, can regulate reactions, momentum, and heat and mass transfer inside chemical reactors. As conditions inside the reactor change, the nanostructured particles respond by changing their size, shape, or structure. These changes could in turn alter transport properties such as thermal conductivity and viscosity, and catalyst activity — and hence regulate the reactions.

Chemical factory. (Source: U. of Leeds)

Professor Yulong Ding at the U. of Leeds’ Institute of Particle Science and Engineering, calls the research program “an important step towards producing the next generation of smart ‘small footprint,’ greener reactors. The responsive reaction systems we are investigating could make the measurement systems currently used in reactors redundant.”

The technique is being developed through a collaborative research program initiated by Ding and Alexei Lapkin of the U. of Bath, and Lee Cronin at the U. of Glasgow.

Professor Ding also believes that these systems also have the potential to eliminate the risk of runaway, where a chemical reaction goes out of control.

September 19, 2008:The National Science Foundation and the Environmental Protection Agency have awarded $14.4 million to create the Center for Environmental Implications of NanoTechnology (CEINT) at Duke University to explore the potential ecological hazards of nanoparticles.

The CEINT research team plans to define the relationship between a vast array of nanomaterials — from natural to manmade to incidental, byproduct nanoparticles — and their potential environmental exposure, biological effects, and ecological consequences. Nanomaterials that are already in commercial use as well as several present in nature will be among the first materials studied.

“A distinctive element of the CEINT will be the synthesis of information about nanoparticles into a rigorous risk assessment framework, the results of which will be transferred to policy-makers and society at large,” said CEINT director Mark Wiesner at Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering, who specializes in nanoparticle movement and transformation in the environment.

CEINT’s core research team brings together internationally recognized leaders in environmental toxicology and ecosystem biology; nanomaterial transport, transformation, and fate in the environment; biogeochemistry of nanomaterials and incidental airborne particulates; nanomaterial chemistry and fabrication; and environmental risk assessment, modeling, and decision sciences.

CEINT deputy director Gregory V. Lowry from Carnegie Mellon University and co-principal investigator Kimberly Jones from Howard University each specialize in nanoparticle movement and transformations in the environment. Mike Hochella, a nanogeochemist from Virginia Tech, and Rich Di Giulio, an ecotoxicologist from Duke are also co-principal investigators. Rounding out the team are CEINT collaborators Gordon Brown, a geochemist from Stanford University and Paul Bertsch, a soil scientist from the University of Kentucky.

One activity for the research team over the coming year is to develop 32 tightly controlled and highly instrumented ecosystems in the Duke Forest in Durham, N.C. Known as mesocosms, these living laboratories provide areas where researchers can add nanoparticles and then study the resulting interactions and effects on plants, fish, bacteria and other elements.

“This mesocosm facility will be the nano-environment equivalent of the space station — a unique resource with tremendous potential that will be tapped by researchers throughout the center and beyond,” said Wiesner.

An aggregate of a nanomaterial called nC60 being dissolved by acetate. (Credit: Peter Vikesland, Virginia Tech)

The teams’ plan to study manufactured, naturally occurring, and incidental nanoparticles recognizes that if data on nanoparticle risk are to be meaningfully interpreted, it is critical to quantify the relative exposures presented by these various sources of nanomaterials. Given that the potential diversity of nanomaterials is staggering, with countless variations in size, shape, surface chemistry, chemical composition, coatings and composites, the team’s task is daunting, Wiesner said.

“Such research will address the influence of nanomaterials on processes ranging in scale from the subcellular to whole ecosystems,” Wiesner continued. “We hope to explain factors controlling nanomaterial exposure, persistence, bioavailability, toxicity, metabolism, transfer through the food chain, and impacts on population evolution and critical ecosystem functions.”

CEINT will also collaborate with the newly formedInternational Alliance for NanoEHS Harmonization, whose charter is to establish protocols for reproducible toxicological testing of nanomaterials in both cultured cells and animals. Universal standards for nanomaterials research and risk assessment will enable researchers to compare and contrast work conducted at laboratories around the world.

According to Lowry, another significant goal of the center is to develop the human capital needed for the US. to be competitive in the global nanotechnology marketplace. “CEINT will prepare undergraduate and graduate students for careers in technology, and will use nanotechnology as a platform to promote science, technology, engineering and math to primary and secondary school students,” he said.

The National Science Foundation and the Environmental Protection Agency also are funding a sister center based at the University of California system called UC-CEIN.

September 17, 2008:By discovering the physical mechanism behind the rapid transport of water in carbon nanotubes, scientists at the U. of Illinois have moved a step closer to ultra-efficient, next-generation nanofluidic devices for drug delivery, water purification, and nano-manufacturing.

“Extraordinarily fast transport of water in carbon nanotubes has generally been attributed to the smoothness of the nanotube walls and their hydrophobic, or water-hating surfaces,” said Narayana R. Aluru, a Willett Faculty Scholar and a professor of mechanical science and engineering at the university. “We can now show that the fast transport can be enhanced by orienting water molecules in a nanotube. Orientation can give rise to a coupling between the water molecules’ rotational and translational motions, resulting in a helical, screw-type motion through the nanotube.”

In addition to explaining recent experimental results obtained by other groups, the researchers’ findings also describe a physical mechanism that could be used to pump water through nanotube membranes in next-generation nanofluidic devices.

Aluru and graduate student Sony Joseph reported their findings in the journal Physical Review Letters.

September 16, 2008: El-Mul Technologies’ E-Beam On-a-Chip platform, which demands precision placement and step repeatability of vertically-aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs), will be produced using Aixtron’s Black Magic system, a fully automatic deposition system capable of thermal and plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) of CNTs.

El-Mul says achieving pilot production for its E-Beam On-a-Chip CNT-based electron source device represents a paradigm shift for the industrial manufacture of electron sources. “Our technological achievement requires a highly-controlled growth process of carbon nanotubes,” said Sagi Daren, El-Mul’s nano-electron source project manager, in a statement. “The Black Magic systems’ rapid heater ensures that the metal catalyst we apply for growth stays precisely at the centre of the emitter structure, and plasma process deposits straight, vertical nanotubes. Our resulting fine-beam product achieves a divergence of ±5 degrees at 50nA/120eV beam current and is perfectly on-axis.”

Daren adds: “The reproducibility, uniformity and quick turnaround of Aixtron’s Black Magic system have contributed greatly to our success in moving our E-Beam-On-a-Chip toward commercial production. Thanks to these attributes, we are today approaching industrial yields, and will soon compete with conventional hand-made electron sources.”

Aixtron’s Black Magic System.

E-Beam On-a-Chip utilizes the unique electrical and mechanical properties of CNTs, which make excellent cold field emission electron sources. El-Mul’s platform is a low-energy electron generator of well-characterized fine beams as well as high-current broad beams. It is aimed at bringing new capabilities to electron microscopy, gas ionization and X-ray tools, flat-panel displays, sub-40nm semiconductor manufacturing nodes, and other applications.

Traditionally, electron sources have been made individually and assembled entirely by hand. El-Mul’s E-Beam On-a-Chip uses microelectronic-compatible processing to produce batched electron sources on semiconductor wafers. Benefits of the platform include parallel device production, scalability and small size, as well as micro precision in fabrication to eliminates alignment issues.