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August 18, 2009: Researchers at Johns Hopkins U. have developed a test for early-warning cancer signs using quantum dots, with potentially “huge clinical implications.”

The system, which detects both the presence and quantity of certain DNA markers in the sputum of lung cancer patients, and was found to be more sensitive and faster than conventional methods. More real-world testing is needed, but “if we continue to see exciting progress, this testing method could easily be in wide use within the next five years,” according to study co-author Stephen B. Baylin, deputy director of the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center.

The specific target of the test is DNA methylation which occurs when methyl attaches to cytosine, a DNA building block. When this happens at specific gene locations it can stop the release of tumor-suppressing proteins; cancer cells then more easily form and multiply. Finding this gene DNA methylation, are thus seen as having a higher risk of developing cancer. It’s also seen as a warning sign of cancer-precursor genetic mutations.

The researchers’ detection method involves singling out the DNA strands with methyl attachments through “bisulfite conversion,” whereby all non-methyl segments are converted into another nucleotide. Copies of the remaining DNA strands are made, two molecules (a biotin protein and a fluorescent dye) are attached at either end, and the strands are mixed with quantum dots that are coated with a biotin-attractive chemical. Up to 60 DNA strands are attracted to a single quantum dot. A UV light or blue laser activates the dots, which pass the energy to the fluorescent molecules on the DNA strands which then light up and are identifiable via a spectrophotometer, which both identifies and can count the DNAN methylation.


In this illustration by Yi Zhang, quantum dots are depicted as gold spheres that attract DNA strands linked to cancer risks. When the quantum dots are exposed to certain types of light, they transfer the energy to fluorescent molecules, shown as pink globes, that emit a glow. This enables researchers to detect and count the DNA strands linked to cancer. (Source: Johns Hopkins)

Results, described in the paper published in the August issue of the journal Genome Research:

Key features of MS-qFRET include its low intrinsic background noise, high resolution, and high sensitivity. This approach detects as little as 15 pg of methylated DNA in the presence of a 10,000-fold excess of unmethylated alleles, enables reduced use of PCR (as low as eight cycles), and allows for multiplexed analyses.

Implications for the procedure include the ability to more frequently screen for cancer, replacing “traditionally more invasive” methods with a simple blood test, noted one of the study’s lead authors, doctoral student Vasudev J. Bailey. They could also help determine whether a cancer treatment is working, paving the way toward “personalized chemotherapy,” he added. Moreover, since different cancer types possess different genetic markers (lung cancer markers differ from leukemia, for example), the test should identify which cancer a patient is at risk of developing, the researchers note.

Johns Hopkins has applied for international patent protection covering the testing technique, and staff are “in talks” with an unnamed biotechnology company to license the application. The work is supported by grants from the National Cancer Institute, the National Science Foundation, the Hodson Foundation, and the Flight Attendant Medical Research Institute.

August 11, 2009: Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have created a platform that uses lipid-coated nanowires to build prototype bionanoelectronic devices. The work shows promise for enhancing biosensing and diagnostics tools, neural prosthetics (e.g., cochlear implants), and even future computers.

Earlier research focused on integrating biological systems with microelectronics but came up short of achieving true seamless material-level integration. The LLNL team used lipid membranes, ubiquitous in biological cells, which “form a stable, self-healing, and virtually impenetrable barrier to ions and small molecules,” the researchers note in a statement. They can also house vast numbers of protein “machines” that perform various functions from recognition, transport, and signal transduction.

In their work, published online Aug. 10 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team led by Aleksandr Noy incorporated lipid bilayer membranes into silicon nanowire transistors by covering the nanowire with a continuous lipid bilayer shell, which acted as a barrier. With the “shielded wire,” membrane pores were “the only pathway for the ions to reach the nanowire,” Noy said, enabling the nanowire device “to monitor specific transport and also to control the membrane protein.” The membrane pore could be opened and closed by changing the gate voltage of the device.


An artist’s representation of a nanobioelectronic device incorporating alamethycin biological pore. In the core of the device is a silicon nanowire (grey), covered with a lipid bilayer (blue). The bilayer incorporates bundles of alamethicin molecules (purple) that form pore channels in the membrane. Transport of protons though these pore channels changes the current through the nanowire. (Image by Scott Dougherty, LLNL)

From the abstract:

We present a versatile hybrid platform for such integration that uses shielded nanowires (NWs) that are coated with a continuous lipid bilayer. We show that when shielded silicon NW transistors incorporate transmembrane peptide pores gramicidin A and alamethicin in the lipid bilayer they can achieve ionic to electronic signal transduction by using voltage-gated or chemically gated ion transport through the membrane pores.

The work is in the early stages, the researchers note, but Noy points out that with “the creation of even smaller nanomaterials that are comparable to the size of biological molecules, we can integrate the systems at an even more localized level.”

by Bob Haavind, editor-at-large, Photovoltaic World

August 11, 2009 – The robust 40% CAGR for the global photovoltaic (PV) market is likely to slow down in 2009, and may even decline. This is partly due to the worldwide recession that has slowed planned projects and forced down prices, but an even bigger factor is that Spain’s huge boom of 2008 won’t be repeated this year. The 2.5GW of PV installations in Spain last year were close to half of the world’s total of 5.5GW, according to the European PV Industry Association (EPIA), but that surge was somewhat of a fluke.

While Spain did want to spur PV last year, the feed-in tariffs offered were miscalculated by officials, so that new installations could be paid off in as little as a year. This led to explosive growth which won’t be repeated in 2009 because Spain capped installations it will support at 0.5GW. That means that somehow the world market would have to make up that 2GW shortfall to match last year, which is unlikely industry observers believe.

Italy is a wild card in this year’s market, however. GSE, the state-run power agency, wants to jump-start its PV industry, so it is offering feed-in tariffs similar to Spain’s. The agency’s goal is to more than double the number of installations this year, reaching a total of 900MW to 1GW. GSE expects to support some 70,000 new projects, mostly roof-mounted PV panels in northern Italy. GSE is projecting its market to grow to 1500GW in 2010, achieving a CAGR of 135% from 2006 to 2010, according to Johan Trip of Solarplaza. This would move Italy up to #2 in Europe behind only Germany. The German market is somewhat similar to Italy in that 40% of its installed PV is for systems <10kW. That is in sharp contrast to Spain, where 91% of solar power hooked to the grid were >1MW ground-based utility installations.

The surge in Spain enabled the global PV market to reach $37.1B in 2008, more than double the 2007 total of $17.2B, according to EPIA figures. The 5.5GW installed last year brought the cumulative global total of PV capacity to 15GW. Spain led the world with 2.5GW, followed by Germany with 1.5GW. The top five also including the US (324MW), South Korea (247MW), and Italy (260MW), the EPIA reports. By 2013, with appropriate policies and feed-in tariffs, total installed PV capacity could reach 22GW, according to the association’s projections.

A European Renewable Energy Directive requires that 20% of the total energy output in Europe in 2020 comes from renewable sources. Each member state of the Common Market will have to specify how it intends to reach the 20% goal in its own country.

In Italy, with attractive feed-in tariffs along with module costs about half what they were last year, according to Solarplaza, a market boom is developing with more than 600 companies participating. Developers in southern Italy are aiming for more large-scale power plants rather than the smaller rooftop panels sprouting all over northern Italy. One player is Premier Power Renewable Energy, El Dorado Hills, CA, which in May reported it acquired privately held Arco Energy, an Italian solar project developer. Initially the partners say they will concentrate on large-scale green-field solar farms, but later they intend to move into the rooftop and then building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) installations all over Italy. By 2011, some believe, grid electricity may become so costly that incentives will not be needed to make solar installations profitable. Premier indicates that it believes that by 2016 Italy may reach 3GW of installed capacity.

But reaching this year’s target of 900MW will be a stretch, believe some in the industry, because of the lack of infrastructure. More likely would be about 500MW, but that still would double last year’s installations.

While the bulk of PV installations use crystalline silicon modules, thin film is about 10% of the market. This could grow to 30% by 2013, according to Andy London, global manager of Heraeus’ photovoltaic business unit in West Conshohocken, PA — but with a caveat. Commercial thin-film installations use cadmium telluride (CdTe) cells, although a bright future is also expected for copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) cells because of the better match of their response to the solar spectrum. There could be a hitch, however, London pointed out — due to the toxicity of cadmium, it may be banned in the future in the European Community.

While the global PV market may stall this year, analysts expect it to resume its strong growth in 2010 and beyond as prices rise for fossil fuels and growing world economies compete for a limited supply.

This article originally appeared in Photovoltaics World.

August 7, 2009: Researchers at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, have developed a method for printing a toxin-detecting biosensor on paper using bioactive inks.

The process, developed by researchers led by McMaster’s John Brennan and the Sentinel Bioactive Paper Network, a consortium of Canadian universities and industry, involves formulating an ink similar to that in computer print cartridges but with additives to make the ink biocompatible. First an ink of biocompatible silica nanoparticles and then a second ink with an enzyme are deposited on paper (they used a FujiFilm Dimatix materials printer), together forming a thin film. When exposed to a toxin, molecules in the ink change color depending on the concentration — not unlike how a home pregnancy kit works. They found they could detect two test neurotoxins both visually (naked eye) and with a digital camera/software; the sensors retained full activity after two months in storage at 4°C.

The process is said to be simple and cost-effective, two keys to achieving bioactive paper for fast, portable, disposable, and inexpensive sensor strips, used for monitoring environmental and food-based toxins and in remote underdeveloped regions needing simple biological tests for first-stage disease detection. Other applications for bioactive paper include clinical applications in neuroscience, drug assessment, and pharmaceutical development.

The research, published in the July 1 issue of Analytical Chemistry, “represents the first report published on the utilization of piezoelectric inkjet printing in the development of sol-gel-based paper biosensors,” according to Brennan, cited in a statement by FujiFilm Dimatix. “Inkjet printing for this application because the system is simple, rapid, scalable, compatible with paper substrates and amenable to pattern formation.”

(August 4, 2009) MUNICH, Germany and Westford, MA &#151 Zuken completed a three-year European research project focused on improving the development process and modeling of new chip sets and dedicated high-density interconnect (HDI) that will bring major improvements to the company’s high-speed design software, CR-5000 Lightning for Power Integrity analysis.

The project involved collaboration with IC vendors and automotive electronic suppliers, resulting in advancements in modeling capabilities for automotive electronic relevant circuits and beyond. The first stage of enhancements directly resulting from this project will be integrated into version 12 of CR-5000 Lightning scheduled for launch in Q’03 2009.

The close research cooperation with IC companies and development groups of complex motor control units in the MEDEA+ project has enabled Zuken to schedule significant enhancements into the CR-5000 Lightning solution, particularly for supporting Power Integrity analysis. In subsequent versions of the software, dedicated IC models delivered by IC vendors like Infineon that describe the chip power-ground behavior will be supported in the analysis phase.

The signal integrity analysis capabilities of CR-5000 Lightning will also be improved as a result of this project, providing functionality that allows modeling of package parasitic effects, e.g., when analyzing noise effects on high-speed PCBs.

Zuken’s EMC Technology Centre in Germany was brought onboard for the MEDEA+ Parasitic Extraction and Optimization for Efficient Microelectronic System Design and Application Research (PARACHUTE) Project to provide the design level modeling and simulation. As the primary EDA partner providing new EMC modeling concepts within the MEDEA+ PARACHUTE research project, Zuken has also positively contributed to the industry by assisting in the development of a new approach to electronic design in Europe relating to physical noise from nanometer circuits to IC package and PCB/system-level design.

Ralf Br&#252ning, from Zuken Technology Centre in Paderborn, Germany, who headed up this activity for Zuken and led the subproject, “Add-On Tool Environment and Design Flow”, comments, “By working with companies such as Airbus, Astrium, Bosch, Continental, Infineon, Philips and ST-Microelectronics, along with various universities and research labs, we have been able to gain firsthand knowledge of the specific issues the market is facing when using very dense high-speed designs in automotive or aerospace control units. This has given us important experience enabling Zuken to incorporate industry-relevant improvements into future software releases.”

For more information about CR-5000 Lightning, visit www.zuken.com/lightningemc.

MEDEA, the industry-initiated pan-European program for advanced co-operative research and development in microelectronics. By working in partnership with companies such as Airbus, Alcatel, Bosch, Infineon, Continental, Philips and ST-Microelectronics, the project has begun forming the basis of methods of modelling and simulation at the system design level.

August 3, 2009: Carbon nanotube maker SouthWest Nanotechnologies (SWeNT) and nanomaterials consultancy Chasm Technologies have established an application development center in the Boston area to help demonstrate for customers the feasibility of carbon nanotube coatings and printing applications, and stimulate demand for SWeNT’s CNT materials.

Single-wall and small diameter multi-wall carbon nanotubes exhibit extraordinary properties when incorporated into coating formulations, with promise seen in applications such as displays, touchscreens, sensors, LED lighting, and solar photovoltaic modules.

The center will utilize a variety of thin-film coating and patterning technologies, including rod coating, slot die coating, spray coating, ink jet printing, flexographic printing, screen printing and imprint lithography. Trials can be done at bench- (sheets) or pilot-scale (continuous lengths up to 12in. wide) accommodating a wide range of substrates. Customized coating formulations can be prepared on-site. The center also includes a wide range of test equipment to characterize coated product structures.

“Many commercial opportunities for [our] nanotubes were being held back because it was too difficult for our customers to integrate carbon nanotubes into industrial coating and printing processes,” according to Dave Arthur, SWeNT CEO and Chasm co-founder, in a statement. “The technical team at Chasm has in-depth experience developing coating and printing methods for various nanoparticles, and a superb laboratory for process development. SWeNT’s customers will be encouraged to visit the center to consult directly with the technical staff to make it much easier for them to fabricate and test prototypes utilizing carbon nanotube coatings.”

“Consistent material properties are essential to developing robust processing methods. SWeNT has manufacturing methods that are easily scalable to support the many large volume opportunities for these materials,” added Chasm co-founder Bob Praino.

July 23, 2009: Nanosys Inc. and UK-based Nanoco Technologies are settling a lawsuit brought by the US firm alleging infringement of five patents involving quantum dot technology. The resolution will result in Nanoco terminating its US business for its core-shell quantum dots, sold through Sigma-Aldrich under the name “Lumidots,” though the company admits neither the patents’ validity nor any infringement thereof. Additional settlement terms were not disclosed.

Nanosys says its quantum dot technology is currently being used in process-ready components for solid state lighting, solar power and electronic display systems, and that the firm has exclusive rights to >700 patents and applications covering “fundamental aspects of” its materials technology, including the quantum dots.

July 23, 2009 – At Intersolar North America last week (July 14-16) optimism ruled, despite a continuing global recession, slow recovery of lending, soft demand, and crashing prices. Examples of hope could be found everywhere at the show. Ad hoc conversations held reports of strong growth, albeit several months in the future, with most believing that the US stimulus would eventually stimulate something.

The photovoltaic industry and all of its various participants are nothing if not resilient. On the supply side of the market (manufacturers of technology), losing money was a reality for over thirty years. On the demand side of the market (installers, system integrators, et al), a hyper competitive marketplace, a long sales cycle, and expensive system components often led to razor-thin margins. Early participants in the photovoltaic industry felt like — and were — pioneers in an energy market where solar was not considered competition for conventional energy.

During the early years of the industry when overall volume was much lower, remote (off-grid) applications provided ballast to the volatility of the grid-connected application. Grid-connected application requires incentives or demonstration programs to continue growing, whereas remote applications are already economically viable. Though affordability and workable business models continue to constrain growth, the remote applications are already at grid-parity. In fact, for the remote applications, grid-parity is a non-issue.

The point is that the photovoltaic industry knows how to suffer; it has had a lot of experience over time. Technology sales are a push — not a pull — for the grid-connected application. Except for a four-year period from 2004 through 2008, manufacturer margins have been painfully thin, and industry volume relies on the unreliable grid-connected application. In the early years a dip in grid-connected demand was hardly noticeable; at 94% of total industry sales, however, it is more of a deep dive. The table below provides a not-so-brief history of industry volatility along with a forecast for 2009 for three scenarios, recession, conservative and accelerated.


PV industry growth in MWs, 1974-2009.

So…what now?

With a slowdown in sales from 17% to 32% all but assured, an atmosphere of doom might be expected, but at Intersolar the view was solidly on the positive future. Today might be gloomy and instant gratification always delayed, but technology, business model, and market development continues. Obviously, PV industry participants are made of tough stuff.

Along with its pioneering spirit and basic optimism, the 2004-2008 boom proved to the industry that it was right to believe in its eventual success. Make no mistake, this is essentially an industry of true believers — and recent technology revenue growth has made the art of being a true believer much easier. In 2004, driven by accelerating cell and module prices, technology revenues increased by 72% over the previous years. In 2005, revenues increased by 39%; in 2006 by 43%; in 2007 by 65%; and in 2008 technology revenues increased by 80% over the previous year. Unfortunately, in 2009 revenues may decrease by as much as 40% from 2008 levels, with the current softening in sales and steep decrease in technology prices. (The figure below offers a view of technology revenues and a forecast, from 2003-2013.)


Technology revenues, 2003-2013.
CLICK HERE to view larger image

Lessons learned?

If there is a lesson to be learned from industry enthusiasm in the face of significant and daunting obstacles of technology development, market difficulties, and potential near term unprofitability it may be as simple as this: If a thing is worth doing, it is worth continuing to do despite the obstacles. Profitability will return to the photovoltaic industry, after a while. Strong demand will return to the industry, but it will take hard work and some time for market development and recovery. Costs will continue to decline and prices will continue to dance with the market, sometimes up and sometimes down. New participants will enter bringing with them new and challenging ideas — some of which will have no impact whatsoever, and some of which will prove industry-changing. Through it all, the industry will prosper on the visions of optimists like the ones who attended Intersolar North America, who see adversity and still believe.

Paula Mints is principal analyst, PV Services Program, and associate director in the energy practice at Navigant Consulting. E-mail: [email protected].

This article was originally published by Photovoltaics World.

July 21, 2009: Representatives CEA-Leti, STMicroelectronics, IBM, and officials from across France have gathered to officially launch the Nano2012 R&D program, a public/private program led by ST to create advanced R&D clusters to develop new semiconductor technologies.

The five-year Nano2012 program (which actually began Jan. 2008, and runs through Dec. 2012) focuses on technology platform development for low-power and application-specific CMOS technologies. “Value-added application-specific derivative technologies are key differentiators to the standard CMOS technology and an important goal of Nano2012 is for the R&D cluster based in Grenoble-Isere to continue as a world leader in this field,” they say in a statement.

Nano2012 joins other European cooperative programs including CATRENE to bolster Europe’s electronics industry “by providing competitive access to the most advanced CMOS technologies from 32nm down to 22nm,” the groups said in a statement. French public authorities are contributing €457M. Besides LETI, ST, and IBM, partners include the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control (INRIA), National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), universities, and many small- and medium- sized enterprise partners.

Since the program began, ST and IBM have swapped researchers between ST’s Crolles site, IBM’s facility in East Fishkill, NY, and included CEA-LETI in projects including 32nm and 28nm CMOS processes, 45nm RF derivative technology for wireless, and 65nm nonvolatile memory derivative technology for auto and smart-card applications.

The partners are longtime collaborators. ST and CEA-LETI set up the Crolles site in 1992; in July 2007 ST joined the IBM-led Joint Development Alliance and IBM paired up with ST in Crolles for application-specific derivative CMOS technologies. IBM and CEA-LETI are also collaborating on process R&D down to 22nm and beyond.