Miscellaneous

Solving radiotherapy s biggest limitation. Medicine is now using physics every day to treat cancer patients. Nanotechnologies or Nanomedicine can help clinicians deliver safer and more efficient treatments by shifting the intended effect from the macroscopic to the subcellular level.
www.nanobiotix.com

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What if you could swallow a pill that conducts surgery? What can the world's tiniest robots do to DNA and cells? Harvard Medical School's Dr. Omid Farokhzad, one of the leading researchers in the world of nanoscience, joins digits.

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Pills the size of molecules to seek and destroy tumors. Miniscule robots performing surgery inside patients with a precision never before achieved. Nanobots, a billionth of a meter across, fixing mutations in DNA, or repairing neurons in your brain. Such are the possibilities as medicine enters the nano-era. Join leading researchers who are pushing these frontiers, to learn of new cures in the coming nano-revolution and possible risks of the molecular E.R.

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Dr. Sabine Hauert is a Swarm Engineer at the University of Bristol and Bristol Robotics Laboratory, where she designs swarms of nanobots for biomedical applications.

Swarm strategies are either inspired from nature or are automatically designed using machine learning and crowdsourcing. Sabine has designed swarms of nanoparticles for cancer treatment at MIT and deployed large aerial swarms for use as communication relays at EPFL. Her work has been featured in mainstream media including The Economist, CNN, and New Scientist.

Sabine is passionate about science communication and, as well as having produced award-winning videos viewed over 250,000 times, is the Co-founder and President of Robohub, a non-profit dedicated to connecting the robotics community to the rest of the world - Robohub already features over 1000 blog posts and 1.5 million podcast downloads!

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Royalty free animation 3D animation of Nanobots replacing neurons (nerve cells)

Nanorobot at work replacing human nerve cells with artificial nerve cells. This CG animation visualizes one of the possible future applications and uses of nanotechnology.

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Researchers controlled nanomotors inside living cells for the first time using tiny synthetic motors and ultrasonic waves. Penn State scientists have a brand new way to study cell biology, but may be on the way to medical nanotechnology- they could treat diseases like cancer by manipulating cells, delivering drugs, and maybe much more. Kim Horcher, Tim Frisch, and Dave Rubin (Host, The Rubin Report) discuss.

Read more:
"Nanomotors are controlled, for the first time, inside living cells"

by Krista Weidner
February 10, 2014

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Creating the world's smallest block M was not the end goal for Associate Professor Anish Tuteja, but it is an effective demonstration of his team's simple process of creating complex shapes one thousand times smaller than the width of a human hair.

University of Michigan researchers have created the world’s smallest three-dimensional block M’s using a new nanoparticle manufacturing process. The new technique may pave the way to medications that can target specific cells, deliver multiple drugs at different times and rates and even allow doctors to steer them to specific locations in the body.

Anish Tuteja, Associate Professor of Macromolecular Science and Engineering, studied chemical engineering at Panjab University in his hometown of Chandigarh, India. He received his PhD in Chemical Engineering and Materials Science in 2006. His research is focused on using polymers to address some of the key challenges in the areas of renewable energy and environmental science. Particular areas of interest include Superoleophobic surfaces, Superhydrophobic Surfaces, Ice-Repellent Surfaces, Membranes, Polymer Nanocomposites, Thermoelectrics, Solar Cells, and Liquid-liquid Separations.

For more information on Professor Tuteja's team

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Ralph Merkle - nanotechnology pioneer - discusses the future of the field with Salim Ismail, Executive Director of Singularity University. Filmed following Mr Merkle's talks at Singularity University's inaugural Executive Program.

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In order to help “poor swimmers”, scientists developed “spermbots” that can deliver healthy sperm to an egg. The tiny metallic helices are just large enough to fit around the tail of a sperm. Their movements can be controlled by a magnetic field and lab testing showed they can deliver sperm to an egg for potential fertilization.

Credit:
Cellular Cargo Delivery: Toward Assisted Fertilization by Sperm-Carrying Micromotors
Mariana Medina-Sánchez, Lukas Schwarz, Anne K. Meyer, Franziska Hebenstreit, and Oliver G. Schmidt
Nano Letters, DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.5b04221

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Sabine Hauert
Lecturer in Robotics, University of Bristol, UK

February 12, 2016

Abstract
Nanoparticles for cancer applications are increasingly able to move, sense, and interact the body in a controlled fashion. The challenge is to discover how trillions of nanoparticles can work together to improve the detection and treatment of tumors. Towards this end, the field of swarm robotics offers tools and techniques to control large numbers of agents with limited capabilities. Our swarm strategies are designed in realistic simulators using bio-inspiration, machine learning and crowdsourcing (NanoDoc: http://nanodoc.org). Strategies are then translated to 1000 coin-sized robots, or to experiments under the microscope in tissue-on-a-chip devices. Lessons learned could also enable large-scale swarm deployments in outdoor applications.

Speaker Biography
I am a swarm engineer interested in designing large collective systems that self-organize. Swarm strategies are either inspired from nature (ant colonies and bird flocks) or are automatically designed in simulation using machine learning and crowdsourcing. Demonstrated applications include designing swarming nanoparticles for cancer treatment and deploying large aerial swarms for communication relay. In addition to engineering artificial swarm systems, I aim in the future to use automatic swarm design to understand natural self-organized systems such as those found in the brain or the immune system.

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Cancer is a very clever, adaptable disease. To defeat it, says medical researcher and educator Paula Hammond, we need a new and powerful mode of attack. With her colleagues at MIT, Hammond engineered a nanoparticle one-hundredth the size of a human hair that can treat the most aggressive, drug-resistant cancers. Learn more about this molecular superweapon and join Hammond's quest to fight a disease that affects us all.

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Would you want to swallow electronics? New research and developments might make you say... YES! Edible electronics have all sorts of potential applications and advances by researchers at MIT and Carnegie Mellon University are pushing the envelope even further. From ingestible origami robots to password pills, this week we take a look at the weird future of literal technology consumption!

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New research in Prof. Marcelle Machluf's lab in Technion-Israel Institute of Technology's faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering.

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Scientists at EPFL and ETHZ have developed a new method for building microrobots that could be used in the body to deliver drugs and perform other medical operations.

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Using technology invented at MIT, doctors may one day be able to monitor patients’ vital signs by having them swallow an ingestible electronic device that measures heart rate and breathing rate from within the gastrointestinal tract.

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One day, the tiny robot you see here could help clean up contaminated water. In places where potable sources are scarce, they can destroy disease-causing bacteria in its path and unlike conventional disinfectants, the microbots can be removed easily with a magnet.

Scientific Consultants:
Samuel Sánchez Ordóñez, Ph.D.
Diana Vilela, Ph.D.

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Researchers created “two-faced” spherical particles that can propel themselves and kill bacteria. The microbots have a magnesium side and a side with iron and gold layers, topped by silver nanoparticles. Magnesium reacts with water producing hydrogen bubbles and propelling the microbots. Bacteria stick to the gold and are killed by the silver nanoparticles. The microbots can “swim” for 15 to 20 minutes and can be removed easily with a magnet

Credit:
The American Chemical Society
Microbots Decorated with Silver Nanoparticles Kill Bacteria in Aqueous Media
Diana Vilela, Morgan M. Stanton, Jemish Parmar, and Samuel Sánchez
ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, Article ASAP
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.7b03006

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Swarms of gold nanobots with rotating arms powered by magnetic fields could swim through the human body and deliver medicine directly where it’s needed.

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