Ann Decker, Executive Director, Indian River State College (IRSC) Foundation; Dr. Edwin Massey, President, IRSC; Dean Hart, Chief Commercial Officer, NanoInk; Dr. Kevin Cooper, Director of Advanced Technology, IRSC; Jason Fromer, Global Business Development Executive, NanoProfessor,

NanoProfessor® has partnered with Indian River State College (IRSC) in Fort Pierce, Fla. in the naming of the NanoProfessor Advanced Materials Lab within the newly opened Brown Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Indian River State College will be the first college in the Southeastern U.S. to offer students access to the instrumentation and curriculum provided by the NanoProfessor Nanoscience Education Program.

“We are committed to offering Indian River State College students an education that prepares them for hi-tech jobs in the fields of nanotechnology, alternative energy, photonics, nanomaterials, electronics, and more,” said Dr. Edwin Massey, President of IRSC. “In accordance with that commitment, we have partnered with NanoProfessor in the NanoProfessor Advanced Materials Lab. Within this lab, IRSC students will have access to state-of-the-art instruments and an advanced curriculum that has traditionally only been available to graduate students at research universities.”

“We are pleased to be associated with the wonderful work being done at Indian River State College through our partnership in naming the NanoProfessor Advanced Materials Lab,” said Dean Hart, Chief Commercial Officer of NanoInk. “The Brown Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship is an incredible example of the commitment IRSC has made in preparing a hi-tech workforce for Florida’s Research Coast. Companies will no doubt take notice that IRSC is providing the type of talented human capital needed to grow successful hi-tech businesses in Florida.”

The NanoProfessor Nanoscience Education Program provides IRSC students with access to instrumentation, curriculum, and hands-on labs to expand their knowledge, skills, and real-world experience needed to work in the growing nanotechnology industry. In conducting lab experiments, students learn the fundamentals for building custom-engineered nanoscale structures while working with state-of-the-art  equipment including NanoInk’s NLP 2000 Desktop NanoFabrication System, an atomic force microscope, a nanoparticle characterization instrument, an advanced fluorescence microscope, and various chemical and biological materials used today within current and emerging nanotechnology applications.

At the dedication of the NanoProfessor Advanced Materials Lab, Dean Hart presented Dr. Edwin Massey a unique, framed image of the smallest IRSC logo in existence. Consisting of 6,500 20-nanometer dots, the actual logo was printed with NanoInk’s proprietary Dip Pen Nanolithography® and only measures 10 x 10 microns. The framed image of the micron-sized IRSC logo will hang in the NanoProfessor Advanced Materials Lab and includes a plaque stating that approximately 17,000 copies of the actual printed IRSC logo could be placed on the head of a pin, helping students and visitors to the lab better understand the incredibly small size of nanotechnology.

The Brown Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the IRSC Main Campus in Fort Pierce is a multi-purpose, energy-efficient building containing technologically advanced laboratories designed to develop the skills necessary for hi-tech employment or entrepreneurship. The 65,000-square-foot building was constructed to Silver LEED standards of environmental design with recycled materials.

The scientists tested their approach by creating a generator that produces enough current to operate a small liquid-crystal display. It works by tapping a finger on a postage stamp-sized electrode coated with specially engineered viruses. The viruses convert the force of the tap into an electric charge.

Their generator is the first to produce electricity by harnessing the piezoelectric properties of a biological material. Piezoelectricity is the accumulation of a charge in a solid in response to mechanical stress.

The milestone could lead to tiny devices that harvest electrical energy from the vibrations of everyday tasks such as shutting a door or climbing stairs.

It also points to a simpler way to make microelectronic devices. That’s because the viruses arrange themselves into an orderly film that enables the generator to work. Self-assembly is a much sought after goal in the finicky world of nanotechnology.

“More research is needed, but our work is a promising first step toward the development of personal power generators, actuators for use in nano-devices, and other devices based on viral electronics,” says Seung-Wuk Lee, a faculty scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Physical Biosciences Division and a UC Berkeley associate professor of bioengineering.

The device, which could be several hundred times more sensitive than other biosensors, combines the attributes of two distinctly different types of sensors, said Muhammad A. Alam, a Purdue University professor of electrical and computer engineering.

“Individually, both of these types of biosensors have limited sensitivity, but when you combine the two you get something that is better than either,” he said.

Findings are detailed in a paper appearing Monday (May 14) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The paper was written by Purdue graduate student Ankit Jain, Alam and Pradeep R. Nair, a former Purdue doctoral student who is now a faculty member at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

The device – called a Flexure-FET biosensor – combines a mechanical sensor, which identifies a biomolecule based on its mass or size, with an electrical sensor that identifies molecules based on their electrical charge. The new sensor detects both charged and uncharged biomolecules, allowing a broader range of applications than either type of sensor alone.

The sensor has two potential applications: personalized medicine, in which an inventory of proteins and DNA is recorded for individual patients to make more precise diagnostics and treatment decisions; and the early detection of cancer and other diseases.

In early cancer diagnostics, the sensor makes possible the detection of small quantities of DNA fragments and proteins deformed by cancer long before the disease is visible through imaging or other methods, Alam said.

The sensor’s mechanical part is a vibrating cantilever, a sliver of silicon that resembles a tiny diving board. Located under the cantilever is a transistor, which is the sensor’s electrical part.

In other mechanical biosensors, a laser measures the vibrating frequency or deflection of the cantilever, which changes depending on what type of biomolecule lands on the cantilever. Instead of using a laser, the new sensor uses the transistor to measure the vibration or deflection.

The sensor maximizes sensitivity by putting both the cantilever and transistor in a “bias.” The cantilever is biased using an electric field to pull it downward as though with an invisible string.

“This pre-bending increases the sensitivity significantly,” Jain said.

The transistor is biased by applying a voltage, maximizing its performance as well.

“You can make the device sensitive to almost any molecule as long as you configure the sensor properly,” Alam said.

A key innovation is the elimination of a component called a “reference electrode,” which is required for conventional electrical biosensors but cannot be miniaturized, limiting practical applications.

“Eliminating the need for a reference electrode enables miniaturization and makes it feasible for low-cost, point-of-care applications in doctors’ offices,” Alam said.

The aim of the research long-term is to develop more efficient biofuel cells, seen as the future of electronics. Because biofuel cells are powered by readily available biological materials, they have the potential to be used indefinitely when electricity is required at places where is it not possible to replace a battery or recharge them.

Most biofuel cells create electricity using enzymes that process glucose, but the Leeds research will focus on bacterial enzymes that can harness light or hydrogen gas to create energy. The work is funded by a £1.42m grant from the European Research Council.

Lead researcher, Dr Lars Jeuken, from the University’s Faculty of Biological Sciences, says: “Technology that creates an electrical signal from a biochemical reaction is already in commercial use, for example in blood glucose biosensors. However, developing an efficient biofuel cell that can create sufficient electricity for general use has proved much more difficult. This is mainly because the systems developed to date have only limited control of how inorganic materials and biological molecules interact.

“Our research combines state of-the-art surface physics, colloid and organic chemistry, membrane biology and electrochemistry to develop electrodes with complete control of the biochemical interactions needed to create electricity. We now want to apply this to membrane proteins to generate energy from light and hydrogen.”

In their simplest form, biofuel cells have two electrodes, one which removes electrons from a fuel – for instance glucose or hydrogen – whilst the other donates electrons to molecules of oxygen, making water. When these are connected by a wire, they form a circuit, resulting in an electrical current.

Dr Jeuken and his team have extensive experience in making electrodes that directly interact with enzymes located in the membranes that surround cells. This new project will begin by applying this technique to two specific groups of enzymes, one which harnesses light and the other, hydrogen. These are found in membranes of chloroplast – the parts of cells which conduct photosynthesis – or bacterial cells, both of which have promising applications in biofuel cells. The final part of the project will aim to connect electrodes to the membranes of living bacterial cells.

“Not only will this help scientists understand the role of different enzymes in making energy, but how best to capture and use this energy in electrical applications,” says Dr Jeuken.

Dr Jeuken’s research will also contribute to a new Interdisciplinary Centre for Microbial Fuel Cells (ICMFC), set up jointly between the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York. The Centre will bring together chemists from York, biophysicists such as Dr Jeuken from Leeds and engineers from Sheffield, to work together on improving the performance of microbial fuel cells, using a combination of synthetic biology and nanoengineering.

In a step toward that goal, researchers at MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have developed a nanoparticle designed to evade the immune system and home in on infection sites, then unleash a focused antibiotic attack.

This approach would mitigate the side effects of some antibiotics and protect the beneficial bacteria that normally live inside our bodies, says Aleks Radovic-Moreno, an MIT graduate student and lead author of a paper describing the particles in the journal ACS Nano as Surface Charge-Switching Polymeric Nanoparticles for Bacterial Cell Wall-Targeted Delivery of Antibiotics

The team created the new nanoparticles from a polymer capped with polyethylene glycol (PEG), which is commonly used for drug delivery because it is nontoxic and can help nanoparticles travel through the bloodstream by evading detection by the immune system.

Their next step was to induce the particles to specifically target bacteria. Researchers have previously tried to target particles to bacteria by giving them a positive charge, which attracts them to bacteria’s negatively charged cell walls. However, the immune system tends to clear positively charged nanoparticles from the body before they can encounter bacteria.

To overcome this, the researchers designed antibiotic-carrying nanoparticles that can switch their charge depending on their environment. While they circulate in the bloodstream, the particles have a slight negative charge. However, when they encounter an infection site, the particles gain a positive charge, allowing them to tightly bind to bacteria and release their drug payload.

This switch is provoked by the slightly acidic environment surrounding bacteria. Infection sites can be slightly more acidic than normal body tissue if disease-causing bacteria are reproducing rapidly, depleting oxygen. Lack of oxygen triggers a change in bacterial metabolism, leading them to produce organic acids. The body’s immune cells also contribute: Cells called neutrophils produce acids as they try to consume the bacteria.

Just below the outer PEG layer, the nanoparticles contain a pH-sensitive layer made of long chains of the amino acid histidine. As pH drops from 7 to 6 — representing an increase in acidity — the polyhistidine molecule tends to gain protons, giving the molecule a positive charge.

Once the nanoparticles bind to bacteria, they begin releasing their drug payload, which is embedded in the core of the particle. In this study, the researchers designed the particles to deliver vancomycin, used to treat drug-resistant infections, but the particles could be modified to deliver other antibiotics or combinations of drugs.

Many antibiotics lose their effectiveness as acidity increases, but the researchers found that antibiotics carried by nanoparticles retained their potency better than traditional antibiotics in an acidic environment.

The current version of the nanoparticles releases its drug payload over one to two days. “You don’t want just a short burst of drug, because bacteria can recover once the drug is gone. You want an extended release of drug so that bacteria are constantly being hit with high quantities of drug until they’ve been eradicated,” Radovic-Moreno says.

Young Jik Kwon, associate professor of chemical engineering and materials science at the University of California at Irvine, says the new nanoparticles are well designed and could have great potential impact in treating infectious diseases, particularly in developing countries. “Most nanotechnology has been targeted to cancer drug delivery or imaging; not many people have shown interest in using a nanotechnology approach for infectious disease,” says Kwon, who was not part of the research team.

Although further development is needed, the researchers hope the high doses delivered by their particles could eventually help overcome bacterial resistance. “When bacteria are drug resistant, it doesn’t mean they stop responding, it means they respond but only at higher concentrations. And the reason you can’t achieve these clinically is because antibiotics are sometimes toxic, or they don’t stay at that site of infection long enough,” Radovic-Moreno says.

One possible challenge: There are also negatively charged tissue cells and proteins at infection sites that can compete with bacteria in binding to nanoparticles and potentially block them from binding to bacteria. The researchers are studying how much this might limit the effectiveness of their nanoparticle delivery. They are also conducting studies in animals to determine whether the particles will remain pH-sensitive in the body and circulate for long enough to reach their targets.

“The low cost–if it can be achieved–would enable genomic sequencing to be used in everyday clinical practice for medical treatments and preventions,” said Predrag Krstic, project director and former ORNL physicist now at the University of Tennessee-ORNL Joint Institute for Computational Sciences.

The research is part of a nearly decade-long drive by the National Human Genome Research Institute of the National Institutes of Health to support the science needed to bring the cost of sequencing a human genome down to $1,000.

ORNL and Yale University researchers have created nanopores, or extremely narrow channels of water, with a radio-frequency electric field capable of trapping segments of DNA and other biomolecules.

In a paper published in the journal Small, titled, “Tunable Aqueous Virtual Micropore,” ORNL and Yale University researchers used theory and computation, validated by experiments, to prove that a charged micro or nano particle, such as a DNA segment, can be confined in an “aqueous virtual pore.” The water provides a stable environment for DNA integrity while the virtual “walls” allow DNA to move through the nanopore without interacting with physical walls.

As an added advantage, scientists can control the size and stability of a virtual nanopore by external electric fields, something they cannot do with a physical nanopore.

“As a single DNA polymer is translocated through a synthetic nanopore, we use the physical detection of single molecules to read electric signals that identify DNA bases,” Krstic said.

To help control and localize DNA, ORNL and Yale scientists created the aqueous nanopore embedded in water based on a linear Paul trap – a device that traps particles in an oscillating electric field – and experimentally proved its trapping functionality. There were some doubts that a charged micro or nano particle could be confined by the quadrupole oscillating electric field of the Paul trap when filled by aqueous solvent, but ORNL computation and Yale experiments prove that water actually helps stabilize trapping mechanisms, making sequencing methods more feasible.

The new nanoparticle-based technique also may be used for detection of other microbes that have challenged scientists for centuries because they hide deep in human tissue and are able to reprogram cells to successfully evade the immune system. The microbes reappear years later and can cause serious health problems such as seen in tuberculosis cases. Current testing methods to find these hidden microbes exist, but require a long time to complete and often delay effective treatment for weeks or even months.

UCF Associate Professor J. Manuel Perez and Professor Saleh Naser and their research team have developed a method using nanoparticles coated with DNA markers specific to the elusive pathogens. The technique is effective and more accurate than current methods at picking up even small amounts of a pathogen. More important, it takes hours instead of weeks or months to deliver results, potentially giving doctors a quicker tool to help patients.

“Our new technique has surpassed traditional molecular and microbiological methods,” said Naser, a professor at the UCF College of Medicine. “Without compromising specificity or sensitivity, the nano-method produced reliable and accurate results within hours compared to months.”

The group’s translational research works is published in today’s edition of the journal PLOS One. http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0035326

The team created hybridizing magnetic relaxation nanosensors (hMRS) that can fish out and detect minuscule amounts of DNA from pathogens hiding within a patient’s cells. The hair-thin hMRS are composed of a polymer-coated iron oxide nanoparticle and are chemically modified to specifically bind to a DNA marker that is unique to a particular pathogen.

When the hMRS bind to the pathogen’s DNA, a magnetic resonance signal is detected, which is amplified by the water molecules that surround the nanoparticle. Then the researcher can read the change in the magnetic signature on a computer screen or portable electronic device, such as a smartphone, and determine whether the sample is infected with a particular pathogen.

The researchers used Mycobacterium avium spp. paratuberculosis (MAP), a pathogen that has been implicated in the cause of Johne’s disease in cattle and Crohn’s disease in humans, to test out their technique. They used a large number of blood and biopsy tissue samples from patients with Crohn’s disease and meat samples from cattle with Johne’s disease.

“It is all about giving medical professionals easy and reliable tools to better understand the spread of a disease, while helping people get treatment faster,” said Perez, who works at UCF’s Nanoscience Technology Center. “That’s my goal. And that’s where nanotechnology really has a lot to offer, particularly when the technology has been validated using clinical, food and environmental samples as is in our case.”

The National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), which is a part of the National Institutes of Health, and funded the research, said this kind of basic research can provide the foundation for medical breakthroughs.

“Just last year, Dr. Perez and his team unexpectedly discovered the DNA binding property of their magnetic nanosensors, and now they have shown that it may become the basis for a rapid, sensitive lab test for hard-to-measure bacteria and viruses in patient samples,” said Janna Wehrle, Ph.D., of NIGMS. “This is a wonderful example of how quickly an advance can move from the research bench to meet an important clinical need.”

BIND-014 is the first targeted and programmed nanomedicine to enter human clinical studies. The study will be electronically published in Science Translational Medicine. Preclinical Development and Clinical Translation of a PSMA-Targeted Docetaxel Nanoparticle with a Differentiated Pharmacological Profile

In the study, the researchers demonstrate BIND-014′s ability to effectively target a receptor expressed in tumors to achieve high tumor drug concentrations, as well as show remarkable efficacy, safety and pharmacological properties compared to the parent chemotherapeutic drug, docetaxel (Taxotere).

“BIND-014 demonstrates for the first time that it is possible to generate medicines with both targeted and programmable properties that can concentrate the therapeutic effect directly at the site of disease, potentially revolutionizing how complex diseases such as cancer are treated,” said Omid Farokhzad, MD, a physician-scientist in the BWH Department of Anesthesiology, associate professor at HMS, and study co- senior author.

“Previous attempts to develop targeted nanoparticles have not successfully translated into human clinical studies because of the inherent difficulty of designing and scaling up a particle capable of targeting, long-circulation via immune-response evasion, and controlled drug release,” said Robert Langer, ScD, David H. Koch Institute Professor, MIT and study co-senior author.

According to the researchers, the drug is the first of its kind to reach clinical evaluation and demonstrates a differentially high drug concentration in tumors by targeting drug encapsulated nanoparticles directly to the site of tumors. This leads to substantially better efficacy and safety.

In the study, the researchers produced data that include pharmacokinetic characteristics consistent with prolonged circulation and controlled drug release with plasma concentrations remaining up to at least 100-fold higher than conventional docetaxel for over 24 hours, as well as up to a 10-fold increase in intratumoral drug concentrations with prolonged and enhanced tumor growth suppression in multiple tumor models compared with conventional docetaxel.

Moreover, initial clinical data in a heavily pretreated patient population with 17 patients with advanced or metastatic solid tumor cancers indicated that BIND-014 displays pharmacological characteristics consistent with preclinical findings of differentiated pharmacokinetics and accumulation at tumor sites with clinical effects seen at doses as low as 20 percent of the normally prescribed docetaxel dose and in cancers in which docetaxel has minimal activity (e.g., cervical cancer).

“The development of BIND-014 demonstrates that drug properties such as solubility, metabolism, plasma binding, biodistribution and target tissue accumulation will no longer be constrained to the same extent by the drug chemical composition. It will also become the function of the physicochemical properties of nanoparticles. This will allow for an unprecedented ability to make better medicines for our patients as demonstrated by our emerging clinical data.” said Farokhzad.

The researchers note that while the science and technology of BIND-014 builds upon docetaxel’s mechanism of action, the emerging evidence is that BIND-014 significantly changes the biological effects of docetaxel by virtue of fundamental changes in pharmacology including major increases in tumor concentration.

To date, the researchers note that BIND-014 has been administered at doses of up to 75 mg/m2 and dose escalation is ongoing. It has been well-tolerated with no new toxicities observed.

“It has been a privilege to be a part of the team that developed this technology at its conception through its clinical translation. The emerging BIND-014 clinical data showing signals of efficacy even at relatively low doses validates the potential for the revolutionary impact of nanomedicines and is a paradigm shift for the treatment of cancer.” said Philip W. Kantoff, MD, Chief Clinical Research Officer at DFCI, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and study co-author.

“It is wonderful to witness a world-class team of scientists, engineers, physicians, for-profit and non-project organizations converge to develop this potentially revolutionary technology for treatment of cancers. The effectiveness of this team has been remarkable and serves as model for translational research” said Edward J. Benz, Jr. MD, President of DFCI, Richard and Susan Smith Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

The Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation, a steadfast champion of varied initiatives at the Miller School, has expanded its remarkable support of the University with a Momentum2 leadership gift of $7.5 million to name the collaborative Biomedical Nanotechnology Institute at the University of Miami (BioNIUM).

“With this gift, the University is poised to become an international leader in the exploding field of nanotechnology,” said UM President Donna E. Shalala. “We couldn’t be more pleased to have the Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation as partners in this endeavor.”

The institute will link investigators from the Miller School with University colleagues from the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Engineering to explore and develop novel applications of biomedical nanotechnology, a field in which scientists work with materials on a nanoscale – less than one-millionth of a millimeter in size – to diagnose and treat serious diseases.

Utilizing different approaches from physicians, physicists, engineers and chemists, the multidisciplinary institute’s primary mission is three-fold: the early detection of disease, more targeted delivery of highly specialized treatments, and restoring tissue and organ function.

Gary Dix, chairman of the Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation, said “The Foundation is very proud of its work with the University of Miami, where we have developed world-class programs in human genetics and community and family health. We believe the next great opportunity is in the application of nanotechnology to medical problems, and are thrilled to participate in this groundbreaking effort.”

The institute is led by the Miller School’s Richard J. Cote, M.D., professor and Joseph R. Coulter Jr. Endowed Chair of the Department of Pathology, a renowned pathologist and acclaimed expert in nanotechnology. The institute co-director is Ram Datar, M.Phil., Ph.D., associate professor of pathology and biochemistry and molecular biology, and the associate director is Sylvia Daunert, Ph.D., Pharm.D., M.S., professor and Lucille P. Markey Chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

“Nanotechnology is the next great frontier in medicine,” said Cote. “This gift will allow us to develop and expand our science through greater collaboration, recruit outstanding researchers, and build the necessary facilities needed to perform this complex work. The Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation has helped us take a huge step to develop new ways to prevent, diagnose and manage disease much more quickly and effectively.”

Among the projects already being developed at the institute are a novel filter that captures tumor cells circulating in the blood, the use of nanotechnology to restore sight, “smart pills” that can detect glucose and release insulin when needed, and the encapsulation of anti-cancer drugs that can be dispatched to tumors while protecting healthy tissue.

Engineers are devising new ways to encourage tissue regeneration, and cross department collaborations are exploring ways of using nanolayers to protect transplanted tissues from rejection and also to prevent pathogens from infecting food supplies. Immunologists are working with chemists on novel nanoparticles for what could be the basis for vaccines to treat many types of cancer.

“The Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation Biomedical Nanotechnology Institute presents an exceptional opportunity to bring together researchers from throughout the University to develop nanotechnology tools, improve nanomanufacturing, and develop nanomedical applications,” said Leonidas Bachas, Ph.D., dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “Going forward, the institute will enable us to recruit the brightest minds in the field and make bionanotechnology a research priority.”