By Ian Lyall, Proactive Investors, For Thisismoney.co.uk

Published: 07:38 EST, 9 March 2015 | Updated: 08:48 EST, 9 March 2015

Midatech Pharma chief executive, Jim Phillips has big ambitions for the life sciences company which listed on AIM late last year.

He wants it to be one of the few success stories of the life sciences industry, which has had more than its fair share of failures over the past three decades.

The US has created some monsters of new wave medicines the grande dames Amgen and Genzyme and more recently Biogen Idec, Gilead and Celgene.

Big ambitions: Midatechis at the forefront of nano-medicine

While not strictly a biotechnology firm - as we'll see later, it is at the forefront of nano-medicine - Midatech still wants to emulate the American model.

Phillips is not shy in revealing this means building a business valued at billions of pounds rather than hundreds of millions or tens of millions as it is today.

To help it do this it recruited an institutional shareholder base that understands and backs the Midatech model.

At the IPO last December, which raised 32milllion of new money, it brought in the influential Neil Woodford, who used to run one of Britain's largest funds for Invesco but is now going it alone.

Read more here:

SMALL CAP SHARE IDEAS: Midatech Pharma has ambitions to be a billion pound firm

Nanometer-sized "drones" that deliver a special type of healing molecule to fat deposits in arteries could become a new way to prevent heart attacks caused by atherosclerosis, according to a study in pre-clinical models by scientists at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) and Columbia University Medical Center. These findings are published in the February 18th online issue of Science Translational Medicine.

Although current treatments have reduced the number of deaths from atherosclerosis-related disease, atherosclerosis remains a dangerous health problem: Atherosclerosis of the coronary arteries is the #1 killer of women and men in the U.S., resulting in one out of every four deaths. In the study, targeted biodegradable nano 'drones' that delivered a special type of drug that promotes healing ('resolution') successfully restructured atherosclerotic plaques in mice to make them more stable. This remodeling of the plaque environment would be predicted in humans to block plaque rupture and thrombosis and thereby prevent heart attacks and strokes.

"This is the first example of a targeted nanoparticle technology that reduces atherosclerosis in an animal model," said co-senior author Omid Farokhzad, MD, associate professor and director of the Laboratory of Nanomedicine and Biomaterials at BWH and Harvard Medical School (HMS). "Years of research and collaboration have culminated in our ability to use nanotechnology to resolve inflammation, remodel and stabilize plaques in a model of advanced atherosclerosis."

In this study, targeted nanomedicines made from polymeric building blocks that are utilized in numerous FDA approved products to date, were nanoengineered to carry an anti-inflammatory drug payload in the form of a biomimetic peptide. Furthermore, this peptide was derived from one of the body's own natural inflammatory-resolving proteins called Annexin A1. The way the nanomedicines were designed enabled this biological therapeutic to be released at the target site, the atherosclerotic plaque, in a controlled manner.

In mouse models with advanced atherosclerosis, researchers administered nanomedicines and relevant controls. Following five weeks of treatment with the nanomedicines, damage to the arteries was significantly repaired and plaque was stabilized.

Specifically, researchers observed a reduction of reactive oxygen species; increase in collagen, which strengthens the fibrous cap; and reduction of the plaque necrotic core, and these changes were not observed in comparison with the free peptide or empty nanoparticles.

"Many researchers are trying to develop drugs that prevent heart attacks by tamping down inflammation, but that approach has some downsides," said co-senior author Ira Tabas, MD, Richard J. Stock professor of Medicine (Immunology) and professor of Pathology & Cell Biology at Columbia. "One is that atherosclerosis is a chronic disease, so drugs are taken for years, even decades. An anti-inflammatory drug that is distributed throughout the entire body will also impair the immune system's ability to fight infection." That might be acceptable for conditions that severely affect quality of life, like rheumatoid arthritis, but "using this approach to prevent a heart attack that may never happen may not be worth the risk."

In addition, it's not enough to deliver an anti-inflammatory drug to the plaques, said Columbia associate research scientist Gabrielle Fredman, PhD, one of the study's lead co-authors. "Atherosclerosis is not only inflammation; there's also damage to the arterial wall. If the damage isn't repaired, you may not prevent heart attacks."

The targeted nanomedicines used in this current study were engineered by researchers at BWH. Following preliminary proof-of-principle studies at Columbia University in models of inflammation, they were further tested in a clinically relevant disease model in mice and were shown to be capable of maneuvering through the blood circulation, and traversing leaky regions through to the inside of the plaques, as was demonstrated by fluorescence microscopy imaging of the plaque lesions.

Researchers note that in addition to their specific 'sticky' surfaces, their small sub-100 nanometer size is also a key property that facilitates the retention and accumulation of these nanoparticles within the plaques. These nanoparticles are 1000 times smaller than the tip of a single human-hair strand.

See the article here:

Keeping atherosclerosis in-check with novel targeted inflammation-resolving nanomedicines

Students from Waterway Elementary School in Little River, S.C., learn how nanoscience is affecting advances in medicine at Ingram Planetarium in Sunset Beach. Photo by Edward Ovsenik

Come to Ingram Planetarium and experience the Nano exhibit in the Paul Dennis Science Hall. Admission is free.

The exhibit consists of several stand-alone multimedia kiosks. Each kiosk highlights a way in which nanotechnology affects our lives, from regenerating damaged nerve, bone, and muscle tissue to demonstrating how high-tech nanomaterials mimic natural phenomena by manipulating light and color.

Some of the kiosks include short videos that play on demand in either English or Spanish.

Fourth-graders from Waterway Elementary School in Little River, S.C., visited the planetarium on Feb. 11 and were the first to enjoy this fun, interactive way to learn about nanoscience.

Ingram Planetarium is at 7625 High Market St. in Sunset Beach. Doors open at 11:30 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

When you visit the planetarium to see the Nano exhibit, why not stay for a show in the planetariums state-of-the-art dome theater? Visit http://www.museumplanetarium.org to see start times for current movies. Movies shown at 2 and 3 p.m. are followed by live star shows.

Admission to shows is free for planetarium and dual museum/planetarium members.

Regular nonmember per-show admission is $9 for adults, $8 for seniors (62+), $7 for children (3-12), and free for age 2 and under. For more information, call 910-575-0033 or visit http://www.MuseumPlanetarium.org.

If you are an educator and would like to schedule a visit to see the new Nano exhibit or see a full high-definition dome show, visit http://www.museumplanetarium.org and complete a school group registration form. An educator will contact you to arrange your visit.

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Big exhibit for a small world

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LONDON, February 18, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

Report Details

Three dimensional printing for medical applications-how to find trends, technologies and sales potentials What's the future of additive manufacturing for medicine? That's fabricating three dimensional solid objects from digital models, via 3D printers. Visiongain's new report gives data and analysis, letting you explore developments, technology and revenue predictions.

That analysis forecasts revenues there to 2025 at overall world market, submarket and national level. Avoid falling behind in knowledge, missing business or losing influence.

Explore, then, the commercial prospects of those computer controlled industrial robots for performing additive processes. See outlooks for medical devices, tissues, drugs and more.

Advances in manufacturing for medicine-find what that printer technology could be worth So find potentials for those novel production tools for creating shapes and patterns - multiform designs. You explore that medical business. Now discover how you could gain.

So please read on to explore those technologies, applications and products, seeing what their future market could be worth.

Forecasts to 2025 and other information to help you stay ahead in knowledge Besides revenue forecasting to 2025, our new work shows you historical data, recent results, growth rates and market shares. There you explore research and development (R&D) too. You also get 57 tables, 53 charts and seven interviews with people in that field.

Continued here:

3D Printing for Healthcare: R&D, Industry and Market 2015-2025

Endless Frontier, the 1945 civilian-science manifesto by U.S. wartime research chief Vannevar Bush, cites the information technology, life-science and consumer-product breakthroughs of the 1930s (radar and radio, sulfa drugs and penicillin, rayon and air conditioners) as evidence of the possible future:

More jobs, higher wages, shorter hours, more abundant cropslearning to live without the deadening drudgery which has been the burden of the common man for ages pastcontrol of our insect enemiesmeans of defense against aggressionprevention or cure of diseases.

To bring dreams to earth, Endless Frontier suggested a permanent government commitment by the United States to scientific research and education. This would include federal investment in basic research, scholarships for science and engineering students, transparent patent laws, a research and development tax credit and so on.

Mr. Bush (unrelated to the political family of the same name) seems to have worried that idealistic hopes and predictions of better lives might not be enough to get the job done. So he added a mildly nationalistic warning:

A nation which depends upon others for its new basic scientific knowledge will be slow in its industrial progress and weak in its competitive position in world trade.

Seven decades later, the Obama administration hopes to win approval for a $135 billion science budget, replete with interesting follow-ons to the 1930s breakthroughs. It includes projects for deep-space exploration, carbon capture, anti-viral medicine, nano-engineered materials, cyber-security and more.

Apart from the merits of this work, how does it fit into the 21st-century scientific world?

The OECDs annual Main Science and Technology Indicators provides figures for research spending, scientific employment and more in the 34 OECD member countries plus Argentina, China, Taiwan, Russia, Singapore and South Africa.

The OECDs most recent estimates find the United States home to 1.25 million working researchers, out of roughly 6.3 million worldwide. It is home to 16% of the worlds researchers. By comparison, the United States has about 4% of all world workers.

Measured by spending, the OECD finds about $1.6 trillion in R&D worldwide as of 2013, of which the United States, with a commitment of about $470 billion, is the worlds largest spender.

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The United States Technological Future: An Endless Frontier?

Scientists have developed drug-carrying nanoparticles capable of targeting cancer tissue in the lungs. By engineering the devices to release their payloads only once they reach the site of the tumor, the researchers hope to reduce the size of dosages required and also limit the side effects of conventional treatments.

Nanoparticles have opened up some promising possibilities in the fight against cancer. Two key areas of research are how they might be engineered to attack cancerous cells with better precision and how they can help in detecting cancer early on, while some are even working on multi-tasking nanoparticles that do both.

Now, a team of scientists from the Helmholtz Zentrum Mnchen (HMGU) and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitt (LMU) in Munich have developed a nanoparticle aimed at destroying cancerous tissue in the lungs. They say it can do so by only releasing its payload once it reaches the site, key to mitigating side effects and ineffective doses.

The scientists added a protective layer to the nanoparticles, designed to stop the medicine inside from being released into the body prematurely. The nanoparticles are designed in such a way that this protective layer can only be broken down by a particular enzyme, an enzyme that is found in high concentrations in lung tumors.

And because the concentration of this enzyme in healthy tissue is too low to crack open the coating, it means that the cancer-fighting drugs remain safely inside until they reach the site of the tumor.

"We observed that the drug's effectiveness in the tumor tissue was 10 to 25 times greater compared to when the drugs were used on their own," says lead researcher Dr Silke Meiners. "At the same time, this approach also makes it possible to decrease the total dose of medicines and consequently to reduce undesirable effects."

The researchers now have plans to conduct further work to explore the safety and effectiveness of the approach in vivo and in advanced lung tumor mouse models.

The research was published in the journal ACS Nano.

Source: Helmholtz Zentrum Mnchen

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Cancer-fighting nanoparticles carry medicine to tumors in the lungs

(MENAFN - ProactiveInvestors) Jim Phillips makes no apologies for his ambitions for () which listed on AIM late last year.

He wants it to be one of the few success stories of the life sciences industry which has had more than its fair share of failures over the past three decades.

The US has successfully created some monsters of new wave medicines the grande dames Amgen and Genzyme and more recently Biogen Idec Gilead and Celgene.

While not strictly a biotechnology firm as well see later it is at the forefront of nano-medicine Midatech still wants to emulate the American model.

Phillips is not shy in revealing this means building a business valued at billions of pounds rather than hundreds of millions or tens of millions as it is today.

To help it do this it recruited an institutional shareholder base that understands and backs the Midatech model.

At the IPO last December which raised 32mln of new money it brought in the influential Neil Woodford who used to run one of Britains largest funds for Invesco but is now going it alone.

He is joined on the investor register by well-known City names such as and Octopus as well as Finance Wales in fact around 70% of the firms equity is in the hands of long-term holders.

Meanwhile in chairman Rolf Stahel they have a man who helped create Shire a multi-billion pound healthcare business and one of possibly two sector successes that have been incubated by the UK capital markets (the other being ).

Stahel and Phillips worked together on EUSA a private cancer specialist they sold for around 480mln in 2012. The plan this time around is very definitely not to cash out.

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Midatech Pharma aiming skyhigh with revolutionary targeted therapies

Scientists have developed targeted, biodegradable nano "drones" to deliver anti-inflammatory drugs that heal and stabilize arterial plaque in mice. Their work could pave the way for more effective prevention of heart attack and stroke in humans caused by atherosclerosis, in which artery walls thicken and suffer reduced plasticity due to an accumulation of white blood cells.

The study, conducted by researchers from Colombia University Medical Center (CUMC), Brigham and Womens Hospital (BWH) and Harvard Medical School (HMS), showed for the first time that it is possible to treat inflammation and repair plaques via highly targeted nanoparticles. It is also the first example of using targeted nanomedicine to reduce atherosclerosis in animals.

Essentially, the nanoparticles are injected into the bloodstream where they find their way to the arterial plaque, stick to them and release the healing peptides. Their small size they are 1,000 times smaller than the tip of a single strand of human hair and "sticky" surfaces enable them to accumulate and be retained within the plaques to facilitate healing and remodeling to block plaque rupture and thrombosis.

"[The nanometer-sized drones] reach the plaque within hours and slowly release the drug," Dr Ira Tabas, co-senior author, MD, Richard J. Stock Professor of Medicine (Immunology) and professor of pathology & cell biology at CUMC told Gizmag. "Then it takes a few weeks for the drug to remodel the plaques so they are more stable."

Researchers at BWH developed the nanoparticles using biodegradable, FDA-approved polymers engineered to carry the healing, stabilizing anti-inflammatory peptides. The polymers are designed to break up over time in the body.

After five weeks of treatment, mice with advanced artherosclerosis demonstrated significant repair to damaged arteries as well as stabilization of plaque. The study represents a different approach to treating atherosclerosis, the leading cause of death in the United States.

Many researchers are trying to develop drugs that prevent heart attacks by tamping down inflammation, but that approach has some downsides, says Dr Tabas. One is that atherosclerosis is a chronic disease, so drugs are taken for years, even decades. An anti-inflammatory drug that is distributed throughout the entire body will also impair the immune systems ability to fight infection. Using this approach to prevent a heart attack that may never happen may not be worth the risk.

Atherosclerosis is not only inflammation; theres also damage to the arterial wall," adds Columbia associate research scientist Gabrielle Fredman, PhD, one of the studys lead co-authors. "If the damage isnt repaired, you may not prevent heart attacks.

Trials on humans are still some years away, with further optimization and testing required. However, Dr Tabas expects that even better delivery to plaques can be obtained and improved healing possible than that provided with the current peptides.

The team envisions the drug would be given to people at the highest risk for heart disease, and that it would only work while the people are taking the nanoparticles. However, if at the same time, LDL-lowering therapy is also given and maintained indefinitely, then it's possible that the plaque-stabilizing nanomedicine could be discontinued after a few years.

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Drug-delivering nano "drones" to help prevent heart attacks

GLAUCOMA patients may, in the future, be able to replace their daily eye drop regimen for an eye injection once every six months, to treat their condition.

The injection to the eyeball is delivered under local anaesthetic by a doctor, and takes only a minute. It contains millions of tiny capsules of glaucoma medicine which release their contents slowly over time.

This breakthrough procedure was jointly developed by the Singapore Eye Research Institute (SERI) and a team from Nanyang Technological University (NTU). Six patients were involved in the first human trials in February 2013.

We conducted the trial to ensure that the procedure was safe, feasible and workable, said Associate Professor Tina Wong, Senior Consultant Ophthalmologist at the Singapore National Eye Centres (SNEC) Glaucoma Service and head of the Ocular Therapeutics and Drug Delivery Research Group at SERI. Prof Wong developed the injection with the NTU team led by Professor Subbu Venkatraman, Chair of NTU s School of Materials Science and Engineering. The team is ready to conduct larger clinical trials, most likely in the US, and the injection is expected to be commercially available in about two and a half years time.

Prof Subbu said it took four and a half years to move from concept to trial. Nanomedicine is currently being used to treat cancer. The challenge in applying it was to take an existing drug, put it into a nano carrier and control its release over a long period. For glaucoma, the drug had to act for at least three months. We believe this has not been done before.

Prof Wong said: We consider this a major breakthrough, not just technologically but also in the way we can administer medicine, apart from through eye drops, to our patients in the future.

In glaucoma patients, fluid build-up in the eye creates pressure which damages the optic nerve the major cause of irreversible blindness worldwide. In Singapore, about three per cent of people over the age of 50 have it. SNEC sees up to 10,000 glaucoma patients each year.

Prof Wong said eye drops for glaucoma have some drawbacks. Some patients complain of red, itchy eyes and a bitter taste in their throats, and only five to ten per cent of the drug in each drop actually gets into the eye. Theres a lot of wastage, she said.

One of the biggest challenges is patients failure to apply eye drops as prescribed. A study showed that after a year, less than 25 per cent of patients came back to SNEC for more eye drops; after three years, only 10 per cent were using eye drops at all. A US study showed that 10 per cent of glaucoma-resultant blindness was due to incorrect use of eye drops.

Patients main reasons for this were forgetfulness and stopping because they did not understand what the eye drops did. Prof Wong said: This is why we have such bad glaucoma in Singapore. We doctors are prescribing medicine in good faith, but theres still a problem with our patients ability to comply with whats given. Ideally, we want something that will take away the responsibility from them. With sustained drug delivery through nanomedicine such as ours, we can ensure that the medicine is working round the clock. We get a more targeted release of the drug without the side effects of eye drops, and we will be able to manage the disease more effectively.

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13 hours ago

Natural resins obtained from plants to be used as a coating element to enhance durability and anti-rust properties.

Coating systems are formulated using a mixture of dammar, silver and nanoclay in varied compositions. Generally the problems in the coating area are poor coat quality, poor adhesion, long curing time period, corrosion attack, attachment or bacteria attack which could also cause corrosion attack which is called as Microbiologically Influenced corrosion (MIC). These disadvantages of coating system and coating surface could lead to coating failure thus leading to substrate damage especially metal substrate.

Dammar or triterpenoids resin are natural resins which can be isolated or obtained from plants that belong to the family Dipterocaupecea sp. Dammar is well known for its glossy properties and the plant can be found abundantly in Sarawak, Malaysia. Thus, it can be used in the coating industry. The role of the dammar is to improve the adhesion property, self cleansing property and shorten the coating curing time. Silver nitrate has quite a long history of usage as an antibacterial agent. Silver possesses good antibacterial activity. The addition of silver onto the coating system, introduces the antimicrobial property for the coating system. It is used in a variety of applications for example as protective coating for concrete, brick, wood, metal and others. It is considered as a good anti-microbial coating due to its low toxicity to where the toxicity is lower than of bacteria. However, the antibacterial activity depends on the Ag+ ions released by the silver. If it is too high, it will result in cytotoxicity. Thus to overcome this problem nanoclay was added into the coating system. Clay is a good absorbent which belongs to the phyllosilicate group. In this case Montmorillonite clay was used as the absorbent. Montmorillonite clay form could absorb compound and store it in the pore without leaching out the compound to the surrounding environment.

In this research work, the polyol is modified by using a solvent and mixed with dammar in varied compositions. Silver nitrate is incorporated into the optimum composition of polyol-dammar, followed by a small amount of Nano clay is dispersed into the modified Silver-polyol-dammar mixture. Then the paint mixture is spin coated onto polished Aluminium Q-panel as a substrate and is left to dry at room temperature. This research describes the characteristics of the dammar based paint system. Adhesion property is evaluated by using crosshatch test and pull-off test. The crosshatch test method is based on ASTM D3359 standards. The wettability property of a coating is characterized by using contact angle measurement. The resistances of paint systems are also described against microbial activity by using disc diffusion and agar well diffusion method.

The result of crosshatch and pull-off test shows that the coating system containing 50 wt. % of dammar (50 PD) exhibits an excellent adhesion property. The addition of dammar to polyol helps to increase the contact angle measurement up to approximately 50 degrees. The antimicrobial activity of silver nanoclay coating was demonstrated by using disc diffusion and agar well diffusion method. The antimicrobial activity was evaluated against a few negative gram bacteria and positive gram bacteria. K. pneumoniae, E. coli, S. aureus, P. aeruginosa and B. subtilis. Moreover it is also tested against fungi, C. albicans (fungi). The largest inhibition diameter zone against E. coli and S. aureus is obtained for the silver nanoclay polyol dammar, namely PDS3 coating system.

Explore further: Cracks in the surface coating of gas turbines provide longer lifespan and better thermal insulation

Porous ceramic water filters are often coated with colloidal silver, which prevents the growth of microbes trapped in the micro- and nano-scale pores of the filter. Other metals such as copper and zinc have also been shown ...

Gas turbines are used for the production of electricity and in aircraft engines. To increase the life-span of the turbines, they are sprayed with a surface coating. The coating consists of two layers one of metal to protect ...

A novel, bacteria-repelling coating material that could increase the success of medical implants has been created by researchers.

Read the rest here:

Combating bacteria via silver-dammar coating

PUNE, India, February 26, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

MnM Conferences is pleased to announce Nanotechnologies in Drug Delivery Congress taking place on the 27 - 28 April 2015and will be held in London, United Kingdom.

Leading academics, scientists and business development executives from pharma and biotech companies from around the world will be travelling to the Nanotechnologies in Drug Delivery Congress. This event puts them together with venture capitalists and other financiers looking to invest in their projects.

Bringing together 25+International expert speakers from academia and industry, the two day program will examine key concerns in drug delivery including Nanotechnology drug enabled drug delivery in HIV therapy, siRNA, and blood protein analysis as well as exploring nanotechnology in medicine design.

Synopsis:

Panel Discussion:

The full agenda can be found at the event website http://www.mnmconferences.com/nanotechnologies_agenda.html

Save 20% off on the Delegate Registration if you register your seat before March! Just use WM/ND/20 as a discount code. So hurry to get an amazing deal!

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About MnM Conferences

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MnM Conferences Announces Their Inaugural Congress - Nanotechnologies in Drug Delivery

Being able to order anything you want online and have it air-delivered to your house an hour later soundslifesaving, but it doesnt come close to the drone advancement medical scientists just made.

With the help of Columbia University andBrigham and Womens Hospital in Boston,scientists at Harvard Medical School created what theyre calling nano-sized drones that will be used for medical purposes and eventually biodegrade inside the body.

The report findingspublished last week in Science Translational Medicineexplain that the nanomedicines willdeliver a special type of healing molecule to fat deposits in arteries. This could become a new way to prevent heart attacks caused by atherosclerosis, which kills one in four people in the U.S. and is the countrys leading cause of death, according to a Harvard Med news article.

The inflammation-resolving targeted nanoparticles have shown exciting potential not only for the treatment of atherosclerosis as described here, but also in other therapeutic areas including wound repair,Omid Farokhzad,director of theLaboratory of Nanomedicine and Biomaterials at Brigham and Womens, was reported saying in the Harvard news article.

In fact, it is the wound repair aspect of this technology that makes it so promising. Most scientists are developing drugs thatprevent heart attacks by tamping down inflammation, but years of such a drug regimen has negative side effects and treating inflammation alone isnt enough. Its the healing of the damage to the arterial walls that makes the difference, and that is what the new nanodrones will be addressing.

So far, the nonomedicines have tested successfully in mice. After a little fine-tuning, the scientists will beset tomove on to human testing.

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Amazon Who? Harvard Scientists Already Built Delivery Drones That Will Save Lives

18 hours ago A polyethylene glycol-hydrophilic carbon cluster developed at Rice University has the potential to quench the overexpression of damaging superoxides through the catalytic turnover of reactive oxygen species that can harm biological functions. Credit: Errol Samuel/Rice University

Injectable nanoparticles that could protect an injured person from further damage due to oxidative stress have proven to be astoundingly effective in tests to study their mechanism.

Scientists at Rice University, Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) Medical School designed methods to validate their 2012 discovery that combined polyethylene glycol-hydrophilic carbon clustersknown as PEG-HCCscould quickly stem the process of overoxidation that can cause damage in the minutes and hours after an injury.

The tests revealed a single nanoparticle can quickly catalyze the neutralization of thousands of damaging reactive oxygen species molecules that are overexpressed by the body's cells in response to an injury and turn the molecules into oxygen. These reactive species can damage cells and cause mutations, but PEG-HCCs appear to have an enormous capacity to turn them into less-reactive substances.

The researchers hope an injection of PEG-HCCs as soon as possible after an injury, such as traumatic brain injury or stroke, can mitigate further brain damage by restoring normal oxygen levels to the brain's sensitive circulatory system.

The results were reported today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Effectively, they bring the level of reactive oxygen species back to normal almost instantly," said Rice chemist James Tour. "This could be a useful tool for emergency responders who need to quickly stabilize an accident or heart attack victim or to treat soldiers in the field of battle." Tour led the new study with neurologist Thomas Kent of Baylor College of Medicine and biochemist Ah-Lim Tsai of UTHealth.

PEG-HCCs are about 3 nanometers wide and 30 to 40 nanometers long and contain from 2,000 to 5,000 carbon atoms. In tests, an individual PEG-HCC nanoparticle can catalyze the conversion of 20,000 to a million reactive oxygen species molecules per second into molecular oxygen, which damaged tissues need, and hydrogen peroxide while quenching reactive intermediates.

Tour and Kent led the earlier research that determined an infusion of nontoxic PEG-HCCs may quickly stabilize blood flow in the brain and protect against reactive oxygen species molecules overexpressed by cells during a medical trauma, especially when accompanied by massive blood loss.

Their research targeted traumatic brain injuries, after which cells release an excessive amount of the reactive oxygen species known as a superoxide into the blood. These toxic free radicals are molecules with one unpaired electron that the immune system uses to kill invading microorganisms. In small concentrations, they contribute to a cell's normal energy regulation. Generally, they are kept in check by superoxide dismutase, an enzyme that neutralizes superoxides.

Continued here:

Nano-antioxidants prove their potential

The European Summit for Clinical Nanomedicine and Targeted Medicine

The Translation to Knowledge Based Nanomedicne

8th Conference And Exhibition, June 28 - July 1, 2015

Sunday, June 28, 2015 General Assembly of the European Society for Nanomedicine (15.30 h) Meeting of the International Society for Nanomedicine (16.30 h) Editorial Board Meeting, European Journal of Nanomedicine (18.00 h) Welcome Dinner for Speakers & invited Guests [19.45 Swisstel Le Plaza, 1st Floor]

Co-founded by the Swiss Confederation. Swiss Derpartment of Economic Affairs, Education and Research

Scientific Committee: Prof. Dr. med. Patrick Hunziker, University Hospital Basel (CH) (Chairman) Prof. Dr. Yechezkel Barenholz, Hebrew University, Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem (IL) Dr. h.c. Beat Lffler, MA, European Foundation for Clinical Nanomedicine (CLINAM), Basel (CH) Prof. Dr. Gert Storm, Institute for Pharmaceutical Sciences, Utrecht University, (NL) Prof. Dr. Marisa Papaluca Amati, European Medicines Agency, London (GB) Prof. Dr. med. Janos Szebeni, Bay Zoltan Ltd and Semmelweis/Miskolc Universities, Budapest (HU) Prof. Dr. med. Christoph Alexiou, Head and Neck Surgery, University Hospital Erlangen (D) Prof. Dr. Claus-Michael Lehr, Helmholtz-Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS), Saarbrucken (D) Prof. Dr. Gerd Binnig, Founder of Definiens AG, Nobel Laureate, Munich (DE) Patrick Boisseau, CEA-Lti, Chairman of the ETPN, Grenoble (FR) Prof. Dr. Viola Vogel, Laboratory for Biologically Oriented Materials, ETH, Zrich (CH) Prof. Dr. Jan Mollenhauer, Director Lundbeckfonden Center of Excellence University of Southern Denmark, Odense (DK) Dr. Yanay Ofran, Systems Biology & Functional Genomics, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan (IL)

Venue: Congress Center, Messeplatz 21, 4058 Basel, Switzerland, Phone + 41 58 206 28 28 This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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CLINAM - European Foundation for Clinical Nanomedicine

(PRWEB) February 06, 2015

Los Angeles, California: Vault Nano Inc. (VNI), a biotechnology company developing vault medicines, was granted U.S. patent Vault Complexes for Cytokine Delivery. This patent is part of a multi-patent family protecting VNIs cytokine-based immune therapy strategy for treating cancer. Discovered by the Rome Laboratory at UCLA, the ImmunOncologyTM portfolio is based on a novel human protein nanoparticle, called a vault. VNIs therapies are poised to make a clinical impact in multiple metastatic cancers.

The patent is part of an extensive intellectual property portfolio licensed from the University of California Los Angeles and developed by Vault Nano. UCLA is a terrific partner for Vault Nano, said Oliver Foellmer, VNIs Chief Operating Officer. Our ongoing development of the vault technology is strongly supported by strategic collaborations of Vault Nano with multiple laboratories at the university.

Vault Nano is focused on changing the treatment paradigm in cancer. VNIs ImmunOncologyTM portfolio is based on the unique ability of vault particles to present active payloads to the immune system. This effect enhances the action of our active ingredient to recruit and educate immune cells to the tumor, said Professor Leonard Rome. Vaults really are a unique nanoparticle in that they are inherently a human particle that remains bio-invisible while delivering therapeutic messages to the immune system. Our therapeutic, VNI-101, rallies the patients own defenses against the tumor anywhere in the body. VNI-101 is currently being prepared for clinical testing against late stage lung cancer at UCLAs Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center (JCCC) and for the initiation of human clinical safety testing by the end of 2015.

VNI-101 will initially be tested in patients with stage IV non small cell lung carcinoma and will ultimately be applied to melanoma and other metastatic cancers. The drug will be the cornerstone of multiple anti-cancer immune therapies being developed by the company that promise to be highly effective, while simultaneously reducing the long-term toxicity associated with todays chemotherapeutics. VNI-101 is part of a pharmaceutical industry movement of immune modulating drugs making their way toward the cancer market. Immune Oncology is a hot area today and will grow significantly in the coming years, said Michael Laznicka, VNI Chairman and CEO. The most exciting aspect of our ImmunOncologyTM approach is that it is highly synergistic with pharmaceutical checkpoint inhibitor programs. We envision that by combining our vault medicines with other immune therapy approaches we will be able to lower dose-dependent side effects and enhance effectiveness to the point where a discussion of short-term survival can transition to one of curative long-term health.

About Vault Nano Inc. Vault Nano Inc., located in Los Angeles, California, is the leading biotechnology company in developing and commercializing Vault Medicines. VNIs mission is to develop safe and effective immunotherapeutics with the goal of changing the existing treatment paradigm of life-threatening and debilitating diseases.

Activating the Immune System to Destroy Cancer Immune Medicine Powered by Vaults

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Vault Nano Inc. Announces Granting of U.S. Cancer Immune Therapy Patent Supporting ImmunOncologyTM Programs and ...

Creating a hydrogel from the polymers

Through the precise tailoring of the ninja polymers, researchers were able to create macromolecules - molecular structures containing a large number of atoms - which combine water solubility, a positive charge, and biodegradability. When mixed with water and heated to normal body temperature, the polymers self-assemble, swelling into a synthetic hydrogel that is easy to manipulate.

When applied to contaminated surfaces, the hydrogel's positive charge attracts negatively charged microbial membranes, like stars and planets being pulled into a black hole. However, unlike other antimicrobials that target the internal machinery of bacteria to try to prevent it from replicating, this hydrogel destroys the bacteria by rupturing the bacteria's membrane, rendering it completely unable to regenerate or spread.

The hydrogel is comprised of more than 90 percent water, making it easy to handle and apply to surfaces. It also makes it potentially viable for eventual inclusion in applications like creams or injectable therapeutics for wound healing, implant and catheter coatings, skin infections or even orifice barriers. It is the first-ever to be biodegradable, biocompatible and non-toxic, potentially making it an ideal tool to combat serious health hazards facing hospital workers, visitors and patients.

The IBM scientists in the nanomedicine polymer program along with the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology have taken this research a step further and have made a nanomedicine breakthrough in which they converted common plastic materials like polyethylene terephthalate (PET) into non-toxic and biocompatible materials designed to specifically target and attack fungal infections.BCC Research reported that the treatment cost for fungal infections was $3 billion worldwide in 2010 andis expected to increase to $6 billion in 2014. In this breakthrough, the researchers identified a novel self-assembly process for broken down PET, the primary material in plastic water bottles, in which 'super' molecules are formed through a hydrogen bond and serve as drug carriers targeting fungal infections in the body. Demonstrating characteristics like electrostatic charge similar to polymers, the molecules are able to break through bacterial membranes and eradicate fungus, then biodegrade in the body naturally. This is important to treat eye infections associated with contact lenses, and bloodstream infections like Candida.

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IBMs nanomedicine initiative - IBM Research: Overview ...

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For years, treating scratches and burns to the eyes has usually involved dropping medicine onto the eyes several times a day, sometimes for weeksa treatment that lends itself to missed doses and other side effects. But scientists are now reporting in the journal ACS Nano a novel, drug-releasing wafer that patients can put directly on their affected eyes just once a day. The team says the device works better than drops and could help patients recover faster.

Ghanashyam Acharya, Stephen C. Pflugfelder and colleagues point out that eye injuries are a major cause of blindness worldwide. In the U.S., about 2.5 million people suffer such an injury every year. But typical eye drop therapies are not very efficient. Blinking and tears clear the medicine quickly from the eyes, so patients have to apply drops several times a day. But this frequency boosts the risks for side effects, including inflammation and blurred vision, and makes it likely that patients will miss doses. Researchers have tried many approaches to address these problems, but none so far have worked well.

In a new approach, Acharya's team developed a clear, round filmwhich for humans would be about one-tenth the size of a typical contact lensembedded with tiny pockets that can hold and release medicine slowly over time. The film then dissolves completely. In mice, the wafer was twice as effective as eye drops and didn't cause inflammation that can lead to side effects. The team concludes that the wafer could be used to treat eye injuries and other conditions such as chronic dry eye and glaucoma.

Explore further: Drug-infused nanoparticle is right for sore eyes

More information: Ocular Drug Delivery Nanowafer with Enhanced Therapeutic Efficacy, ACS Nano, Article ASAP, DOI: 10.1021/nn506599f

Abstract Presently, eye injuries are treated by topical eye drop therapy. Because of the ocular surface barriers, topical eye drops must be applied several times in a day, causing side effects such as glaucoma, cataract, and poor patient compliance. This article presents the development of a nanowafer drug delivery system in which the polymer and the drug work synergistically to elicit an enhanced therapeutic efficacy with negligible adverse immune responses. The nanowafer is a small transparent circular disc that contains arrays of drug-loaded nanoreservoirs. The slow drug release from the nanowafer increases the drug residence time on the ocular surface and its subsequent absorption into the surrounding ocular tissue. At the end of the stipulated period of drug release, the nanowafer will dissolve and fade away. The in vivo efficacy of the axitinib-loaded nanowafer was demonstrated in treating corneal neovascularization (CNV) in a murine ocular burn model. The laser scanning confocal imaging and RT-PCR study revealed that once a day administered axitinib nanowafer was therapeutically twice as effective, compared to axitinib delivered twice a day by topical eye drop therapy. The axitinib nanowafer is nontoxic and did not affect the wound healing and epithelial recovery of the ocular burn induced corneas. These results confirmed that drug release from the axitinib nanowafer is more effective in inhibiting CNV compared to the topical eye drop treatment even at a lower dosing frequency.

For the millions of sufferers of dry eye syndrome, their only recourse to easing the painful condition is to use drug-laced eye drops three times a day. Now, researchers from the University of Waterloo have ...

Honey's antibacterial benefits are widely recognised but now a QUT team of optometry researchers is conducting clinical trials of the therapeutic effect of the sweet nectar as a remedy for dry, red and sore eyes, which are ...

Changes in the lipid layer of the eyes' natural tear film may contribute to the common problem of contact lens discomfort, reports a study in the December issue of Optometry and Vision Science, official journal of the Am ...

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An end to the medicine dropper for eye injuries?

One of biologys most powerful tools has an ironic limitation: It can only look at dead things. The field emission scanning electron microscopelets just call it FE-SEM from here on out, deal?gave scientists theirfirst views of DNAs double helix, helped them understand how various insects are engineered, and revealed the human immunodeficiency virusthe germthat causes AIDS. The FE-SEM is great for seeing teeny tiny things in realistic detail, but in order to bounce electrons off those surfaces and produce an image, it needs a vacuum. And for living things, vacuum = death.

Well, not anymore. A team of Japanese researchers has developed a chemical coating that allows them to put living things inside anFE-SEMs vacuum chamber without first sucking the life out of them. This would give scientists the ability to observebiological processes as they happen. The researchers call their invention a NanoSuit. Chemically similar to a food preservative, the NanoSuit shields a specimen in a nanometer-thin, flexible coat that keeps moisture in without disturbing the electron backscatter that the microscope picks up. In short, NanoSuit saves lives. Germ lives and bug lives, but still.

NanoSuitalso saves a ton of prep time. For a non-NanoSuited specimen, researchers first have to use chemicals to kill and dry out the target. But that technique distorts the way a specimens surface actually looks. Takahiko Hariyama, a biomemetics researcher at Hamamatsu University School of Medicine in Japan and co-inventor of the NanoSuit, says the coatingallowed him to see for the first time an insects body unsullied by chemicals and dehydration. After being dipped, dried, and placed in the vacuum chamber, the beetles, sand hoppers, and mosquito larvae used in this experiment continued to wriggle and paw under the microscope. Insects have plenty of air in their bodies, and therefore can survive for an hour with active movement, Hariyama says. The coating is a solution of distilled water and Tween 20, a food preservative.

But FE-SEM didnt make its mark on biology by only looking at bugs. Electrons are capable of letting researchers see things down to the cellular levelat a scale of around 0.6 nanometers. Hariyama says this scale should be no problem for NanoSuit. If true, this would allow people to see, in three dimensions, everything from genome transcription to the progression of cancerous tissue. With the FM-SEMs level of resolution, these real-time views could lead to new and better treatments. And while Hariyama says he and his co-authors have seen good results using NanoSuit to monitor living cellular life in the lab, the paper describing those experiments is still undergoing peer review. Proof of concept, in other words, is still pending.

Check out the full video of a living Shining leaf beetle (Lilioceris merdigera) under an FE-SEM, wearing a coat of NanoSuit.

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This Nano Skin Could Let Us Watch Life at the Smallest Scales

Reston, Va. (January 27, 2015) - A novel radioguided surgery technique could quickly and effectively identify residual cancer cells during brain tumor surgery, with low radiation exposure for both patients and surgeons. The study, featured in the January 2015 issue of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine, reports that Y-90 DOTATOC, a beta-minus-emitting tracer, can effectively delineate the margins of meningiomas and high-grade gliomas.

Radioguided surgery (RGS) allows the surgeon to evaluate the completeness of a tumor resection while minimizing the amount of healthy tissue removed. During the procedure, a surgeon is provided with vital and real-time information on the location and extent of the lesion that allows better assessment of the resection margins. The technique uses a radiolabeled tracer preferentially taken up by the tumor to discriminate cancerous tissue from healthy organs, as well as a probe sensitive to the emission released by the tracer, to identify in real time the targeted tumor focus. The radiopharmaceutical is administered to the patient before surgery.

"This research relates to a completely innovative radioguided surgery technique: the use of a beta-minus-emitting tracer," states lead researcher Riccardo Faccini. "This is a change in paradigm because RGS currently uses only gamma and beta-plus-emitting isotopes. The new technique uses Y-90-labeled DOTATOC--a tracer that traditionally is used for molecular radiotherapy--for diagnostic purposes."

In the study, uptake and background from healthy tissues were estimated on Ga-68 DOTATOC positron emission tomography (PET) scans of 11 meningioma patients and 12 high grade glioma (HGG) patients. A dedicated statistical analysis of the images was completed and validated. The feasibility study was performed using full simulation of emission and detection of the radiation, accounting for the measured uptake and background rate. All meningioma patients but one, who had an atypical extracranial tumor, showed high uptake of DOTATOC. Uptake of Y-90 DOTATOC in meningiomas was high in all studied patients. Uptake in HGGs was lower than in meningiomas but was still acceptable for RGS. Funding for the study was provided by Italian institutions Universita' di Roma La Sapienza, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Centro Fermi Museo Storico della Fisica, and Istituto Europeo di Oncologia.

"We are setting up clinical tests of RGS with beta-minus radiation on meningiomas, based on their known high receptivity for DOTATOC," Faccini said. "This study suggests that the next step will be to try the technique on gliomas, which will be more challenging, but feasible and definitely clinically interesting. In parallel with this technique, we are also developing a surgical probe customized for the problem, which could in the future extend the applicability of the method to endoscopy or laparoscopy."

Meningiomas are tumors that grow on the delicate outer covering of the brain. According to the Brain Science Foundation, meningiomas account for approximately 33.8% of all primary brain tumors, making them the most common type. Gliomas, which are malignant tumors that commonly invade adjacent tissue and spread through the central nervous system, represent about 17.1% of all primary brain tumors and about 70.5% of all astrocytomas.

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Authors of the article "Toward Radioguided Surgery with ? Decays: Uptake of a Somatostatin Analogue, DOTATOC, in Meningioma and High-Grade Glioma" include Francesco Collamati, Alessandra Pepe, Fabio Bellini, Vincenzo Patera, Alessio Sarti, Adalberto Sciubba, Martina Senzacqua, Riccardo Faccini, Sapienza Universit di Roma, Roma, Italy; Valerio Bocci, Giacomo Chiodi, Erika De Lucia, Ilaria Mattei Silvio Morganti, Luca Piersanti, Davide Pinci, Luigi Recchia, Cecilia Voena, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucelare, Italy; Marta Cremonesi, Mahila E. Ferrari, Chiara M. Grana, Istituto Europeo di Oncologia, Milano, Italy; Andrea Russomando, Elena Solfaroli Camillocci, Center for Life Nano Science @ Sapienza, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Roma, Italy; and Paola M. Frallicciardi, Michela Marafini, Centro Fermi Museo Storico della Fisica, Roma, Italy.

Please visit the SNMMI Media Center to view the PDF of the study, including images, and more information about molecular imaging and personalized medicine. To schedule an interview with the researchers, please contact Kimberly Brown at (703) 652-6773 or kbrown@snmmi.org. Current and past issues of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine can be found online at http://jnm.snmjournals.org.

About the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging

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Novel radioguided brain surgery technique could help pinpoint cancerous tissue

Can robots travel inside living animals? It sounds like science fiction, but scientists have just made it a reality by implanting tiny nano-robots inside living mice. Researchers from the Department of Nanoengineering at the University of California, San Diego, published their report on the first successful tests of implanting micro robots designed to disperse drugs within a body, reports SmithsonianMag.com.

As the research report states, these kinds of robots have been tested in vitro, or outside the body, in the past, while this is the first time that this technology has been studied in vivo, or inside the body. The zinc-based robots only the width of a strand of human hair were ingested orally by the mice. The zinc reacted with the animals stomach acid, producing hydrogen bubbles that propelled the robots into the stomach lining. As soon as the robots attached to the stomach, they dissolved, delivering the medicine into the stomach tissue, i09 reports.

For the researchers, this work could pave the way for implanting similar robots in humans. This could be an effective way of delivering drugs to the stomach in order to treat something like a peptic ulcer, the BBC reports.

While additional in vivo characterizations are warranted to further evaluate the performance and functionalities of various man-made micromotors in living organisms, this study represents the very first steps toward such a goal, reads the research report. According to the researchers, this work moves toward expanding the horizon of man-made nanomachines in medicine.

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'Nano-bots' implanted in mice