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Category Archives: Nanotechnology

ANSI Nanotechnology Standards Panel to Hold Free Webinar on its New Nanotechnology Standards Database

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Registration is now open for an upcoming webinar hosted by the American National Standards Institute Nanotechnology Standards Panel (ANSI-NSP). The webinar, which will take place on Thursday, October 10, 2013, from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. EDT, will provide an introduction to the ANSI-NSP Nanotechnology Standards Database. This database is a powerful new tool that is intended to serve as a free, comprehensive resource for individuals and groups worldwide seeking information about standards and other relevant documents related to nanomaterials and nanotechnology.

The creation of the database is part of a larger ongoing effort by the ANSI-NSP and its members and partners to bolster the visibility of existing and in-development nanotechnology guidance documents, best practices, and standards. To make the database relevant to the needs of the user community and help it grow, SDOs, government bodies, and other stakeholder organizations are encouraged to contribute information about their current and in-progress documents and projects. Organizations are required to register before submitting.

The October 10 webinar will cover the various ways that the database can be effectively used by groups and individuals as a resource, and will provide information about the short-term and long-term goals associated with the creation of the database.

There is no charge to take part in the webinar, which is open to all interested parties worldwide; however, advance registration is required. To register for the webinar, click here.

To access the database, register, or submit information about relevant documents, click here.

Formed in 2004, ANSI-NSP serves as the cross-sector coordinating body for the facilitation of standards development in the area of nanotechnology. For more information about ANSI-NSP and its work, visit its official webpage or contact Heather Benko (hbenko@ansi.org), ANSI senior manager, nanotechnology standardization activities.

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ANSI Nanotechnology Standards Panel to Hold Free Webinar on its New Nanotechnology Standards Database

Update on ISO TC 229s Prodigious Activity in Nanotechnology Standardization

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The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Technical Committee (TC) 229 on Nanotechnologies is one of ISOs most active committees, publishing more than 40 documents since its formation in 2005. Recently the committee has ramped up its activity even more, with 35 projects currently in progress in the Working Groups (WGs) directly under TC 229 leadership or in collaboration with other groups. These new documents, which are in various stages of development, will have a tremendous impact on the global advancement of nanotechnology standardization in such critical areas as nanotechnology vocabulary, appropriate measurement techniques for characterization of nano-objects and nanomaterials, and health and safety practices for those individuals working with nano-objects or nanomaterials.

Within ISO TC 229, four WGs, operating independently or jointly depending upon potential overlap of subject areas, focus on the development of international standards for nanotechnologies according to the following scopes:

Nanotechnology, which refers to the manipulation and control of matter in the nanoscale (approximately 1 to 100 nm), is revolutionizing virtually all industry sectors, from information technology to medicine to clean energy production.

WG 1: Terminology and nomenclature

WG 2: Measurement and characterization

WG 3: Health, safety, and environment

WG 4: Materials specifications

The full list of documents currently in development within the ISO TC 229 WGs is available here.

Always a major player in nano standardization work, the U.S. has leadership of ISO TC 229 WG 3, with Dr. Vladimir Murashov of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) serving as Convener. To ensure the U.S. is strongly represented throughout TC 229s areas of activity, the U.S. Technical Advisory Group (TAG) to ISO TC 229, accredited and administered by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), formulates and delivers U.S. positions and proposals to ISO in all areas of nanotechnology. Mirroring ISO TC 229s four-WG structure, the U.S. TAG is made up of U.S. private- and public-sector experts in nanotechnology who serve as delegates for ISO TC 229 meetings, with Steve Brown of Intel Global Environmental Health and Safety serving as overall TAG Chair.

ANSI is proud of the consistent engagement and leadership the U.S. has shown in ISO TC 229 since its formation a decade ago, said Fran Schrotter, senior vice president and chief operating officer at ANSI. The collaborative work of our U.S. TAG members and leaders has ensured that the U.S. plays an important role in influencing the progress and direction of critical nanotechnology standardization activities that foster innovation in nearly every industry.

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Update on ISO TC 229s Prodigious Activity in Nanotechnology Standardization

Rice's Naomi Halas to direct Smalley Institute

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Rice University today named nanotechnology pioneer Naomi Halas director of the Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology. Halas, one of Rices most cited and renowned researchers, said she plans to expand the institutes scope, engage more faculty and students and foster new collaborations at the frontiers of science.

The landscape in science changes year by year, Halas said. Many exciting efforts that define the frontier of science in 2015 have emerged in the last five years. Its important for us to broaden our scope in order to build on and communicate that excitement and to stay engaged, not only with our local intellectual community but with our regional and national communities as well.

Halas, one of the foremost experts in nanophotonics, is Rices Stanley C. Moore Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering and a professor of biomedical engineering, chemistry and physics and astronomy. She is the director of the Rice Quantum Institute (RQI) and is the first person in the universitys history to be elected to both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering for research done at Rice.

As the director of the Smalley Institute, Naomi Halas is going to bring both vision and energy to the organizations research, education and outreach efforts, said Rice Provost George McLendon. Rice has a rich history of solving difficult problems in advanced materials, quantum magnetism, plasmonics, photonics, biophysics, ultracold atomic physics, condensed matter, chemical physics and all areas of nanoscience and nanotechnology. Dr. Halas will be in a unique position to foster Rices continued success and leadership in all of those areas.

Halas succeeds Dan Mittleman, professor of electrical and computer engineering, who has been serving as interim director of the institute since 2012.

Halas was recruited to Rice by Smalley Institute namesake Rick Smalley. She said it is an honor to direct the interdisciplinary research institutes Smalley founded at Rice. Smalley shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Rice University Professor Emeritus Robert Curl and Florida State University Professor Harold Kroto for the discovery of carbon fullerenes at Rice in 1985.

Nano, as fostered by the National Nanotechnology Initiative, was a resounding success, Halas said. Nano is everywhere now, in virtually all disciplines, and has become a foundation that enables us to both envision and conduct research in entirely new ways. Nano is an essential foundation for our scientific and technological futures.

She said that from their inception, the Rice Quantum Institute and the Smalley Institute were designed to foster research at the frontiers of science.

Rick was always keenly aware that science is a rapidly evolving and highly dynamic enterprise and that research at Rice grew and developed in a very interdisciplinary and cross-cutting way, Halas said. As we move forward, we can always anticipate the unanticipated new discoveries, surprising insights, entirely new fields emerging from our research.

Halas said Rice Quantum Institute and the Smalley Institute serve essentially the same broad community of fundamental and applied physical sciences at Rice, with a focus on emerging materials, their properties and applications. She said there are many new opportunities for new initiatives and for coordinated programs with common goals. She also said the institutes directions and activities will be driven by their faculty membership.

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Rice's Naomi Halas to direct Smalley Institute

Germs be gone: New nanotechnology keeps bacteria from sticking to surfaces

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15 hours ago E. coli cells. Credit: Cornell University

Just as the invention of nonstick pans was a boon for chefs, a new type of nanoscale surface that bacteria can't stick to holds promise for applications in the food processing, medical and even shipping industries.

The technology, developed collaboratively by researchers from Cornell University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, uses an electrochemical process called anodization to create nanoscale pores that change the electrical charge and surface energy of a metal surface, which in turn exerts a repulsive force on bacterial cells and prevents attachment and biofilm formation. These pores can be as small as 15 nanometers; a sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers thick.

When the anodization process was applied to aluminum, it created a nanoporous surface called alumina, which proved effective in preventing surrogates of two well-known pathogens, Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Listeria monocytogenes, from attaching, according to a study recently published in the journal Biofouling. The study also investigates how the size of the nanopores changes the repulsive forces on bacteria.

"It's probably one of the lowest-cost possibilities to manufacture a nanostructure on a metallic surface," said Carmen Moraru, associate professor of food science and the paper's senior author. Guoping Feng, a research associate in Moraru's lab, is the paper's first author.

Finding low-cost solutions to limiting bacterial attachments is key, especially in biomedical and food processing applications. "The food industry makes products with low profit margins," said Moraru. "Unless a technology is affordable it doesn't stand the chance of being practically applied."

Anodized metals could be used to prevent buildups of biofilms slick communities of bacteria that adhere to surfaces and are tricky to remove in biomedical clean rooms and in equipment parts that are hard to reach or clean, Moraru said.

Anodized metal could also have marine applications, such as keeping ship hulls free of algae.

The collaborating group from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is led by Diana Borca-Tasciuc, associate professor of mechanical, aerospace and nuclear engineering.

Explore further: New tech application keeps bacteria from sticking to surfaces

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Germs be gone: New nanotechnology keeps bacteria from sticking to surfaces

Scientists find that exposure to nanoparticles could impact cardiovascular health

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Due to its huge potential in applications ranging from cheaper vaccinations to energy-storing car panels, there's plenty of excitement surrounding the emergence of nanotechnology. But a team of scientists are urging caution, with a study conducted at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology suggesting that exposure to silicon-based nanoparticles may play a role in the development of cardiovascular disease.

The scientists from the Technion Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Rambam Medical Center, and the Center of Excellence in Exposure Science and Environmental Health (TCEEH) worked with cultured laboratory mouse cells that resemble the cells of arterial walls, exposing them to nanoparticles made from silicon dioxide. The team was seeking to explore the effects that the nanoparticles have on the development of atherosclerosis, a condition that leads to the hardening of the arteries and cardiovascular events such as heart attack and stroke.

What the researchers found was a negative relationship between the silicon-based nanoparticles and macrophages, a type of white blood cell that destroys damaged or dead cells. The toxicity of the nanoparticles causes the macrophages to transform into foam cells or lipids, leading to the development of lesions and hastening the onset of atherosclerosis.

"This exposure may be especially chronic for those employed in research laboratories and in high tech industry where workers handle, manufacture, use and dispose of nanoparticles," says the study's lead author, Professor Michael Aviram. "Products that use silica-based nanoparticles for biomedical uses, such as various chips, drug or gene delivery and tracking, imaging, ultrasound therapy, and diagnostics, may also pose an increased cardiovascular risk for consumers as well."

This study isn't the first time concerns have been raised about the dangers of nanotechnology. Operating at a scale of 1-100 nanometers (a nanometer is one billionth of a meter), the chemical reactions when dealing with nanotechnology can be somewhat unpredictable. Previous research has turned up some unsettling results, including that silver nanoparticles can materially alter a person's immunity, and that titanium dioxide nanoparticles cause systemic genetic damage in mice.

The researchers warn that adopting a cautious approach is critical in the near-term, with nanotechnology-based consumer products on the rise, a world market they estimate will hit US$3 trillion by 2020.

This reality leads to increased human exposure and interaction of silica-based nanoparticles with biological systems," write the researchers. "Because our research demonstrates a clear cardiovascular health risk associated with this trend, steps need to be taken to help ensure that potential health and environmental hazards are being addressed at the same time as the nanotechnology is being developed."

The research was published in the journal Environmental Toxicology.

Source: American Technion Society

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Scientists find that exposure to nanoparticles could impact cardiovascular health

Nanotechnology used to engineer ACL replacements

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Lindsey Vonn. Derrick Rose. Tom Brady. Mickey Mantle.

They have all fallen victim to the dreaded pop of the knee.

Connecting the femur to the tibia, the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) rupture is one of the most devastating injuries in sports. No other injury has sidelined more athletes for a season or even the rest of a career. And ACL sprains and tears affect more people than just the pros. According to the American Association of Orthopaedic Surgeons, more than 250,000 ACL surgeries are performed annually in the United States, totaling up to more than $500 million in health care costs each year.

Not only is the ACL inelastic and prone to popping, it is incapable of healing itself, causing surgeons to rely on autografts for reconstruction. Most common is the bone-patellar tendon-bone (BPTB) graft, in which the surgeon removes part of the patellar tendon to replace the damaged ACL.

"BPTB autografts have a high incidence of knee pain and discomfort that does not go away," said Guillermo Ameer, professor of biomedical engineering at Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering and professor of surgery at the Feinberg School of Medicine. "By saving the patient's patellar tendon and using an off-the-shelf product, one may have a better chance of preserving the natural biomechanics of the knee."

Ameer and his research team are working to engineer such a product by combining three components: polyester fibers that are braided to increase strength and toughness, an inherently antioxidant and porous biomaterial previously created in Ameer's lab, and calcium nanocrystals, a mineral naturally found in human teeth and bones. His work is described in the paper "A biodegradable tri-component graft for anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction," which was published in the Nov. 21 issue of the Journal of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine. Eunji Chung, a postdoc at the University of Chicago and former graduate student in Ameer's lab, was the paper's first author.

During ACL reconstruction surgeries, tunnels are drilled into the femur and tibia bones to hold the new ligament in a fixed position. Ameer created a bone-like material by combining his antioxidant biomaterials with the calcium nanocrystals; he then embedded braided polyester fibers into it. The artificial ligament's bone-like ends healed to the native bone in the drilled tunnels, anchoring the ligament into place.

By studying an animal model, Ameer and his team noticed that the animal's natural bone and tissue cells migrated into the pores of the artificial ligament, populating it throughout and integrating with the bone tunnels. While longer-term studies are necessary to evaluate the potential use of the approach in humans, Ameer is optimistic about the results.

"The engineered ligament is biocompatible and can stabilize the knee, allowing the animal to function," Ameer said. "Most importantly, we may have found a way to integrate an artificial ligament with native bone."

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Nanotechnology used to engineer ACL replacements

Researchers use nanotechnology to engineer ACL replacements

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Researchers created a tri-component, synthetic graft for reconstructing torn anterior cruciate ligaments

Lindsey Vonn. Derrick Rose. Tom Brady. Mickey Mantle.

They have all fallen victim to the dreaded pop of the knee.

Connecting the femur to the tibia, the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) rupture is one of the most devastating injuries in sports. No other injury has sidelined more athletes for a season or even the rest of a career. And ACL sprains and tears affect more people than just the pros. According to the American Association of Orthopaedic Surgeons, more than 250,000 ACL surgeries are performed annually in the United States, totaling up to more than $500 million in health care costs each year.

Not only is the ACL inelastic and prone to popping, it is incapable of healing itself, causing surgeons to rely on autografts for reconstruction. Most common is the bone-patellar tendon-bone (BPTB) graft, in which the surgeon removes part of the patellar tendon to replace the damaged ACL.

"BPTB autografts have a high incidence of knee pain and discomfort that does not go away," said Guillermo Ameer, professor of biomedical engineering at Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering and professor of surgery at the Feinberg School of Medicine. "By saving the patient's patellar tendon and using an off-the-shelf product, one may have a better chance of preserving the natural biomechanics of the knee."

Ameer and his research team are working to engineer such a product by combining three components: polyester fibers that are braided to increase strength and toughness, an inherently antioxidant and porous biomaterial previously created in Ameer's lab, and calcium nanocrystals, a mineral naturally found in human teeth and bones. His work is described in the paper "A biodegradable tri-component graft for anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction," which was published in the Nov. 21 issue of the Journal of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine. Eunji Chung, a postdoc at the University of Chicago and former graduate student in Ameer's lab, was the paper's first author.

During ACL reconstruction surgeries, tunnels are drilled into the femur and tibia bones to hold the new ligament in a fixed position. Ameer created a bone-like material by combining his antioxidant biomaterials with the calcium nanocrystals; he then embedded braided polyester fibers into it. The artificial ligament's bone-like ends healed to the native bone in the drilled tunnels, anchoring the ligament into place.

By studying an animal model, Ameer and his team noticed that the animal's natural bone and tissue cells migrated into the pores of the artificial ligament, populating it throughout and integrating with the bone tunnels. While longer-term studies are necessary to evaluate the potential use of the approach in humans, Ameer is optimistic about the results.

"The engineered ligament is biocompatible and can stabilize the knee, allowing the animal to function," Ameer said. "Most importantly, we may have found a way to integrate an artificial ligament with native bone."

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Researchers use nanotechnology to engineer ACL replacements


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