Daily Archives: May 9, 2017

A group of Canadian and Italian scientists hasdeveloped a nano-scale "slingshot" that can shoot drugs directly to the part of the body that needs them, thereby speeding up recovery and reducing side-effects.

This idea addresses one of the most taxing problems in medicine: how to kill diseased cells while preserving healthy ones.

Scientists have for many years been working on improving therapies like chemo and radiation on that score, but most efforts have focused on modifying the chemistry rather than alteringthe delivery of the drug.

"It's all about tuning the concentration of the drug optimally in the body: high concentration where you want it to be active, and low concentration where you don't want to affect other healthy parts," says Prof. Alexis Valle-Blisleof the University of Montreal, co-author of the report published this week in Nature Communications.

"If you can increase the concentration of that drug at the specific location, that drug will be more efficient," he told CBC News in an interview.

Restricting the movement of the drug also reduces potentially harmful secondary effects on other parts of the body for instance, the hair loss that can result from toxic cancer treatments, or the loss of so-called good bacteria due to antibiotic use.

The idea of the slingshot is to home in on the target cells at a molecular level.

Valle-Blisle and his colleagues from U of M and the University of Rome Tor Vergata say they can build a synthetic strand of DNA just a few nanometres long (a nanometre is one-billionth of a metre) that will activate only when it binds to a specific disease marker it has been programmed to identify, like an antibody.

Alexis Valle-Blisle is a professor at the University of Montreal and heads up the school's Laboratory of Biosensors & Nanomachines. (University of Montreal)

The two ends of the strand anchor themselves to the antibody, stretching the strand taut and catapulting the drug to its target.

"Imagine our slingshot like a weapon, and this weapon is being used by our own antibody," said Valle-Blisle, who heads the Laboratory of Biosensors & Nanomachinesat U of M. "We design a specific weapon targeting, for example, HIV. We provide the weapon in the body with the bullet the drug. If the right solider is there, the soldier can use the weapon and shoot the problem."

Equally important: if the wrong soldier is present, the weapon won't be deployed.

So rather than delay treatment for an unidentified infection that could be either viral or bacterial, a patient could receive the medicationfor both and their body would only use the one it needed.

The approach could work with a wide range of drugs aimed at a variety of diseases antibodies are produced in response to many different conditions, including viral and bacterial infections, allergy, cancer and autoimmune diseases like Type 1 diabetes and lupus.

And it can be adapted for other types of disease markers.

But Valle-Blisle and his team are chemists, not clinicians, and their development is so far only a "proof of principle." They intendto work with doctors and other researchers to figure out which diseases to target and which drugs might work best using this delivery system.

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Nanotech 'slingshot' shoots drugs right where they're needed - CBC.ca

Nanotechnology. When American engineer Eric Drexler coined this futuristic term in 1981, he had in mind molecule-sized machines that would do useful tasks. The idea was to copy natures own machines muscle proteins that exert force, for instance, or enzymes that carry out chemical reactions. But engineering at the nanometre scale is tough. We are talking about working with individual atoms. A silicon atom is 0.2 nanometres across. A muscle protein filament is as little as 7 nanometres in diameter.

For decades, we let human engineers off the hook, allowing a bevy of prosaic items from paints to plastics to claim the title of nanotechnology. To qualify, these products just had to involve particles smaller than 100 nanometres and display novel properties.

But finally, last year, a man-made machine claimed the title in the way Drexler imagined. It also made it into the top 10 list of Science magazines breakthroughs of the year.

This nano machine made by Oxford Nanopore Technologies mimics nature to achieve the feat of reading the sequence of the letters of the DNA code.

Oxford Nanopore Technologies

Delightfully, this nano machine made by Oxford Nanopore Technologies mimics nature to achieve the feat of reading the sequence of the letters of the DNA code, the chemical bases guanine, adenine, thymine and cytosine.

The machine is the size of a mobile phone and, unlike traditional sequencers which are desktop-sized and require the DNA to be pre-cut into short segments, it can handle DNA as it comes: double-stranded, long threads.

This pocket sequencer promises to make DNA sequencing cheaper and more accessible. It has already been used to identify the Ebola virus in a matter of hours and to read the sequence of soil microbes aboard the International Space Station.

Heres a nutshell description of how the sequencer works.

The machine is a nanopore, a large single molecule pierced by a hollow channel a couple of nanometres in diameter. If you embed this nanopore in an ultrathin membrane bathed in an ionic solution and apply a small voltage, a tiny current will flow.

(As an aside, the reason I am so tickled by this achievement is that our brain cells also communicate via tiny currents flowing through the pores of proteins called ion channels; I spent the major part of my working career designing and manufacturing sensitive amplifiers to measure these currents.)

The simple idea behind the nanopore is that as a strand of DNA is threaded through, it partially blocks the current flow. Since the degree of blockage depends on the particular DNA letter, the fluctuations in the current pattern reflect the sequence of letters on the DNA strand as it slithers through the nanopore.

Sounds simple but, as always, the devil is in the detail.

The nanopore has two modules. The first grabs double-stranded DNA, cleaves away one of the strands, then ratchets the remaining single strand into and through the hole. It holds each base for a hundred microseconds or more before allowing it to proceed, thereby giving the detection system time to make its measurements.

The second component is the pore. Shaped like a thin hourglass, at its narrowest it is a mere 1.2 nanometres in diameter. This narrowing is the sensing region where the electrical resistance changes as each base squeezes through.

A complication is that neighbouring bases on the DNA strand can partially block the constriction. Accuracy is restored by reading the DNA strand multiple times.

Ingenious, but it took 25 years to master these devilish details. The implausible idea for nanopore sequencing was conceived in 1989 by David Deamer from the University of California at Santa Cruz; but it was way ahead of its time.

Years later I was delighted to learn that Deamer and his colleagues, in their early experiments to detect the resistance fluctuations, used a patch clamp amplifier made by my former company, Axon Instruments.

How does Oxford make the nanopores? It programs bacteria to do the work. Now scientists there and elsewhere are trying to develop next-generation nanopores that will be directly fabricated from silicon nitride or graphene molecules. If they succeed, that will truly be Eric Drexlers dream fulfilled.

This article appeared in Cosmos 74 - Autumn 2017 under the headline "Very small time"

See the article here:

DNA sequencing in zero gravity with handheld nanotech - Cosmos

By Sarwar Kashani

ALIGARH: The Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), a nearly 100-year-old institution born out of the independence movement and the quest to modernise Muslim education, has often been a victim of minority politics that attracted negative media attention. But what is little known is the kind of path-breaking research the institution is doing in the areas of nanotechnology and solar energy.

The AMU has taken up fresh scientific research projects, including on how to solve the water crisis using nanotechnology and recycle waste water using an eco-friendly and low-cost methods.

And its outgoing Vice Chancellor, Lt. Gen. Zameer Uddin Shah, a former deputy chief of the Indian Army, hopes the it will be "among the top 200 universities in the world by 2020" when it celebrates its centenary.

"The AMU has a very bright future," the retired general, the elder brother of Bollywood veteran Naseeruddin Shah, told IANS in a wide-ranging interview at his office, speaking about the university, how it is striving to be at par with modern educational institutions and, of course, allegations of financial impropriety against him.

"We need to encourage good quality research in applied sciences as well as the social science and we are doing that," Shah said.

He said the university has taken up a project on desalinating sea water or brackish water using nanotechnology that would bring a "sea change in Indian coastal cities" and provide low-cost drinking water.

"The project will ensure India has sufficient resources of quality and quantity of potable water," he said.

He said AMU scientists have achieved "significant success" in recycling waste water by using the novel concept of plant technology, also called "anaerobic digestion" -- a process of using micro-organisms to break down biodegradable material substances.

The Safeguarding Water resources in India with Green and Sustainable technologies -- Swings -- project is financed under the joint EU-India research funding to find low-cost and sustainable solutions for waste water treatment.

The university has successfully piloted the project on its campus and has built a plant that treats the wastewater generated on the campus.

Shah said the university's? scientists were also involved in harnessing solar energy for automobiles and the "purpose is to reduce dependence on fossil fuels".

"They are doing research on solar power for automobiles. Once the project is complete, we will be able to charge your car (a hybrid or electric) battery in 20 minutes which otherwise takes six hours," said Shah, whose term ends in the middle of this month.

While the thrust in its image makeover is on good scientific research, the Vice Chancellor said the management has also been trying to "battle a misconception" that AMU breeds fundamentalism.

"To a large extent, perceptions have changed but we are also proud of our Muslim ethos," he said about the varsity that has an exclusive Olympic-sized swimming pool for women students, as also a separate horse riding club for them.

For those Muslim men and women who pass out from madrassas, the university has introduced a concept of a bridge course to enable their admission in regular university courses and integrate them into the mainstream with modern education.

"Earlier, they were admitted only in theology, Arabic, Persian and Urdu. But we wanted them to get admitted to any course.

"We made them do this one-year bridge course. People later qualified for Mass Communications, English Honours and other subjects because of the solid potential these guys gain from memorising the Quran in madrassas," said Shah, himself a madrassa pass-out.

"I felt madrassas were being demonised all over the world and in our country also you hear a lot of rubbish about them. After all, these are educational institutions."

The university is facing another challenge in a legal battle on its minority character, challenged by the government in the Supreme Court. It is feared this may close the doors of modern liberal education for thousands of poor Muslims.

Shah said AMU, which has "contributed a great deal towards the empowerment of Muslims in India, must stay as a minority institution...till the situation of Muslims is corrected".

"At the moment, Muslims in India are the worst off, worse than the Dalits. We don't need reservations. We need your affirmative actions in education.

"Because of poor schooling, Muslim children kind of fall behind. They have bread and butter issues, so they don't qualify for institutions of higher education."

Shah's tenure ends on May 16 and the battles at the university, which has 1,400 teachers and 2,000 non-teaching staff, has been "tougher" than those he fought as a soldier in the Indian Army.

"Here you have everyone posing as a friend but there are only a few real friends," he said, lamenting how he was accused of financial, administrative and academic irregularities.

"I was alleged to have bungled 120 crore (of rupees)," he said, adding he has replied to all the allegations that were made by a "set of people" who were upset because he wanted to discipline them.

"There were some teachers who were never taught and indulged in politics," he said, alleging that they were behind the campaign against him.

Read the rest here:

Aligarh Muslim University's answer to minority tag is nanotech, solar research - Economic Times

Nanotech Security Corp (NTSFF) shares are moving today onvolatility3.74% or $0.034 from the open.TheOTC listed companysaw a recent bid of0.9430 and30000shares have traded hands in the session.

Now letstake a look at how the fundamentals are stacking up for Nanotech Security Corp (NTSFF). Fundamental analysis takes into consideration market, industry and stock conditions to help determine if the shares are correctly valued. Nanotech Security Corp currently has a yearly EPS of -0.15. This number is derived from the total net income divided by shares outstanding. In other words, EPS reveals how profitable a company is on a share owner basis.

Another key indicator that can help investors determine if a stock might be a quality investment is the Return on Equity or ROE. Nanotech Security Corp (NTSFF) currently has Return on Equity of -44.10. ROE is a ratio that measures profits generated from the investments received from shareholders.

In other words, the ratio reveals how effective the firm is at turning shareholder investment into company profits. A company with high ROE typically reflects well on management and how well a company is run at a high level. A firm with a lower ROE might encourage potential investors to dig further to see why profits arent being generated from shareholder money.

Another ratio we can look at is the Return on Invested Capital or more commonly referred to as ROIC. Nanotech Security Corp (NTSFF) has a current ROIC of -37.02. ROIC is calculated by dividing Net Income Dividends by Total Capital Invested.

Similar to ROE, ROIC measures how effectively company management is using invested capital to generate company income. A high ROIC number typically reflects positively on company management while a low number typically reflects the opposite.

Turning to Return on Assets or ROA, Nanotech Security Corp (NTSFF) has a current ROA of -32.64. This is a profitability ratio that measures net income generated from total company assets during a given period. This ratio reveals how quick a company can turn its assets into profits. In other words, the ratio provides insight into the profitability of a firms assets. The ratio is calculated by dividing total net income by the average total assets.

A higher ROA compared to peers in the same industry, would suggest that company management is able to effectively generate profits from their assets. Similar to the other ratios, a lower number might raise red flags about managements ability when compared to other companies in a similar sector.

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Nanotech Security Corp (NTSFF) Needle Moving 3.74% - The Times