PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Toward nanorobots that swim through blood to deliver drugs (video)

2015-06-17
(Press-News.org) Someday, treating patients with nanorobots could become standard practice to deliver medicine specifically to parts of the body affected by disease. But merely injecting drug-loaded nanoparticles might not always be enough to get them where they need to go. Now scientists are reporting in the ACS journal Nano Letters the development of new nanoswimmers that can move easily through body fluids to their targets.

Tiny robots could have many benefits for patients. For example, they could be programmed to specifically wipe out cancer cells, which would lower the risk of complications, reduce the need for invasive surgery and lead to faster recoveries. It's a burgeoning field of study with early-stage models currently in development in laboratories. But one of the challenges to making these robots work well is getting them to move through body fluids, which are like molasses to something as small as a nanorobot. Bradley J. Nelson, Salvador Pané, Yizhar Or and colleagues wanted to address this problem.

The researchers strung together three links in a chain about as long as a silk fiber is wide. One segment was a polymer, and two were magnetic, metallic nanowires. They put the tiny devices in a fluid even thicker than blood. And when they applied an oscillating magnetic field, the nanoswimmer moved in an S-like, undulatory motion at the speed of nearly one body length per second. The magnetic field also can direct the swimmers to reach targets.

INFORMATION:

The authors acknowledge funding from the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme, the European Research Council, the Israel Science Foundation.

Watch the nanoswimmers in this video.

The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 158,000 members, ACS is the world's largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society, contact newsroom@acs.org.

Follow us: Twitter Facebook



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

On the road to needle-free medicine

2015-06-17
Needle injections have been around since 1657 and remain a key delivery method for many drugs, including vaccines that have prevented countless illnesses. But for patients that require daily pricks or for people in remote locations, the syringe model has major drawbacks. An article in Chemical & Engineering News looks at potential alternatives, their successes and their roadblocks. Alex Scott, a senior editor at C&EN, explains that many pharmaceuticals, particularly large-molecule drugs such as insulin, are not good candidates for oral delivery. If swallowed, they would ...

Pulsed electrical fields may provide improved skin rejuvenation

2015-06-17
A new approach to skin rejuvenation developed at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) may be less likely to have unintended side effects such as scarring and altered pigmentation. In the online journal Scientific Reports, an MGH research team reports that treatment with pulsed electric fields - a noninvasive procedure that does not involve the generation of heat - removed skin cells in an animal model without affecting the supporting extracellular matrix, eventually leading to renewal of the skin surface. "We showed that non-thermal pulsed electric field or PEF treatment ...

Average 'dead zone' for Gulf of Mexico in 2015, U-M and partners predict

2015-06-17
ANN ARBOR--A University of Michigan researcher and his colleagues are forecasting an average but still large "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico this year. The forecast calls for an oxygen-depleted, or hypoxic, region of 5,483 square miles, roughly the size of Connecticut. It was announced today by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which sponsors the work. Farmland runoff containing fertilizers and livestock waste, much of it from as far away as the Corn Belt, is the main source of the nitrogen and phosphorus that cause the annual Gulf of Mexico ...

NASA sees Bill make Texas landfall, weaken to a depression

NASA sees Bill make Texas landfall, weaken to a depression
2015-06-17
A NASA animation of imagery from NOAA's GOES-East satellite shows the progression of Tropical Storm Bill through the western Gulf of Mexico, landfall in east Texas and weakening into a depression west of Dallas. A GOES-East animation of infrared and visible imagery from June 15 through June 17 shows Tropical Storm Bill's movement and landfall. The animation was created by NASA/NOAA GOES Project at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. At 5 a.m. EDT 0900 UTC), the center of Tropical Depression Bill was located near latitude 31.0 North, longitude ...

'What don't you understand about 'yes' and 'no'?'

2015-06-17
The words 'yes' and 'no' may seem like two of the easiest expressions to understand in any language, but their actual behavior and interpretation are surprisingly difficult to pin down. In a paper published earlier today in the scholarly journal Language, two linguists examine the workings of 'yes' and 'no' and show that understanding them leads to new insights concerning the understanding of questions and statements more generally. Floris Roelofsen (University of Amsterdam) and Donka F. Farkas (UC - Santa Cruz) provide a comprehensive account of 'polarity particles', ...

Astronomers create array of Earth-like planet models

Astronomers create array of Earth-like planet models
2015-06-17
ITHACA, N.Y. - To sort out the biological intricacies of Earth-like planets, astronomers have developed computer models that examine how ultraviolet radiation from other planets' nearby suns may affect those worlds, according to new research published June 10 in Astrophysical Journal. "Depending on the intensity, ultraviolet radiation can be both useful and harmful to the origin of life," says Lisa Kaltenegger, Cornell associate professor of astronomy and the director of Cornell's new Carl Sagan Institute: Pale Blue Dot and Beyond. "We are trying to ascertain how much ...

Sunscreen confusion may burn shoppers

2015-06-17
CHICAGO --- Consumers may need more help navigating the sunscreen aisle. A new Northwestern Medicine study found that many people seem to be confused by sunscreen terminology. Only 43 percent of people surveyed understood the definition of sun factor protection (SPF) and only seven percent knew what to look for on a label if they wanted a sunscreen that offers protection against early skin aging. Details of the study were published June 17, in the journal JAMA Dermatology. "We need to do a better job of educating people about sun protection and make it easier for ...

Novel battery uses light to produce power (video)

2015-06-17
To move the world toward sustainability, scientists are continuing to explore and improve ways to tap the vast power of sunlight to make fuels and generate electricity. Now they have come up with a brand-new way to use light -- solar or artificial -- to drive battery power safely. Their "photo battery," reported in ACS' The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, uses light and titanium nitride for the anode. Metal-ion batteries such as those based on lithium ions run most of our gadgets. But they take a long time to charge. They can also overheat and catch fire if they're ...

Lower heart rate variability turns women off

2015-06-17
Chances are good that women with a low heart rate variability also suffer from sexual dysfunction. That's the finding from a study led by Amelia Stanton of The University of Texas at Austin in the US published in Springer's journal Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback. Heart rate variability refers to differences in the length of time between consecutive heartbeats. It is one of the most sensitive and objective measures of the interplay between the sympathetic nervous system (which activates the so-called fight or flight response) and the parasympathetic nervous system ...

Fish offer lessons in effective leadership

2015-06-17
Good leaders needing to strike a balance between striving to reach goals and keeping their followers with them has deep evolutionary roots, according to a new study from the Universities of Bristol, Harvard and Princeton on schooling fish. Dr Christos Ioannou and colleagues devised an experiment to determine the behaviours associated with effective leadership using fish called golden shiners (Notemigonus crysoleucas). Some of the fish were trained to expect food in a particular dish. These 'informed' individuals were then tested on their ability to reach the dish with ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

What are they vaping? Study reveals alarming surge in adolescent vaping of THC, CBD, and synthetic cannabinoids

ECMWF - delivering forecasts over 10 times faster and cutting energy usage by 1000

Brazilian neuroscientist reveals how viral infections transform the brain through microscopic detective work

Turning social fragmentation into action through discovering relatedness

Cheese may really be giving you nightmares, scientists find

Study reveals most common medical emergencies in schools

Breathable yet protective: Next-gen medical textiles with micro/nano networks

Frequency-engineered MXene supercapacitors enable efficient pulse charging in TENG–SC hybrid systems

Developed an AI-based classification system for facial pigmented lesions

Achieving 20% efficiency in halogen-free organic solar cells via isomeric additive-mediated sequential processing

New book Terraglossia reclaims language, Country and culture

The most effective diabetes drugs don't reach enough patients yet

Breast cancer risk in younger women may be influenced by hormone therapy

Strategies for staying smoke-free after rehab

Commentary questions the potential benefit of levothyroxine treatment of mild hypothyroidism during pregnancy

Study projects over 14 million preventable deaths by 2030 if USAID defunding continues

New study reveals 33% gap in transplant access for UK’s poorest children

Dysregulated epigenetic memory in early embryos offers new clues to the inheritance of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)

IVF and IUI pregnancy rates remain stable across Europe, despite an increasing uptake of single embryo transfer

It takes a village: Chimpanzee babies do better when their moms have social connections

From lab to market: how renewable polymers could transform medicine

Striking increase in obesity observed among youth between 2011 and 2023

No evidence that medications trigger microscopic colitis in older adults

NYUAD researchers find link between brain growth and mental health disorders

Aging-related inflammation is not universal across human populations, new study finds

University of Oregon to create national children’s mental health center with $11 million federal grant

Rare achievement: UTA undergrad publishes research

Fact or fiction? The ADHD info dilemma

Genetic ancestry linked to risk of severe dengue

Genomes reveal the Norwegian lemming as one of the youngest mammal species

[Press-News.org] Toward nanorobots that swim through blood to deliver drugs (video)