Archive for the ‘Nanotechnology’ Category
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March 5th, 2010
Video perspectives
The American Chemical Society’s journal Physical Chemistry Letters has a nice series of video perspectives on papers it has recently published. This one, for example, features reseachers from Jin Zhong Zhang’s lab at CalTech speaking about their article Biomedical Applications of Shape-Controlled Plasmonic Nanostructures: A Case Study of Hollow Gold Nanospheres for Photothermal Ablation Therapy of Cancer.
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February 26th, 2010
Nanosphere in the MIT Technology Review
The Technology Review, published by MIT, is a great source of information on new innovations in a range of fields including energy, materials and medicine. In the latest issue Nanosphere, the US-based diagnostics company, features on a couple of occasions. Firstly, the company has been selected by the review as one of the world’s most innovative companies in their TR50 award. This is a significant award, placing Nanosphere in the company of various corporate giants such as DuPont, GlaxoSmithKline, Google & Apple. Their gold-based technology, called the Verigene system, has also been highlighted with a nice breakdown of the components.
Congratulations to Nanosphere on this notable award
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February 17th, 2010
NanoComposix – innovating solutions
Regular readers have probably worked out by now that we love to see gold being used in innovative and useful ways. The San Diego-based outfit NanoComposix are achieving just this, with a number of exciting R&D programmes running alongside their core business of supplying high specification nanoparticles to industry.
The company’s R&D programme is particularly robust, with a number of different projects currently ongoing. One which caught my eye was the use of gold nanoparticle matrices for MALDI-MS tissue imaging. This work has the potential to enhance the detection, identification, and analysis of small biomolecules directly from tissue surfaces.
If anyone reading wants to get in touch with the company feel free to contact me, or go to them directly.
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February 15th, 2010
Optical radiation into electrical current
According to this press release, new research has demonstrated the ability to turn light into electrical current using a gold-based nanoscale system. The study, published in the current issue of the journal ACS Nano, describes a system - an array of nano-sized gold – that responds to electromagnetic waves by creating surface plasmons. These induce and project electrical current, a bit like photovoltaic solar cells. The picture here shows the material described in the study. -
February 12th, 2010
Gold for good – a new article from the WGC
Yesterday we released a new publication written by the World Gold Council and Cientifica called ‘Gold for good – gold and nanotechnology in the age of innovation’. The article, which is freely available on both the WGC and Cientifica websites, discusses the past, present and future of gold-based nanotechnology, focusing on key areas in medicine, the environment and technology.I am attending the 2010 Nanotech Japan event in Tokyo next week where I will be launching the article, and will follow this with a trip to the ACS spring meeting in California towards the end of March. Feel free to drop me a line if you are attending either event, I’d be happy to discuss any aspect of the WGCs activities, including our funding and investment programmes.
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February 10th, 2010
Another nanogold start-up
This news release describing the award by The University of Maryland’s Industrial Partnerships Program of $174,420 (for developing a polymer coating for gold nanorods that enables them to survive biological conditions) has alerted me to the fact that there is a new company supplying gold nanorods; start-up company NanoRods LLC. Great to see new companies entering this market….
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February 8th, 2010
Gold nanoparticles and theranostics
Theranostics is a term which many of you may not be familiar with, but it describes much sought after combinations of diagnostic and therapeutic processes. Traditionally, diagnostics and therapeutics are quite separate – if you are feeling unwell, you will visit your GP who will diagnose your illness (with a blood test, for example) and then prescribe the relevant treatment. Combining these two activities offers considerable benefits – speed of treatment, improved patient management/compliance and cost. Examples of theranostics currently on the market include Genentech’s Herceptin and Novartis’ Gleevec.
With this in mind I was fascinated to read this paper, recently published in the journal Nanotechnology. The team, working in the US and Europe, report the development of so-called ‘plasmonic nanobubbles’ (PNBs). These PNBs are effectively tunable and transient probes based around gold nanoparticles. The authors describe how such nanobubbles may potentially be used in 1) non-invasive imaging , 2) controlled-release, intra-cellular delivery and 3) selective and guided cell and tissue damage – true ‘theranostic’ potential!
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February 1st, 2010
Heart of gold?
The University of South Carolina has just released a fascinating press release detailing three of their researchers work investigating how injections of nano-sized rods of gold might improve the function of faulty heart valves while eliminating the need for corrective surgery. The work, which has been supported by a two-year exploratory grant from the National Institutes of Health’s Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, focuses on on the structural protein collagen. The amount of collagen within heart valves alters their mechnical properties – for example too much collagen leads to the valves becoming stiff and not functioning correctly. The team believe that the gold nanoparticles can alter the mechanical properties of the collagen in beneficial ways, and we will watch the outcome of their work with interest.
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January 27th, 2010
Nanopartz expansion
Nanopartz, the US-based company who specialise in the production and supply of gold nanoparticles, are planning on expanding their operations and staff headcount significantly over the next 5 years having recently moved into new purpose-built facilities in Loveland, CO. I was fortunate enough to have a tour of the new labs at the end of last year, and was impressed by the facilities which incorporate both new R&D labs and a large production area.
We’ve blogged before about some of the great products Nanopartz have developed – take a look at their catalogue for a full list.
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January 25th, 2010
Science reports on green gold catalysis
The leading journal science has just published an article (and accompanying perspective) on the ever-increasing potential of gold in ‘green chemistry’. The article, a collaborative piece from teams in Germany and the USA, details the development of a new catalyst with a stable structure that is active without any support. This material has been shown to catalyse the selective oxidative coupling of methanol to methyl formate with high selectivity under extremely mild conditions.
The ‘perspective’ letter, written by well known Danish researchers in the field, highlights the real potential in this breakthrough. They discuss the importance of identifying efficient catalysts in the industrially vital field of oxidation reactions, and how gold may prove itself applicable to large scale processes in the future. This is definitely worth taking a look at if you’re working in the field.
Trevor Keel
Richard Holliday
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