Historically, the approval of Doxil as the very first nanotherapeutic product in 1995 is generally regarded as the dawn of nanomedicine for human use. Although numerous products classified as nanomedicine products have indeed appeared over the past decade, such products have not exactly revolutionized treatment paradigms as envisaged earlier. In particular no molecular machine or nanorobot has yet entered clinical trials, although research in these areas is picking up pace.
An international team of researchers used abiotic assays, cultured cancer cells, and a melanoma animal model to demonstrate the photothermal therapy (PTT) activity of copper sulfide nanocrystals. The research lays out the working principle of colloidal, near-infrared light (NIR) plasmonic copper sulfide nanocrystals exploitable for both photodynamic therapy (PDT) and PTT therapy with NIR activation. This is the first report that under a NIR light radiation copper sulfide nanocrystals achieve efficient cancer destroying efficacy via PTT and PDT mechanisms both in vitro and in vivo.
So far, there have been very few research reports on single electrode materials that enable the simultaneous detection of different metabolites - such as glucose, urea, cholesterol, and triglycerides - in whole blood. Moreover, it is a considerable challenge to integrate all required materials and devices on a single chip to ultimately produce a multiplexing biosensor array. In new work, researchers demonstrate that biosensors based on conducting polymer hydrogels enable the precise and full-range detection of different metabolites in human blood.
Researchers have developed a simple method to thermally ablate highly resistant cancer cells using targeted biodegradable graphene nanoparticles. They found that graphene can convert non-ionizing radio waves - the same that are used in FM radios - into heat energy at microscopic levels. This heat is sufficient to completely destroy proteins and DNA inside individual cancer cells, irrespective of any kinds of resistant mechanisms that drives cancer cells at advanced stages.
New findings address the challenges of operating synthetic motors in living organisms through the use of biocompatible motors that are powered by body fluid (acidic stomach environment). As the zinc body of the motor is dissolved by the acid fuel, the motors are self-destroyed, leaving no harmful chemicals behind. The study reports on the distribution, retention, cargo delivery and toxicity profile of zinc/polymer-based microrockets in a mouse stomach.
Since diseased cells, such as cancer cells, frequently carry information that distinguishes them from normal cells, accurate probing of these cells is critical for early detection of a disease. Adding to these highly accurate methods for monitoring such alterations in single cells, researchers have now demonstrated a nanoelectromechanical procedure to relate the correlation between the mechanical stimulation of a cell's actin filaments and the electrical activities of ion channels to the cancerous state of the cell.
Advanced health monitoring systems and healthcare devices will become an integral part of the Internet of Things. As a harbinger of things to come, nanotechnology researchers have now demonstrated a smart thermal patch which can be used for thermotherapy for pain management in a user interactive way. To fabricate the device, the researchers used CMOS technology to devise a silicon based smart thermal patch which is flexible and stretchable.
Studying the complex wiring of neural circuits and identifying the details of how individual neural circuits operate in epilepsy and other neurological disorders requires real-time observation of their locations, firing patterns, and other factors. These observations depend on high-resolution optical imaging and electrophysiological recording. Researchers have now developed a completely transparent graphene microelectrode that allows for simultaneous optical imaging and electrophysiological recordings of neural circuits.