10-10/11 :: October/November 2010

nanotimes News in Brief

A. Ya‘akobovitz, S. Krylov: Toward Sensitivity Enhance- ment of MEMS Accelerometers Using Mechanical Am- plification Mechanism, In: Sensors Journal, IEEE, Volu- me: 10(2010), Issue 8, August 2010, pages: 1311-1319, DOI:10.1109/JSEN.2009.2039751: http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/JSEN.2009.2039751

Prof. Israel Gannot of Tel Aviv University’s De- partment of Biomedical Engineering is develo- ping a new way to destroy tumors with fewer side effects and minimal damage to surrounding tissue.

His innovative method, soon to be published in the journal Nanomedicine, uses heat to kill the tumor cells but leaves surrounding healthy tissue intact. Using specific biomarkers attached to individual tumors, Prof. Gannot’s special mixture of nano-par- ticles and antibodies locates and binds to the tumor itself.

“Once the nano-particles bind to the tumor, we excite them with an external magnetic field, and they begin to heat very specifically and locally,” says Prof. Gannot. The magnetic field is manipulated to create a targeted rise in temperature, and it is this directed heat elevation which kills the tumors, he says.

http://www.eng.tau.ac.il/~bmoptics/

For the first time, scientists have succeeded in gro- wing empty particles derived from a plant virus and have made them carry useful chemicals. The external surface of these nano containers could be decorated with molecules that guide them to where

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they are needed in the body, before the chemical load is discharged to exert its effect on diseased cells. The containers are particles of the Cowpea mosaic virus, which is ideally suited for designing biomaterial at the nanoscale. “This is a shot in the arm for all Cowpea mosaic virus technology,” says Professor George Lomonosoff of the John Innes Centre. Scientists at the John Innes Centre disco- vered they could assemble empty particles from precursors in plants and then extract them to insert chemicals of interest. Scientists at JIC and elsewhere had also previously managed to decorate the sur- face of virus particles with useful molecules.

“But now we can load them too, creating fancy che- mical containers,” says lead author Dr Dave Evans. One application could be in cancer treatment.

Alaa A. A. Aljabali, Frank Sainsbury, George P. Lomono- ssoff and David J. Evans: Cowpea Mosaic Virus Unmodi- fied Empty Virus-Like Particles Can Be Loaded with Me- tal and Metal Oxide, In: Small Journal, Volume 6(2010), Issue 7, April 09, 2010, pages 818–821, DOI:10.1002/ smll.200902135:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/smll.200902135

Researchers at Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology- Harvard Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excel- lence, USA, describe in PNAS a self-assembled polymeric nanoparticle (NP) platform to target and control precisely the codelivery of drugs with varying physicochemical properties to cancer cells. As proof of concept, we codelivered cisplatin and docetaxel (Dtxl) to prostate cancer cells with syner- gistic cytotoxicity. This work reveals the potential of