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Researcher at Northwest A&F University, China, demonstrated how the DNA/RNA native structures are disrupted by the fullerene (C60) in a physiological condition. The nanoparticle was found to bind with the minor grooves of double-stranded DNA and trigger unwinding and disrupting of the DNA helix, which indicates C60 can potentially inhibit the DNA replication and induce potential side effects. They used an examination of 2254 native nucleotides with molecular dynamics simulation and thermodynamic analysis.
Xue Xu, Xia Wang, Yan Li, Yonghua Wang, Ling Yang: A large-scale association study for nanoparticle C60 uncovers mechanisms of nanotoxicity disrupting the native conformations of DNA/RNA, In: Nucleic Acids Research, Volume 40, Issue 16, September 2012, Pages 7622- 7632, DOI:10.1093/nar/gks517: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/nar/gks517
A multidisciplinary team of researchers from UCLA and other universities is poised to help turn science fiction into reality – in the form of some of the world‘s tiniest electromagnetic devices – thanks to a major grant from the National Science Foundation‘s Engineering Research Center (ERC) program.
The grant, worth up to $35 million over 10 years, will fund a new center headquartered at UCLA‘s Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science that will focus on research aimed at developing highly efficient and powerful electromagnetic systems roughly the size of a biological cell – systems that can power a range of devices, from miniaturized consumer electronics and technologies important for national security to as-yet unimagined machines, like nanoscale submarines that can navigate through the human blood stream. UCLA‘s partners in the new center include UC Berkeley, Cornell University, Switzerland‘s ETH Zurich and California State University, Northridge.
Image: TANMS researchers have used an electric field to turn a magnetic field on (left) and off (right). They measured this effect in a ferromagnetic thin film on top of a piezoelectric substrate, using a magnetic force microscope. At left, the dark lines represent magnetic north poles emanating from the ferromagnetic thin film, and the light lines represent magnetic south poles. At right, an electric field is applied to the piezoelectric substrate, and the lines vanish, meaning that the magnetic field is no longer present. The researchers will expand on this ability to control magnetic fields in nanostructured ferromagnetic elements in the work of the TANMS Nanosystems Engineering Research Center. TANMS seeks to integrate newly discovered large-effect multiferroic materials into electromagnetic devices, thereby enabling chip-scale generation of magnetic fields through the simple application of a voltage. Their research could lead to transformations in memory systems, antenna systems, and nanomotor systems. © Ray C. J. Hsu, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, UCLA