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Tag Archives: Nanoparticles

Nanoparticles in the Environment – EHS Now Part of Undergraduate Research

Posted by J. Steven Rutt on Posted in Cleantech; EPA; Nanotech Regulation; Water

Interesting example yesterday for how nanotechnology is presented to the public and forming part of our educational systems, including EHS aspects.  We visited Virginia Tech for the day as part of my daughter’s evaluation of prospective colleges.  Our interests included their engineering departments.  In their visitor building, where the tours start, Virginia Tech includes presentation material for several nanotechnology-related issues the university is working on.  One was for how nanoparticles can be transported in the environment over long distances.  The lead professor is in Geosciences, and collaboration is present with civil and environmental engineering professors.   Virginia Tech promotes a “hands-on, minds-on” approach to training its undergrads in engineering, and they indicate that undergraduate research will be part of the project.

Below has more information about the NSF grant on the subject:

Researchers from geosciences and civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech are part of a consortium of four principal universities and five other schools awarded a multimillion dollar grant to study nanotechnology and the environment. This is one of only two such consortiums funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to form a national Center for the Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology (CEIN). Total funding for the project is $14 million over five years with an opportunity to renew for another five years. Virginia Tech’s portion of the grant is $1.75 million.

Nanotech and Cancer: The Latest

Posted by J. Steven Rutt on Posted in Nano Biotechnology

I pass on some information which stems from a conference I attended in December on federal research programs in nanotechnology (NNI at Ten event), which also included nanotech work at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). In case you want to read more on nanotech approaches to winning the war on cancer, the NCI also published recently an excellent 11-page review article.

Part I of the article provides background and program achievements. For example, US research centers are given in Figure 1. The number of cancer and nanotechnology research articles in 2009 has more than tripled since 2003 (Figure 2). Research relates to diagnostics, therapy, drug delivery, assays, imaging, etc. About 50 commercial entities are involved with this effort in addition to the fundamental university, hospital, and federal laboratory work.

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Nanobacteria and Calcifying Nanoparticles: A Story and Some Patents

Posted by J. Steven Rutt on Posted in Nano Biotechnology; Patent

The important and controversial story of the discovery of "nanobacteria" was recently summarized in the book, Every Living Thing, Man’s Obsessive Quest to Catalog Life, from Nanobacteria to New Monkeys (by Rob Dunn, 2009). Readers interested in how nanotechnology may impact human health should monitor this subject. What is the role of nanoparticles in our bodies, difficult to detect and characterize, in our human health?

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“Our Particles Aren’t as Bad as Your Particles” – with a particular nanotwist

Posted by J. Steven Rutt on Posted in EPA; Nanotech Regulation

Environmental, health, and safety issues are a top priority for nanotech now, as reflected in presentations at the NNI at Ten event in DC last week. Now, we can review and comment at www.nano.gov the draft “National Nanotechnology Initiative 2011 Environmental, Health, and Safety Strategy,” which is only 106 pages.

I could not help but connect this with recent media coverage about air quality, including small particulates, in Western Pennsylvania. In that coverage, the quote “Our particles aren’t as bad as your particles” comes from and reflects the comparison between relative harm for particles emitted from coal-fired power plants and vehicular exhaust.

Particular (no pun intended) issues stem from particles less than 2.5 microns which covers the nanodomain (they are called PM2.5). The EPA webpage refers to studies from the 1990′s about these tiny particles.

So hopefully the NNI EHS document builds on what is already known about particles in the air from cars and coal. The PM2.5 are not nanoengineered per se but in figuring out what to do with nano-EHS, one should not ignore PM2.5. Gritty public health and economic issues apply to both.

AuraSense Strikes Gold to Treat Cardiovascular Disease

Posted by J. Steven Rutt on Posted in Financing Strategies; Invest; Patent

Nano biotechnology innovations offer some of the more promising opportunities for the development of medical imaging and diagnostic tools.  According to U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2009/0324706, assigned on its face to Northwestern University, gold-nanoparticles can be used to direct the synthesis of structures on which lippid bilayers may be supported.  Because the lippid structures sequester cholesterol, the structures can be imaged in localized regions within a blood vessel where plaque may be present.

AuraSense LLC, a Northwestern University start-up founded by Chad Mirkin (listed as an inventor in the 2009/0324706 publication), has recently received a $2.5 million investment to commercialize its cholesterol sequestering technology that can be used to image cholesterol hot-spots. Such an investment in a university start-up may be seen as evidence that investment rounds are proceeding after a dismal 2009.  Indeed, more investments like these will help keep American innovation primed with job growth and exciting new nanotech- and nano biotechnology-based products.