(Funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health)
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have found that small extracellular vesicles are secreted by tumor cells and act as a “forcefield,” blocking nanoparticle-based therapies aimed at targeting cancers. “A lot like the Death Star with its surrounding fleet of fighter ships and protective shields, solid tumors can use features like immune cells and vasculature to exert force, acting as a physical barrier to rebel forces (nanoparticles) coming in to deliver the payload that destroys it,” said Michael Mitchell, one of the researchers involved in this study.

(Funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy)
In the 1970s, scientists began exploring ways to extend electronic frequency mixing into the terahertz range using diodes. While these early efforts showed promise, progress stalled for decades. Recently, however, advances in nanotechnology have reignited this area of research. Now, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed an electronic frequency mixer for signal detection that operates beyond 0.350 petahertz using tiny nanoantennae. These nanoantennae can mix different frequencies of light, enabling analysis of signals oscillating orders of magnitude faster than the fastest signal accessible to conventional electronics.

(Funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Defense)
Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard Medical School, Carnegie Mellon University, Georgia Institute of Technology, and the University of California, Riverside, have developed polymeric nanocarriers that can cross plant cell walls, delivering functional proteins directly into the cells with unprecedented efficiency. These nanocarriers are engineered with a high aspect ratio, meaning they are long and thin, which is essential for their ability to cross the plant cell wall. One of the critical findings of the study is that the efficiency of protein delivery highly depends on the size and charge of the nanocarriers: Nanocarriers with a width greater than 14 nanometers or with insufficient positive charge were less effective at penetrating the plant cell wall and delivering their protein cargo.

(Funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the National Science Foundation)
Researchers from the University of Minnesota, Auburn University, Purdue University, the City University of New York, Vanderbilt University, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in India, Zhejiang University in China, Kyung Hee University in South Korea, and Universidad de Zaragoza in Spain have provided insight into how light, electrons, and crystal vibrations interact in materials. The researchers studied planar polaritons – hybrid particles created from the interaction between light and matter – in two-dimensional (2D) crystals. The research has implications for developing on-chip architectures for quantum information processing and thermal management.

(Funded by the U.S. Department of Defense and the National Science Foundation)
Researchers from Harvard University and the University of Castilla-La Mancha in Spain have been able to successfully put tadpoles into a hibernation-like torpor state using donepezil, a drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat Alzheimer’s. This advance means that donepezil could potentially be repurposed for use in emergency situations to prevent irreversible organ injury while a person is being transported to a hospital. When used on its own, the drug seemed to cause some toxicity in the tadpoles, so the researchers encapsulated donepezil inside lipid nanocarriers, which reduced toxicity and caused the drug to accumulate in the tadpoles’ brain tissue – a promising result, because the central nervous system is known to mediate hibernation and torpor in animals.