(Funded by the U.S. Department of Defense)
Researchers from the University of Central Florida have developed a new technique to detect long-wave infrared photons of different wavelengths based on a nanopatterned graphene. “No present cooled or uncooled detectors offer such dynamic spectral tunability and ultrafast response,” said Debashis Chanda, the scientist who led this study. “This demonstration underscores the potential of engineered monolayer graphene [long-wave infrared] detectors operating at room temperature, offering high sensitivity as well as dynamic spectral tunability for spectroscopic imaging.” The new detection and imaging technique will have applications in analyzing materials by their spectral properties, or spectroscopic imaging, as well as thermal imaging applications.

Heman Bekele, 15, is pursuing scientific research to determine whether it would be possible to use a bar of soap to treat skin cancer. The bar of soap would contain lipid nanoparticles that would carry drugs to the skin where it would fight skin cancer. His scientific curiosity and experience finding and working with mentors has helped him develop and test this idea further and be recognized by TIME Magazine as the 2024 Kid of the Year.

(Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health)
Proteins called photosystems are critical to photosynthesis – the process used by plants to convert light energy from the sun into chemical energy. Combining one kind of these proteins, called photosystem I, with platinum nanoparticles, creates a biohybrid catalyst. Now, researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory and Yale University have determined the structure of the photosystem I biohybrid solar fuel catalyst. Building on more than 13 years of research pioneered at Argonne, the team reports the first high-resolution view of a biohybrid structure. This advancement opens the door for researchers to develop biohybrid solar fuel systems with improved performance, which would provide a sustainable alternative to traditional energy sources.

(Funded by the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the U.S. National Science Foundation)
Researchers from Caltech, the University of Southern California, Santa Clara University, and the National University of Singapore have developed microrobots that decreased the size of bladder tumors in mice by delivering therapeutic drugs directly to the bladders. The microrobots incorporated magnetic nanoparticles and the therapeutic drug within the outer structure of the spheres. The magnetic nanoparticles allowed the scientists to direct the robots to a desired location using an external magnetic field. When the microrobots reached their targets, they remained in that spot, and the drug passively diffused out.

(Funded by the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. National Science Foundation)
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have shown that lipid nanoparticles can mediate more than 100-fold greater mRNA delivery to the placenta of pregnant mice with pre-eclampsia than a lipid nanoparticle formulation approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. These lipid nanoparticles can decrease high blood pressure and increase vasodilation in these pre-eclamptic pregnant mice.