(Funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation)
Researchers from Duke University, the University of California, Los Angeles, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Harvard Medical School have developed a platform that uses sound waves as acoustic tweezers to sort viruses from other compounds in a liquid. The platform consists of a rectangular chip with a sample-loading inlet at one end and separate virus and waste outlets at the other end. Two acoustic beams were applied across the chip, perpendicular to the sample flow. Particles larger than 150 nanometers (nm) in diameter were trapped on the chip, particles smaller than 50 nm left through the waste outlet, and viruses of intermediate sizes (50 to 150 nm) were collected via the virus outlet.

(Funded by the National Institutes of Health)
Researchers at the University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center have developed a nanomedicine that increases the penetration and accumulation of chemotherapy drugs in tumor tissues and effectively kills cancer cells in mice. The researchers looked at a particular pathway known as stimulator of interferon genes (STING), whose activation increases the leakiness of blood vessels near the tumor. They designed nanoparticles that encapsulates both STING activators and chemotherapy drugs and evaluated the antitumor effects of the therapy in multiple kinds of tumors in mice; they found large tumor growth inhibition and high cure rates.

(Funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Department of Defense)
Researchers at Stanford University have developed a new way to see organs within a body by rendering overlying tissues transparent to visible light. The counterintuitive process – a topical application of a common food dye – was reversible in tests with animal subjects and may ultimately apply to a wide range of medical diagnostics, from locating injuries to monitoring digestive disorders to identifying cancers. To conduct their research, the scientists used a tool called an ellipsometer at the Stanford Nano Shared Facilities – open access facilities that are part of the National Science Foundation-funded National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI). “Open access to such instrumentation is foundational for making groundbreaking discoveries, as those instruments can be deployed in new ways to generate fundamental insights about scientific phenomena,” said NSF Program Officer Richard Nash, who oversees the NSF NNCI.

(Funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Defense)
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a new filtration material that might provide a nature-based solution to water contaminated by “forever chemicals,” or per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). The filtration material, based on natural silk and cellulose, can remove a variety of these persistent chemicals, as well as heavy metals. The researchers devised a way of processing silk proteins into uniform nanoscale crystals, or “nanofibrils.” Then, they integrated cellulose into the silk-based fibrils, which formed a thin membrane that was highly effective at removing PFAS in lab tests.

(Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy)
A team of scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Maine has identified and successfully demonstrated a new method to process a plant-based material, called nanocellulose, that reduced energy needs by a whopping 21%. The approach was discovered using molecular simulations that were run on the lab’s supercomputers, followed by pilot testing and analysis. The method can significantly lower the production cost of nanocellulosic fiber and supports the development of a circular bioeconomy, in which renewable, biodegradable materials replace petroleum-based resources.