(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)
Researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School have demonstrated in mice a new method to combat pancreatic cancer that relies on a nanoparticle drug-delivery system to activate an immune pathway, which usually recognizes viral infections in the body, in combination with tumor-targeting agents. “If we can trick the immune system into thinking that there is a viral-type infection, then we harness a very robust anti-tumor immune response to bring in for tumor immunotherapy,” said Prabhani Atukorale, one of the scientists involved in this study.

This summer, middle school teachers from the Bay Area and Southern California have participated in NanoSIMST, a professional development program run by nano@stanford, one of the 16 sites of the National Science Foundation-funded National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure. The program is designed to connect the teachers with activities, skills, and knowledge about science at the scale of molecules and atoms, so they can incorporate it into their curriculum. NanoSIMST also prioritizes teachers from Title I schools, which are low-income schools with low-income student populations that receive federal funding to improve academic achievement. “There’s a gap in professional development for middle school teachers,” said Daniella Duran, the director of education and outreach for nano@stanford. “But these teachers are in a special place – they can teach their students early on about these amazing sciences and help them develop a picture of themselves as a scientist, engineer, or technician.”

(Funded by the National Institutes of Health)
Researchers at the University of Notre Dame have developed an automated device that can diagnose glioblastoma, an incurable brain cancer, in less than an hour. The device features a biochip that uses a sensor that detects biomarkers, called active Epidermal Growth Factor Receptors (EGFRs), that are overexpressed in glioblastoma. EGFRs are found on extracellular vesicles – structures that carry cargo between cells. The device also features silica nanoparticles that report the presence of active EGFRs on the captured extracellular vesicles, while bringing a high negative charge.

(Funded by the National Institutes of Health)
Researchers from Caltech, the University of Washington, the University of Pennsylvania, the University at Albany, the Rockefeller University, the University of Edinburgh, Creative BioSolutions, LLC (Miami, FL), HDT Bio (Seattle, WA), Acuitas Therapeutics (Vancouver, Canada), and Ingenza Ltd. (RoslIn, United Kingdom) have developed and tested a new COVID-19 vaccine candidate called mosaic-8 that has shown potential to protect against different types of sarbecoviruses, including SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) and its variants. The mosaic-8 vaccine is made up of nanoparticles that elicit antibodies against conserved features of sarbecoviruses. Each nanoparticle contains pieces of eight different sarbecoviruses. These pieces are regions of the viruses’ spike protein, called receptor-binding domains (RBDs), that are crucial for the virus to infect a cell. Mosaic-8 is now being prepared for initial human clinical trials.