News from the NNI Community - Research Advances Funded by Agencies Participating in the NNI

Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed modular nanoparticles that can be easily customized to target different biological entities, such as tumors, viruses, or toxins. The surfaces of the nanoparticles are engineered to host any biological molecules of choice, making it possible to tailor the nanoparticles for a wide array of applications, ranging from targeted drug delivery to neutralizing biological agents. In the past, creating distinct nanoparticles for different biological targets required going through a different synthetic process from start to finish each time. 

Graphite is a mineral composed of stacked sheets of carbon atoms, and a single sheet is called graphene. Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, and the National Institute for Materials Science in Tsukuba, Japan, have shown that a material made by isolating five sheets of graphene stacked on top of each other can be tuned to exhibit three important properties never seen in natural graphite. "We found that the material could be insulating, magnetic, or topological," says Long Ju, one of the scientists involved in this study. A topological material allows the unimpeded movement of electrons around the edges of a material but not through the middle, that is, the edge of a topological material is a perfect conductor, while the center is an insulator.

Researchers from Stanford University and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have found an improved way to make high-quality crystals that resonate strongly with infrared light. They made these ribbon-shaped nanocrystals, or nanoribbons, by using an approach, called flame vapor deposition, which improves on a previous method that used adhesive tape to peel away material layers from a bulk material. The nanoribbons produced using this approach have exceptionally smooth, parallel edges that function as reflecting surfaces. 

Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have built a superconducting camera containing 400,000 pixels – 400 times more than any other device of its type. Superconducting cameras allow scientists to capture very weak light signals, whether from distant objects in space or parts of the human brain. The NIST camera is made up of grids of superconducting nanowires, cooled to near absolute zero, in which current moves with no resistance until a wire is struck by a photon. Combining all the locations and intensities of all the photons makes up an image.

Researchers from Michigan State University have expanded our understanding of biological nanowires – microscopic wires made of proteins – by using computer simulations. "We found that in biological nanowires, the electron transport is based on the motion of the proteins in the wire," says Martin Kulke, first author of the study. "What that means is … the longer you make those nanowires, the less electron transport you get through them, and the thicker you make them, the more electron transport you get through them."

Texas A&M University researchers have discovered that when a graphene-based supercapacitor is charged, it stores energy and responds by stretching and expanding. This finding can be used to design new materials for flexible electronics or other devices that must be both strong and store energy efficiently. "This research provides a unique understanding of how nanomaterials can be used for lightweight and strong energy-storage devices for aerospace applications," says Dimitris Lagoudas, one of the researchers involved in this study. 

An international team of scientists from Arizona State University; the University of Michigan; Universität Bonn in Germany; the Max-Planck-Institute for Medical Research, Heidelberg, Germany; the Max-Planck-Institute of Biophysics in Frankfurt, Germany; and the Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Center in Århus, Denmark has recently developed a novel type of nano engine made of DNA. It is driven by a clever mechanism and can perform pulsing movements. The researchers are now planning to fit it with a coupling and install it as a drive in complex nano machines. "It is the first time that a chemically powered DNA nanotechnology motor has been successfully engineered,” says Petr Šulc, one of the scientists involved in this study.

Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Michigan State University, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Harvard Medical School, and the National Institutes of Health have developed soft and implantable fibers that can deliver light to major nerves through the body. When these nerves are genetically manipulated to respond to light, the fibers can send pulses of light to the nerves to inhibit pain. The optical fibers, which are flexible and stretch with the body, are made from hydrogel, a rubbery, biocompatible mix of polymers and water, the ratio of which is tuned to create tiny, nanoscale crystals of polymers scattered throughout a more Jell-O-like solution.  

Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, and the National Institute for Materials Science in Tsukuba, Japan, have discovered a surprising property in graphene (a single atom-thin sheet made with carbon atoms): When stacked in five layers, in a rhombohedral pattern, graphene takes on a very rare, “multiferroic” state, in which the material exhibits both unconventional magnetism and an exotic type of electronic behavior. The discovery could help engineers design ultra-low-power, high-capacity data storage devices for classical and quantum computers.

Engineers at the University of California, San Diego, have developed an experimental vaccine that could prevent the spread of metastatic cancers to the lungs. The key ingredients of the vaccine are nanoparticles that have been engineered to target a protein known to play a central role in cancer growth and spread. In mice, the vaccine significantly reduced the spread of metastatic breast and skin cancers to the lungs. It also improved the survival rate in mice with metastatic breast cancer after surgical removal of the primary tumor.