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

Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (including the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies) have designed a two-component system that can be injected into the body and help form blood clots at the sites of internal injury. This system, which mimics the way that the body naturally forms clots, could offer a way to keep people with severe internal injuries alive until they can reach a hospital. In a mouse model of internal injury, the researchers showed that the two components – a nanoparticle and a polymer – performed significantly better than hemostatic nanoparticles that were developed earlier.

Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard Medical School, and ETH Zurich in Switzerland have developed a mobile vaccine printer that could be scaled up to produce hundreds of vaccine doses in a day. This kind of printer, which can fit on a tabletop, could be deployed anywhere vaccines are needed, the researchers say. The printer produces patches with hundreds of microneedles containing the vaccine. When the patch is applied to the skin, the tips of the needles dissolve under the skin, releasing the vaccine. The "ink" that the researchers use to print the vaccine-containing microneedles includes molecules that are encapsulated in lipid nanoparticles, which help them to remain stable for long periods of time.

Cancer drugs that stimulate the body’s immune system to attack tumors are a promising way to treat many types of cancer. However, some of these drugs produce too much systemic inflammation when delivered intravenously, making them harmful to use in patients. Now, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have shown that when immunostimulatory prodrugs — inactive drugs that require activation in the body — are tuned for optimal activation timing, these drugs provoke the immune system to attack tumors without the side effects that occur when the active form of the drug is given. The prodrugs were designed with nanoscale, bottlebrush-like structures based on a class of compounds called imidazoquinolines.

Researchers from Florida State University, the Scripps Research Institute, and the University of California San Diego have developed a new biosensor for detecting biological markers related to several types of cancer. The biosensor is made of a gold nanoparticle and molecules called peptides that are labeled with a dye. When a patient sample contains a biomarker for cancer, the biomarker breaks bonds in the peptides, separating a fragment with the dye from the gold. Without the gold to absorb the energy from the dye, the sample begins to glow, indicating the presence of cancer.

Scientists from the University of California, Irvine, and the National Institute for Materials Science in Tsukuba, Japan, have reported the discovery of nanoscale devices that can transform into many different shapes and sizes even though they exist in solid states. What the scientists saw specifically was that tiny nanoscale gold wires could slide with very low friction on top of special crystals called van der Waals materials. Taking advantage of these slippery interfaces, they made electronic devices with single-atom-thick sheets of a substance called graphene attached to gold wires that can be transformed into a variety of different configurations on the fly.

Houston Methodist Research Institute nanomedicine researchers have found a way to tame pancreatic cancer – one of the most aggressive and difficult to treat cancers – by delivering immunotherapy directly into the tumor with a device that is smaller than a grain of rice. Immunotherapy holds promise in treating cancers that previously did not have good treatment options, but so far, immunotherapy has been delivered throughout the entire body, causing many side effects. "Our goal is to transform the way cancer is treated," said Alessandro Grattoni, one of the scientists involved in the study. “We see this device as a viable approach to penetrating the pancreatic tumor in a minimally invasive and effective manner, allowing for a more focused therapy using less medication.”

A Pennsylvania State University-led international collaboration has fabricated a self-powered, standalone sensor system capable of monitoring gas molecules in the environment or in human breath. The system combines nanogenerators with micro-supercapacitors to harvest and store energy generated by human movement. 

An ideal nanovesicle to fight cancer needs to have three functionalities: * a molecule that would bind to surface markers on cancer cells, * a strongly bound radionuclide signal that would allow a PET scan to locate the vesicles in the body, and * the ability to carry and release a drug treatment in the tumor. Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have now described a tiny polymersome – a 60-#nanometer hollow sphere with a thin wall – that appears to have these functionalities. 

Engineers at Duke University have produced the world's first fully recyclable printed electronics that replace the use of chemicals with water in the fabrication process. In previous work, the researchers demonstrated the first fully recyclable printed electronics. The devices used three carbon-based inks: semiconducting carbon nanotubes, conductive graphene and insulating nanocellulose. This time, the engineers developed a cyclical process in which the device is rinsed with water, dried in relatively low heat and printed on again. When the amount of surfactant used in the ink is also tuned down, the inks and processes can create fully functional, fully recyclable, fully water-based transistors.

Currently, there is only one approved treatment that reduces the severity of the allergic reaction resulting from peanut allergies, and it takes months to kick in. A group of immunologists from the University of California, Los Angeles, is aiming to change that. Taking inspiration from COVID-19 vaccines as well as their own research, they created a first-of-its-kind nanoparticle that delivers mRNA to specific cells in the liver. Those cells, in turn, teach the body's natural defenses to tolerate peanut proteins.