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

Scientists at the Scripps Research Institute have engineered cell-like nanoparticles that target only the immune cells driving an autoimmune reaction, leaving the rest of the immune system intact and healthy. The nanoparticles greatly delayed, and, in some animals, even prevented, severe disease in a mouse model of arthritis. On its surface, each nanoparticle bore copies of a target self-antigen and a sugar-related molecule that can bind to a special “off switch” receptor on B cells, and each nanoparticle also was laced with a powerful compound to stimulate the production of regulatory T cells.

Engineers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have developed a lightweight, ultra-shock-absorbing foam that could vastly improve helmets designed to protect people from strong blows. The new material is an architected, vertically aligned carbon nanotube foam. To create it, the researchers started with carbon nanotubes – carbon cylinders just one atom thick in each layer – as the basic building blocks.

Researchers from Columbia University and Weill Cornell Medicine have demonstrated a new method to treat obesity by using cationic nanomaterials that can target specific areas of fat and inhibit the unhealthy storage of enlarged fat cells. The nanomaterials remodeled fat rather than destroying it, as, for example, liposuction does.

In a proof-of-concept study, researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara and The University of Texas at Austin have used computers to design the inside of a carbon nanotube pore to filter boric acid-containing water and demonstrated the usefulness of artificial intelligence (AI) toward developing water purification membranes with novel properties.

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have designed cancer-fighting nanoparticles that co-deliver a chemotherapy drug and a novel immunotherapy. The new immunotherapy approach silences a gene that the researchers discovered was involved in immunosuppression. When combined with an existing chemotherapy drug and packaged into tiny nanoparticles, the therapy shrunk tumors in mouse models of colon and pancreatic cancer.

Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Michigan, Iowa State University, and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory have developed a new strategy to help build materials with unique optical, magnetic, electronic, and catalytic properties. These pinwheel-shaped structures self-assemble from nanoparticles and exhibit a characteristic called chirality – one of nature's strategies to build complexity into structures at all scales, from molecules to galaxies.

Scientists from Oregon State University and Oregon Health and Science University have developed an approach involving nanoparticles, photoacoustic imaging and infrared light works that may offer a better, safer way to diagnose and treat ectopic pregnancies. To test if their new concept might improve ectopic pregnancy detection and treatment, the researchers injected a non-toxic solution containing nanoparticles and a light-responsive agent into pregnant mice. The solution traveled with the bloodstream until it concentrated on the surface of the placenta. Next, the researchers placed their imaging device outside the mouse’s body, and pointed it toward the mouse’s uterus. The resulting images clearly showed the placenta’s surface was lit up by nanoparticles. 

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory and Old Dominion University have created a novel testbed to explore the behavior of electrons in a special class of materials called topological insulators, which could see applications in quantum computing. Electrons on the surface of topological insulators can exist in states that allow them to flow with almost no resistance. In previous work, graphene nanoribbons – small strips of graphene, a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon atoms – were shown to exhibit promising topological states. Inspired by this work, the researchers created an artificial graphene testbed to further explore these topological effects.

Researchers from Southern Methodist University in Dallas and Applied Research Associates in Albuquerque have demonstrated, for the first time, that certain chemical coatings can alter their swimming propulsion within biological fluids when applied to #microparticles and #nanoparticles. Coated particles were suspended in mucus synthesized from pig stomach and navigated with rotating magnetic fields. The surface coatings altered the propulsion behavior of the particles, depending on both magnetic field properties and localized mucus properties.

Biomedical engineers at Duke University have developed a tablet-based vaccine for urinary tract infections (UTIs) that rapidly dissolves when placed under the tongue. The vaccine consists of mucus-penetrating peptide-polymer nanofibers that can elicit antibody responses systemically and in the urogenital tract. In a mouse model of UTI, the researchers demonstrated equivalent efficacy to high-dose oral antibiotics – the current standard for UTI treatments – but with significantly less perturbation of the gut microbiome.