LinkNotes: nanomachines

Showing posts with label nanomachines. Show all posts

2009-12-26

Bacteria-Powered Machines

clipped from www.engadget.com

Bacteria taught to spin microscopic gears right round, could make for better solar panels

clipped from www.anl.gov

Argonne scientists use bacteria to power simple machines

Organisms turn microgears in suspended solution by swimming

ARGONNE, Ill. (Dec. 16, 2009) — Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and Northwestern University have discovered that common bacteria can turn microgears when suspended in a solution, providing insights for designs of bio-inspired dynamically adaptive materials for energy.

“The ability to harness and control the power of bacterial motion is an important requirement for further development of hybrid biomechanical systems driven by microorganisms," said Argonne physicist and principal investigator Igor Aronson. “In this system, the gears are a million times more massive than the bacteria."

clipped from www.northwestern.edu

clipped from www.research.northwestern.edu

Bacteria Power Micromachines - 12/15/2009

clipped from www.youtube.com

Bacteria turn tiny gears

clipped from www.youtube.com

Bacteria turn a tiny gear

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Nanoscale origami from DNA: a new toolbox for building nanoscale structures

Clipped from: Precision Nanoscale Car Parts Self-Assembled From DNA | Popular Science

Precision Nanoscale Car Parts Self-Assembled From DNA

Scientists program DNA to fold in tightly controlled curves and circles—an important step toward building larger nanomachines.

Clipped from: Nanoscale origami from DNA

Nanoscale origami from DNA

Researchers develop a new toolbox for nano-engineering

Scientists at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) and Harvard University have thrown the lid off a new toolbox for building nanoscale structures out of DNA, with complex twisting and curving shapes. In the August 7 issue of the journal Science, they report a series of experiments in which they folded DNA, origami-like, into three dimensional objects including a beachball-shaped wireframe capsule just 50 nanometers in diameter.

"Our goal was to find out whether we could program DNA to assemble into shapes that exhibit custom curvature or twist, with features just a few nanometers wide," says biophysicist Hendrik Dietz, a professor at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen. Dietz's collaborators in these experiments were Professor William Shih and Dr. Shawn Douglas of Harvard University. "It worked," he says, "and we can now build a diversity of three-dimensional nanoscale machine parts, such as round gears or curved tubes or capsules. Assembling those parts into bigger, more complex and functional devices should be possible."

Clipped from: Origami at the Molecular Level - WSJ.com

Bioengineers learn to fold DNA into complex shapes, which researchers hope will one day revolutionize manufacturing, medicine and computing. WSJ's Robert Lee Hotz reports on how scientists are manipulating DNA's chemical rules.

The original idea of using DNA as building material appeared in a daydream. In 1980, Dr. Seeman was sipping a Bass Ale in a campus pub at the State University of New York in Albany and musing about molecular structure. For no apparent reason, as he recalls it today, he thought of a picture by Dutch artist M.C. Escher, whose work explores exotic geometry. Then into his mind there popped a way to make Escher's patterns from strands of DNA.
Today, 40 laboratories are exploring the ramifications. Even so, it could easily be decades before anyone can translate such fundamental control over DNA assembly into anything useful.

Clipped from: caDNAno - Gallery

Self-assembly of DNA into nanoscale three-dimensional shapes

Shawn M. Douglas, Hendrik Dietz, Tim Liedl, Björn Högberg, Franziska Graf, & William M. Shih
Nature. 459:414–8. 21 May 2009.

Clipped from: Welcome to the Dietz Research Group: Laboratory for Biomolecular Nanotechnology at Technische Universität München.

Welcome to the Dietz Research Group at TU Munich!

What we do & How we do it.

We develop novel scientific devices and methods for applications in biomolecular physics, biological chemistry, and molecular medicine. We use DNA to build nanometer-scale devices with atomically precise features. We customize proteins and study hybrid DNA-protein complexes. 3D transmission electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, and single molecule methods including optical trapping and fluorescence microscopy are among our routine analysis tools. Read more.

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2009-01-18

Nano Machines and a Nano-GPS System to Combat Cancer

clipped from www.zmescience.com

Mini-”submarine” will be able to combat cancer within 3 years

clipped from www.zmescience.com

The unique invention will not carry curios scientist inside the human body, but will be made out of biological materials and will be able to deliver drugs in order to destroy cancer cells and faulty proteins.

These biological nano-machines can be targeted against a specific kind of cells, their ability to track down leukocytes in mice with ulcerative colitis already having been observed. The “submarine” will use a nano-sized carrier which works like a GPS in order to find the right cells and deliver their charge to them, leaving the healthy tissue untouched. Among the first to work by using this revolutionary idea, the new disease fighter uses a drug based on RNAi, which reprograms cells to function correctly and destroys the ones affected by cancer.

clipped from www.eurekalert.org

A Nano-GPS System

"Our lab is creating biological nano-machines," says Dr. Peer. "These machines can target specific cells. In fact, we can target any protein that might be causing disease or disorder in the human body. This new invention treats the source, not the symptoms."

clipped from www.eurekalert.org

Nanoparticle

clipped from www.nature.com

Figure 1 - Schematic representation of different mechanisms by which nanocarriers can deliver drugs to tumours.

From the following article:

Nanocarriers as an emerging platform for cancer therapy
Dan Peer, Jeffrey M. Karp, Seungpyo Hong, Omid C. Farokhzad, Rimona Margalit & Robert Langer
Nature Nanotechnology 2, 751 - 760 (2007)

clipped from www.tau.ac.il

Dr. Dan Peer

clipped from www.genengnews.com

"We have tapped into the same ancient system the human body uses to protect itself from viruses," says Dr. Peer, who is also investigating a number of topical applications for his medical subs. "And the beauty of it is the basic material of our nano-carriers is natural," he says.

The Tel Aviv University team plans to launch their medical submarines, following FDA regulations, within three to five years. Their immediate focus is on blood, pancreatic, breast and brain cancers.

2008-11-28

Light Drives Nanomachines

clipped from www.nanotech-now.com

Science fiction writers have long envisioned sailing a spacecraft by the optical force of the sun's light. But, the forces of sunlight are too weak to fill even the oversized sails that have been tried. Now a team led by researchers at the Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science has shown that the force of light indeed can be harnessed to drive machines — when the process is scaled to nano-proportions

clipped from www.photonics.com

Light Drives Nanomachines

Nanophotonics and nanomechanics make possible the extreme miniaturization of optics and mechanics on a silicon chip. This new research, led by scientists at the Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science, opens the door to a new class of semiconductor devices that are operated by the force of light. They envision a future where this process powers quantum information processing and sensing devices, as well as telecommunications that run at ultrahigh speed and consume little power.

clipped from www.eng.yale.edu

Hong Tang

LinkNotes

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2009-12-26

Bacteria-Powered Machines

Bacteria taught to spin microscopic gears right round, could make for better solar panels

Argonne scientists use bacteria to power simple machines

Bacteria Power Micromachines - 12/15/2009

Bacteria turn tiny gears

Bacteria turn a tiny gear

2009-08-07

Nanoscale origami from DNA: a new toolbox for building nanoscale structures

Precision Nanoscale Car Parts Self-Assembled From DNA

Nanoscale origami from DNA

Researchers develop a new toolbox for nano-engineering

Self-assembly of DNA into nanoscale three-dimensional shapes

Welcome to the Dietz Research Group at TU Munich!

What we do & How we do it.

2009-01-18

Nano Machines and a Nano-GPS System to Combat Cancer

Mini-”submarine” will be able to combat cancer within 3 years

Nanoparticle

Figure 1 - Schematic representation of different mechanisms by which nanocarriers can deliver drugs to tumours.

2008-11-28

Light Drives Nanomachines