All’interno intervista
esclusiva al Dott. Giuseppe Cotellessa di ENEA.
di: Marco La Rosa
Il “PALAZZO DELLA CIVILTA’ ITALIANA”, chiamato anche “della
Civiltà del Lavoro” e “Colosseo quadrato” (per via dei 54 archi per facciata),
è un edificio di carattere monumentale, sorge a Roma nel quartiere dell’EUR. Progettato nel 1936-37 fu iniziato nel 1938
ed inaugurato, ancora incompleto nel 1940. Fu ultimato dopo il 1945. Oggi è un
edificio di interesse culturale e quindi vincolato ad usi espositivi e museali.
Negli archi del piano terreno, sono collocate 28 statue
rappresentanti le virtù del popolo
italiano: EROISMO, MUSICA, ARTIGIANATO, GENIO POLITICO, ORDINE SOCIALE, LAVORO,
AGRICOLTURA, FILOSOFIA, COMMERCIO, INDUSTRIA, ARCHEOLOGIA, ASTRONOMIA, STORIA,
GENIO INVENTIVO, ARCHITETTURA, DIRITTO, PRIMATO DELLA NAVIGAZIONE, SCULTURA,
MATEMATICA, GENIO DEL TEATRO, CHIMICA, STAMPA, MEDICINA, GEOGRAFIA, FISICA,
POESIA, PITTURA, GENIO MILITARE.
ABBIAMO DIMENTICATO TUTTO
QUESTO. ABBIAMO PERDUTO LA NOSTRA IDENTITA’.
La “SCUOLA”, nel tempo è stata “cannibalizzata” di tutte le
risorse possibili, non è praticamente più in grado di trasmettere questi
valori, che nel tempo si sono prima diluiti e poi persi. Restano parole vuote
scolpite in qualche monumento, caduto pure quello nell'oblio.
Ma il DNA non è fantasia, per cui senza averne coscienza,
ognuno di noi ha dentro se il “seme” di questo immenso patrimonio. Quindi
nonostante tutto, esso continua a germogliare, ed anche se non ce ne
accorgiamo la pianta cresce, cresce e tende verso l’alto, verso il
sole, pure senza acqua.
Ho trovato una di queste "piante", non per caso. Perché se cerchi
trovi…eccome se trovi.
L’ ENEA, Agenzia
Nazionale per le nuove tecnologie, l’energia e lo sviluppo economico
sostenibile. E’ un fiore all’occhiello tutto italiano, specchio di quel
patrimonio “scolpito” nel travertino lassù. Fucina di idee e scoperte che fanno
invidia al mondo intero: Efficienza energetica, fonti rinnovabili, nucleare,
ambiente e clima, sicurezza e salute, nuove tecnologie… In questi tempi “cupi” è
come un gigante semi addormentato. Innumerevoli brevetti di importanza epocale
non solo per l’Italia, ma per tutti i paesi del mondo, giacciono polverosi nei
cassetti: mancano le aziende, mancano le risorse per “studiare” e “sviluppare”
i prototipi che poi faranno da volano al rilancio dell’economia… le eccezioni
sono poche, ma danno il polso di una situazione incredibile, basterebbe
veramente poco per cambiare le cose.
Leggete qua:
“ Un significativo passo avanti
per il rilancio dell’economia
italiana si sta compiendo grazie agli investimenti fatti nella ricerca e nel
sistema industriale ad alta tecnologia, che nonostante la crisi, è
uno dei pochi settori che ha accresciuto la propria competitività,
e la creazione di nuovi posti di lavoro.”
ha dichiarato Giovanni Lelli, Commissario dell’ENEA,
intervenendo alla cerimonia di avvio dei lavori per la costruzione di una
macchina sperimentale per la produzione di energia da fusione nucleare in
Giappone, con l’assemblaggio dei
primi componenti arrivati dall’Europa.
Si tratta di un programma internazionale tra Europa e Giappone, alla cui realizzazione
l’ENEA ha contribuito con il suo
progetto e lavorando in sinergia con le aziende italiane che forniscono alcuni
componenti essenziali. La collaborazione tra il sistema della ricerca pubblica
e quello dell’industria nazionale
dei sistemi energetici tecnologicamente avanzati ha portato alla qualificazione
di prodotti tecnologici che ora possono competere e vincere in tutti i mercati
mondiali. L’ENEA ha messo a
disposizione le infrastrutture tecnologiche dei Centri di ricerca di Frascati e del Brasimone, che sono tra i
più avanzati in Europa, e le
competenze tecnico-scientifiche dei suoi ricercatori per sviluppare e
qualificare i componenti tecnologici delle nostre maggiori realtà
industriali per il raggiungimento di quei livelli qualitativi di eccellenza che
hanno determinato il successo italiano
in tutti i programmi internazionali per la fusione nucleare.”
In particolare, le industrie italiane ad alta tecnologia
sono riuscite a cogliere l’opportunità
offerta dalla costruzione del reattore ITER, il più
importante programma internazionale di fusione nucleare, aggiudicandosi
commesse del valore totale di circa 750 milioni di euro per componenti
rilevanti, tra i quali i magneti superconduttori.
Un successo ottenuto grazie al ruolo che l’ENEA
svolge da più di 20 anni come
coordinatore nazionale dei programmi europei sulla fusione nucleare finalizzati
ad ottenere un’energia green,
che non comporta i rischi legati al nucleare da fissione, che è
la stessa energia che si verifica nelle stelle”.
Ecco un esempio
pratico:
Un’intervista esclusiva al Dott. Giuseppe Cotellessa appunto di
ENEA, che ci onora della sua presenza sul nostro sito-blog e che ringraziamo per la seguente spiegazione
semplificata della sua scoperta:
Metodo per l’analisi di
immagini acquisite da strumenti di indagine nucleare
“Giuseppe Cotellessa
dell’Istituto Nazionale di Metrologia delle Radiazioni Ionizzanti (INMRI) dell'ENEA è l’inventore di un
procedimento fisico-matematico che permette un’analisi corretta della “natura”
e la “misura” affidabile delle dimensioni degli oggetti osservati nelle
immagini acquisite da strumenti di indagine nucleare ed estensibile ad immagini
non nucleari, per esempio: immagini radar, sonar, TAC, RMN, radiografiche,
ecografiche, da microscopi elettronici, ottici e telescopi. Il procedimento può essere applicato anche per
migliorare la precisione della lettura dei rilevatori di tracce nucleari, come
quelli utilizzati per misurare l’esposizione al radon e ai neutroni in ambienti
di lavoro per la radioprotezione dei lavoratori, come anche garantire la
sicurezza meccanica nel funzionamento dei componenti utilizzati negli impianti
nucleari, contribuire in modo significativo agli studi di ricerca sulla fusione
nucleare ed agli studi di ricerca nucleare in generale in quanto è in grado di
rilevare ed eliminare i segnali provenienti dalle pseudo tracce, cioè quei
segnali prodotti dalla presenza di impronte digitali sul rilevatore o da
imperfezioni del materiale”.
“I sistemi di indagine nucleare finora utilizzati si basano
sulla osservazione da parte di sistemi automatici di analisi di oggetti su
immagini bidimensionali a diverse tonalità di grigio, ricostruiti a partire
dalla misura del numero di danni delle radiazioni nucleari, provocate sulla
superficie del rivelatore, captate da una telecamera, dopo riflessione o
trasmissione sul o attraverso il rivelatore di un fascio luminoso.
L’interpretazione dell’immagine ottenuta è affidata esclusivamente a
procedimenti matematici di software che analizzano nella maggior parte immagini
trasformate in formato binario con notevole perdita di informazioni utili per
l’interpretazione degli oggetti. Gli oggetti delle immagini analizzate in campo
diagnostico e non (immagini radar, sonar, TAC, RMN, radiografiche, ecografiche,
da microscopi elettronici, ottici e telescopi) spesso sono analizzate
attraverso l’occhio umano dell’operatore, con notevoli errori
nell’interpretazione della natura degli oggetti, nella misura nel numero e
delle dimensioni degli oggetti interpretati.
Il procedimento brevettato consente di ricostruire grafici
tridimensionali facilmente interpretabili dall’occhio umano, che sono ottenuti
effettuando più letture dello stesso rilevatore, per diversi valori di
intensità luminosa. Ciò permette di differenziare le tracce nucleari emesse o
trasmesse dall’oggetto indagato, dalle pseudo tracce reali dovute alla presenza
di impronte digitali sul rilevatore o a imperfezioni del materiale, e da quelle
virtuali dovute a una non corretta impostazione dei parametri di lavoro.
L’eliminazione dei segnali delle pseudo tracce consente di ottimizzare i
parametri di lavoro e migliorare l’accuratezza e la riproducibilità della
lettura”.
Il brevetto, di proprietà ENEA, è stato depositato il 13
dicembre 2012 con numero RM2012A000637. È consultabile nella banca dati Brevetti
ENEA dal 19 dicembre 2012 ed è disponibile per licensing.
Chi è Giuseppe Cotellessa:
Laurea in fisica alla
Sapienza 1982, ricercatore all’ENEA dal 1985.
Specializzato in
metrologia dei gas, ha sviluppato prototipi di misura del gas radioattivo radon
(celle elettrostatiche), ha contribuito alla risoluzione di problematiche
relative alla taratura degli strumenti di misura del radon e di sviluppo dei
campioni relativi.
Ha partecipato a
contratti nazionali ed internazionali con funzione da parte di ENEA di
laboratorio garanzia per la taratura degli strumenti di misura: Italia,
Germania Orientale (Lipsia).
Ha partecipato alla
realizzazione di due sistemi integrati per la misura del radon e dei figli del
radon, denominati Radotron. Ha partecipato nel progetto di realizzazione dei
prototipi di flussimetri “Seeback” dell’Istituto tedesco di Jena per le alte
tecnologie, occupandosi della caratterizzazione ambientale tramite flussimetri
miniaturizzati in ambiente controllato. Questo progetto è stato selezionato
dalla Comunità Europea come esempio di “successo storico”.
Ha partecipato al
primo interconfronto italiano degli strumenti di misura passivi in Italia.
Ha partecipato a
diversi interconfronti con strumenti di misura passivi del radon in Inghilterra
presso NRPB e a Berlino.
Nel laboratorio ha
preso parte alla progettazione e ristrutturazione del sistema di gestione della
camera radon con microclima controllato.
Ha effettuato studi di
caratterizzazione della radioprotezione dei lavoratori dal gas radon nella
camera radon praticabile del laboratorio.
Ha partecipato alla
realizzazione di numerosi circuiti ed apparati per differenti finalità.
Il compito attuale è
quello di realizzare il primo campione primario assoluto per il radon per
l’INMRI (Istituto Nazionale di Metrologia delle radiazioni Ionizzanti) in
Italia.
MLR: Dott.
Cotellessa, può farci qualche esempio pratico per aiutare la gente comune, a
capire che la sua scoperta può davvero migliorare in modo sensibile tanti
aspetti della vita di società?
G.C.: Finora lo stato dell’arte da me raggiunto è di aver
verificato sperimentalmente la validità del procedimento fisico-matematico, con
un lavoro di ricerca applicata durato quasi cinque anni (da
Agosto 2007) utilizzando i mezzi disponibili nel laboratorio di tracce nucleari
dell’INMRI, in cui ho avuto la possibilità di sviluppare l’attività di ricerca dal 1985. In questo periodo di
tempo sempre nel campo dell’uso dei rivelatori di trace nucleari a stato solido,
ho depositato altri due brevetti di invenzioni originali:
1)RM2008A000148
|
“Processo per lo Sviluppo di Tracce
Nucleari Identificabili mediante la Loro Intensità Luminosa Rispetto ad Altre
Tracce Agglomerate, e Dispositivo per la Sua Attuazione” del 17-3-2008
|
2)RM92A000540
|
“Procedimento per la Separazione
Automatica delle Tracce con un Analizzatore di Immagini Utilizzando
l'Immagine Originaria.” Del 15-7-1992.)
|
Queste ricerche e relativi
brevetti hanno un comune obiettivo di migliorare gli aspetti metrologici dei
processi basati sulle applicazioni delle
analisi delle immagini.
Hanno aperto delle prospettive
per applicazioni in diversi campi, anche nel settore industriale e pertanto l’ENEA
ha ritenuto opportuno di proteggere i
risultati con la deposizione di un brevetto.
I passi ulteriori da effettuare
sono quelli di trovare i finanziamenti adeguati per continuare le ricerche; di promuovere le applicazioni in
collaborazione con le ditte interessate, preferibilmente italiane, concedendo
loro la licenza d’uso del brevetto ed incorporare
poi, lo stesso, in prototipi multidisciplinari, con la prospettiva di immettere sul mercato
l’innovazione.
Tutto ciò, potrà portare alla realizzazione di nuovi
dispositivi in campo medico, migliorando
la qualità di diverse tecnologie diagnostiche basate sull’analisi delle
immagini.
Ad esempio, per quanto riguarda
i trapianti di organi, riconoscere in
modo automatico, in un campione composto
di cellule morte e vive, la percentuale di cellule vive, fondamentale nei test per la determinazione della compatibilità dei
tessuti tra donatore e ricevente.
Procedendo per ipotesi, senza aver
ancora ottenuto le dovute verifiche sperimentali, penso a nuovi dispositivi nel
campo della produzione industriale.
Il procedimento consente di migliorare
le prestazioni dei microscopi ottici, elettronici, che hanno larga
applicazione. ecc.
Si potrebbero affrontare i
problemi più complessi da un punto di vista fisico, come la gestione dei
sensori di centrali solari termodinamiche con un procedimento molto più snello
e semplificato.
MLR: Dott.
Cotellessa, quanto importante sarà la sensibilizzazione della società, della
scuola a tutti i livelli (in questo momento di profonda crisi generale), affinché
il “genio” e la “ricerca” italiana ritrovino “splendore” di fronte al mondo, ma
sopratutto a quella parte del nostro paese ormai profondamente disillusa?
G.C: L’innovazione
costituisce un fattore significativo per dare impulso alla ripresa
socio-economica del paese. Questo processo deve essere reso operativo a tutti i
livelli, in particolare nella scuola.
MLR: Dott.
Cotellessa, è d’accordo sul fatto che se le Istituzioni italiane arresteranno
l’”emorragia di cervelli” dal nostro paese, con atti concreti, l’economia tutta
ne beneficerebbe da subito?
G.C.: .: La ricerca italiana, sia pubblica che privata, consentirebbe
se opportunamente valorizzata, un impulso positivo per superare le attuali
condizioni di ristagno nel nostro paese, e quindi anche “mantenere” in Italia i ricercatori che
si sono formati nelle nostre università e nei centri di ricerca.
In conclusione vorrei
evidenziare che il lavoro sperimentale è frutto di lavoro di equipe con il
concorso di altri ricercatori, ma anche della struttura operativa dell’INMRI dell’ENEA
che ha consentito e valorizzato questa linea di ricerca, portando anche alla
brevettazione dei risultati e dell’innovazione.
In particolare ringrazio il
Dott. Pierino De Felice, responsabile attuale dell'INMRI, il Dott. Marco
Capogni responsabile della sezione dell'INMRI per lo sviluppo dei campioni
primari (appartengo a questa sezione) e il Dott. Giuliano Sciocchetti mio
ex-responsabile, attualmente in pensione, che ancora mi segue quasi
quotidianamente nelle mie avventure scientifiche, Elvio Soldano (chimico) e
Massimo Pagliari (tecnico). Queste personalità, eccezionali all'interno
dell'ENEA, mi hanno creato le condizioni indispensabili per poter
conseguire questi risultati importanti.
MLR: Dott.
Cotellessa, la ringraziamo per la sua disponibilità e chiarezza, nella viva
speranza che quel “seme” di cui parlavo all’inizio di questo articolo,
custodito nelle nuove generazioni, possa
davvero trovare in ITALIA “terreno fertile” in cui germogliare e crescere…
questa volta con abbondanza di acqua.
SE TI E' PIACIUTO QUESTO POST NON PUOI PERDERE:
LA VERA "GENESI" DELL'UOMO E' COME CI HANNO SEMPRE RACCONTATO? OPPURE E' UNA STORIA COMPLETAMENTE DIVERSA?
"L'UOMO KOSMICO", TEORIA DI UN'EVOLUZIONE NON RICONOSCIUTA"
" IL RISVEGLIO DEL CADUCEO DORMIENTE: LA VERA GENESI DELL'HOMO SAPIENS"
DI MARCO LA ROSA
SONO EDIZIONI OmPhi Labs
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AdrenaCard, an Epinephrine Autoinjector The Size of a Credit Card
EpiPens save lives in cases of anaphylactic shock by letting patients with severe allergies deliver epinephrine quickly and easily. Yet, a lot of people don’t carry them because they’re the size of highlighters and are easy to ignore or forget about. The AdrenaCard is a new easy to carry device from a startup company of the same name based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The new autoinjector is similar in size to a credit card and will fit neatly even in many wallets. Simply remove the protective cover, pull the safety tab, and push against a leg muscle to deliver the epinephrine injection. It’s essentially the same as an EpiPen in terms of functionality, but with a form factor that may help a lot more people keep the life saving medication wherever they go.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Smartphone MEMs adapted to create affordable gravimeters
Researchers from Glasgow University have adapted technology found in smartphones to make a small but powerful gravimeter.
According to the University, affordable, portable gravimeters could have a wide range of applications, including volcano monitoring, environmental surveying, and oil exploration. The research is detailed in a paper titled ‘Measurement of the Earth tides with a MEMS gravimeter’ and published in Nature.
Gravimeters measure the gravitational field of the Earth and the commercial availability of the devices has seen them employed in the oil and gas industry to discover fossil fuel deposits. However, the widespread uptake of gravimeters has been limited due to cost and size.
Dubbed Wee-g, the new device uses the same micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) that are used in smartphones’ internal accelerometers. While the MEMS technology in phones uses relatively stiff and insensitive springs to maintain the orientation of the screen relative to the Earth, Wee-g employs a silicon spring ten times thinner than a human hair. This allows Wee-g’s 12mm-square sensor to detect very small changes in gravity.
The team used their device to measure the Earth tides – when the moon and the sun exert a subtle effect on the Earth’s crust – from the basement of the University’s Kelvin building. The pull of the sun and the moon displace the crust, creating a very slight expansion and contraction of the planet of around 40cm.
In a statement, Dr Giles Hammond of the University’s School of Physics and Astronomy, one of the co-authors of the paper, said: “The Earth tides are a well-established phenomenon, which we’re able to accurately predict using mathematical models.
“One of the factors which separates gravimeters from simple accelerometers is stability, allowing users to monitor variations in gravity over the course of several days-weeks. We used our Wee-g system to monitor the Earth tides under Glasgow over the course of several days, and our results aligned perfectly with the variations in gravity the model had predicted.
“The significance of this is two-fold: firstly, we’ve shown that a MEMS device can maintain its stability over a long period of time, and secondly, that a device which could easily be built using existing mass-production technology can act as a very accurate gravimeter.”
Co-author Richard Middlemiss said: “There are a lot of potential industrial applications for gravimeters, but their cost and bulkiness have made them impractical in many situations. Wee-g opens up the possibility of making gravity measurement a much more realistic proposition for all kinds of industries: gravity surveys for geophysical exploration could be carried out with drones instead of planes; and networks of MEMS gravimeters could be places around volcanoes to monitor the intrusion of magma that occurs before an eruption – acting as an early warning system.”
The detector, built at the University’s James Watt Nanofabrication Centre, is a collaboration between the School of Physics and Astronomy (Institute for Gravitational Research) and the School of Engineering (Electrical & Nanoscale). The work is one of the first research outcomes from QuantIC, the UK’s centre of excellence for research, development and innovation in quantum enhanced imaging, which was established in 2015.
“We’re currently working to make the device smaller and more portable and via QuantIC we’re building industrial partnerships within several sectors to exploit the device commercially,” said Middlemiss.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Low-boom supersonic jet in development
Boston-based Spike Aerospace says it will start building a prototype low-boom supersonic jet this summer, designed to travel at Mach 1.6 over land as well as sea.
The sonic boom created by previous supersonic passenger aircraft such as Concorde led to them being restricted to trans-oceanic journeys. However, Spike claims its S-512 Supersonic Jet will be able to break the sound barrier with a diminished sonic boom, opening up trans-continental routes across Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
“Sure, there is a market for high-boom supersonic jets that only fly over water,” said Vik Kachoria, Spike Aerospace president and CEO. “But there is a much bigger demand for low-boom jets that can fly supersonic everywhere.”
The 18 passenger S-512 has been in development since 2013. The aircraft will employ proprietary Quiet Supersonic Flight (QSF) technology to achieve its low-boom goal. According to Spike, this works by optimising the aerodynamic design primarily through shaping of the wing, fuselage and tail. The design helps to minimise any disturbing sound created by the sonic wake. Spike claims that by the early 2020s the S-512 will be will be making flights from Paris to Dubai in 3.5 hours or London to Hong Kong in 5.5 hours.
In January, Spike announced a partnership with Spanish aerospace company Aernnova to work on the development and validation of major structural systems including the fuselage, wing and vertical tail. Later stages of the partnership will involve engineering of aircraft high-lift and control surface systems.
“Aernnova will play an important role in our structural analysis which will help our engineering team optimise the design, minimise loads and reduce weight,” said Tom Langer, Spike senior engineer.
While Spike has said that ticket prices for supersonic flights are expected to be at a slight premium to business or first class seats, it has also claimed that the cost on some routes will be about the same as business class.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Biopen Used to Deposit Stem Cells, Repair Tissue Within Joints
Stem cells have the capacity to be used to reconstruct and repair native tissues, but to apply them so that they survive and live on in their new home can be quite challenging. Now researchers at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science have developed a “biopen” that can deposit stem cells wherever needed. The technology was developed to allow surgeons to repair damaged cartilage within the intra-articular confines of joints.
The stem cells are first encapsulated within a hydrogel ink that is pushed through the pen. A light within the pen is used to adhere the material together as it is dispensed out. The surgeon simply pushes a button on the pen and the stem cell/hydrogel material is released and deposited onto whatever the pen touches.
Amazingly, in laboratory studies the researchers achieved a greater than 97% survival of the cells deposited using the biopen.
Some details from the study abstract in journal Biofabrication:
A gelatin–methacrylamide/hyaluronic acid–methacrylate (GelMa/HAMa) hydrogel was printed and UV crosslinked during the deposition process to generate surgically sculpted 3D structures. Custom titanium nozzles were fabricated to allow printing of multiple ink formulations in a collinear (side-by-side) geometry. Independently applied extrusion pressure for both chambers allows for geometric control of the printed structure and for the creation of compositional gradients. In vitro experiments demonstrated that human adipose stem cells maintain high viability (>97%) one week after biopen printing in GelMa/HAMa hydrogels.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Retina Implant’s Higher Resolution Alpha AMS Visual Implant Cleared in EU
Retina Implant AG, a Reutlingen, Germany firm, obtained European regulatory approval for its Alpha AMS subretinal implant for people that have become blind due to retinitis pigmentosa. The new device is an upgrade to the Alpha IMS that was cleared in Europe back in 2013.
The Alpha AMS features 1,600 pixels, which is 100 more than the Alpha IMS model, providing patients with improved visual clarity.
The implant chip replaces the functionality of the retina, capturing images multiple times a second and stimulating the optic nerve based on what it’s seeing. There is no external camera, so vision is more natural than systems that capture the visual field using cameras, and the patient looks around with the eyes rather than having to turn the entire head to change the point of view.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Magdent Raises First $800K for Its New Electromagnetic Dental Implant Technology
The market for dental implants is well-established and extensive. However, the process of implant integration into the jawbone may be lengthy and in some cases unsuccessful due to bone deterioration and insufficient bone mass. An Israeli medical technology start-up namedMagdent has developed a novel electromagnetic dental implant to address these issues. The miniaturized electromagnetic device (MED) is comprised of a battery-driven cap that sits on top of the implant post and emits pulsed electromagnetic energy, enabling faster bone integration and strengthening surrounding bone, according to milestone preclinical studies.
Magdent recently announced that it has raised $800,000 in start-up funds to further develop and obtain regulatory approvals for its new electromagnetic dental implant technology. Although pulsed electromagnetic fields have been previously shown to increase bone regeneration and improve blood flow and tissue oxygenation, Magdent’s technology is unique to the field. With patents in Europe and the United States, Magdent is primed to conduct its first-in-human studies in the months ahead.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Robotic Horse to Help with Autism, Arthritis, Cerebral Palsy, Etc.
Hippotherapy, or equine-assisted therapy, relies on riding horses to improve the symptoms of patients with a variety of physical and psychological conditions. It’s becoming more and more popular for helping people with balance disorders, autism, arthritis, and other conditions seemingly because of the gentle motions that pass through the entire body. Perhaps these motions help to synchronize things somehow yet to be discovered, or there might be an entirely unexpected explanation. Regardless, the therapy is getting popular but the costs are prohibitive for many looking to receive regular treatment.
A team of student engineers has developed a robotic horse that may serve as an option at providing hippotherapy without the associated costs, the smell of manure, or unexpected attitude from otherwise gentle animals. The robotic horse can support people up to 250 pounds and can be programmed to run through a regimen of movements designed for specific users and conditions.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Gravimetro differenziale: il nuovo brevetto ENEA utile all’industria petrolifera
Brevetto depositato il 14 marzo 2016 con numero 102016000026609
L’ENEA ha brevettato un gravimetro “differenziale a masse sfalsate” che permette di rilevare le anomalie di gravità lungo il geoide terrestre. L’interpretazione di queste misure fornisce elementi per scoprire eventuali variazioni della densità di massa sulla terra e la loro posizione.
Le diminuzioni di densità nel sottosuolo possono essere il sintomo di possibili presenze di cavità sotterranee provocate da giacimenti di gas/petrolio, mentre eventuali aumenti di densità potrebbero significare la presenza di grossi depositi minerari metallici.
Un utilizzo del gravimetro diverso dalla geofisica è quello di localizzare sulla terra la posizione del sensore senza la necessità di sistemi di ricezione segnali come sonar o gps. Ad esempio, il sistema può essere particolarmente utile nel caso di sottomarini che, rimanendo settimane in immersione e non potendo ricevere segnali, devono correggere la deriva o il fallimento della piattaforma inerziale che fornisce loro la posizione attuale.
Il sistema brevettato dall’ENEA è simile ad una bilancia a piatti che ha le due masse poste a diverse altezze lungo la verticale locale. Il sensore riesce a fornire la misura di gradiente di gravità con un basso rumore dovuto sia alle sollecitazioni verticali che alle variazioni di temperatura, mantenendo bassa la potenza assorbita.
L’invenzione può essere estremamente utile all’industria petrolifera la quale, per quanto riguarda le misure gravimetriche, si sta concentrando sui giacimenti offshore attraverso misure in profondità, che avvengono principalmente su sottomarini robot AUV. I sensori adatti a queste misure devono avere ingombri e consumi ridotti, come quello brevettato dall’ENEA.
Il prototipo del sensore è formato da:
un giunto cardanico utilizzato per orientare il sensore lungo la verticale locale
il ponte capacitivo che serve per misurare lo sbilanciamento del sensore provocato dalle variazioni di gravità
le due masse m1 e m2 solidali a un braccio in allumina
un sistema che permette la rotazione del braccio attraverso due lamelle.
Allo stato attuale esistono già sistemi di questo tipo ma presentano alcuni svantaggi: operano solo in assenza di gravità, sono ingombranti, hanno consumi elevati o sono altamente sensibili alle variazioni di temperatura e alle sollecitazioni verticali.
Ispirato dalla sinteticità di Leopardi, definirei il genio italiano Dott. Giuseppe Cotellessa essenziale. Oltre a sapere le cose, le dice!
Dott. Massimo Lucani.
Odontoiatra
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Hyperpolarized Molecules Allow MRI to Track Chemical Transformations
MRI has the capacity to track chemical activity in real-time, but its sensitivity is simply not sufficient when using traditional scanning techniques. In order for scientists and clinicians to study the chemical transformations happening within tumors, organs, and other parts of the body using magnetic resonance, the imaging that the technology provides has to be improved significantly. Researchers at Duke University have come up with a way to “hyperpolarize” the molecules being tracked so that they appear big and bright in an MRI scanner while producing a signal long enough to conduct meaningful studies.
The technique relies on creating molecules with so called diazarines within them. Diazarines have a carbon atom bound to two nitrogen atoms, which themselves are double-bonded to each other.
Some details about the workings of the technology from Duke:
Using a simple and inexpensive approach to hyperpolarization called SABRE-SHEATH, in which the molecular tags are mixed with a spin-polarized form of hydrogen and a catalyst, the researchers were able to rapidly hyperpolarize one of the diazirine-containing molecules, greatly enhancing its magnetic resonance signals for over an hour.
Qiu Wang, assistant professor of chemistry at Duke and co-author on the paper, said this structure is a particularly exciting target for hyperpolarization because it has already been demonstrated as a tag for other types of biomedical imaging.
“It can be tagged on small molecules, macro molecules, amino acids, without changing the intrinsic properties of the original compound,” said Wang. “We are really interested to see if it would be possible to use it as a general imaging tag.”
The scientists believe their SABRE-SHEATH catalyst could be used to hyperpolarize a wide variety of chemical structures at a fraction of the cost of other methods.
“You could envision, in five or ten years, you’ve got the container with the catalyst, you’ve got the bulb with the hydrogen gas. In a minute, you’ve made the hyperpolarized agent, and on the fly you could actually take an image,” Warren said. “That is something that is simply inconceivable by any other method.”
DA DR. COTELLESSA
CardioFocus HeartLight Ablation System with Direct Visual Guidance FDA Approved
CardioFocus, a company out of Marlborough, Massachusetts, won approval from the FDA to bring to market its HeartLight endoscopic cardiac ablation system for treatment of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. Unlike other ablation catheters that rely on X-rays or EP cardiac mapping to guide the ablation, the HeartLight provides direct visual observation of the area where tissue is to be removed.
The device consists of a compliant balloon at the distal end and an optical fiber that can deliver laser energy into the heart. A separate lumen is used to position device that lets the physician visualize the area under the laser gun.
Some details about the study that led to the approval:
The approved PMA submission contained comprehensive safety and effectiveness data from the Company’s multi-center HeartLight U.S. Pivotal Clinical Study, a randomized, controlled study in which a total of 353 participants were randomized at 19 leading arrhythmia centers across the United States.
Results from the pivotal trial, announced at Heart Rhythm 2015, showed that when performing a single ablation procedure using the HeartLight System, the majority of patients experienced freedom from paroxysmal AF at 12 months. In addition, both the primary safety and efficacy endpoints were met.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Ekso GT Robotic Exoskeleton Cleared for Stroke Rehab, Spinal Cord Injuries
Ekso Bionics won FDA clearance to offer its Ekso GT powered exoskeleton for rehabilitation of patients who suffer from partial paralysis caused by a stroke and for those with spinal cord injuries between levels T4 and L5 and T3 to C7. The device can provide varying amounts of assistance to one or both legs depending on the patient’s needs and what the rehab specialist is recommending.
As the patient makes steps, a rehabilitation specialist provides guidance, assists in maintaining the proper posture, and motivates the progress. The patient in turn relearns the proper gait and walking rhythm while letting the device support the body weight that would otherwise prevent the patient from standing up.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
The folks at St. Jude Medical must be dismayed as Medtronic is the first company to receive FDA approval for a new generation of tiny cardiac pacemakers. The Medtronic Micra, a device about the size of a large vitamin pill, resides entirely within the heart and doesn’t require separate leads in order to interface with cardiac tissue.
The Micra is delivered in a minimally invasive fashion via the femoral vein and so avoids potentially dangerous surgeries that may cause serious issues for fragile patients. It has its own tiny tines that grab onto the heart and pass the electrical pulses, essentially doing the work of the pacemaker and leads in one device.
Medtronic will have to continue studying the Micra for the next few years as it performs in actual patients over an extended period.
We’re hopeful that this approval signals a new age for cardiac therapy and that similarly sized devices from other firms soon make it to and saturate the market.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Le terapie tumorali sono efficaci solo per un sottoinsieme di persone che soffrono di una particolare manifestazione della malattia. Perché non c'è modo di sapere se un trattamento funziona se non molto tempo dopo il suo inizio, i pazienti in chemioterapia troppo spesso sonopenalizzati per l'uso di una una medicina che per loro non va bene. Ora i ricercatori presso il Brigham and Women Hospital di Boston hanno sviluppato un "sistema basato su nanoparticelle", che è in grado di trasportare i farmaci e quindi di rilevare la morte delle cellule intorno a sé per informare i medici se la terapia applicata sta funzionando.
Questa segnalazione è riportata negli Atti della National Academy of Sciences. I ricercatori descrivono una particella che reagisce alla presenza di enzima caspasi attivata attraverso l'emissione di una fluorescenza verde. Caspase si attiva in quantità notevole durante la morte cellulare, in modo che un bagliore luminoso prodotto dalle nanoparticelle è indicativo che le cellule vicine stanno morendo. Poiché le nanoparticelle possono essere fatte per essere indirizzate verso specifiche cellule tumorali grazie ad anticorpi collegati, le cellule che muoiono saranno prevalentemente cellule tumorali.
Il team ha testato la tecnologia utilizzando sia il paclitaxel chemio farmaco, così come l'anti-PD-L1 agente immunoterapia, dimostrando che la tecnologia funziona con entrambi i tipi di terapia.
Estratto dello studio:
Le nanoparticelle sono state progettate per funzionare in due fasi: è uno stimolo-reattivo con un rapporto ottimale di farmaco-enzima o immunoterapia (elementi effettori) e un elemento che svolge la funzione di attivare la droga contro le cellule cancerose. La consegna spatio-temporalle veicolata dalle nanoparticelle effettrici e gli elementi di verifica della sua efficacia in una singola nanoparticella produce il massimo miglioramento dell'effetto segnale di fatto registrando il processo di apoptosi temporale. Utilizzando i tumori alla sensibili alla chemioterapia e resistenti alla chemioterapia in vivo, dimostriamo che le nanoparticelle sono in grado di fornire in tempo reale la lettura non invasiva della risposta del tumore alla chemioterapia. La nanoparticella può anche monitorare l'efficacia di inibizione checkpoint immunitaria nel melanoma. La capacità di auto-segnalazione, per la prima volta a nostra conoscenza, acquisisce la verifica del'efficacia delle nanoparticelle antitumorali quando sono in azione in vivo.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Nanogel Transports Combination Drugs to Fight Cancer, Immune Disorders
Yale researchers created a new nanogel particle able to carry multiple drugs, including immunotherapies, to disease sites such as cancer throughout the body.
The nanogel is now about to be tested in a clinical trial against cancer by ferrying a combination of interleukin-2 (IL-2) and a tissue growth factor (TGF beta) inhibitor. The two drugs are very different chemically and in their size, so transporting them using the same particle type has been challenging before. The nanogel solves this problem and encapsulates both in proper concentrations for well targeted delivery.
The IL-2 helps the immune system target the cancer while TGF beta inhibitor slows the cancer cells’ ability to avoid the immune response.
Some more details according to a Yale announcement:
TVM Life Science Ventures VII is providing funding to Modulate Therapeutics Inc. to develop the drug to clinical proof of concept. Modulate secured the rights to IMM-01 from Yale and the Yale start-up company Immunova L.L.C., which was co-founded by Fahmy, Johns Hopkins University professor of oncology Ephraim Fuchs, and entrepreneur Bernard Friedman.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Neural bypass device provides quadriplegic with hand movement
Technology developed by a research team in Ohio has enabled a quadriplegic man to bypass his damaged spine and control his hand movements with his brain.
The device, called NeuroLife, was created by the Battelle Memorial Institute, an Ohio-based non-profit applied science and technology development company, and physicians and neuroscientists from The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Centre.
A pea-sized microchip was implanted into the motor cortex of 24-year-old Ian Burkhart’s brain, interpreting the electronic signals associated with movement. The chip connects with wires to a specially designed sleeve on Burkhart’s arm that stimulates his muscles and gives him control over his paralysed limb.
“During the last decade, we’ve learned how to decipher brain signals in patients who are completely paralysed and now, for the first time, those thoughts are being turned into movement,” said former Battelle researcher Chad Bouton, co-author of the study published this week in Nature.
“Our findings show that signals recorded from within the brain can be re-routed around an injury to the spinal cord, allowing restoration of functional movement and even movement of individual fingers.”
Burkhart first demonstrated the neural bypass device in June 2014, but his hand function at the time was limited to simple movements. In the intervening period, however, his control has improved, and he can now perform more complex tasks such as swiping a credit card, holding a phone to his ear, and even playing a guitar computer game.
This improvement has been enabled by the algorithms that learn and decode the user’s brain activity, with the algorithms becoming more refined as Burkhart has used the device more. According to the researchers, the technology has the potential to help people with various spinal injuries, as well victims of strokes and other brain injuries.
“We’re hoping that this technology will evolve into a wireless system connecting brain signals and thoughts to the outside world to improve the function and quality of life for those with disabilities,” said Dr Ali Rezai, a co-author of the study and a neurosurgeon at the Wexner Medical Centre. “One of our major goals is to make this readily available to be used by patients at home.”
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Flexible polymer implant for localised cancer treatment
Researchers from MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have developed an implantable polymer device that delivers chemotherapy drugs directly to pancreatic tumours.
The implant, described in the journal Biomaterials, consists of a flexible film made from a polymer called PLGA (poly lactic-co-glycolic acid), which is widely used for drug delivery and other medical applications. After the film is embedded with chemotherapy drugs, it can be rolled into a narrow tube and inserted through a catheter. Once the film reaches the pancreas it unfolds and conforms to the shape of the tumour, with medication secreted only from the side of the film in contact with the growth.
Once the film reaches the pancreas, it unfolds and conforms to the shape of the tumour. (Credit: Bryce Vickmark)
“It’s clear there is huge potential for a device that can localise treatment at the disease site,” said one of the study’s lead authors Laura Indolfi, a postdoctoral student at MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES) and the MGH Cancer Centre.
“You can implant our device to achieve a localised drug release to control tumour progression and potentially shrink it to a size where a surgeon can remove it.”
In a study on mice, the researchers found that treatment using the PLGA implant was up to 12 times more effective than giving chemotherapy drugs by intravenous injection. Injections are traditionally used to treat pancreatic cancer, but this can often be ineffective due to the organ’s location deep within the body, as well as the tendency for pancreatic tumours to have few blood vessels to absorb the drugs.
According to the researchers, direct delivery to the tumour significantly improved the concentration of chemotherapy drugs in the desired area, with the film also providing a physical barrier over the tumour to reduce metastasis to nearby organs. While the focus from the outset has been the pancreas, the implant could potentially be used to treat other hard-to-reach tumours, such as in the gastrointestinal tract.
It has also been suggested that the film could form the coating of a stent to prevent blockage of the bile duct, something that commonly affects pancreatic cancer patients. Coating stents with the drug-releasing film could help stop the cancer cells from spreading into the duct.
“We can extend the lifespan of these devices [stents],” said Indolfi. “Rather than being replaced every month they could be replaced every six months, or once a year.”
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Induction tomography project could boost competitiveness of UK steel industry
A new method of assessing a key stage of steel production is set to boost the competitiveness of the UK and EU steel industries.
Manuch Soleimani will develop new tomography technology that will enable the steel industry to continuously and contactlessly assess and measure steel as it solidifies
This is the aim of Dr Manuch Soleimani from Bath University’s department of electronic and electrical engineering who is leading the three-year Shell-Thick project to develop an induction tomography system for assessing the steel solidification process.
It aims to significantly improve the continuous casting process of steel by providing a real-time, non-destructive and reliable method of measuring the molten steel to detect any defects or fails as it solidifies and becomes a market product.
Induction tomography is an emerging non-invasive imaging technique already used in a number of applications, including medical diagnostics, geophysical exploration and civil engineering.
Soleimani, an associate professor at the university, told The Engineer: “Magnetic induction tomography attempts to image the passive electromagnetic properties of an object by measuring the mutual inductances between pairs of coils placed around its periphery.
“Measurements are acquired by passing an alternating current through excitation coils, producing a primary magnetic field.
“This magnetic field interacts with conductive and permeable objects in the medium to produce eddy currents, which, in turn, produce a secondary magnetic field, which is measured by sensing coils.
“As the secondary field depends on the materials present, the measured induced voltage is a non-linear function of the electrical and magnetic properties of the medium, that is, conductivity.”
The system will form a contactless bracelet around a billet of molten steel and take continuous measurements as the steel solidifies.
It will visualise the electrical conductivity of the different states of the solidifying steel and provide an image of its structural composition as it cools.
By enabling industry to continuously monitor and alter the cooling process, the technique should improve the quality, safety, productivity, costs and ultimately competitiveness of the UK and EU steel industries.
Soleimani said he and his team are pioneers in induction tomography and have already developed prototypes in the lab. A prototype would be tested at a factory later this year, he added.
During the project, Soleimani will work with the Fundacion Tecnalia Research & Innovation in Spain, as well as Italian steel industry companies Ferriere Nord and Ergolines Lab.
The project has been awarded a €1.4m (£1.1m) EU Horizon 2020 grant to help develop the technology.
Induction tomography would not solve the problems currently affecting the UK steel industry, but could help make it more competitive in the future, Soleimani said.
“Technology could enable us to be ahead in the production of high quality steel. Considering the cost of energy here and not having the subsidisation as China has, the only way to compete is having high quality products, and this is one step,” he added.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
La turbina del futuro? Sfrutta la CO2 allo stato di fluido supercritico
Delle turbine di piccole dimensioni in grado di sfruttare il diossido di carbonio per produrre energia. E’ il progetto a cui sta lavorando l'americana GE Global Reaserch che potrebbe arrivare a riscaldare fino a 10.000 abitazioni. Secondo quanto scritto sul Daily Mail, che riporta la notizia, questo tipo di turbina è in grado di sfruttare, al posto del vapore, il diossido di carbonio allo stato supercritico, una condizione fisica intermedia tra lo stato gassoso e quello liquido, con vantaggi in termini di efficienza nella produzione di energia elettrica da calore dell’ordine del 50%.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Brain Scans May Accurately Diagnose Autism
A team from the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International in Kyoto, Japan and Brown University may have discovered a way of diagnosing autism spectrum disorder using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans. The technique relies on software that analyzes functional connections between regions of the brain to decide whether someone is autistic.
To build the software, the researchers compiled a map of connections between different parts of the brain that measured in the thousands for each brain scanned. Lots of people participated in the scans allowing for the team to narrow down which connections seem to be more or less common in those with autism. They were able to identify 16 specific interregional connections that seem to be the markers for autism.
In a study involving 181 adults in the U.S. and Japan with and without a diagnosis of autism, their “classifier” was able to diagnose with an accuracy of 85% for the Japanese and 75% for Americans.
From the study abstract in Nature Communications:
The classifier achieves high accuracy for a Japanese discovery cohort and demonstrates a remarkable degree of generalization for two independent validation cohorts in the USA and Japan. The developed ASD classifier does not distinguish individuals with major depressive disorder and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder from their controls but moderately distinguishes patients with schizophrenia from their controls. The results leave open the viable possibility of exploring neuroimaging-based dimensions quantifying the multiple-disorder spectrum.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Photonic Time Stretch Microscopy Combined with Artificial Intelligence Spots Cancer Cells in Blood
UCLA researchers have developed a new laser-based technology to rapidly screen blood samples for the presence of cancer cells. The label-free system measures 16 different physical characteristics of each cell and analyzes the data to identify whether the cell is cancerous. Not having to introduce any labeling chemicals and being gentle on the cells, the technique leaves the cells alive and available for further inspection using other means.
It relies on a photonic time stretch microscope and a computer that runs deep learning artificial intelligence algorithms. The microscope can take millions of images per second thanks to unusual optics that produce high quality shots even at this speed. The deep learning system can actually run a variety of algorithms and the researchers tested a few to see which are better than others at spotting cancer cells.
From the study abstract in Scientific Reports:
Our system captures quantitative optical phase and intensity images and extracts multiple biophysical features of individual cells. These biophysical measurements form a hyperdimensional feature space in which supervised learning is performed for cell classification. We compare various learning algorithms including artificial neural network, support vector machine, logistic regression, and a novel deep learning pipeline, which adopts global optimization of receiver operating characteristics. As a validation of the enhanced sensitivity and specificity of our system, we show classification of white blood T-cells against colon cancer cells, as well as lipid accumulating algal strains for biofuel production. This system opens up a new path to data-driven phenotypic diagnosis and better understanding of the heterogeneous gene expressions in cells.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Photonic Time Stretch Microscopy Combined with Artificial Intelligence Spots Cancer Cells in Blood
UCLA researchers have developed a new laser-based technology to rapidly screen blood samples for the presence of cancer cells. The label-free system measures 16 different physical characteristics of each cell and analyzes the data to identify whether the cell is cancerous. Not having to introduce any labeling chemicals and being gentle on the cells, the technique leaves the cells alive and available for further inspection using other means.
It relies on a photonic time stretch microscope and a computer that runs deep learning artificial intelligence algorithms. The microscope can take millions of images per second thanks to unusual optics that produce high quality shots even at this speed. The deep learning system can actually run a variety of algorithms and the researchers tested a few to see which are better than others at spotting cancer cells.
From the study abstract in Scientific Reports:
Our system captures quantitative optical phase and intensity images and extracts multiple biophysical features of individual cells. These biophysical measurements form a hyperdimensional feature space in which supervised learning is performed for cell classification. We compare various learning algorithms including artificial neural network, support vector machine, logistic regression, and a novel deep learning pipeline, which adopts global optimization of receiver operating characteristics. As a validation of the enhanced sensitivity and specificity of our system, we show classification of white blood T-cells against colon cancer cells, as well as lipid accumulating algal strains for biofuel production. This system opens up a new path to data-driven phenotypic diagnosis and better understanding of the heterogeneous gene expressions in cells.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Graphene takes centre stage
The thing about graphene is that plenty of people know about its numerous properties but are not entirely sure how to fully utilise it.
For many of us, the material came onto the scene in 2010 when Manchester University scientists Andre Geimand and Konstantin Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for “groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene” and since then we’ve been waiting for it to transform our lives in the same way that silicon has done.
There is, of course, plenty to be excited about: graphene is 100 times stronger than steel, it can withstand 20% strain, it is a million more times electrically conductive than copper and it is 98% optically transparent, plus it’s harder than diamond and virtually impermeable. The list goes on with applications predicted in everything from foldaway mobile phones, wallpaper-thin lighting panels to the next generation of aircraft.
There have been notable breakthroughs with Manchester University spin-out Graphene Lighting PLC revealing details of its graphene-based bulb in 2015 and the National Graphene Institute launching to maintain Manchester’s leading position in graphene research and development.
The National Graphene Institute will also in attendance at Graphene & 2D Materials Europe 2016, which takes place next week in Berlin (April 27-28). As part of the IDTechEx show, the event will be used as a platform for companies to show how they are taking graphene out of the lab and putting into products including supercapacitors, batteries, anti-corrosion coatings, and energy storage devices.
Included amongst the exhibitors is Vittoria, a company using Directa Plus’ G+ brand of graphene in its range of wheel and tyre related products, which have brought about advantages for manufacturer and end-user alike.
The company says: “Prior to the advanced development of graphene, there was always the requirement of choosing between optimising, or aiming at, speed, grip, durability and puncture protection. Effectively, the introduction of graphene allows for natural material barriers of rubber to be removed, which means that there is no longer the need for such compromises between speed, grip, durability and puncture resistance.
Furthermore, if the tyre is rolling straight, the rubber is at its strongest and offers low rolling resistance but if the rider breaks, accelerates or corners, the compounds become more supple and offer significantly more grip.
In its carbon wheels, Vittoria claims 10% more heat dissipation, 15% more weight reduction, 26% more material strength, 18% more impact strength, 20% more spoke hole strength, 24% more flexibility, and 50 per cent more lateral stiffness.
In January this year company president and founder Rudie Campagne attended a round table discussing the applications of graphene, highlighting the relatively straightforward transition of integrating graphene into the production process, and noting the favourable dispersion of the material within the finished product.
Still with graphene and news that there is still time to enter Sandvik Coromant’s Graphene Challenge, a competition that asks entrants to find the most innovative graphene solutions for homes. They ask: “What sustainable invention could you create if you had an unlimited access to this amazing material?” and require entrants to think about functionality, application, design and the way in which it would improve a home.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Ultrathin e-skin could display medical information
Engineers from the University of Tokyo have created an ultrathin material embedded with electronics that could be used as a visual display for information such as medical data.
The electronic skin, or e-skin, is described in the journal Scientific Advances. It consists of a protective film less than two micrometres thick made from alternating layers of inorganic silicon oxynitrite and organic parylene. Under this, transparent indium tin oxide (ITO) electrodes are attached to an ultrathin substrate.
The e-skin could be used to display medical information. (Credit: Someya Laboratory)
Combining the electrodes with the film enabled the team to create polymer light-emitting diodes (PLEDs) thin enough to attach to skin, but flexible enough to adapt to body movement. The PLEDs are just three micrometres thick and over six times more efficient than other ultrathin PLEDs. According to the researchers, this makes the e-skin suitable for medical applications such as displaying patients’ blood oxygen concentration or pulse rate, and could even change the way people interact with each other.
“The advent of mobile phones has changed the way we communicate,” said Professor Takao Someya from the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Engineering.
“While these communication tools are getting smaller and smaller, they are still discrete devices that we have to carry with us. What would the world be like if we had displays that could adhere to our bodies and even show our emotions or level of stress or unease? In addition to not having to carry a device with us at all times, they might enhance the way we interact with those around us or add a whole new dimension to how we communicate.”
As well as facilitating the PLED display, the protective film also prevented the passage of oxygen and water vapour in the air, extending the lifetime of the device to several days, rather than the few hours seen in previous research.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
NASA invests in advanced electric propulsion
NASA has awarded Aerojet Rocketdyne to develop a new electric propulsion system for future space missions.
Solar electric propulsion
The Advanced Electric Propulsion System (AEPS) will be designed to extend NASA’s deep space exploration capabilities, and is expected to be a key component of the space agency’s Journey to Mars and Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM).
Typically, these systems use large solar arrays to convert sunlight into electrical power. That energy is fed into highly efficient thrusters that provide gentle but non-stop thrust throughout the mission. According to NASA, the AEPS could potentially increase spaceflight fuel efficiency by a factor of 10 compared to current rocket technology, as well as providing double the thrust capability of current electrical systems.
“Through this contract, NASA will be developing advanced electric propulsion elements for initial spaceflight applications, which will pave the way for an advanced solar electric propulsion demonstration mission by the end of the decade,” said Steve Jurczyk, associate administrator of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD).
“Development of this technology will advance our future in-space transportation capability for a variety of NASA deep space human and robotic exploration missions, as well as private commercial space missions.”
The AEPS will consist of a thruster, a power processing unit (PPU), a low-pressure xenon flow controller, and an electrical harness. NASA has previously developed and tested a prototype thruster and PPU that Aerojet Rocketdyne will be able to use as a reference design. The space agency has also recently carried out work on advanced solar array systems, which it believes will be integrated into the design of the AEPS.
NASA has been working on electric propulsion systems since the 1950s, and this latest mission is part of its wider Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP) project. ARM, NASA’s mission to capture an asteroid boulder and place it in orbit around the moon in the mid-2020s, will test the largest and most advanced SEP system ever utilised for space missions.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Microfluidic Chip Predicts Cancer’s Drug Resistance, Helps Select Most Effective Therapy
Certain cancers are able to develop drug resistance so fast that therapies that originally seem promising are quickly proven ineffective. Glioblastoma, the pernicious brain cancer, invariably develops drug resistance soon after treatment, but it hasn’t been clear how it does that or what the consequences are for further therapy. A collaboration between scientists from UCLA and Caltech has led to the development of microfluidic chips that can be used to detect the onset of drug resistance and to predict what combination of compounds will best work on a given tumor.
The chips contain so-called DNA “barcodes” that can identify specific mutations of tumor cells that are placed within. The mutations lead to resistance to certain compounds, so knowing ahead of time which drugs will and will not work can lead to very targeted and effective treatment.
Interestingly, the researchers discovered that the very same cells that receive a drug eventually develop resistance to it. It has previously been thought that only later generations of the cells, through genetic changes, are able to become resistant. The team identified the changes that take place within the cells that lead to resistance, allowing them to target weaker targets that don’t seem to be affected by the intracellular changes.
In a laboratory study with glioblastoma, the team came up with three drug combinations that they predicted would work for a given tumor and tested them successfully. Moreover, in mammalian models with melanoma the same technique worked well in assigning drugs that would work well for those tumors.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
3D X-ray imaging technology provides fresh insight into lung disease
Advanced 3D X-ray imaging technology is providing new insight into the way an aggressive form of lung disease develops.
Originally designed for the analysis of engineering parts such as jet turbine blades, the scanning equipment at Southampton University’s µ-VIS Centre for Computed Tomography, has been used to image Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) lung tissue samples for the first time.
IPF is usually diagnosed via a hospital CT scan or by using a microscope to view a lung biopsy sample however Southampton researchers have now applied Microfocus CT to image biopsy samples. This allowed them to view each lung sample with a level of detail similar to an optical microscope but now in 3D.
It had been thought that active scarring in IPF progressed like a large ‘wave’ from the outside to the inside of the lung. Instead, the study, published in JCI Insight, found that there are large numbers of individual sites of active disease scarring. The research team, from the National Institute for Health Research Southampton Respiratory Biomedical Research Unit, believes this finding will help to ensure doctors develop targeted therapies focussing on these areas.
Each year over 5,000 new cases of IPF are diagnosed in the UK, and the number of cases is increasing by around 5 per cent every year. The condition causes inflammation and scarring of the lung tissue, which causes breathing difficulties and leaves sufferers with a life expectancy of only three-to-five years.
The study’s lead author Dr Mark Jones, a Wellcome Trust fellow from the University of Southampton and University Hospital Southampton, said: “Whilst accurate diagnosis of IPF is essential to start the correct treatment, in certain cases this can be extremely challenging to do using the tools currently available.
“This technology advance is very exciting as for the first time it gives us the chance to view lung biopsy samples in 3D. We think that the new information gained from seeing the lung in 3D has the potential to transform how diseases such as IPF are diagnosed. It will also help to increase our understanding of how these scarring lung diseases develop which we hope will ultimately mean better targeted treatments are developed for every patient.”
Microfocus CT can scan inside objects in great detail – rotating 360 degrees whilst taking thousands of 2D images, which are then used to build detailed 3D images.
Prof Ian Sinclair, Director of the µ-VIS Centre for Computed Tomography, said: “By being a multidisciplinary centre we have a wealth of expertise that have allowed us to apply this technology in a way that has not been done before. This work is of great significance to us, with the long-term potential to translate our research from the bench to the bedside of patients.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Activated Molecules Kill Tumor Cells Only Where Light Shines
Researchers from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany and University of Kiev, Ukraine have developed a new photodynamic substance that may be useful for attacking tumors. Photodynamic therapy typically involves using light to create free radicals out of oxygen. A special substance is delivered to the area of treatment and light is used to activate the reaction. The problem is that tumors are typically low oxygen environments, so this way of killing cancer cells is not sufficiently effective. The team has reported in journalAngewandte Chemie the development of a new molecule, called GS-DProSw, that is activated using light but doesn’t require nearby oxygen to cause cancer death.
The molecule is deactivated by shining ultraviolet light on it. It is then delivered to the site of treatment, remaining off during this step. Once positioned, laser light can be used to turn the molecule back on and to make it toxic to nearby cells. Wherever there is no light, the molecules stay inactive and don’t damage tissue that should remain unharmed.
The technology was tested on laboratory animals showing that the therapy works quite well and only where the researchers wanted it to.
Some details from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology:
To initiate an oxygen-independent reaction in a PDT, the molecule applied has to be of cytotoxic nature. This means that it has to directly attack the tumor tissue irrespective of other reaction partners. A suitable molecule with cytotoxic properties against tumors is the biomolecule gramicidin S (GS), a natural antibiotic. To prevent it from damaging healthy tissue, the research team inserted a photo-switchable diaryl ethene segment into the ring structure. As a result, the GS-DProSw molecule can be switched between two states with the help of light: The agent can be administered in the inactive state and is activated at the desired location by specific irradiation with light. There, it attacks the surrounding tumor tissue and contrary to conventional PDT, it does not require any oxygen for this purpose.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Highly Stretchable Elastomer May be Candidate for Artificial Muscles
Science magazine highlighted a study in Nature Chemistry with the headline “Artificial muscle can heal itself”. While the study describes an amazing elastomer, there are only minimal muscle applications.
Researchers from Stanford University developed a new silicone rubber elastomer, based on a poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS)-derivative. The material can be stretched to 45 times its original length, a characteristic that the team attributed to the constant breaking and reforming of metal-ligand coordination bonds throughout stretching. The material can recover to its original length in one hour, with almost full recovery of its original stress-strain behaviour. The team cut the material in two, and then rejoined the ends. After 48 hours at room temperature, the material exhibited 90% healing efficiency. Furthermore, this healing ability was unaffected by surface ageing – that is, if the cut ends were left apart and exposed to air for 24 hours and then rejoined, the material saw no difference in healing efficiency compared to when the cut ends were immediately rejoined. This is in contrast with materials that rely on hydrogen bonding, where immediate re-contact is necessary for efficient healing. These characteristics are impressive, and appear to address two major issues of metal-ligand self-healing to heal strongly without an external stimulus.
Now onto the artificial muscle part. Given the dieletric strength of the material, the team tested its reactivity to an externally-applied electric field. The material could be seen to deform when cycled between 0 and 11 kV. However, deformations were minimal and the team still needs to characterize the contractile force, which is also likely minimal. Furthermore, how the material would behave in vivo as an artificial muscle implant is unclear: is it toxic? does it behave similarly in biological fluids? how would it be powered? Outside the body, perhaps the material could be applied as an actuator for prosthetic devices.
Calling this material artificial muscle is a…stretch. Nevertheless, here the researchers have created a good approach to preparing highly stretchable materials. The applications for self-healing materials are numerous, including anti-corrosion coatings and anti-crack structures. While a typical limitation is the difficulty in automatically joining the cut ends after damage, we could foresee this material contracting under an electric field to pull its damaged ends together and heal.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Accelerazione laser-plasma di elettroni e ioni: stato dell’arte e prospettive
Lo sviluppo delle tecniche di amplificazione di impulsi laser ultra-corti (femtosecondi), ha consentito di raggiungere potenze
di centinaia di TW ed intensità sul fuoco delle ottiche di focalizzazione che possono eccedere 1020W/cm2. Impulsi laser così
corti ed intensi, tramite l’azione delle correlate forze ponderomotrici, riescono ad eccitare onde elettroniche di plasma di
grande ampiezza a densità elettroniche dell’ordine di 1020cm-3. I campi elettrici longitudinali associati a queste onde
elettroniche di plasma sono adatti all’accelerazione degli elettroni e possono raggiungere valori estremamente elevati (fino a
≈1TV/m), ma su distanze assai ridotte (centinaia di μm). Le prospettive che si aprono sono considerevoli, anche se non
mancano i limiti che si manifestano al confronto con le tecniche tradizionali (LINAC, acceleratori circolari). Il Progetto
Strategico dell’INFN denominato PLASMONX (PLASma acceleration ad MONochromatic X-ray production) ha consentito
anche all’Italia di cimentarsi, presso i Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, in questa ricerca e di inserirsi nel più ampio
programma Europeo ELI (Extreme Light Infrastructure). L’area di ricerca di Frascati sembra dunque essere particolarmente
votata allo sviluppo di queste innovative tecniche di accelerazione, disponendo delle maggiori competenze nel campo dei laser
(Centro Ricerche ENEA) e della manipolazione di fasci di particelle energetiche (LNF-INFN)
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Il fatto di realizzare con il procedimento del brevetto ENEA RM2012A000637 del genio Dott. Giuseppe Cotellessa una sintesi matematica degli eventi indipendenti dagli osservatori e dal tempo appare come illuminante per il futuro dell’umanità.
Dott. Massimo Lucani
odontoiatra
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Largest ever space mirror revealed by NASA
The primary mirror for the largest ever space telescope has been revealed for the first time at NASA’s Goddard Space Center in Maryland.
The 6.5m-diameter primary mirror for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which will be the successor to the Hubble Telescope when it is launched in 2018, has been uncovered in preparation for the fitting of the telescope’s vital instrumentation.
6.5m diameter primary mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope is uncovered for the first time
While previous space telescope mirrors have been single pieces, JWST’s primary mirror – the component that collects photons from its distant observation targets and determines both the brightness of its images and how far it can see into space – is so big that it is built up from sections. The mirror comprises eighteen hexagonal sections, each one 1.32m in diameter, measured from a flat side to its opposite flat side (rather than from vertex to opposite vertex). By comparison, Hubble’s primary mirror is 2.4m across, and the largest previous space telescope primary, which belonged top the European infra-red telescope Herschel, was 3.5m in diameter.
Segmenting the mirror allowed JWST’s designers to maximise its area while minimising its mass. Each segment, made from the light metal beryllium and coated with highly-polished gold to create its reflective surface, weighs about 20kg, and has less than a tenth of the mass per unit area than Hubble’s primary. Moreover, the segmented structure allows the sides of the mirror to be folded in on itself so that it fits inside the faring of its launch vehicle, the European Ariane V rocket. Each mirror is equipped with six actuators to alter its tilt and orientation, and another in its centre to adjust its curvature; together, these devices form the focusing system for the telescope (the telescope’s secondary mirror has the six orientation actuators but not the central curvature one).
Each mirror was installed with a protective cover, but these were not fixed in place. As the telescope must be rotated so that the instruments can be mounted behind the primary mirror, the covers had to be removed. The protective, low-dust environment of the Goddard clean room will prevent the mirror from being damaged during this operation. Once the instruments are attached, JWST will be sent for environmental testing where it will be shaken and blasted with sound to simulate launch; it will then be vacuum- and chill-tested. Once these tests are completed, the telescope’s flight and communications systems and sunshade will be installed, and the whole assembly dispatched to the ESA spaceport in Equatorial Guinea for launch.
JWST’s mission is to observe very distant galaxies to investigate the conditions of the young universe. It will uses instruments from the US, Canada and Europe. ESA has provided two instruments: the mid-infrared instrument (MIRI), which will detect the red-shifted light from receding galaxies, new stars, comets and objects in the Kuiper belt; and the near-infrared spectragraph, which will be the first instrument in space capable of observing 100 objects simultaneously.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Le applicazioni pratiche alle più diverse tecnologie del procedimento del brevetto ENEA RM2012A000637 del genio italiano Dott. Giuseppe Cotellessa aiuterebbe a non far indignare Madre Teresa di Calcutta “Quello che più mi indigna è lo spreco”.
Ciò consentirebbe risparmio sia di tempo che di risorse in ogni senso.
Dott. Massimo Lucani
Odontoiatra
DA DR. COTELLESSA
DNA Strings Turned Into Molecular Thermometers
At the University of Montreal scientists have created a DNA-based thermometer that is so tiny that it can be inserted into cells to read the temperature inside. The inspiration came from seeing naturally occurring molecules being used to sense the temperature in the biological world. Such molecules fold and unfold at specific temperatures and so their shape tells how hot their nearby environment is.
The thermometers are only 5 nanometers in diameter and are created from nucleotides by relying on the idea that adenine binds weakly to thymine, while cytosine and guanine form a stronger bond. The molecular thermometers can be made in quantity, each folding and unfolding at different temperatures, providing the necessary resolution for detailed studies. An optical reporter attached to the molecule can be used to detect the shape of the molecules and so know the temperature nearby.
From the study abstract in journal Nano Letters:
Using structural modifications or inexpensive DNA stabilizers, we show that we can tune the transition midpoints of DNA thermometers from 30 to 85 °C. Using multimeric switch architectures, we are able to create ultrasensitive thermometers that display large quantitative fluorescence gains within small temperature variation (e.g., > 700% over 10 °C). Using a combination of thermoswitches of different stabilities or a mix of stabilizers of various strengths, we can create extended thermometers that respond linearly up to 50 °C in temperature range. Here, we demonstrate the reversibility, robustness, and efficiency of these programmable DNA thermometers by monitoring temperature change inside individual wells during polymerase chain reactions.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Boston Sci’s ImageReady MRI-Safe Pacemakers and Leads FDA Approved
Boston Scientific landed FDA approval for its ImageReady pacing system that includes the ACCOLADE MRI AND ESSENTIO MRI pacemakers and the INGEVITY MRI leads. As the names imply, the devices are safe for use within an MRI scanner (up to 1.5 Tesla) as long as certain precautions are taken.
The INGEVITY MRI leads are available in either active or passive fixation models, allowing the surgeon to decide whether to screw into the cardiac tissue or to choose pressure-based fixation.
The pacemakers themselves are wireless-enabled, allowing them to automatically report to the cardiologist via the LATITUDE NXT patient management system. The data includes unusual events and can help spot previously unnoticed conditions, leading to earlier therapy.
A few details about the study that led to the approval:
The INGEVITY trial, a prospective, non-randomized study, enrolled 1,036 patients and assessed safety, performance and effectiveness of the leads in patients with a single or dual chamber pacemaker. The SAMURAI trial, a prospective, randomized study, enrolled 351 patients and evaluated safety and effectiveness of the ImageReady System for use in patients with a single or dual chamber pacemaker when used in an MRI environment.
“As shown in the SAMURAI trial, the ImageReady System gives physicians reassurance that they are implanting pacemakers that are safe in an MRI environment should their patients need scans in the future,” said Ronald D. Berger, M.D., Ph.D., principal investigator of the SAMURAI trial and professor of medicine and biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. “The study demonstrated the INGEVITY MRI leads had no MR-related complications and very low rates of complications overall.”
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Seeing Nanoparticles in 3D Within Animal Tissues
Understanding the pharmacokinetics and distribution of nanoparticles has always been challenging. Researchers can quantify accumulation at the organ level, but at the expense of cellular detail. Or they can quantify accumulation at the cellular level, but at the expense of 3D tissue architecture detail. Given that nanomedicine is a delivery-based therapy, it’s important to know the delivery destinations of nanoparticles. As the field of nanomedicine shifts towards understanding cell-nanoparticle interactions, this gap needs to be addressed: where exactly are the nanoparticles going?
Researchers in Dr. Warren Chan’s lab at the University of Toronto have developed a method to create whole tissue maps to answer this question. They adapted a technique that makes tissues transparent (CLARITY), and used it to visualize nanoparticle distribution deep inside tissues. They take advantage of the layer of proteins that form around nanoparticles and cross-linked it to hold the nanoparticles in place. Additionally, they created a high-throughput system that can process 48 tissues simultaneously. In a proof-of-concept paper published in ACS Nano, they used quantum dots as a model nanoparticle and showed its distribution in the liver, kidney, and spleen. They observed most of the particles to be inside or on the blood vessels, indicating potential endothelial cell or macrophage uptake. Further, they developed algorithms to quantify the distribution by assessing how far the particles could penetrate past the blood vessels into tissues; in the liver, the limit seems to be 20 μm (a few cells thick).
“This paper represents a tour-de-force in uncovering how nanoparticles distribute themselves in tissues and tumors,” said Teri Odom, a professor of Materials Science & Engineering at Northwestern University who was not involved in the study. “The scope and depth of the project required great patience, and those of us who work in targeted nano-therapeutics will certainly benefit from this massive undertaking. Direct visualization of how nanoparticles interact in native environments will surely aid in nanoparticle design.”
“We wanted to have a Google Earth kind of view of nanoparticle distribution with the ability to zoom into every street and house to find what the nanoparticle is doing and zoom back out again,” said Shrey Sindhwani, co-lead author on the study.
“The biggest challenge was to create a robust method that can do this for a large number of samples and developing algorithms to report the “GPS” location of nanoparticles with respect to other biological structures,” said Abdullah Syed, another co-lead author on the study. “We envision this method to become a standard way to analyze any tissue, especially tumors, to find answers to nano-bio questions from the lack of 3D information of current techniques.”
The researchers were also able to visualize tumor microenvironment, so the next logical step is to look at nanoparticle distribution inside a tumor. This could tell us why nanoparticles, hailed for their potential as homing missiles for tumors, have yet to translate into a clinically-effective cancer therapeutic.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Device Captures Circulating Tumor Cells, Keeps Them Alive for Testing
Fluorescence probes in two breast cancer cells give information about which genes are present. The green dots show that both cells have multiple copies of the HER2 gene, suggesting that the cancer is aggressive. Credit: Nallasivam Palanisamy, Henry Ford Health System. Images copyright: Advanced Materials
Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) that dislodge from a primary tumor and travel through the blood stream can spread the disease, but can also be valuable for monitoring how a therapy is working. There are now quite a few devices out there that have been developed that filter out CTCs from whole blood, but keeping the cells alive and making them available for further laboratory testing has been difficult. Researchers at the University of Michigan have now created a microfluidic device that does just that.
Previously it was possible to use graphene oxide, incredibly thin sheets of carbon and oxygen, to capture CTCs, but they remained stuck to the material. Heating or using chemical reactions to remove the cells does damage to them, so the researchers used a newly developed polymer that breaks up at a preset temperature to solve the problem.
Bits of graphene oxide were mixed with the polymer that would dissolve below 54 degrees. Using previously developed techniques, the CTCs were captured, but this time a bit of cooling forced the polymer to break up and release the CTCs.
The researchers report that about 80% of the caught cells were alive when released, which bodes well for the future of cancer management via rapid CTC detection.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Artificial Placenta Replicates Womb for Extremely Premature Infants
Keeping extremely premature babies alive is understandably difficult. Modern neonatal intensive care technology simply doesn’t replicate the womb, essentially working to help the child survive on its own. Researchers at University of Michigan’s C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and Extracorporeal Circulation Research Laboratory have developed an “artificial placenta” that performs extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), avoiding the necessity of the child having to breathe through its poorly developed lungs that often can’t handle mechanical ventilation. ECMO is already used for post-op children and adults with cardiac and respiratory failure, but its successful application for extreme prematurity would be a new development.
The technology was recently tried on five very premature lambs, which were successfully kept alive for a week using the new artificial placenta. The next steps will involve getting lambs from birth to a more developed stage to see how well they fare in the long run. Following that we may see clinical trials begin with human babies.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Adaptive crystals could form basis for protective material
Researchers at the University of California San Diego have created an ‘adaptive protein crystal’ with properties that could be useful for fabricating protective materials such as body armour.
When stretched in a particular direction, the material becomes thicker in the perpendicular direction instead of getting thinner. Materials with this property are known as auxetic, and the behaviour is a result of the way the internal structure deforms when force is applied on one axis. Typically, the structures have high energy absorption and shatter resistance, making them useful in impact applications such as protective clothing, the soles of running shoes, and packing material.
(Credit: Yuta Suzuki and Timothy Baker, UC San Diego)
According to the researchers, this is the first time an auxetic material has been created at the molecular level through design. To do so, they created a sheet-like crystal made of RhuA proteins connected in a regular, repeating tile pattern. Details of the work can be found online in the journal Nature.
“We found a way to create strong, flexible, reversible bonds to connect the protein tiles at their corners,” said research lead Akif Tezcan, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UC San Diego.
The flexibility allows the tiles to rotate to open spaces for a porous material or to close up in a kind of adaptable sieve. Stretching or compressing the material in one direction causes the connected protein tiles to rotate in unison, resulting in a corresponding expansion or contraction in the opposite direction.
Due to the material’s minimalistic design strategy, the crystals form naturally under the right chemical conditions, with almost no tiles missing or ajar. According to Tezcan, the discovery opens up a range of possibilities for new auxetic applications, as well as opportunities to study the mechanics of self-assembling structures.
“These materials are very easy to make, yet provide many new research directions both in terms of materials applications and understanding the fundamental principles of nanoscale self-assembly,” he said.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Technologies Improve Voice Processing to Expand Applications
Currently, voice processing products such as smartphones are tailored for near-field applications where the distance is measured in few centimeters. Emerging applications — such as smart home appliances, wearable devices, and smart automotive systems — are seeking natural language interfaces that can perform with greater accuracy over longer distances with higher levels of ambient noise. Conexant has released two voice processing systems that promise to extend the reach of voice. Towards that goal, the company has developed a new noise-suppression algorithm.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Scientists Develop Powerful Bio-Compatible Nano-Motor
At the University of Cambridge researchers have developed a nano-scale light-powered piston engine that may one day energize devices to treat diseases directly or deliver drugs in powerful new ways. The device consists of charged gold nanoparticles within a polymer that bends and relaxes in response to heat changes. The polymer absorbs water when cooled, expanding in size, while heating the gold nanoparticles using a laser raises the temperature of the polymer, shedding the absorbed water and relaxing in response. This process happens in a fraction of a second, and as long as a laser is made to flip between being on and off, the engine keeps working.
According to the researchers, the force generated given the weight of the device is quite huge, at least a hundred times greater than existing motors or even muscle cells.
“It’s like an explosion,” said Dr Tao Ding from Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory, and the paper’s first author, in a press release. “We have hundreds of gold balls flying apart in a millionth of a second when water molecules inflate the polymers around them.”
“We know that light can heat up water to power steam engines,” said study co-author Dr Ventsislav Valev, now based at the University of Bath. “But now we can use light to power a piston engine at the nanoscale.”
The next steps will involve figuring out what to actually do with such a motor for medical and other applications.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Photoacoustic Imaging Users Multifunctional Nanoparticles as Contrast Agents
Scientists from University of Washington and University of Michigan, Ann Arbor have devised a novel nanoparticle powered imaging technique that may soon be able to pinpoint individual cells among a larger mass of tissue. The method uses well-defined iron oxide and gold-coupled core-shell nanoparticles that, when attached to given tissue, can be made to vibrate and to show up on a photoacoustic imager.
University of Washington press office explains:
Nanoparticles are promising contrast agents for ultrasensitive medical imaging. But in all techniques that do not use radioactive tracers, the surrounding tissues tend to overwhelm weak signals, preventing researchers from detecting just one or a few cells.
"Although the tissues are not nearly as effective at generating a signal as the contrast agent, the quantity of the tissue is much greater than the quantity of the contrast agent and so the background signal is very high," said lead author Xiaohu Gao, a UW assistant professor of bioengineering.
The newly presented nanoparticle solves this problem by for the first time combining two properties to create an image that is different from what any existing technique could have produced.
The new particle combines magnetic properties and photoacoustic imaging to erase the background noise. Researchers used a pulsing magnetic field to shake the nanoparticles by their magnetic cores. Then they took a photoacoustic image and used image processing techniques to remove everything except the vibrating pixels.
Gao compares the new technique to "Tourist Remover" photo editing software that allows a photographer to delete other people by combining several photos of the same scene and keeping only the parts of the image that aren’t moving.
The 30-nanometer particle consists of an iron-oxide magnetic core with a thin gold shell that surrounds but does not touch the center. The gold shell is used to absorb infrared light, and could also be used for optical imaging, delivering heat therapy, or attaching a biomolecule that would grab on to specific cells.
Researchers tested the method for photoacoustic imaging, a low-cost method now being developed that is sensitive to slight variations in tissues’ properties and can penetrate several centimeters in soft tissue. It works by using a pulse of laser light to heat a cell very slightly. This heat causes the cell to vibrate and produce ultrasound waves that travel through the tissue to the body’s surface. The new technique should also apply to other types of imaging, the authors said.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Nanoparticle Research Offers Hope of Artificial Retinas, Prostheses
Here’s how nano research might pave the way to the development of artificial retinas based on photosensitive nanoparticles:
The world’s first direct electrical link between nerve cells and photovoltaic nanoparticle films has been achieved by researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) and the University of Michigan. The development opens the door to applying the unique properties of nanoparticles to a wide variety of light-stimulated nerve-signaling devices — including the possible development of a nanoparticle-based artificial retina.
Nanoparticles are artificially created bits of matter not much bigger than individual atoms. Their behavior is controlled by the same forces that shape molecules; they also exhibit the bizarre effects associated with quantum mechanics. Scientists can exploit these characteristics to custom-build new materials “from the bottom up” with characteristics such as compatibility with living cells and the ability to turn light into tiny electrical currents that can produce responses in nerves.
That’s what the UTMB and Michigan researchers did, using a process devised by Michigan chemical engineering professor Nicholas Kotov, one of the authors of a paper on the research appearing in the current issue of Nano Letters. The process starts with a glass plate and then builds a layer-by-layer sandwich of two kinds of ultra-thin films, one made of mercury-tellurium nanoparticles and another of a positively charged polymer called PDDA. The scientists then added a layer of ordinary clay and a cell-friendly coating of amino acid, and placed cultured neurons on the very top.
When light shines on them, the mercury-tellurium nanoparticle film layers produce electrons, which then move up into the PDDA film layers and produce an upward-moving electrical current. “As you build up the layers of this, you get better capabilities to absorb photons and generate voltage,” said UTMB research scientist Todd Pappas, lead author on the Nano Letters paper. “When the current reaches the neuron membrane, it depolarizes the cell to the point where it fires, and you get a signal in the nerve.”
Although light signals have previously been transmitted to nerve cells using silicon (whose ability to turn light into electricity is employed in solar cells and in the imaging sensors of video cameras), nanoengineered materials promise far greater efficiency and versatility.
“It should be possible for us to tune the electrical characteristics of these nanoparticle films to get properties like color sensitivity and differential stimulation, the sort of things you want if you’re trying to make an artificial retina, which is one of the ultimate goals of this project,” Pappas said. “You can’t do that with silicon. Plus, silicon is a bulk material — silicon devices are much less size-compatible with cells.”
The researchers caution that despite the great potential of a light-sensitive nanoparticle-neuron interface, creating an actual implantable artificial retina is a long-range project. But they’re equally hopeful about a variety of other, less complex applications made possible by a tiny, versatile light-activated interface with nerve cells — such things as new ways to connect with artificial limbs and other prostheses, and revolutionary new tools for imaging, diagnosis and therapy.
New Class of Drug Ferrying Nanoparticles May Overcome Limitations of Existing Systems
Russian scientists at the Lomonosov Moscow State University are reporting the development of new drug ferrying nano-capsules that work fundamentally differently than existing nanoparticles. Each capsule consists of two concentric polymer shells that swell at different temperatures. The outer shell protects the capsule and also prevents the capsules from sticking to one another when they’re releasing their cargo, a problem that has confounded researchers for a while. The inner shell has pores that grow larger as it swells in size, allowing the release of compounds within.
Building the structure was difficult and involved using a silica core around which the shells were created and then the core dissolved to create an empty space.
More from Lomonosov Moscow State University:
At this stage, the work was purely fundamental and was intended primarily to demonstrate the effectiveness of the concept. Experiments were carried out in the temperature range of 32-42°C. It is slightly more than the temperature range favorable for a human, although in the future this range can be easily narrowed, states Igor Potemkin.
The scientific collaboration is going to be prolonged for another four years. ‘There are still many questions,’ the scientist says. ‘For example, we have “caught” a structure in which a cavity does not collapse as the pores are closed. Now we need to understandwhy it happens, how does the density of the layers’ crosslink effect, i.e., what is the minimum amount of crosslinker that does not lead to a collapse of the cavity, and so on. ”
Potemkin is sure that in any case the created nano-containers are the ideal carriers for targeted drug delivery. Moreover, their synthesis is neither complex nor really expensive. Although at current stage of research it is difficult to pronounce the precise cost, the collaboration’s plans already include the creation of the large-scale,commercially acceptable production of nanogels.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
SkinTrack turns lower arm into touchpad
Technology developed in the US promises to turn a person’s lower arm into a touchpad, an advance that could make small screens on high-tech wearables more user-friendly.
Called SkinTrack and developed by the Human-Computer Interaction Institute’s Future Interfaces Group at Carnegie Mellon University, the new system allows for continuous touch tracking on the hands and arms. The university further claims that it can detect touches at discrete locations on the skin, enabling functionality similar to buttons or slider controls.
Previous “skin to screen” approaches have employed flexible overlays, interactive textiles and projector/camera combinations. SkinTrack requires only that the user wear a ring, which propagates a low-energy, high-frequency signal through the skin when the finger touches or nears the skin surface.
“The great thing about SkinTrack is that it’s not obtrusive; watches and rings are items that people already wear every day,” said Yang Zhang, a first-year Ph.D. student in HCII. He will present details of the technology May 10 at CHI 2016, the Association for Computing Machinery’s Conference on Human Factors in Computing, in San Jose, California.
“A major problem with smartwatches and other digital jewelry is that their screens are so tiny,” said Gierad Laput, a Ph.D. student in HCII and part of the research team. “Not only is the interaction area small, but your finger actually blocks much of the screen when you’re using it. Input tends to be pretty basic, confined to a few buttons or some directional swipes.”
“SkinTrack makes it possible to move interactions from the screen onto the arm, providing much larger interface,” said Chris Harrison, assistant professor in the HCII and adviser to the research.
Carnegie Mellon University’s SkinTrack enables users to turn their skin into a touchpad for controlling smartwatches.(Future Interfaces Group, Carnegie Mellon University)
The user wears a ring that produces a high-frequency electrical signal. When the finger gets near to the skin or touches the skin, that signal propagates through the skin.
By using electrodes integrated into the watch’s strap, it’s possible to pinpoint the source of those electromagnetic waves because the phase of the waves will vary. Electrodes corresponding to the 12 o’clock and 6 o’clock positions on the watch, for instance, can detect phase differences that can determine the position of the finger along the width of the arm; electrodes at the 3 o’clock and 9 o’clock positions can determine the finger’s position along the length of the arm.
The researchers found that they could determine when the finger was touching the skin with 99 per cent accuracy and they could resolve the location of the touches with an average error of 7.6mm. That is said to compare well with other on-body finger-tracking systems and approaches touchscreen-like accuracy.
The researchers showed that SkinTrack could be used as a game controller, to scroll through lists on the smartwatch, to zoom in and out of onscreen maps, and to draw. A number pad application enabled users to use the back of the hand as a dial pad for the onscreen number pad; hovering a finger over the hand acts as a cursor, highlighting numbers on the screen to aid in targeting touch points.
The system does, however, have limitations: keeping the ring powered up is a challenge and signals tend to change as the device is worn for long periods, thanks to factors such as sweat and hydration and the fact the body is in constant motion.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Eradicating wrinkles: MIT material mimics youthful skin
Scientists at MIT have developed a stretchable material that can tighten skin and smooth wrinkles, and which also has potential to deliver drugs and treat skin conditions.
The silicon-based polymer is delivered to the skin in two stages. Polysiloxane components are first applied in a cream-like formula. A second cream containing a platinum catalyst is then applied, inducing the polymer to form a strong cross-linked film that remains on the skin for up to 24 hours. This cross-linked polymer layer (XPL) is essentially imperceptible.
“It’s an invisible layer that can provide a barrier, provide cosmetic improvement, and potentially deliver a drug locally to the area that’s being treated,” said Daniel Anderson, an associate professor in MIT’s Department of Chemical Engineering and one of the authors of the paper, published in Nature Materials. “Those three things together could really make it ideal for use in humans.”
The researchers have conducted a number of tests on the XPL to assess its safety and effectiveness. One test saw the material applied around the eyes to stretch out the skin and reduce ‘eye bags’. The compressive force tightened the area for a period of 24 hours. Another study saw the material used on a forearm to test its elasticity. When stretched, it returned to its original position faster than untreated skin.
“Creating a material that behaves like skin is very difficult,” said Barbara Gilchrest, a dermatologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and an author of the paper.
“Many people have tried to do this, and the materials that have been available up until this have not had the properties of being flexible, comfortable, nonirritating, and able to conform to the movement of the skin and return to its original shape.”
During the research the team created a library of more than 100 possible polymers, all of which contained the chemical structure siloxane: a chain of alternating atoms of silicon and oxygen. Each polymer was tested in search of the one that would best mimic the appearance, strength, and elasticity of healthy skin. The XPL that was eventually chosen can return to its original state after being stretched over 250 per cent. In comparison, actual skin has a limit of about 180 per cent.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Bio-glass formed into therapeutic 3D-printed structures
Scientists have developed a material that can be 3D-printed to mimic cartilage and potentially encourage it to re-grow.
The team from Imperial College London and the University of Milano-Bicocca in Italy have developed a bio-glass material that mimics the shock-absorbing and load bearing qualities of real cartilage, a flexible connective tissue found in joints and between vertebrae in the spine.
It can be formulated to exhibit different properties and the researchers aim to develop implants for replacing damaged cartilage discs between vertebrae. They believe it also has the potential to encourage cartilage cells to grow in knees, which has not been possible with conventional methods.
The bio-glass consists of silica and polycaprolactone that displays cartilage-like properties including flexibility, strength, durability and resilience. According to Imperial College, it can be made in a biodegradable ink form, enabling the researchers to 3D print it into structures that encourage cartilage cells in the knee to form and grow. It is also said to display self-healing properties when damaged, which could make it a more resilient and reliable implant, and easier to 3D print when it is in ink form.
One formulation developed by the team could provide an alternative treatment for patients who have damaged their intervertebral discs. When cartilage degenerates in the spine it leaves patients with debilitating pain and current treatment involves fusing the vertebrae together, which reduces a patient’s mobility.
The scientists believe they will be able to engineer synthetic bio-glass cartilage disc implants, which would have the same mechanical properties as real cartilage, but which would not need the metal and plastic devices that are currently available.
Another formulation could improve treatments for those with damaged cartilage in their knee, say the team. Surgeons can currently create scar-like tissue to repair damaged cartilage, but ultimately most patients have to have joint replacements, which reduces mobility also.
The team are aiming to ‘print’ tiny, biodegradable scaffolds using their bio-glass ink. These bio-degradable scaffolds would provide a template that replicates the structure of real cartilage in the knee.
When implanted, the combination of the structure, stiffness and chemistry of the bio-glass would encourage cartilage cells to grow through microscopic pores. The idea is that over time the scaffold would degrade safely in the body, leaving new cartilage in its place that has similar mechanical properties to the original cartilage.
Professor Julian Jones, one of the developers of the bio-glass from the Department of Materials at Imperial, said: “Bio-glass has been around since the 1960’s, originally developed around the time of the Vietnam War to help heal bones of veterans, which were damaged in conflict. Our research shows that a new flexible version of this material could be used as cartilage-like material.
“We still have a long way to go before this technology reaches patients, but we’ve made some important steps in the right direction to move this technology towards the marketplace, which may ultimately provide relief to people around the world.”
The researchers have received funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to take their technology to the next stage. They are aiming to conduct trials in the lab with the technology and develop a surgical method for inserting the implants. They will also work with a range of industrial partners to further develop the 3D manufacturing techniques.
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Hyperloop One undergoes initial tests and secures Series B funding
Hyperloop, the supersonic pod transport system conceived by Elon Musk, has undergone its first propulsion open-air test (POAT) in the Nevada desert, just north of Las Vegas.
Testing was conducted by Hyperloop One, the company previously known as Hyperloop Technologies. Along with the name change, this week the company announced that it has secured Series B funding of $80m from a combination of previous investors and new backers. New financial partners include the French national rail company SNCF, as well as GE Ventures.
“The overwhelming response we’ve had already confirms what we’ve always known, that Hyperloop One is at the forefront of a movement to solve one of the planet’s most pressing problems,” said Shervin Pishevar, Hyperloop One co-founder and executive chairman.
“The brightest minds are coming together at the right time to eliminate the distances and borders that separate economies and cultures.”
Hyperloop One also announced a number of partnerships with major companies around the world, including Arup, which is at the heart of Crossrail, and financial powerhouse KPMG. As testing continues in Nevada, what once appeared a moonshot now seems to be gaining mainstream legitimacy and momentum throughout the globe.
The feasibility of Hyperloop routes in Finland and Sweden is being explored in order to forge a strategic link between Stockholm and Helsinki. Elsewhere, plans are being developed for a completely tunneled cargo transport and logistics system throughout Switzerland, backed by a consortium of companies called Cargo Sous Terrain (CST).
“Hyperloop One is the ideal technology partner for Cargo Sous Terrain as we develop our underground logistics system,” said CST president Peter Sutterlüti. “We believe that Hyperloop One is on the forefront of transportation innovation that will revolutionise how we move cargo and streamline logistics.”
In conjunction to these developments is the Hyperloop One Global Challenge, where individuals, companies and governments are being invited to submit regional Hyperloop proposals. The deadline for entries is September 15, 2016 with a panel of experts convening in March 2017 to select the most transformative projects likely to gain government, financial and regulatory support.
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Eversense 90-day Continuous Glucose Monitor CE Marked in Europe
Senseonics, a company headquartered in Germantown, Maryland, won European regulatory clearance to introduce its Eversense continuous glucose monitoring system. The system includes a sensor that is implanted under the skin and swapped out for a new one every three months, and a transmitter that communicates with a matching smartphone app to provide the results.
The sensor is the actual glucometer that continuously samples blood passing by it using fluorescence technology. The transmitter read the sensor state and uses Bluetooth wireless connectivity to pass data to the smartphone app. The app in turn has features such as alarms when sugar levels fall out of bounds and historical tracking for easy sharing with the physician.
From Senseonics:
The previously presented multi-center European PRECISE pivotal trial showed strong accuracy and safety results throughout the 90 day use of the Eversense CGM System.
CE Mark confirms that the product meets the Essential Requirements of the Active Implantable Medical Device Directive (AIMDD 90/385/EEC). The system is indicated for continually measuring interstitial fluid glucose levels in adults and to be used as an adjunctive device; to complement information obtained from standard home blood glucose meters. In conjunction with the CE Mark approval, Senseonics will conduct post market surveillance activities which will include gathering long-term safety and performance data from repeated sensor insertions.
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New Intravascular Photoacoustic Imaging Catheter Maps Arterial Plaque in 3D
Intravascular photoacoustic (IVPA) imaging is a new 3D technique for assessing plaque buildup within blood vessel walls. It has a great deal of potential, but so far it has been difficult to create IVPA devices small enough for delivery by catheter that would provide the necessary image quality to help in diagnoses.
Now a team of investigators at Purdue University, Indiana University School of Medicine, and Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics in China have developed a way of positioning the optical and acoustic components on top of each other so they can fit into a tip of a typical endovascular catheter. The new design allows for imaging of coronary arteries up to 6 mm in depth, and even deeper.
The details of the workings of the technology will be presented at CLEO (Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics) in San Jose, California in June.
Intravascular photoacoustic imaging of lipid-laden atherosclerotic plaque and perivascular fat was demonstrated, where a lab-built 500 Hz optical parametric oscillator outputting nanosecond optical pulses at a wavelength of 1.7 μm was used for overtone excitation of C-H bonds. In addition to intravascular imaging, the presented catheter design will benefit other photoacoustic applications such as needle-based intramuscular imaging.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Anno dopo anno, il grafene ha sempre qualche nuova sorpresa in serbo per gli scienziati. Il cosiddetto "materiale delle meraviglie" ha infatti svelato una nuova proprietà, che potrebbe aiutarci a produrre energia pulita in un futuro non troppo lontano. Un team internazionale, coordinato da Antonio Politano dell'Università della Calabria, ha infatti mostrato che questo materiale può essere utilizzato per scomporre le molecole d'acqua e ricavare idrogeno. Oltre a produrre idrogeno, il grafene sarebbe anche in grado di immagazzinare l'idrogeno in modo decisamente efficiente. La scoperta, apparsa su ACS Nano, è una prova di concetto di un processo chimico-fisico che potrebbe rivelarsi estremamente importante nel campo della produzione di energia da fonti pulite e rinnovabili.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Strathclyde space scientists to develop systems to remove satellites from orbit.
Technology to remove satellites from space – and prevent the further build up of man-made space debris – is being investigated by researchers at Strathclyde University.
Space debris is a growing problem
The team has been awarded some €116,700 of EU funding as part of the two-year TeSeR (Technology for Self-Removal of Spacecraft) programme that is being led by Airbus Defence and Space.
According to NASA, over 500,000 pieces of space debris – made up of items including non-functioning spacecraft and abandoned launch vehicle stages – are currently being tracked as they orbit Earth at speeds of up to 17,500mph.
With a total of €2.8m in funding from the Horizon 2020 programme, TeSeR will carry out initial research for the development of a prototype of a cost-efficient but highly reliable removal module.
Dr Malcolm Macdonald, director of the Strathclyde-based Scottish Centre of Excellence in Satellite Applications explained via email that parts of large spacecraft can survive re-entry and need to be de-orbited more carefully than small satellites that burn up in the atmosphere.
“So large spacecraft may require a propulsion based system, while small spacecraft may be able to use something else,” he said, adding that the programme will prioritise solutions for sub-500kg spacecraft that operate in low-Earth orbit; the category that would need a non-propulsion based system.
An additional element to the project is to investigate any future platform’s function as a removal back up in the event of loss of control of the spacecraft.
Macdonald added that the most efficient means of removing a functional spacecraft is to use its own propulsion system, and that for the for the equivalent amount of fuel (or less) it would be challenging to develop a new system that duplicates this function.
“However, anomalies happen and spacecraft fail before the end of life, in this case even if the propellant tank is full it is of no use if you can’t command the spacecraft to use it,” he said. “In such a case it is desirable to have a fail-safe system that can, in-effect, remove the otherwise dead spacecraft. Such a fail-safe system will have a mass – and cost – impact on the spacecraft but it could be argued that by not installing such a system you would be at fault following a debris event involving your spacecraft.”
Macdonald said the project will seek to develop at least one, but up to three, of the identified modular concepts to a prototype stage.
“As it is a modular system the idea is that it should be able to have, say, a propellant module that is swappable – on the ground and before launch – with, say, a solar sail or drag augmentation device, and so forth,” he said. “Such decisions would then be made on the basis of the spacecraft the device was being attached to.”
Partners in the project are: Aalborg University; Beazley Furlonge; D-orbit; GOMspace; HTG (Hyperschall Techologie Göttigen); PHS Space; Universität der Bundeswehr München; University of Surrey; Weber-Steinhaus & Smith. The University of Glasgow is also participating on a sub-contract to Strathclyde.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Non riesco a capire perché realtà positive, come il procedimento del brevetto RM2012A000637 del genio italiano Dott. Giuseppe Cotellessa, invece di essere poste in risalto dai mass media appaiono essere censurate da loro.
Dott. Massimo Lucani.
Odontoiatra
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Tiny origami robot unfolds in stomach
Researchers at MIT, Sheffield University, and the Tokyo Institute of Technology, have developed a minute origami robot that unfolds in the stomach once ingested.
The robot contains of a layer of biodegradable material called Biolefin that shrinks when heated. This is placed between two structural layers of dried pig intestine similar to what is used in sausage casings. After being swallowed, the capsule that houses the robot is dissolved and the structure begins to expand, taking on a rectangular shape with accordion folds perpendicular to its long axis.
A magnet embedded in one of the forward folds allows the robot to be controlled externally. According to the researchers, the forces applied to the robot from outside the body are mainly rotational. A quick rotation of an external magnetic field will make it spin in place, but a slower rotation will cause the robot to pivot around one of its fixed feet. It’s hoped the tiny device could be used to remove foreign objects from the stomach, patch wounds, or deliver medication to a specific point in the digestive system.
“It’s really exciting to see our small origami robots doing something with potential important applications to health care,” said Daniela Rus, a Professor in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
“For applications inside the body, we need a small, controllable, untethered robot system. It’s really difficult to control and place a robot inside the body if the robot is attached to a tether.”
Once in the stomach, the robot can propel itself using what’s known as a “stick-slip” motion. This involves the appendages sticking to a surface through friction when the robot executes a move, but slipping free again when its body flexes to change its weight distribution. The team tested the device using an artificial stomach. It was able to guide the robot to a button battery in the stomach and use the robot’s magnet to pick the battery up.
According to the researchers, 3,500 button batteries are swallowed every year in the US, and they have the potential to cause damage to stomach lining. One application for the robot would be to help clear these objects through the digestive tract. Rus said the next stages of the project will involve in vivo testing, attaching sensors to the robot, and adapting the device so it can control itself without the need of an external magnetic field.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Graphene nanoribbons help to plug gaps in wellbores
Oil and gas companies could cut costs by reinforcing wellbores with modified graphene nanoribbons that are added to a polymer and then microwaved.
This is the claim of Rice University chemist James Tour and civil and environmental engineer Rouzbeh Shahsavari, who’ve combined the nanoribbons with an oil-based thermoset polymer intended to make wells more stable.
According to Rice, when cured in place with low-power microwaves emanating from the drill assembly, the composite would plug the microscopic fractures that allow drilling fluid to seep through and destabilise the walls.
Results of their study have appeared in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces.
The researchers said that drillers have formerly tried to plug fractures with mica, calcium carbonate, gilsonite and asphalt with limited success because the particles are too large and the method is not efficient enough to stabilise the wellbore.
In lab tests, a polymer-nanoribbon mixture was placed on a sandstone block, similar to the rock that is encountered in many wells. The team found that rapidly heating the graphene nanoribbons to more than 200 degrees Celsius with a 30W microwave was enough to cause crosslinking in the polymer that had infiltrated the sandstone, Tour said in a statement. The microwave energy needed is just a fraction of that typically used by a kitchen appliance, he said.
“This is a far more practical and cost-effective way to increase the stability of a well over a long period,” Tour said.
In the lab, the nanoribbons were modified with polypropylene oxide to aid their dispersal in the polymer. Mechanical tests on composite-reinforced sandstone showed the process increased its average strength from 5.8 to 13.3 megapascals, a 130 per cent boost in this measurement of internal pressure, Shahsavari said. Similarly, the toughness of the composite increased by a factor of six.
“That indicates the composite can absorb about six times more energy before failure,” he said. “Mechanical testing at smaller scales via nanoindentation exhibited even more local enhancement, mainly due to the strong interaction between nanoribbons and the polymer. This, combined with the filling effect of the nanoribbon-polymer into the pore spaces of the sandstone, led to the observed enhancements.”
The researchers suggested a low-power microwave attachment on the drill head would allow for in-well curing of the nanoribbon-polymer solution.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Engineers in Australia set record for solar efficiency
Engineers from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) have set a new world record for solar efficiency, converting sunlight to electricity at a rate of about two-thirds the theoretical limit.
The new world record for unfocused sunlight saw the engineers achieve a conversion rate of 34.5 per cent. This marks nearly a 50 per cent leap on the previous record of 24 per cent efficiency, set by Alta Devices of the United States, although that was achieved over a larger surface area. The theoretical limit for the type of device used is believed to be 53 per cent.
For the new record, the UNSW researchers used a 28-cm2 four-junction mini-module embedded in a prism. This maximises energy extraction by splitting the incoming rays into four bands, using a hybrid four-junction receiver to squeeze electricity from each beam of sunlight.
“This encouraging result shows that there are still advances to come in photovoltaics research to make solar cells even more efficient,” said Dr Mark Keevers from UNSW’s Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics.
“Extracting more energy from every beam of sunlight is critical to reducing the cost of electricity generated by solar cells as it lowers the investment needed, and delivering payback faster.”
The mini-module combines a silicon cell on one face of the glass prism, with a triple-junction solar cell on the other. The triple-junction cell targets discrete bands of the incoming sunlight using a combination of three layers: indium-gallium-phosphide; indium-gallium-arsenide; and germanium. As sunlight passes through each layer, energy is extracted by each junction at its most efficient wavelength, while the unused part of the light passes through to the next layer.
Keevers conducted the research alongside the centre’s director, Prof Martin Green, who has worked in photovoltaics for over 40 years. According to him, Australia’s solar research has already generated flow-on benefits of more than $8bn to the country, and further efficiency gains will continue to add to that total.
“What’s remarkable is that this level of efficiency had not been expected for many years,” said Green. “So things are moving faster in solar cell efficiency than many experts expected, and that’s good news for solar energy.”
Multi-junction solar cells are unlikely to be seen on domestic rooftops any time soon due to their cost. However, the researchers say their spectrum-splitting approach would be ideal for solar towers, where mirrors are used to concentrate sunlight.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Researchers Develop Dissolvable Electronic Brain Implants
Researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at University of Pennsylvania and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have reported in journal Nature Materials on a new type of intracranial electrodes that are able to dissolve and wash out of the body once done doing their job. The technology could one day be used for both diagnostic and therapeutic applications. Currently electrodes tend to suffer from becoming less and less effective as the fibrous tissue around creates impedance to the device. Perhaps dissolvable electrodes may lessen that burden by not requiring explantation.
The silicone/molybdenum electronic devices build upon groundbreaking work of John A. Rogers of U of I Urbana-Champaign in flexible electronics. The thickness of the final product determines the time it takes for them to dissolve and so they can be prepared for specific clinical applications.
The researchers already tested the electrodes on animals and intact tissue. Here are some details according to UPenn:
For example, the team used the device to record brain waves in rats under anesthesia, as well as voltage fluctuations between neurons (EEGs), and induced epileptic spikes in intact live tissue. A separate experiment demonstrated a complex, multiplexed array made from these materials that could map rat-whisker sensing capabilities at high resolution.
These electrophysiological signals were recorded from devices placed at the surface of the brain cortex (the outer layer of tissue) and the inner space between the scalp and skull. Chronic measurements were made over a 30-day period, while acute experiments demonstrated device operations over three to four hours.
Comparative studies showed that the new sensor performed as well or better relative to conventional electrodes used in the clinic, with regard to tissue reactivity as measured by tissue pathology, as well as cellular and immune staining after the studies’ end.
The team next plans to develop more complex devices that include flow, pressure, and other measurement capabilities, in addition to electrical recording, and test them in animal models of disease, before moving into human testing.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Nanotubes used for new cancer imaging technique.
Researchers at Rice University in Texas have used carbon nanotubes to develop a new medical imaging technique that can pinpoint tumours.
The method, described in the Royal Society of Chemistry journal Nanoscale, relies on spectral triangulation. Cancerous tumours are tagged with antibody-linked nanotubes, which naturally fluoresce at short-wave infrared wavelengths when excited by visible light. A highly sensitive detector called an InGaAs (indium gallium arsenide) avalanche photodiode allows for the faint signals from the nanotubes to be identified up to 20mm deep in the simulated tissue used for testing.
“We’re using an unusually sensitive detector that hasn’t been applied to this sort of work before,” said Rice chemist Bruce Weisman, who led the research. “This avalanche photodiode can count photons in the short-wave infrared, which is a challenging spectral range for light sensors. The main goal is to see how well we can detect and localise emission from very small concentrations of nanotubes inside biological tissues. This has potential applications in medical diagnosis.”
The Rice team used LED lighting to excite the nanotubes. According to Weisman, lasers are more commonly used for this, but can’t be focused inside tissue because of scattering. However, LED light diffuses through tissue and is able to penetrate to the nanotubes.
A small optical probe mounted on the frame of a 3D printer follows a programmed pattern, as the probe gently touches the skin to make readings at grid points spaced a few millimetres apart. Water in the tissue absorbs different wavelengths of nanotube emission, meaning the team is able to establish the depth of a signal, as well as the X and Y coordinates.
“If we’re detecting nanotubes close to the surface, the long and the short wavelength emissions are relatively similar in intensity,” said Weisman. “But if the emission source is deeper, water in that tissue absorbs the longer wavelengths preferentially to the shorter wavelengths. So the balance between the intensities of the short and long wavelengths is a yardstick to measure how deep the source is. That’s how we get the Z coordinate.”
The detector is currently being tested by Dr Robert Bast, an ovarian cancer expert and research academic at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Centre.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Multi-signal biosensor could aid athletes
Engineers from the University of California San Diego have developed and tested a wearable sensor capable of measuring biochemical and electrical signals.
Known as the Chem-Phys patch, the device measures electrocardiogram (EKG) signals, while at the same time tracking levels of lactate, which builds up in the body during physical effort. Receiving feedback on these two biomarkers from a single wearable device could be particularly useful for athletes monitoring their training, as well as for treating patients with conditions such as heart disease. The work is outlined in the latest issue of Nature Communications.
“One of the overarching goals of our research is to build a wearable tricorder-like device that can measure simultaneously a whole suite of chemical, physical and electrophysiological signals continuously throughout the day,” said Prof Patrick Mercier from UC San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering. “This research represents an important first step to show this may be possible.”
According to the team at UC San Diego, one of the biggest challenges was calibrating the sensors so that their individual signals didn’t interfere with each other. Most wearables only measure one signal, such as heart rate, and almost none measure chemical signals. The researchers began by screen printing the patch on a thin, flexible polyester sheet. A lactate sensor was printed in the centre, with an EKG electrode on either side. After several iterations, it was found that a distance of 4cm between the two EKG electrodes was optimal.
To isolate the electrodes from the lactate sensor, the team used a layer of soft silicone rubber. This allowed the sensor to come into contact with the slightly conductive sweat from the body, but kept sweat away from the EKG electrodes. The sensors were connected to a small custom-printed circuit board equipped with a microcontroller and a Bluetooth Low Energy chip, which wirelessly transmitted data to a smartphone or computer.
During testing, data collected by the Chem-Phys patch closely aligned with data gathered from separate commercial devices. According to the researchers, the next stages of the work will involve adding sensors for other chemical markers such as magnesium and potassium, along with other vital signs.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Freedom of movement: researchers track proton mobility to improve conductivity in new material
More efficient fuel cells for transportation could be developed thanks to efforts to investigate the movement of charge through a new type of material.
Researchers at Manchester and Nottingham Universities have mapped the structure of the material, known as a metal-organic framework, or MOF, and how charge flows through it.
The performance of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells, used in transportation, depends on the efficiency of the electrolyte material at their centre, which controls the flow of charge between the positive and negative electrodes.
So researchers are attempting to improve the efficiency of the devices by developing smart electrolyte membranes based on materials that facilitate the charge transfer more smoothly.
MOFs are hybrid materials made up of metals connected by organic ligands. They have a number of advantages that make them potential candidates for use as smart electrolyte materials, according to Dr Sihai Yang, a group leader from Manchester University.
Firstly, the organic ligands can be modified by adding groups of atoms – known as functional groups – such as those containing hydrogen donors, to improve the conductivity of the material, he said.
Secondly, since the materials have a porous structure, different small molecules that act as proton carriers can also be loaded into their pores, to further improve their conductivity.
But perhaps most importantly, the crystalline nature of the materials also makes it possible for researchers to study the structure and conductivity of MOFs in precise detail, to gain a better understanding of how to improve their efficiency even further.
To this end, the research team used the powerful x-rays at Diamond Light Source, the UK’s synchrotron science facility, to study the atomic structure and workings of one type of MOF material, known as MFM-500(Ni).
They then used neutrons at the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s ISIS Neutron and Muon Source to map the movement of protons through the material.
They found that, contrary to previous predictions that protons moved through the material by jumping between different sites, they in fact move freely within spheres.
Within the structure of the material are a number of these spheres overlapping each other, which allows the protons to simply hop between them, said Yang. “This gives them a three-dimensional continuous diffusion pathway,” he said.
The researchers now hope to optimise the radius of these spheres, he said. “Then at a later date we hope to optimise the structure [of the MOF] to achieve a better packing of the spheres, and therefore an overall improved proton conductivity,” he said.
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New instrument set to boost semiconductor research
Researchers have developed a table-top instrument that obtains measurements more normally acquired in national high magnetic field laboratories.
The advance means that research into the development of next generation electronic devices employing 2D materials can now be done at most research universities.
Dr Darren Graham and a team of researchers from Manchester University’s Photon Science Institute collaborated with colleagues from Cambridge University and industry partners from Germany to develop the new instrument that overcomes obstacles to the widespread use of a magnetic field technique called cyclotron resonance.
The magnetic coil at the heart of the system. Credit: S Hammersley, Manchester University
According to the American Institute of Physics, in a magnetic field, charged particles in a material move in circles around magnetic field lines. The orbiting particles interact with light differently depending on properties like their mass, concentration, and on how they move through the material. By shining light on the material in the magnetic field and recording what frequency and how much light is absorbed, scientists can learn about how easily charged particles move.
Some materials require an extremely high magnetic field to get the charged particles to move fast enough to interact with the light, a factor that has hindered the wider uptake of cyclotron resonance.
The new magnet is said to be compact enough for a table-top machine, yet the magnet only generates a field in short pulses that each last for a one hundredth of a second.
“The challenge in doing cyclotron resonance with these pulsed magnets is being able to record your data within the brief time period that the magnet is on,” said Ben Spencer, a post-doctoral research associate at Manchester University’s Photon Science Institute. “The breakthrough we have made is in the measurement technique.”
Spencer and his colleagues used asynchronous optical sampling to increase the number of measurements during one pulse to around 100. Previous experiments with a similar magnet system were limited to four measurements per pulse.
The team worked with researchers from manufacturers Laser Quantum to incorporate lasers into the new instrument, which are more than 10 times quicker than those found in typical ultrafast laser systems.
The “Taccor” lasers they used run at repetition rates of 1 billion cycles per second, more than 10 times higher than the typical repetition rates for ultrafast laser systems, Spencer said. The fast laser allowed data acquisition times on the order of one ten-thousandth of a second, which meant up to a hundred measurements could be taken during the transient magnet pulse.
The team tested their system by measuring the properties of electrons at the interface of the two semiconductors AlGaN and GaN. Such interfaces could form an important part of new, energy-saving transistors.
Ultimately, the team hopes their new instrument could facilitate rapid progress in many areas of semiconductor device development.
“We’re sure that when people realise that we can do such measurements in the lab they will be lining up to use our instrument. We’ve already been contacted by several groups interested in having measurements made on their samples,” Dr Graham said in a statement.
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Energy: from ENEA a record superconductor cable
Another step forward in nuclear fusion. An innovative super conductor cable for the reactor DEMO, designed by the Superconductivity team of the ENEA Nuclear Fusion Department, has offered a 30% superior performance compared to ITER superconductors, the experimental facility under construction in France.
Section of the rectangular cable designed for the project DEMO by the Superconductivity team of the ENEA Nuclear Fusion Department, coordinated by the European Consortium EUROfusion and implemented with the collaboration of the Italian Companies TRATOS Cavi and CRIOTEC Impianti.
Record performance for the new superconductor cable designed by ENEA for DEMO, the reactor that –once feasibility and cost effectiveness of nuclear fission are demonstrated- it’s going to produce electricity.
The prototype has provided a 30% superior performance over ITER cables, proving to be able to carry a 82ka(kiloamperes) in a 13T(Tesla) magnetic field up to a 7K (Kelvin) temperature, equal to -266°C.
The rectangular configuration of the new superconductor cable in fact, allows to distribute the huge electromagnetic loads –equal to approximately 100 t per meter of conductor- so as to avoid performance degradation.
The testing of the superconductor characteristics was carried out in Switzerland at the Swiss Plasma Center (SPC) Laboratories that also collaborated to manufacture part of the sample, the thermal treatment and the installation of the equipment. “With this test-Antonio Della Corte, ENEA Superconductivity Team Leader pointed out- we have demonstrated to be able to design reliable high power superconductive cables having “extreme”characteristics, as required by projects like DEMO”. The prototype of the cable –of a CICC (Cable in Conduit Conductor) type- was developed by the ENEA industrial partners, TRATOS Cavi Spa. and CRIOTEC Impianti Srl.. It’s an example of synergy between public research and private companies, developed as a consequence of the combined experience of ITER and JT- 60SA, the two fusion experiments currently taking place in Europe and Japan respectively- that has secured Italy contracts worth almost one million euro.
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Bindex, a Radiation-Free Device for Osteoporosis Screening, FDA Cleared
Bone Index Ltd., a Finnish firm, landed FDA clearance for its Bindex device that’s used to diagnose osteoporosis. The ultrasound device evaluates the cortical bone thickness of the tibia and provides a measurement of the Density Index that is normally derived from dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) bone densitometry systems.
It plugs directly into a laptop running Bindex software and exams can be performed at the point-of-care.
In clinical trials, the system detected osteoporosis with 90% sensitivity and specificity without exposing patients to ionizing radiation.
Bone Index Ltd. claims that its device provides results comparable to DXA, which should point to the technology becoming quite popular over bulky and expensive DXA machines. Moreover, since there is no involvement of radiation, there’s no need for a physician referral to take the test.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
A Stethoscope for Knees to Detect Injury, Measure Recovery
Those crackling sounds of knees in the morning may sound scary, but there’s constant noise coming out of moving joints that we just don’t hear. Normal sounds may indicate healthy knees while unusual ones may point to something not quite right. Researchers at Georgia Tech are now investigating a sort of stethoscope for the knees, consisting of microphones and a film-based vibration sensor, stuck to the leg that listen for and interpret the sounds coming from within.
The team has already identified some characteristics of healthy knees compared to injured ones. There’s more consistency in sounds coming from healthy knees, for example.
This research was funded by DARPA, the military’s research funding agency, with the hopes of developing a way to detect injuries in soldiers early before more damage is developed. Moreover, post-op monitoring would be improved if there were a cheap and easy way of assessing progress besides MRI scans.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Perché, mi chiedo, nel 2016 ancora non sembra esistere come quasi due secoli fa una adeguata organizzazione che consenta all’umanità di utilizzare progressi scientifici di sicura positività generale come quella del procedimento del brevetto ENEA RM2012A000637 del genio italiano Dott. Giuseppe Cotellessa?
Dott. Massimo Lucani
Odontoiatra
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Wearable sensor suite aims to predict and prevent asthma attacks
Researchers have developed an integrated, wearable system that monitors a user’s environment and physical attributes to predict – and prevent – asthma attacks.
The so-called Health and Environmental Tracker (HET) is a suite of new sensor devices developed by researchers from the US National Science Foundation’s Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Advanced Self-Powered Systems of Integrated Sensors and Technologies (ASSIST) at North Carolina State University.
“Our goal was to design a wearable system that could track the wellness of the subjects and in particular provide the infrastructure to predict asthma attacks, so that the users could take steps to prevent them by changing their activities or environment,” said Alper Bozkurt, the principal investigator of a paper describing the work and an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State.
The HET system is said to incorporate a host of novel sensing devices incorporated into a wristband and a patch adhered to the chest. The patch includes sensors that track a patient’s movement, heart rate, respiratory rate, the amount of oxygen in the blood, skin impedance and wheezing in the lungs.
The wristband focuses largely on environmental factors, monitoring volatile organic compounds and ozone in the air, as well as ambient humidity and temperature. The wristband also includes additional sensors to monitor motion, heart rate and the amount of oxygen in the blood.
The system also has a non-wearable spirometer, which patients breathe into several times a day to measure lung function.
“Right now, people with asthma are asked to use a peak flow meter to measure lung function on a day-to-day basis,” said James Dieffenderfer, lead author of the paper and a Ph.D. student in the joint biomedical engineering program at NC State and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“That information is used to inform the dosage of prescription drugs used in their inhalers. For HET, we developed a customized self-powered spirometer, which collects more accurate information on lung function and feeds that data into the system.”
Data from the sensors is transmitted wirelessly to a computer, where custom software collects and records the data.
“The uniqueness of this work is not simply the integration of various sensors in wearable form factors,” said Veena Misra, co-author of the paper and a professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State. “The impact here is that we have been able to demonstrate power consumption levels that are in the sub-milliwatt levels by using nano-enabled novel sensor technologies. Comparable, existing devices have power consumption levels in the hundreds of milliwatts.
“This ultra-low power consumption is important because it gives the devices a long battery life, and will make them compatible with the power generated by the body, which is not a lot,” said Misra.
“We have tested the system in the benchtop and on a limited number of human subjects for proof of concept demonstration and have confirmed that all of the sensors work, and that the system accurately compiles the data,” Misra said.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Dialysis Patients Try Wearable Artificial Kidney
A couple of years ago we wrote about a new wearable dialysis machine going on clinical trial that’s essentially an artificial kidney for cleansing and regulating the consistency of plasma electrolytes on the go. Dialysis patients today have to spend hours tethered to a machine, a chore that puts a strain on their lives. Now promising results from the study have been published in journal JCI Insight that point to wearable dialysis becoming a common practice for managing kidney failure patients.
The Wearable Artificial Kidney was developed at the University of Washington with help from the FDA Center for Device and Radiological Health. It’s essentially a disassembled traditional dialysis machine that was reconstituted to fit on a belt that hangs around the torso. One major change that was made was to include a filtration system that removes the need to constantly add purified water to the device. Instead the water is cleansed and recirculated into the machine. Additionally, it was made to run on batteries to make it truly a mobile therapeutic device.
The recent study involved seven patients that wore the artificial kidney for up to 24 hours. Researchers showed that the device successfully cleansed blood of urea, creatine, and phosphorus, and regulated the levels of water and sodium. Moreover, even without limiting the diet of the patients studied, a typical requirement for folks with kidney failure, the device still managed to keep the relevant plasma electrolytes at healthy levels. There are still optimizations that can be made, especially on the safety and reliability of the system, but the patients already reported a more satisfying experience than having to sit next to a machine at a clinic for hours at a time.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
ESA to guide Russian lunar lander onto moon’s surface
Adding to its involvement in deep-space projects, Airbus Defence and Space has secured a deal to develop and supply a guidance system for the Russian Luna-Resource lander, which is scheduled to land on the moon around 2024.
Rendering of Luna-Resource (also known as Luna-27) in descent phase
Named PILOT (Precise and Intelligent Landing using Onboard Technologies), the system is an autonomous autopilot that will guide the robotic lander into a safe landing spot on the lunar surface.
Luna-Resource is Russia’s first lunar lander since 1976, and is designed to survey the effects of solar wind on the moon’s surface and determine the composition of lunar soil. Carrying cameras, UV and IR spectrometers, and a mass spectrometer to analyse samples taken by a robotic arm, it will also look for the presence of water.
Airbus signed the agreement with the Russian space agency Roscosmos at last week’s Berlin Air show. Teams based in Bremen and Toulouse will work on PILOT, which will use both autonomous navigation and hazard detection and avoidance systems, similar to those used on conventional UAVs. It is intended to operate in the last moments of the lander’s descent.
“PILOT builds upon Airbus Defence and Space’s experience in Moon exploration and visual navigation, and is a key addition to our portfolio of exploration activities focusing on the Moon,” said François Auque, head of Space Systems. “By leading activities on PILOT, the Orion spacecraft, the Lunar Polar Sample Return Study, and architectural Moon exploration scenario studies, our teams are key partners supporting ESA’s exploration of lunar space and the Moon’s surface.”
DA DR. COTELLESSA
3D fabrication technique promises rapid build and test of new polymer membranes
A new 3D fabrication technique will make it possible to rapidly prototype and test polymer membranes that are patterned for improved performance, claim Penn State researchers.
Ion exchange membranes have applications in fuel cells, as well as in water purification, desalination, removal of heavy metals and food processing.
Most of these membranes are thin, flat sheets but recent work has shown that by creating 3D patterns on top of the 2D membrane surface, certain hydrodynamic properties emerge that improve ion transport or mitigate fouling.
Making these so-called profiled patterned membranes involves etching a silicon mould with the desired pattern, pouring in the polymer and waiting for it to harden, a process that is time-consuming, expensive, and results in a single pattern type.
“We thought if we could use 3D printing to fabricate our custom-synthesised ion exchange membranes, we could make any sort of pattern and we could make it quickly,” said Michael Hickner, associate professor of materials science and engineering, Penn State.
In a paper published in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, Hickner’s team describes the development of a custom 3D photolithographic printing process similar to stereolithography.
The team developed a photocurable mixture of ionic polymers and exposed the mixture under a light projector to harden the base layer. They then added more polymer to the base layer and projected a pattern on the new material to selectively harden the surface. The surface pattern is said to increase the conductivity of the membrane by as much as a factor of two or three.
“Membranes act like a resistor in a battery or fuel cell,” Hickner said in a statement. “If you can lower the resistance by a factor of two or three, you’ve really got something useful.”
The paper’s lead author, Jiho Seo, a Ph.D. candidate in materials science and engineering, said: “While surface-patterned membranes have been studied previously, this is the first 3D printed example of these structures and the first model that really explains the resistance decrease in a quantitative way.
“A simple parallel resistance model describes the effect of the pattern on lowering the resistance of these new membranes. This insight gives us a design tool to continue to innovate and create new patterns for further improvements along with changing the intrinsic chemistry of the material.”
The team will continue to optimise the geometry and chemistry of the membranes they print, as well as learn to print new materials, both for membranes and beyond, that have so far not been printed.
“We want to bridge the fundamental chemistry and materials science that we do with the engineering and rapid design iterations that the 3D printing industry is really good at,” Hickner said.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
New Tiny Flat Lenses May Revolutionize Medical Imaging
Scientists at Harvard University have come up with a way of making tiny, high resolution flat lenses that work within the visible spectrum. The advancement may have major consequences for endoscopy, surgical microscopy, and other clinical and pre-clinical technologies that can benefit from smaller, high quality lenses.
Unlike conventional lenses that are shaped pieces of glass or other material, Harvard’s “metalenses” are actually nano-scale constructs made of titanium dioxide that force light to travel so as to replicate a real lens. This has allowed the team to use the lens to actually resolve objects smaller than the wavelength of light.
There are certainly limitations to the technology and these are not exactly direct replacement for wide spectrum lenses, as each has to be made for a specific frequency of light.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
HoloAnatomy App Previews Use of Augmented Reality in Medical Schools
The Cleveland Clinic has partnered with Case Western Reserve University to release a Microsoft HoloLens app that allows users to explore the human body using augmented reality technology. The HoloLens is a headset that superimposes computer generated 3D graphics onto a person’s field of view, essentially blending reality with virtual reality.
The HoloAnatomy app lets people explore a virtual human, to walk around it looking at details of different systems of the body, and to select which are showing. Even some sounds are replicated, such as that of the beating heart.
The app uses hand gesture and voice recognition for controls, and using which labels can be inserted to learn different anatomical components. Additionally, the application has a test taking mode during which the labels are removed and the user has to identify the body parts being called out.
While the HoloAnatomy app is still a study of how this technology will be used in medical education, it’s already pointing to less time spent in the morgue for future med students.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
HoloAnatomy App Previews Use of Augmented Reality in Medical Schools
The Cleveland Clinic has partnered with Case Western Reserve University to release a Microsoft HoloLens app that allows users to explore the human body using augmented reality technology. The HoloLens is a headset that superimposes computer generated 3D graphics onto a person’s field of view, essentially blending reality with virtual reality.
The HoloAnatomy app lets people explore a virtual human, to walk around it looking at details of different systems of the body, and to select which are showing. Even some sounds are replicated, such as that of the beating heart.
The app uses hand gesture and voice recognition for controls, and using which labels can be inserted to learn different anatomical components. Additionally, the application has a test taking mode during which the labels are removed and the user has to identify the body parts being called out.
While the HoloAnatomy app is still a study of how this technology will be used in medical education, it’s already pointing to less time spent in the morgue for future med students.
ChemoFilter for Removal of Chemotherapy Drugs to Reduce Complications
While chemotherapy can be a life safer, it is also famously brutal on patients. Improved targeting and containment of chemo agents is one approach to limit the side effects of the medication, but another is being investigated by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. They’ve been developing a material that could serve as a filter, positioned downstream of the tumor to remove chemotherapy drugs before they travel to the rest of the body. The idea for the so-called ChemoFilter originally came from Dr. Steven Hetts, a professor of radiology at UC San Francisco, but realizing it has required development of a new technology for the filtration method.
Some chemo drugs, such as the widely used doxorubicin, carry a positive charge. To attract them, the material for the filter consists of two polymers, one of which has a negative charge. In a study involving a porcine model, the ChemoFilter was able to reduce the maximum concentration of doxorubicin by about 85% throughout the body.
The next steps will involve improving the filtration capabilities of the filter, and there’s already work on using DNA as binding molecules to attract different kinds of chemo molecules. Perhaps there’s potential for filtering other things, such as pathogens and antibiotics.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
New Device Harnesses Heartbeats to Power Medical Implants
A team of researchers working in China and the U.S. has developed an electric generator that attaches to the heart to power an implantable cardiac monitor. The implantable triboelectric nanogenerator (iTENG) harnesses the actual physical movement of the heart to produce a current that is then fed into a small computer that controls the monitor. A receiving coil positioned externally of the body captures the data emitted by the cardiac monitor, resulting in a totally self-sustained system that does not need any outside power sources.
The researchers tested the technology on a live adult pig, showing that the system worked continuously for over 72 hours. Data was successfully received from the implantable monitor and the pig seemed to do well with the setup. The voltage generated went up to 14 V while the maximum current produced was 5 µA.
Of course there’s still a lot to be done before clinically used implants don’t need batteries or recharging. The researchers do believe that the new generator will herald new possibilities in healthcare monitoring that are currently not possible due to power issues.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
UK Regulatory Authority Grants Clinical Trial Approval for Pixium Vision’s Bionic Vision System
Medgadget previously reported on a preclinical trial by Pixium Vision, a company based in Paris, France, showing that its visual implants restore sight in rats with retinal degeneration. Pixium Vision is making headlines again with a recent announcement that the UK regulatory authority, Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), has granted clinical trial approval for Pixium Vision’s 150 Electrode IRIS II bionic vision system. The IRIS II system consists of a bio-inspired camera, which mimics human eye function by continuously acquiring images of a changing visual scene, and an epi-retinal implant made of 150 electrodes that are explantable, thereby facilitating future therapeutic upgrades.
The UK approval of the clinical study marks the initiation of a clinical partnership with Moorfields Eye Hospital, who now join the clinical trial as the first UK site. The clinical trial evaluates the safety and efficacy of IRIS II in patients with retinal dystrophy, including retinitis pigmentosa. Pixium Vision has also applied for CE mark approval, which if granted will allow commercialization activities to begin later this year.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Volcanic storage offers fast-track CCS solution
A new study demonstrating for the first time that CO2 can be permanently and rapidly locked away in volcanic rock could give fresh impetus to efforts to develop large-scale Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology.
During the study – which was led by Columbia University, University of Iceland, University of Toulouse and Reykjavik Energy – CO2 was injected into a deep well at a study site in Iceland.
The CO2 was dissolved in water and carried down the well. On contact with the target storage rocks, at 400-800 metres under the ground, the solution quickly reacted with the surrounding basaltic rock, forming carbonate minerals.
To monitor what was happening underground, the team injected ‘tracers’, chemical compounds that literally trace the transport path and reactivity of the CO2.
There were eight monitoring wells at the study site, where they could test how the chemical composition of the water had changed. The researchers discovered that by the time the groundwater had migrated to the monitoring wells, the concentration of the tracers – and therefore the CO2 – had diminished, indicating that mineralisation had occurred.
Until now it was thought that this process would take several hundreds to thousands of years and was therefore not a practical option. But the current study has demonstrated that it can take as little as two years.
“Our results show that between 95 and 98 per cent of the injected CO2 was mineralised over the period of less than two years, which is amazingly fast,” said Dr Juerg Matter, Associate Professor in Geoengineering at Southampton University, and lead author of a paper on the project published in Science.
The investigation is part of the so-called CarbFix Project, a European Commission and US Department of Energy funded programme to develop ways to store anthropogenic CO2 in basaltic rocks through field, laboratory and modelling studies.
The team is now working on a scaled up version of the study at Reykjavik Energy’s Hellisheidi geothermal power plant, where up to 5,000 tonnes of CO2 per year are captured and stored in a basaltic reservoir.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Vaccino contro il cancro, finalmente una storia vera
Potrebbe essere la svolta per il vaccino contro il cancro. Una speranza per tutti arriva da una sperimentazione avviata in Germania.
Di cosa si tratta
Non si parla del “solito” vaccino perché ha una funzione diversa: si tratta di uno strumento che aiuta il nostro sistema immunitario a riconoscere le cellule tumorali come nocive e a rispondere con adeguatezza alla minaccia. Infatti tra i problemi che si hanno con i tumori c’è quello di non essere riconosciuti dal nostro sistema immunitario che li lascia “prosperare”.
Tramite l’utilizzo dell’RNA ora si pensa ad istruire il nostro sistema immunitario in maniera diversa. L’RNA è una molecola che contiene le istruzioni in base alle quali agiscono le cellule. Quando si è di fronte ad un tumore accade una cosa simile a ciò che accade con un feto in gestazione: le cellule della madre non lo aggrediscono anche se evidentemente hanno a che fare con un “corpo estraneo”. Questo freno inibitore del sistema immunitario si verifica anche con i tumori. Per questo riuscire a ribaltare la situazione è fondamentale. Già oggi vi sono in circolazione farmaci che lavorano in tal senso: aiutano il nostro sistema immunitario a combattere la malattia. Quest’ultima ricerca è diversa e fondamentale perché potrebbe portare ad istruire in maniera più efficace il nostro sistema immunitario. Per ora lo studio sta avendo effetti benefici specificatamente su pochi soggetti affetti da melanoma in stato avanzato. Se i risultati dovessero essere confermati si tratterebbe di ampliare la sperimentazione e allargarla soprattutto a tutti i tipi di tumore poiché il vaccino sarebbe specifico per ogni diverso tipo di tumore.
La cura potrebbe portare a due esiti: la guarigione del paziente o la cronicizzazione del tumore che di conseguenza sarebbe impossibilitato ad espandersi.
Per ora bisogna aspettare i primi risultati sui primi 3 pazienti umani sottoposti alla cura (dopo il buon esito ottenuto su cavie da laboratorio). La fase successiva di ampliamento della sperimentazione sarà anch’essa fondamentale per capire se veramente è possibile operare su tutti i fronti, solo successivamente si parlerà di commercializzazione della cura.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
PROSSIMA LA SPERIMENTAZIONE SULL'UOMO DEL PRIMO VACCINO AL MONDO CONTRO I TUMORI.
LA RICERCA È TUTTA ITALIANA: FONDAMENTALE IL RUOLO GIOCATO DALL'UNIVERSITÀ DI CAMERINO
È tutta italiana la ricerca e la sperimentazione del primo vaccino al mondo per la prevenzione dei tumori: accertato il funzionamento sui topi, a breve si inizierà a programmare la sperimentazione sull'uomo, che dovrebbe cominciare entro un anno. L'innovativa e promettente linea di ricerca si basa in sostanza sulla possibilità di attivare il sistema immunitario per prevenire alcuni tipi di cancro come quelli della mammella, del pancreas e della testa-collo. Tutto questo attraverso l'inoculazione, seguita da una scarica elettrica, di un "vaccino a DNA" che blocca la proteina prodotta da un particolare oncogene chiamato ErbB-2.
L'importantissima e clamorosa scoperta è opera di una "rete" di gruppi di ricerca, nella quale gioca un ruolo fondamentale il gruppo dell'Università di Camerino. Questi gli altri team: Università di Torino, coordinato dal professor Guido Forni; Università di Bologna, guidato dal professor Luigi Lollini; Università di Chieti, coordinato dal professor Pietro Musiani; Istituto Tumori di Milano, guidato dal dottor Mario P. Colombo.
Il gruppo dell'ateneo camerte, coordinato dal professor Augusto Amici, prepara e realizza il DNA che viene poi inoculato per la sperimentazione. "La nostra funzione in questa ricerca - spiega il professor Amici - è proprio quella di preparare il DNA che viene inoculato nei topi e che funge da immunogeno. A dire il vero, però, io conduco anche una parte della sperimentazione insieme al dottor Provinciali dell'IRCA di Ancona. La chiave del nostro successo, comunque, è proprio l'unione delle forze e il coordinamento dei vari team: la ricerca in questi campi è molto competitiva, ed è indispensabile lavorare in gruppi specializzati ma che si interfacciano. Quanto a noi dell'Università di Camerino, possiamo vantarci di essere fra i primi, non solo in Italia ma nel mondo, a realizzare e sperimentare vettori di DNA in funzione antitumorale".
La sperimentazione ha dimostrato il concetto che l'immunità può inibire la progressione della formazione del cancro: è quindi possibile, almeno in teoria, cercare questo approccio differente e utilizzare la reattività immunitaria per prevenire la malattia. Si potrebbe arrivare alla messa a punto di un vaccino da somministrare dopo studi di valutazione genetica del rischio individuale di sviluppare tumori e screening per la diagnosi precoce del rischio o di lesioni pre-neoplastiche. Il vaccino andrebbe dunque somministrato a scopo preventivo o quando lo sviluppo tumorale è appena all'inizio, oppure dopo intervento chirurgico per prevenire la formazione di micro-metastasi.
Ma quando e in che modo queste dimostrazioni sperimentali potranno trovare applicazione pratica? Ne sapremo di più quando sarà conclusa la sperimentazione sull'uomo che, come detto, partirà presumibilmente entro un anno. Tale sperimentazione dovrà non solo dimostrare in maniera certa l'efficacia del vaccino, ma anche escludere effetti collaterali e rischi di reazioni autoimmunitarie. In presenza di queste assicurazioni si potrebbe realizzare un vaccino da somministrare ai soggetti con rischio genetico di tumore, ai soggetti già colpiti da lesioni pre-neoplastiche o addirittura a tutta la popolazione da una certa età in su, vista l'incidenza della malattia.
Entra nel vivo, insomma, una vera e propria nuova sfida al cancro: forse si è aperta una nuova strada da percorrere nella lotta contro i tumori.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Contact-Free Blood Oxygen Saturation Measurement Using a Video Camera
Philips is touting a validation study of its contact-free peripheral artery oxygen saturation (SpO2) detection technology. Published in journal Anesthesia & Analgesia, the paper reviews a camera-based system that measures tiny changes in light reflecting from the skin. It’s accurate enough to notice a change in oxygenation of blood near the surface of the skin, but one concern has been the ability to calibrate such devices to provide clinical level accuracy.
Though the video below shows the system monitoring a sleeping child, the published study involved healthy adults. By creating a mathematical calibration curve, the study allowed the system to measure SpO2 of individual participants with an accuracy sufficient for clinical use.
Though this is certainly not the first news of contact-free oxygenation measurement, it is the first time that the technology has shown that it will soon be leaving the lab and coming to the clinic.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Transparent conductive nanomaterial has potential for wearables
A team of engineers from Korea University and the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) has developed an ultrathin electroplated nanomaterial with potential for wearable and bendable electronic devices.
The film, described in the journalAdvanced Materials, is conductive and transparent. It is manufactured by first electrospinning a nanofibre mat of polyacrylonitrile (PAN), where the fibres are about one-hundredth the diameter of a human hair. According to the researchers, the process shoots out the material like a rapidly coiling noodle, which when deposited on to a surface intersects itself a million times.
“The nanofibre spins out in a spiral cone, but forms fractal loops in flight,” said Alexander Yarin, a professor of mechanical engineering at UIC and one of the paper’s lead authors. “The loops have loops, so it gets very long and very thin.”
This structure also makes the material 92 per cent transparent. “Most of it is holes,” said Yarin. “You don’t see it.”
To make the material conductive, it is spatter-coated with a metal so that it can attract metal ions. It is then electroplated, typically with copper, but alternatively with silver, nickel or gold. The researchers describe the result as a “self-junctioned copper nano-chicken wire” which is bendable and stretchable, and has potential for applications ranging from roll-up touchscreens, wearable electronics, flexible solar cells and electronic skin.
“We can then take the metal-plated fibres and transfer to any surface – the skin of the hand, a leaf, or glass,” Yarin said.
Yarin’s co-lead on the paper is Prof Sam Yoon from Korea University. According to Yoon, the material has a “world-record combination of high transparency and low electrical resistance,” with the latter property marking at least a 10-fold improvement on the previous record. The researchers claim both the electrospinning and electroplating take just a few seconds, making the process relatively high-throughput and commercially viable.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Nano-mirrors mix physical molecules with light
A team of researchers led by Cambridge University has developed tiny optical cavities that cause molecules and photons to mix, opening up possibilities for quantum processing.
Described in the journal Nature, the work involved creating cavities just one nanometre wide in order to trap light. The researchers used the tiny gap between a gold nanoparticle and a mirror, and placed a coloured dye molecule inside. With such a minute mirrored space, the energy between the photon and the dye molecule oscillates back and forth so rapidly that it results in a complete mixing of the two.
“It’s like a hall of mirrors for a molecule, only spaced a hundred thousand times thinner than a human hair,” said lead researcher Prof Jeremy Baumberg from the NanoPhotonics Centre at Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory.
To achieve the mixing, the dye molecules need to be aligned correctly in the nanometre cavity. But the molecules have a tendency to lie flat on the gold, rather than upright as required. Working with a team of chemists at Cambridge led by Prof Oren Scherman, Baumberg and his colleagues were able to encapsulate the dyes in hollow barrel-shaped molecular cages called cucurbiturils, which held the dye molecules upright.
When the dye is introduced to the cavities with the trapped light, the resulting molecule scattering spectrum splits into two separated quantum states, which indicates the ‘mixing’. This spacing in colour corresponds to photons taking less than a trillionth of a second to return to the molecule, meaning detecting the signature was a difficult task.
“Finding single-molecule signatures took months of data collection,” said Rohit Chikkaraddy, the paper’s lead author.
Previous attempts to achieve this type of mixing have only been successful at extremely low temperatures, but the Cambridge team’s work was carried out at room temperature. Along with potential applications for quantum computing, the research could help further the understanding of photosynthesis, or even manipulate the chemical bonds between atoms.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
UC San Diego Develops Electronic Chip for Detecting DNA Mutations
Scientists at the University of California, San Diego have developed a sensor capable of detecting single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), a type of DNA mutations. The graphene chip may soon allow clinicians to perform cancer screenings, monitor infections, and offer more capabilities for personalized medicine, among other possibilities. The researchers envision a future implant based on their technology that will be able to spot specific mutations and wirelessly send a warning signal to a monitor outside the body.
The prototype device relies on a DNA probe, a double stranded snippet of DNA that has the nucleotide sequence being searched for, placed within a graphene field effect transistor. The two strands of the helix are slightly different, one of them containing a sequence that doesn’t quite match the other’s. This makes the bond between the two strands less than perfect and allows another, better matching strand, to displace the weakly connected strand and stick to the other. Once a strand that has the matching SNP performs this trick, the graphene detector recognizes that a match has been made and an electronic signal is produced notifying of the event.
The researchers are pointing out to the technology will produce very few false positives, since a perfect match has to exist for a strand on the DNA probe to be popped off and replaced by another. This has been a problem for single strand detectors which attract a much larger subset of DNA strings that need only to bind weakly to the target string.
There’s more work to be done before this technology will see clinical use, but the fundamentals have been established and which will now need to be transferred from the laboratory to the clinic.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
New MRI Contrast Agent Spots Malignant Tissues
Researchers from Tokyo Institute of Technology, the Innovation Center of Nanomedicine, and the Japan Agency for Quantum and Radiological Science and Technology have come up with a new nanoparticle that can help spot tiny sites of tumor malignancy under magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). While MRI contrast agents for detecting tumors have been created in the past, ones that amplify the MR signal when in low pH environments, as within malignant tissue, have not existed.
The new nanoparticles consist of manganous ions (Mn2+) that are encapsulated within pH-sensitive shells made of calcium phosphate and a polymer. This shell breaks down in low pH environments and releases the manganous ions. These bind to proteins and in turn become more visible under MR imaging. The researchers believe that this technology may one day help identify tiny malignant regions that would otherwise go unnoticed and result in cancer returning to the patient.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Bioactive film helps medical implants bond with bone
Researchers at North Carolina State University have devised a technique for coating medical implants that helps them bond with surrounding bone.
The process, developed in partnership with Cambridge University and the University of Texas at San Antonio, involves coating polymer implants with a bioactive film. Testing was carried out on a polymer called polyether ether ketone, or PEEK, which is used in implants due to its similar mechanical properties to bone. PEEK itself doesn’t bond well with bone however, and this is what drove the study, published this week in Materials Science and Engineering.
Histological evaluation of bone growth against non-coated PEEK implants (Credit: Afsaneh Rabiei)
Previously, PEEK had been coated with hydroxyapatite (HA), a calcium phosphate that promotes osteobonding.However, the HA coating could only be applied to flat surfaces and had never been tested on an implant in a living creature.
“We can now use our technique to coat the entire surface of an implant, and testing HA-coated implants in an animal model has given us very promising results,” said Afsaneh Rabiei, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at NC State.
The first step of the process involves coating the PEEK implant with a thin film of yttria-stabilised zirconia (YSZ). A layer of HA is then applied, which is heated using microwaves. During this heating, the YSZ layer acts as a shield that protects the PEEK from melting. The heat also gives the HA a crystalline structure that makes it more stable in the body, meaning that the calcium phosphate will dissolve more slowly, which promotes bonding with surrounding bone.
Testing HA coated implants in rabbits, the researchers found that 18 weeks after surgery, implants with the bioactive film had double the bone formation of non-treated PEEK. The HA-treated implants also had higher bone-to-implant contact ratios than PEEK alone.
“These results indicated an improved implant fixation in the body, decreasing the chances of loosening of the implant after surgery and the need for revision surgery to remove and replace the implant,” Rabiei said. “This improvement is due to increased regenerated bone volume around coated implants compared to uncoated PEEK.”
The researchers also assessed the durability of the implants using a technique called biomechanical push-out testing. HA-coated implants required about 40 per cent more force to dislodge.
“Whether looking at bone growth or toughness, HA-coated samples outperformed uncoated PEEK implants,” said Rabiei. “This treatment will probably increase the cost of an implant marginally, but should help minimise the need for follow-up surgeries – which means HA-treated implants will more than pay for themselves over time.”
As YSZ and HA are already in medical use, the coated implants may not require full clinical trials. According to Rabiei, the team is now looking for industry partners to help commercialise the technique.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Energia: progetto fusione ITER, dall'industria italiana uno dei magneti più grandi e complessi di sempre
16 giugno 2016
Sarà totalmente made in Italy uno dei magneti di maggiori dimensioni e più tecnologicamente avanzati mai realizzati, destinato alla costruzione di ITER, il più grande impianto mondiale per la fusione nucleare in via di realizzazione in Francia. Si tratta di una gigantesca bobina a forma di “D”, costituita da cavi superconduttori, del peso di oltre 300 tonnellate, che l’italiana ASG Superconductors sta costruendo nei suoi stabilimenti di La Spezia.
Lo sviluppo dei cavi superconduttori ha visto il coinvolgimento dell’ENEA, l’Agenzia nazionale per le nuove tecnologie, l’energia e lo sviluppo economico sostenibile, nel ruolo di coordinatore del consorzioICAS (Italian Consortium for Applied Superconductivity) del quale fanno parte anche Criotec Impianti, esperta nella realizzazione di componenti operanti alle bassissime temperature Tratos Cavi spa leader internazionale nella produzione di cavi elettrici, elettronici e a fibre ottiche. Il consorzio è nato a fine 2010 a seguito dell’aggiudicazione della gara di appalto per la fornitura dei cavi superconduttori per i magneti necessari al confinamento del plasma in ITER.
La superbobina è la prima di altre nove da realizzarsi nel nostro Paese ed è finanziata da Fusion for Energy (F4E), l’organizzazione dell’Unione europea incaricata di sostenere il programma ITER per la parte europea; in quest’ambito sono stati firmati contratti con l’industria italiana contratti per circa 800 milioni di euro per attività di ricerca e sviluppo e produzione di vari componenti a partire dal 2008. “Il grande successo dell’industria italiana nel campo della fusione - dichiara Aldo Pizzuto, responsabile ENEA del Dipartimento Fusione Nucleare e Tecnologie per la Sicurezza Nucleare- dimostra come la nostra industria manifatturiera sia competitiva a livello mondiale anche in settori high-tech.Un risultato ottenuto grazie alla lungimiranza di chi ha investito e creduto nella possibilità di vincere sfide difficilissime e ha saputo fare sistema con la ricerca pubblica, in particolare nel campo della fusione dove l’Italia figura tra i Paesi leader”.
La ‘super bobina’ dovrà creare uno ‘scudo’ magnetico circolare, in grado di intrappolare e compattare il plasma incandescente alla temperatura record di 150milioni di gradi centigradi, tenendolo lontano dalle pareti del serbatoio di ITER.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Advanced Microscopy Technique Images Detailed Structure of DNA
The DNA molecule is usually thought of as a coded sequence of instructions written out in a long string which is folded tight to save space. But as was recently shown by physicists at Leiden University, the folding itself and mechanics of the molecule are also factors that influence how DNA works. Now a team of Stanford researchers have come up with a way of measuring the orientation and movement of individual dyes labeling DNA, providing an insight into the nature of the molecule beyond its genetic sequence.
Reported in the journal Optica, the new technique utilizes single-molecule microscopy to identify the direction that fluorescent dye particles take on when attached to DNA molecules. By also noticing their motion, and combining information from thousands of molecules at the same time, a complex picture of the mechanics of DNA is produced.
The technology will certainly expand our understanding of how DNA is implemented by our bodies, and maybe lead to practical clinical applications such as identifying DNA damage that may bring on disease.
Some details from the Optical Society:
The researchers tested the enhanced DNA imaging technique by using it to analyze an intercalating dye; a type of fluorescent dye that slides into the areas between DNA bases. In a typical imaging experiment, they acquire up to 300,000 single molecule locations and 30,000 single-molecule orientation measurements in just over 13 minutes. The analysis showed that the individual dye molecules were oriented perpendicular to the DNA strand’s axis and that while the molecules tended to orient in this perpendicular direction, they also moved around within a constrained cone.
The investigators next performed a similar analysis using a different type of fluorescent dye that consists of two parts: one part that attaches to the side of the DNA and a fluorescent part that is connected via a floppy tether. The enhanced DNA imaging technique detected this floppiness, showing that the method could be useful in helping scientists understand, on a molecule by molecule basis, whether different labels attach to DNA in a mobile or fixed way.
In the paper, the researchers demonstrated a spatial resolution of around 25 nanometers and single-molecule orientation measurements with an accuracy of around 5 degrees. They also measured the rotational dynamics, or floppiness, of single-molecules with an accuracy of about 20 degrees.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
PlasmaQuant® PQ 9000 — La nuova dimensione della Risoluzione Spettrale
Grazie all'innovativa ottica ad alta risoluzione, il nuovo ICP-OES PlasmaQuant® PQ9 000 Analytik Jena espande le potenzialita' della spettroscopia ottica in emissione a livelli superiori. La risoluzione spettrale di 0.002 nm a 200 nm assicura prestazioni analitiche elevate e massima precisione, inarrivabili dai sistemi attuali.
Massima accuratezza ed elevate potenzialita' analitiche permettono di operare in modo semplice ed estremamente performante:
Risoluzione Spettrale quattro volte maggiore rispetto a gli ICP tradizionali
DA DR. COTELLESSA
New solar cell promises manufacturing gains
Researchers at the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO) have developed a new type of solar cell based on AgBiS2 nanocrystals, which has potential manufacturing advantages over current solar materials.
Common solar cells found on rooftops or in solar farms are typically made from silicon. But their production can be energy intensive, and silicon cells are generally heavy and difficult to transport. Many alternative thinner film cells use toxic element such as cadmium, or contain scarce elements such as indium or tellurium.
In contrast, the semi-transparent AgBiS2 cells use non-toxic, earth-abundant elements, produced in ambient conditions. This combination should make them both greener and safer than current technologies.
“A very interesting feature of AgBiS2 solar cells is that they can be made in air at low temperatures using low-cost solution processing techniques without the need for the sophisticated and expensive equipment required to fabricate many other solar cells,” said Dr Nicky Miller, one of the research leads.
“These features give AgBiS2 solar cells significant potential as a low-cost alternative to traditional solar cells.”
To create the cells, the ICFO team used a low temperature hot-injection synthetic procedure. The first stage involved dispersing the nanocrystals into organic solvents, which the researchers claim can remain stable for months with no performance loss to the end product. The nanocrystals were then deposited onto a thin film of ZnO and ITO, to a thickness of approximately 35nm.
“The chemical synthesis of the nanocrystals allows exquisite control of their properties through engineering at the nanoscale and enables their dissolution in colloidal solutions,” said research co-lead Dr Maria Bernechea.
“The material is synthesised at very low temperatures (100ºC), an order of magnitude lower than the ones required for silicon based solar cells.”
According to the researchers, the cells have already achieved an efficiency of 6.3 per cent, similar to high-performance thin film cells when they were in early development. The team is working towards achieving efficiency rates higher than 12 per cent, which along with the lower processing costs would make the technology commercially viable.
Carthera SonoCloud Opens Up Blood-Brain Barrier and New Potential for Brain Cancer Treatment
A big reason that brain tumors are as deadly as they are is the inability of meds to penetrate the blood-brain barrier. Various methods have been tried to open up access for chemotherapy into the brain, but we’re finally seeing something that’s quite promising. Following a tiny study on four patients we reported on a couple years ago, clinicians in Paris, France have successfully tested an ultrasound implant from on a much larger patient group to see how well it’s tolerated.
The researchers successfully used the SonoCloud system from Carthera, a Paris firm, to repeatedly open up the blood-brain barrier by producing pulses of ultrasound targeting the brain. Using magnetic resonance imaging coupled with a microbubble contrast agent allowed the investigators to see how well the technique worked and to identify which acoustic pressure levels are optimal for keeping the barrier open. They were not able to spot any negative side effects in the patients on either the MRI scans or clinical exams. It seems like the technique should be ready for a more comprehensive trial testing how delivery of medication actually impacts clinical outcomes.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Scientists Wrap Viruses In Protective Shells to Attack Bacterial Infections
Researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and the Catalan Institute for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology have come up with a way of wrapping bacteriophage viruses within a liposome in order to improve how some bacterial infections are treated. The new coating will allow phages to travel through the GI system without being degraded by the acids of the stomach, a capability already demonstrated in a study on broiler chickens.
Bacteriophages that attack Salmonella were encapsulated within a liposome shell and fed to chickens infected with the bacterial infection. Following up on the animals, the researchers showed that the levels of bacteria dropped significantly and stayed low within the GI tract when compared to delivering the viruses without the coating.
The new capability may help bring bacteriophage therapy into more common clinical practice, helping to control infections that are currently difficult to manage.
Some details according to Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona:
Thanks to the study, nanometric capsules were developed, with an average diameter of 320 nm and a positive charge of 33mV. The nanocapsules containing the bacteriophages were observed using a cryo-electron microscope (Cryo-TEM) and confocal microscope. Researchers observed how the liposome coating allowed the encapsulated bacteriophages to be significantly more stable in the gastric fluids. The coating also significantly improved the time the bacteriophages stayed inside the intestinal tract of the chickens. After 72 hours encapsulated bacteriophages were detected in 38.1% of animals, while only 9.5% of animals showed signs of still containing the nonencapsulated bacteriophages.
In oral therapy experiments, once the treatment was suspended, the protection provided by nonencapsulated bacteriophages disappeared, while the encapsulated ones were effective for at least another week.
The methodology developed allows encapsulating bacteriophages of different sizes and morphologies, demonstrates the advantages of using encapsulated bacteriophages for oral phage therapy and, moreover, the nanometric size allows adding it to potable water and fodder.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Detector Spots Live Bacteria for Rapid Testing, Identification of Optimal Antibiotics
These days bacterial infections often require the growth of cultures from taken samples before tests can be performed, a process that lasts from hours to weeks depending on the strain. The tests, usually to determine which antibiotics will work, can also take quite a bit of time before results come in, but there may soon be a much faster way thanks to a sensor capable of distinguishing live from dead bacteria directly.
Developed at Purdue University, the goal of the project is to be able to screen a wide variety of bacteria and antibiotics in order to quickly identify which strains are killed by which medicine. This can help bypass culturing and lead to significantly faster, perhaps even point-of-care, results.
Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the technology relies on bacterial osmoregulation, the natural process of individual cells to control the concentration of water and salt within themselves. As the concentration of salt rises within the bacterial cell’s environment, it opens and closes special valves, taking on or releasing liquid depending on the difference in the salt’s concentration. Measuring the minute differences in the amount of liquid around the cell points to whether the cell is performing osmoregulation naturally, and thereby whether it’s alive. This process is fast and accurate, potentially revolutionizing how bacterial pathology is performed.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Tiny Device Hosts Brain Cell Networks for Neuroscience Studies
At the University of Twente in The Netherlands, a researcher named Bart Schurink has created a tiny device for fostering brain cell growth in a three-dimensional environment. It measures only two millimeters on a side and has hundreds of cavities for hosting individual neurons. The cavities are shaped like upside-down pyramids and are big enough for cells to have room to thrive and grow in every direction.
A bioreactor placed on top of the device promotes growth of the cells and the creation of an intercellular network between them. Thereafter, the growth of the cells and the electrical activity between them can closely monitored to study how the cells behave.
The so-called µSEA (micro sieve electrode array) already went through testing using rat brain cells, demonstrating the successful utilization of hundreds of cells.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Researchers at North Carolina State University have found a way to use light-sensitive conducting organic polymers to detect and measure the polarisation of light.
They believe that devices based on their technology could be faster and more accurate than current polarisation measurement techniques, which use devices based on silicon technology.
Polarisation is determined by the direction in which the electrical component of the electromagnetic field we perceive as light oscillates. Plane-polarised light – in which the field of a whole light-stream oscillates in the same direction – has many uses; because its polarisation affects how it bounces off objects, it can show up disturbed ground when searching or buried objects and can be used in atmospheric monitoring and medicine, for example.
The North Carolina team, led by Michael Kudenov, used a polymer known as P3HT:PCBM in their research; when this polymer is stretched, the backbones of the polymer chains all orient in one direction, and it absorbs polarised light whose oscillation is parallel to that direction and produces a photoelectric current.
Kudenov’s team, which explains its results in the journal Optical Express, made semi-transparent polymer films and placed them into a stack of materials with transparent gold film and indium tin oxide, stacked them together so that their alignment directions were all different.
This means that when a sample of light passes through the stack, each film absorbs the light in the sample that is polarised in the corresponding direction and produces a photocurrent proportional to the light absorbed.
The rest of the sample continues to the next layer and so on. Analysing the currents from each film using a specifically designed algorithm gives a measurement of how the original sample was polarised, even though the last film in the stack has unoriented polymer chains.
“Most types of polarised light, particularly in natural environments, have a large linear polarisation signature,” Kudenov said. “And three measurements are sufficient for us to calculate the state of linear polarisation in a light sample.”
Conventional polarisation detectors, based on photovoltaic silicon, have to sample light at different times, or at the same time but at multiple points, which can affect accuracy. The NC State team’s prototype device, tested using laser light of known polarisation, does it all in one measurement and produced errors as low as 1.2 per cent.
“It’s a good starting point, though not as good as the best polarisation detectors currently on the market,” Kudenov said. “However, we’re optimistic that we’ll be able to reduce the measurement error significantly as we improve the device’s design. We’re really just getting started.”
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Solar powered aircraft crosses Atlantic in one go
Solar impulse 2, the solar-powered aircraft that is currently attempting the first renewably powered circumnavigation of the globe, has successfully crossed the Atlantic.
The aircraft, which was being flown by pilot Bertrand Piccard, landed in Seville, Spain at 7.30 am on Thursday June 23rd after leaving New York on Monday 20th. The total flight time was 71 hours and 8 minutes.
The aircraft has now crossed both the Pacific and the Atlantic, the world’s two biggest oceans, and is nearing the end of its historic 35,000km journey. Its final destination is its original starting point Abu Dhabi, and mission planners are currently plotting a route, possibly via either Greece or Egypt.
The round-the-world effort, which began in March 2015, was delayed in Hawaii for several months earlier this year after the batteries overheated during the marathon leg from Japan to Hawaii.
Since then the team has carried out a number of repairs, including installing new batteries, as well as stabilisation and cooling systems.
Powered by 17000 photovoltaic cells and weighing 2.3 tonnes, Solar Impulse 2 has a wingspan of 72m, which is wider than that of a Boeing 747. Its 4-metre long propellers produce an average speed of about 70km/h.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Revivent TC for Minimally Invasive Reconstruction of Left Ventricle Cleared in EU
BioVentrix, a company out of San Ramon, California, landed CE Mark approval in the EU for its Revivent TC system that allows for reconstruction of the left ventricule without an open heart surgery. The minimally invasive system can be an option over traditional open-chest surgical ventricular restoration, particularly for fragile patients who would not be good candidates for a more invasive procedure.
Heart attacks can kill significant amount of myocardial tissue within the left ventricle, weakening it, and increasing ventricular wall tension if dilation occurs (via LaPlace’s Law). Reducing the volume of the ventricle can allow it to be more efficient, but post-myocardial infarction patients can have a hard time making through open heart surgery.
The Revivent TC system involves the delivery of pairs of anchors that compress and clamp the left ventricle. This is done through a few ports outside the body via which the tools are delivered to meet up within the heart.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
New Wireless Heart Pump Makes No Contact with Blood
Scientists at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland have developed a completely new type of heart pump that does not make any contact with the blood that it’s augmenting. There’s a number of pumps on the market, including total heart replacements and left ventricular assist devices (LVAD), but they all inevitably cause damage to red blood cells. Moreover, the turbulence produced by the pumps can lead to the formation of clots, requiring patients to be on anticoagulants.
The new cardiac support pump consists of a set of rings that are positioned around the aorta that are able to contract and expand. When their movement is coordinated, the rings are able to create pressure waves that help move the blood through the aorta. (In a way, the idea is reminiscent of externally placed intra-aortic balloon pump (IABP), even though IABP is a diastolic augmentation device primarily for coronary flow.)
The technology relies on EPFL’s Dielectric Electro Active polymer (DEAP) that rapidly changes shape in response to electrical current. The current is induced via a magnetic field that can be delivered using an external device, so no wires need to penetrate the skin and infections are less likely. There are more development steps needed before the technology will be tried on humans, but the researchers are already working with folks at University Hospital of Bern about conducting clinical trials.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Tiny Injectable Camera System to Radically Miniaturize Endoscopes
At the Univesity of Stuttgart in Germany, scientists have created a lens system small enough to be injected through a syringe. It can be attached to the distal end of a fiber optic cable, while at the proximal end a tiny CMOS sensor captures the images. The hope is that the technology will lead to flexible endoscopes that can be delivered into the body through tiny portholes to peek inside without causing too much damage.
The lenses are manufactured using 3D printing, with the initial design and simulation happening on the computer before the real things are produced. The focal point is only 3mm away from the lenses and having a width of only 100 micrometers will allow for imaging of difficult to reach and detailed anatomical structures.
The researchers published their study in journal Nature Photonics, in which they “demonstrate the complete process chain, from optical design, manufacturing by femtosecond two-photon direct laser writing and testing to the application of multi-lens objectives with sizes around 100 µm, and validate their high performance and functionality by quantitative measurements of the modulation transfer function and aberrations.”
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Electric mesh helps to improve functionality of damaged hearts
A research team has developed an electric mesh that wraps around the heart to deliver electrical impulses, an advance that could help in the treatment of arrhythmias.
The team was led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and Seoul National University and their work, published in Science Translational Medicine, is said to point to a potential new way of improving heart function and arrhythmias by compensating for damaged cardiac muscle and enabling living heart muscle to work more efficiently.
Under normal conditions, the heart pumps blood throughout the body through a series of coordinated contractions maintained by an electrical conduction system. With the development of heart failure – when weakened heart muscle damages the heart’s pumping mechanism – this electrical conduction system can also be damaged.
“Some patients with heart failure are treated with resynchronization therapy, in which three small electrodes are implanted through a pacemaker to keep the heart contracting co-ordinately,” said corresponding author Hye Jin Hwang, MD, PhD, a researcher in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine in BIDMC’s CardioVascular Institute. “But pacemakers deliver electrical stimulation only at specific places in the heart and do not provide comprehensive coverage of the entire organ, as the heart’s own cardiac electrical conduction system does.”
“We knew that an integrated strategic approach that directly suppresses ventricular tachyarrhythmia in addition to improving cardiac function would be a promising strategy for the treatment of heart failure, ventricular arrhythmias, and sudden death,” said co-author Mark E. Josephson, MD, Chairman Emeritus of Cardiovascular Medicine at BIDMC, Distinguished Herman Dana Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and an international leader in the field of electrophysiology.
Made up of nanowires embedded in a rubber polymer that conforms to the three-dimensional anatomy of each individual heart, the new mesh wraps around the heart and delivers electrical impulses to the whole ventricular myocardium, or heart muscle.
In developing the novel material for this new device, Hwang collaborated with Seoul National University researchers Taeghwan Hyeon, PhD, a specialist in nanomaterials and Dae-Hyeong Kim, PhD, a specialist in stretchable devices.
“We wanted to closely imitate cardiac tissue, which is very elastic, and also imitate its unique functions, which are highly conductive,” Hwang said in a statement.
Working with multidisciplinary research teams spanning seven institutes in the US, China and Republic of Korea, Hwang and her colleagues developed the novel nanomaterial, created an elastic electrical device, tailored the device through 3D printing, conducted pre-assessment of mechanics through computer simulation and conducted functional assessment of the device in an in vivo heart failure model.
In studies of rats, the mesh integrated structurally and electrically with the myocardium following heart attack, acting as a substructure of the heart during cardiac movement and improving cardiac contractile function without disturbing relaxation.
“The big advance here has been finding a way to create a device that more accurately mimics normal physiology,” said Peter J. Zimetbaum, MD, Associate Chief and Director of Clinical Cardiology at BIDMC and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. “The concept of wrapping the heart is not new, but doing it with this attention to a more physiologic approach makes the device exceptionally smart.”
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Raindrop Near Vision Inlay Reshapes Cornea to Help Eye Focus
The FDA issued approval to ReVision Optics, a company out of Lake Forest, CA, for its Raindrop Near Vision Inlay, a device designed to reshape the cornea to help people with presbyopia see nearby objects.
The tiny hydrogel device is implanted in an outpatient procedure. It looks like a contact lens, but is only 2mm in width and 32 micrometers in thickness. A laser is used to create a flap within the cornea and position the Raindrop under it. The new shape of the cornea helps the eye adjust and focus, essentially doing something that a healthy eye should be doing on its own.
It was tested in a clinical trial of almost 400 people who received the implant, demonstrating that 92% of patients who were evaluated had 20/40 or better vision at near distances two years after the procedures.
It’s intended for people 41 to 65 years old who have not had cataract surgery, but who really don’t like wearing reading glasses.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Fatal Tesla crash triggers investigation.
The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is launching a preliminary investigation into the Autopilot function on the Tesla Model S following a fatal accident in Florida.
Autopilot, introduced to the Model S in October 2015, forms part of Tesla’s incremental rollout of technology to facilitate driver autonomy.
According to the company, the hardware consists of a forward radar, a forward-looking camera, 12 long-range ultrasonic sensors positioned to sense 16 feet around the car in every direction at all speeds, and a high-precision digitally-controlled electric assist braking system.
Tesla said that the accident occurred on a divided highway with Autopilot engaged when a tractor-trailer drove across the highway perpendicular to the Model S.
In a statement the company said: “Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied.
“The high ride height of the trailer combined with its positioning across the road and the extremely rare circumstances of the impact caused the Model S to pass under the trailer, with the bottom of the trailer impacting the windshield of the Model S.”
The company stressed that the fatality is the first to be confirmed in over 130 million miles where Autopilot was activated, and that numerous measures are in place to ensure that drivers are ready to resume control of their vehicle.
“The system also makes frequent checks to ensure that the driver’s hands remain on the wheel and provides visual and audible alerts if hands-on is not detected,” the company said. “It then gradually slows down the car until hands-on is detected again.”
Prof William Harwin, Professor of Cybernetics at Reading University said: “It would appear that the accident resulted from a problem in the performance of the sensors rather than the autonomy of the vehicle. As such, this is a more well understood problem and there may be a relatively easy solution in terms improving sensor integration, or including additional sensors that are less dependent on light.
“However, the bottom line is that cars are likely to be safer with these automatic features, and ultimately with vehicles that can drive autonomously.”
Speaking at an event on the ethics of robotics at the Royal Academy of Engineering this week, Prof Alan Winfield, head of swarm robotics at Bristol Robotics Laboratory, said that the automotive industry could learn from aerospace to deal with situations like this.
“I think autonomous vehicles are going to need something like the Civil Aviation Authority to oversee them,” he said. “The CAA’s crash investigation unit has robust methodology which is highly effective, and it helps people have confidence in air travel. That model could do the same for autonomous cars.”
DA DR. COTELLESSA
High-pressure graphene press produces new crystalline structures
Researchers at Manchester University are formulating new crystalline structures at room temperature by placing compounds in a so-called nano-press made from graphene.
New research has shown that sealing molecules between two atomically thin sheets of graphene creates extreme pressure upon the molecules to modify their state, converting them to new crystals.
The Manchester University research group, led by Prof Rahul Nair, has published its findings in Nature Communications. The results demonstrate new methods of creating versatile 2D materials that have unique properties and numerous applications.
The graphene nano-press is made possible due to the material’s strength, which is greater than diamond. This allows extreme amounts of pressure to be exerted on trapped molecules without breaking the graphene layers. The two-stacked layers also create a self-sealing envelope around the trapped molecules to contain them.
In a statement, Prof Nair said: “Due to this extreme high pressure and large confinement of trapped molecules, these graphene enclosures effectively act as a nano-scale pressure cooker which works at room temperature.”
Graphene, first isolated and studied at the University in 2004, demonstrated that two-dimensional materials have extraordinary properties that could change how items such as electronics, composites, batteries are manufactured.
Since then, a family of 2D crystals have since been discovered, increasing scientists’ knowledge and understanding of atomically-thin materials beyond graphene. These new nano-crystals expand the toolkit with which researchers can work to create future devices and applications.
2D crystals of copper oxide, magnesium oxide and calcium oxide were produced using this new approach at room temperature, which was previously thought to be impossible. Conversion of salt solutions such as copper sulphate, or magnesium chloride usually requires exposure to intense heat and pressure to create these reactions. This new method incurs the same results at room temperature via the pressure created in a 1nm enclosure between two graphene layers.
Current research within the 2D materials field focuses on fabricating heterostructures made by layering different atomically thin materials and studying various heterostructure devices, such as nano-sized LEDs. This new research also allows scientists to understand the effect of trapped molecules within new heterostructure devices, which could help or disrupt their work.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Automatic Computer Vision System Detects Early Esophageal Cancer
At the Eidhoven University of Technology (TU Eindhoven) in The Netherlands, a research team has developed a computer vision system that has shown excellent results at identifying early neoplastic lesions, which develop into full blown esophageal cancer, in patients with Barrett’s esophagus. Such lesions are very difficult to spot, and not many physicians have the training or the eye necessary to do so accurately and consistently.
The collaboration involved a gastroenterologist from Catharina Hospital and computer scientists from the Video Coding and Architectures Research Group at TU Eindhoven. Their algorithm analyzes endoscopy images of Barrett’s esophagus, recognizing slight differences in the texture and color of the tissue observed. This is compared to data gathered from previously analyzed images of Barrett’s patients with and without neoplastic lesions. The computer learning algorithm has got acquainted over time to noticing the minute fluctuations in the image and in their study, comparing it to four international experts in the field, achieved a nearly perfect score.
From the abstract in journal Endoscopy:
The system identified early neoplastic lesions on a per-image analysis with a sensitivity and specificity of 0.83. At the patient level, the system achieved a sensitivity and specificity of 0.86 and 0.87, respectively. A trade-off between the two performance metrics could be made by varying the percentage of training samples that showed neoplastic tissue.
The automated computer algorithm developed in this study was able to identify early neoplastic lesions with reasonable accuracy, suggesting that automated detection of early neoplasia in Barrett’s esophagus is feasible. Further research is required to improve the accuracy of the system and prepare it for real-time operation, before it can be applied in clinical practice.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Laser-guided biomechanical robot ray is step towards better artificial hearts
Employing a mixture of technologies straight out of the Terminator science-fiction films, researchers from Harvard University have made a biomechanical fish-like robot whose metallic skeleton supports living muscle cells.
The biomechanical stingray, on a glass slide. Image Science/Karaghen Hudson & Michael Rosnach
The robot, whose development is seen as a stepping-stone towards engineering a biomechanical human heart, is comprised of a silicone skin enclosing cells cultured from rat hearts, with a gold support structure.
Research leader Kevin Kit Parker, a former army officer, has been building biomechanical hybrid structures for some years, after initial work on growing films of heart muscle cells on silicone films. His first was a jellyfish-like ‘medusoid’ in which the cells were induced to contact using an electric current, forcing the cup-shaped silicone structure to contract and expel some water. Moving up the evolutionary chain to stingrays, the latest project incorporates some genetic engineering into the mix as well.
Using data gathered by another team studying how stingrays’ muscles are arranged, Parker devised a springy gold skeleton as a support structure, and embedded a template of the protein fibronectin into a silicone sheet shaped like a very small ray (a tenth of the size of a living juvenile ray). This template encouraged 200,000 cells taken from the hearts of embryonic rats to grow in a pattern radiating from the skeleton to the edge of the ray shape’s fins. The team then infected the cells with a virus designed to implant a gene into the cell that would make them contract in response to the light of a blue laser. Another sheet of silicone completes the assembly.
Immersed in a bath of warmed nutrient solution, the robot is made to ‘swim’ by directing a laser onto each fin. Changing the frequency of the light speeds up the cells’ contraction rate, allowing the robot’s builder, post-doctoral student Sung-Jin Park, to steer it around the tank and even through an obstacle course. The cells only deflect the fin in one direction, with the spring action of the skeleton returning it to its original shape; this simplifies the real ray’s muscle structure, which as two muscle layers to control the fins’ rippling motion. The research is described in a paper in the journal Science.
Parker is now turning his attention to a new biohybrid, whose nature he has not yet revealed, but his true goal is the bioengineered heart, he said. “I’m trying to get better and better at building muscular pumps,” he told Science
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Virtual Reality to Help Control Prosthetic Arms
Virtual reality is finding a surprising application in rehab, as a team of engineers at Arizona State University will soon be using an Oculus Rift headset to help tune prosthetic arms. The problem the investigators are addressing is training the brain to consider a virtual arm, used to develop actual prosthetic interfaces, as part of the body. There’s a neural feedback loop that links feelings, decisions, and actions taken, and seeing a virtual arm react as though a real one does can go a long way to making programming easier.
The high definition of control of a virtual arm is possible in the first place thanks to Arizona State’s recently developed array of 96 microelectrodes that are implanted at the median and ulnar nerves, and can, if programmed accurately, provide a very high degree of resolution when controlling an upper arm prosthetic.
Some details from FULLCIRCLE, ASU’s engineering publication:
“We’re now at the stage in this process where we ask patients to mirror movements between hands,” explains [associate professor of biomedical engineering Bradley] Greger. “We can’t record what the amputated hand is doing, but we can record what a healthy hand is doing.” So, for instance, asking the patient to wave both hands simultaneously, or to point at an object with both hands, will be integral to the latest tech employed in the feedback loop: an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset.
The advantage of the virtual reality headset is that the patient is able to interact directly with his or her virtual limb rather than by watching it on a screen.
“At first, when patients are learning to manipulate their virtual hands, they will be asked to strictly mirror movements of a healthy hand,” explained [postdoc Kevin] O’Neill. “Once we have learned what information the signals contain, we can build a neural decoding system and have patients drive the virtual representation of a missing limb independently of a healthy hand.”
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Microfluidic Device to Test Electric Fields on Cancer Cells
At the post-grad research collaboration called Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), a team has developed a microfluidic device for testing how electric fields influence living cells. The main goal for the technology is to identify the nature of the electric fields that best disrupt the activity of cancer cells, the growth and multiplication of which has been shown in the past to be influenced by external electric fields. Potentially, there’s a chance that electrodes could be used in the future to simply stop and even kill cancer cells completely from outside the body, but more realistically in a minimally invasive fashion.
For now there’s a lot of work to be done to test different kinds of cells under different electric field strengths and frequencies, and there’s already some results the team has obtained.
Some details from MIT:
The researchers fabricated the device from PDMS, a widely used, gel-like polymer, and patterned small channels across the device. They then developed a conductive mixture made from micron-sized silver flakes and PDMS, which they cured, then injected into two channels in the device to form two tiny, separate electrodes. In the region between the electrodes, they injected hydrogels with breast or lung cancer cells as well as small tumor masses. The researchers also injected healthy human endothelial cells. The hydrogels created a three-dimensional matrix to mimic the extracellular environment.
The team subjected each cell type in the 3-D matrix to alternating electric fields at frequencies of 150 or 200 kilohertz, continuously, at an intensity of 1.1 volts per centimeter.
In the absence of an electric field, [research scientist Andrea] Pavesi says the cancer cells begin to proliferate and spread within two days. However, he and [research scientists Giulia] Adriani observed a significant slowdown in tumor progression after three days of continuous electric field stimulation: Proliferation was markedly reduced, while small masses of lung cancer cells did not disperse indicating an inhibition of their metastatic potential. What’s more, healthy endothelial cells in the same device were left unaffected. The researchers hypothesize that healthy cells may require different frequencies to be influenced by an electric field, as their size and electrical properties are far different from that of cancer cells.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Il grafene promette di rivoluzionare l'internet delle cose
Il grafene promette di rivoluzionare l' internet delle cose. È stato infatti costruito il primo dispositivo basato su questo materiale sottile come un atomo, in grado di rendere le comunicazioni wireless più efficienti e veloci. Descritto sulla rivista Nanoletters, il dispositivo é stato messo a punto dai ricercatori del Politecnico Federale di Losanna (Epfl) guidati da Clara Moldovan. Per poter dialogare tra loro gli oggetti connessi, dai telefoni cellulari, alle lavatrici, al tostapane, devono lavorare su piattaforme differenti e funzionare su frequenze diverse senza essere appesantiti da dispositivi troppo ingombranti. Per raggiungere questo obiettivo, i sistemi wireless sono dotati di circuiti riconfigurabili, grazie a dispositivi chiamati condensatori sintonizzabili che sono in grado di regolare l' antenna per trasmettere e ricevere i dati nelle varie bande di frequenza. L' unico problema é che queste tecnologie utilizzano silicio o metalli, che non funzionano bene alle alte frequenze, che invece sono proprio quelle in cui i dati possono viaggiare molto più velocemente. Per superare questo problema i ricercatori hanno ideato una soluzione a base di grafene, che regola i circuiti su diverse frequenze in modo che possano funzionare a entrambe le frequenze, sia alte sia basse, con un' efficienza senza precedenti. '' E' applicando una tensione che possiamo sintonizzare i nostri condensatori a una determinata frequenza, proprio come sintonizziamo una radio sulle diverse stazioni'', ha detto Moldovan. Inoltre il dispositivo ha anche altri vantaggi: é molto piccolo (misura circa 0,05 centimetri), é a basso consumo energetico e può essere anche flessibile. '' Un condensatore tradizionale - ha spiegato Moldovan - dovrebbe essere mille volte più grande per ottenere la stessa efficienza''. Poiché può essere anche flessibile, il dispositivo può essere utilizzato anche nell' elettronica indossabile da integrare nei vestiti o da applicare direttamente sul corpo umano, come un cerotto, per poter trasmettere dati sulla salute.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Sudafrica, jet vola con biocarburante italiano da tabacco
Un'azienda italiana ha inventato il modo per estrarre carburante dai semi di tabacco. E il prossimo 15 luglio, in Sudafrica volerà per la prima volta un aereo di linea alimentato per metà con questo combustibile. Protagonista di questa scoperta è un'azienda ligure di Arma di Taggia (Imperia), la Sunchem, guidata dall'imprenditore Carlo Ghilardi. Con la collaborazione dei ricercatori dell'Università cattolica di Piacenza, coordinati dallo scomparso professor Carlo Fogher, la Sunchem nel 2007 ha brevettato un processo per estrarre biocarburante dai semi del tabacco. Nel 2011 ha ottenuto il seme Solaris, ideale per questo scopo. Un seme non ogm, non alimentare e senza nicotina. Da quel momento la Sunchem ha cercato partner industriali e ha cominciato a sperimentare la tecnologia, in particolare in Italia, Sudafrica, Brasile e Stati Uniti. Venerdì 15, un Boeing di linea della compagnia sudafricana SAA volerà da Johannesburg a Città del Capo alimentato per il 50% da biocarburante ricavato dal seme di tabacco Solaris. "Questo primo volo è per noi motivo di orgoglio e grande emozione - ha commentato il fondatore di Sunchem, Carlo Ghilardi -. Ingegno e risorse totalmente italiane sono alla base di questo successo mondiale". Il direttore operativo di Sunchem, Sergio Tommasini, ha spiegato che l'azienda sta cercando di raggiungere un accordo per lo sviluppo e sfruttamento dei biocarburanti con Boeing Italia, ENI, Alitalia, Delta Fina e centri di ricerca.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Microfluidic Chips Made of Silk Replicate Human Tissues for Drug Testing, Implantable Applications
The enzyme alkaline phosphatase is injected into the silk chip and remains biologically active (yellow) as it diffuses into the silk hydrogel after five minutes (left) and 30 minutes (right). Source: Elsevier
At the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) and Tufts University a team has developed a microfluidic chip that mimics human tissue for use in drug testing applications. The chip is based on a silk gel that overcomes the limitations of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), a silicon material widely used to host living cells within microfluidic devices. As an example, PDMS has problems handling lipids, absorbing them instead of letting them move freely along with other nearby compounds and so not applicable with lipid-based compounds. Additionally, PDMS is not biodegradable and so a small device based on it can’t easily be used as an implantable. Silk, on the other hand, just needed a bit of engineering to make a candidate that overcomes many of PDMS’s limitations.
Silk can be used to replicate tissues of different softness, is stable yet can degrade completely given enough time, and can be made transparent to make it easy to work with. Mixing it with a gel already containing live cells and shaping it inside a mold, the researchers created a device with channels running through it that is also partially alive. Valves were added that regulate the flow of fluids through the channels using an air pressure mechanism.
Silk is a lot more forgiving than PDMS, requiring moderate temperatures during production of the device and offering excellent biocompatibility if implanted into the body. That last part is yet to be attempted, but the researchers believe there’s great potential for such technology to be eventually translated for tissue regeneration applications.
Exablate Neuro MRI-Guided Focused Ultrasound for Essential Tremor Now Available in U.S.
INSIGHTEC, a company out of Israel, has announced receiving FDA approval to offer its Exablate Neuro MRI-guided focused ultrasound system as a treatment option for essential tremor in patients not responding to meds. The technology delivers sound waves powerful and focused enough to non-invasively ablate bits of brain tissue responsible for generating improper neural signals. Treatment is fairly short, and results are often confirmed within seconds, before the patient is even pulled out of the machine. Anesthesia is not necessary during the procedure, and the patient gets to go home right after.
Some details of the study that led to the FDA’s decision, according to INSIGHTEC:
This approval by the FDA was based on clinical data from a randomized, double-blind, multi-center clinical study designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of non-invasive thalamotomy with MRgFUS. A total of 76 patients were enrolled in the study and randomly assigned to receive the Exablate treatment (56 patients) or the sham procedure (20 patients), the exact same procedure but without any ultrasound energy. Patients in the placebo treatment arm were later allowed to undergo an Exablate Neuro treatment. Patients treated with the Exablate Neuro showed nearly a 50% improvement in their tremors and motor function three months after treatment compared to their baseline score. Patients in the control group had no improvement, and some experienced a slight worsening after the sham procedure before they crossed over into the treatment group. A year following the procedure, the patients who underwent the Exablate Neuro procedure retained a 40% improvement in these scores compared to baseline.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Gold and Lasers Produce Plasmonic Nanobubbles to Kill Residual Cancer Cells
Plasmonic nanobubbles intraoperatively detect microscopic residual disease in a surgical bed and guide its resection in real time with standard surgery
A team of scientists headed by folks at Rice University have developed a way of killing off neoplastic cells that often remain after surgical procedures and end up causing a recurrence of cancers. The investigators managed to produce gold nanoparticles with cancer antibodies attached to them that seek out specific cancer cells. The gold nanoparticles are sensitive to laser light, quickly heating up and producing a so-called plasmonic nanobubble within surrounding liquid. This destroys the cancer cell to which the antibody was attracted, but it also pinpoints the location where the killing occurred.
The technology could be used to both help surgeons target cancer tumors with a few laser bursts, removing most of the offending tissue the old-fashioned way, and following up with a more thorough plasmonic nanobubble attack to sweep up the remains.
Here’s a short video showing a cancer cell explode from a plasmonic nanobubble attack:
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Transparent skull window has promise for brain condition diagnosis and treatment
People with a wide range of brain disorders could benefit from the development of a transparent material that can be implanted into the skull to allow lasers to be used in diagnostics and therapy without causing any adverse immune response.
Based on a ceramic used commonly in bone implants, the material has been developed by materials scientists at the University of California at Riverside (UC Riverside) as part of a ongoing international project called ‘Window on the Brain’, the purpose of which is to develop a system by which therapy can be applied to the brain without the need for repeated craniotomies, operations which involve the removal of part of the skull that are traumatic for he patient and can carry the serious risk of infections.
‘Window on the Brain’ is intended to help improve the care of people with brain tumours, damage from stroke and neurodegenerative disorders. Rather than having to perform a craniotomy to access brain tissue directly, the idea is to place a single transparent implant of a rigid material that can still perform the skull’s protective function but allow laser energy to be used to selectively heat tissue as part of a therapy programme, to destroy diseased or cancerous tissue or cauterise damaged blood vessels that could cause cerebral haemorrhage.
The UC Riverside team developed a nanocrystalline, transparent form of the ceramic yttria-stabilised zirconia, which is used in hip implants and dental crowns, and implanted it into the skull of a hamster, where, they report in a paper in the journal Nanomedicine, it fused with the living tissue and caused no immune response. The zirconia mineral is more impact-resistant and biocompatible then titanium, thermoplastic polymers and glass-based materials that have been developed by other members of the Windows consortium, making it “ the only implant material that could conceivably be used in humans,’ the researchers claim. The team performed a series of laser-based diagnostics, including transillumination and fluorescent microscopy, to measure white blood cell adhesion to the implant, blood vessel size and blood flow rate directly from the living brain tissue with no ill-effects.
In another set of experiments, a team including Windows project leader Guillermo Aguilar, a mechanical engineer at Riverside, tested whether the implant could be used to fend off a common side-effect of skull implants, infections of Escherichia coli which grows in a biofilm on the inside of the implant.
“This was an important finding because it showed that the combination of our transparent implant and laser-based therapies enables us to treat not only brain disorders, but also to tackle bacterial infections that are common after cranial implants,” said UC Riverside neurosurgeon Devin Binder, who was part of the research team. “These infections are especially challenging to treat because many antibiotics do not penetrate the blood brain barrier.”
The experiment involved placing a zirconium window on top of a heated pad with a slice of agar jelly on which they cultured a fluorescent E. coli colony. In a paper in the journalLasers in Surgery and Medicine they explain how used an infra-red laser with light wavelength 810nm, and how using a pulsed laser effectively kills the bacteria without increasing the temperature of the agar, indicating that it could be used to treat infection without damaging the brain.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Novocure’s Second Generation Optune System for Glioblastoma Now FDA Approved
Novocure, a company now headquartered on the Jersey Isle, has announced FDA approval of the second generation of its groundbreaking Optune system. The Optune delivers so-called Tumor Treating Fields (TTFields) that interfere with cell division, in a sense pausing the development of tumors that are otherwise extremely difficult to treat. When cells divide they create mitotic spindles, tiny strings that pull on chromosomes to pry them apart for duplication. These spindles are susceptible to electric fields due to a natural charge, so finely tuning the field can prevent their activity and, if accurately directed, stop tumors from growing.
The system has been shown to be pretty effective, while exhibiting few side effects when compared to chemo. The power system of the new version of Optune is less than half the weight and size of the original, weighing in at 2.7 pounds (1.2 Kg), which should be a lot more convenient while you hunt for Pokémons on the go. The system also looks a lot more modern, less like a medical device and more like a portable audio system, and it even detects the light levels around it, adjusting the brightness of the indicators on the charger and device.
There is a battery indicator and built-in alerts that will warn when power reserves are running low. When ready to re-energize, the new Optune has been made hot-swappable, enabling patients to change the batteries or connect and disconnect from power without stopping the delivery of the electric fields into the brain.
The company intends to have all new patients receive the new generation of the system, while transferring all the existing patients to it in the coming weeks.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Stryker’s Novel Soft Tissue Anchor Uses Ultrasound for Fixation
Stryker, the big name in orthopedic tools, is introducing a very unusual soft tissue anchor that relies on using ultrasound to liquefy its tip to penetrate into nearby cancellous bone.
The SonicAnchor is 2.5 mm in diameter and is delivered and fixated using a special generator-powered tool into a pre-drilled hole. It’s intended for suture or tissue fixation during open procedures on the foot, ankle, knee, hand, wrist, elbow, and shoulder.
The anchor is placed into the hole, with a suture stretched around it, and then ultrasonic energy delivered through it using the tool, turning the distal tip into liquid that quickly seeps into the surrounding bone and solidifies again.
It’s made of the bioresorbable PLDLLA polymer that eventually disappears via natural processes that remove the material a bit at a time.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Tecnis Symfony Intraocular Lenses with Wide Focal Range for Cataracts Approved by FDA
Abbott won FDA approval for the Tecnis Symfony intraocular lenses that are implanted during cataract surgeries. These are the first such lenses available in the U.S. that have a large range of focus and can even help people with presbyopia see things at a close range. This can help some patients avoid having to wear glasses in a variety of situations. Additionally, one of the lenses in the approved lineup is the Tecnis Symfony Toric IOL for those also suffering from astigmatism.
Exiting available intraocular lenses only focus into the distance, making it difficult to see nearby objects. The Tecnis Symphony has a complex shape that expands this range to include closer distances.
These lenses have already been approved in over 50 countries, studies in which showed the device to provide improved vision in different light conditions and low levels of halo and glare.
From the announcement:
The approval was based on results of a U.S. pivotal study that compared the Tecnis Symfony lens to a Tecnis aspheric monofocal lens in 298 patients. Compared with patients in the monofocal group, those who received a Tecnis Symfony IOL achieved greater improvements in intermediate and near vision while maintaining similar distance vision. Patients in the Symfony group were also more likely to achieve reduced overall spectacle wear and high overall visual performance in any lighting condition. Rates of adverse events did not differ between the Symfony and monofocal groups.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Chemistry Technique Concentrates Chemo at Sarcoma Tumor Sites
Today’s chemotherapy delivery is poorly targeted, leading to lots of systemic side effects while often doing too little to attack the cancer itself. Researchers at State University of New York at Albany have now developed a way of encapsulating chemo agents within special shells that concentrate and open up around a special pre-positioned material next to a tumor.
The technique, dubbed “local drug activation,” relies on so-called “bioorthogonal chemistry” to gather near an implanted complementary biomaterial and have it trigger the shells to open up. In a proof of concept, the researchers targeted it toward soft tissue sarcoma tumors, achieving promising results.
The technique allows for higher concentrations of chemotherapy agents to attack tumors while sparing the blood that’s ferrying them and the rest of the body where the shells will not open up.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
New Radioactive Tracer Lights Up Brain’s Connections to Study Disorders
Various brain disorders change the physical nature of synapses in the brain, but this fact has been useless in clinical practice because evaluating these changes could only be done once the patient passes away. Now researchers at Yale University have developed a technique, published on in journal Science Translational Medicine, that relies on PET (positron emission tomography) and a novel tracer to image billions of synapses at the same time.
Their radioactive tracer was engineered to grab onto the synaptic vesicle glycoprotein 2A (SV2A), which after injection can be viewed on a PET scanner.
The researchers first tried it on a baboon and then in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy, imaging the tell-tale signs of reduced synaptic connections.
“This is the first time we have synaptic density measurement in live human beings,” said Yale’s Richard Carson, who is senior author on the study, in a statement. “Up to now any measurement of synaptic density was postmortem.”
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Micro medical robots inspired by bacteria
Scientists at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ) have developed a range of micro-robots with various medical applications.
The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, explains how the microbots are made using a combination of biocompatible hydrogel and magnetic nanoparticles. An electromagnetic field orientates the nanoparticles, then a polymerisation process is used to solidify the hydrogel. The embedded nanoparticles mean the microbots can be controlled from outside the body using magnetic fields, with different types of locomotion dictated by the robots’ different shapes.
The researchers were inspired by the bacterium that causes African trypanosomiasis, commonly known as sleeping sickness. It uses a slender thread-like structure called a flagellum to propel itself around the body, but then hides it once in the bloodstream as part of its survival mechanism. A range of different designs were tested in order to imitate this behaviour.
“Our new production method lets us test an array of shapes and combinations to obtain the best motion capability for a given task,” said EPFL scientist Selman Sakar. “Our research also provides valuable insight into how bacteria move inside the human body and adapt to changes in their microenvironment.”
As well as magnetism, the robots can also be manipulated using heat, with their structures unfolding when the surrounding temperature is increased. This means the microrobots could potentially be used for drug delivery to a specific area of the body, or to perform specialised functions such as clearing blocked arteries. According to the researchers, however, there are several stages of development required before the technology will be ready for human trials.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
New Phosphor Could Make LEDs Cheaper and Last Longer
Peter Brown
A team of researchers from Belgium-based learning center KU Leuven, the University of Strasbourg and National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) have developed a new phosphor that could make light-emitting diodes (LEDs) more efficient and cost effective.
The phosphors were found to not just emit large amounts of light, but they are very cheap to produce. KU Leuven says the findings offer the potential to usher in the next-generation of fluorescent and LED lighting as well as biological imaging.
How They Did It
The new phosphor was created by combining silver clusters with zeolites in order to create a stable material that could provide more efficient LEDs. Researchers were able to use luminescent clusters of silver atoms, which contain optical properties and zeolites, minerals found either in nature or produced synthetically on an industrial scale, to produce the new phosphor. The problem with silver clusters is that they tend to aggregate into larger particles and lose their optical properties. The team was able to keep the clusters apart by inserting them into a framework of zeolites.
Zeolites have a well-defined framework of small molecular-sized channels, pores and cages. They are used in domestic and industrial applications such as washing detergent and water treatment.
“Zeolites contain sodium or potassium ions,” says Professor Maarten Roeffaers, from the Centre for Surface Chemistry and Catalysis. “We used ion exchange to replace these ions with silver ions. To obtain the clusters we wanted, we heated up the zeolites with the silver ions, so that the silver ions self-assembled into clusters.”
Researchers found that the structure, electronic and optical properties of the zeolites were strongly influenced by the silver clusters, as discovering that the shape of the silver clusters was essential to obtain the correct fluorescence properties.
The clusters of silver atoms can form into different shapes, including a line or a pyramid. Researchers found that the pyramid shape was the best for fluorescence properties and could be obtained by heating the silver ions in the zeolite framework, because they become “trapped” in the cages of the minerals and only could form a pyramid. Researchers say this shape and size emitted the most light with an efficiency close to 100%.
New Phosphor Could Make LEDs Cheaper and Last Longer
Peter Brown
A team of researchers from Belgium-based learning center KU Leuven, the University of Strasbourg and National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) have developed a new phosphor that could make light-emitting diodes (LEDs) more efficient and cost effective.
The phosphors were found to not just emit large amounts of light, but they are very cheap to produce. KU Leuven says the findings offer the potential to usher in the next-generation of fluorescent and LED lighting as well as biological imaging.
How They Did It
The new phosphor was created by combining silver clusters with zeolites in order to create a stable material that could provide more efficient LEDs. Researchers were able to use luminescent clusters of silver atoms, which contain optical properties and zeolites, minerals found either in nature or produced synthetically on an industrial scale, to produce the new phosphor. The problem with silver clusters is that they tend to aggregate into larger particles and lose their optical properties. The team was able to keep the clusters apart by inserting them into a framework of zeolites.
Zeolites have a well-defined framework of small molecular-sized channels, pores and cages. They are used in domestic and industrial applications such as washing detergent and water treatment.
“Zeolites contain sodium or potassium ions,” says Professor Maarten Roeffaers, from the Centre for Surface Chemistry and Catalysis. “We used ion exchange to replace these ions with silver ions. To obtain the clusters we wanted, we heated up the zeolites with the silver ions, so that the silver ions self-assembled into clusters.”
Researchers found that the structure, electronic and optical properties of the zeolites were strongly influenced by the silver clusters, as discovering that the shape of the silver clusters was essential to obtain the correct fluorescence properties.
The clusters of silver atoms can form into different shapes, including a line or a pyramid. Researchers found that the pyramid shape was the best for fluorescence properties and could be obtained by heating the silver ions in the zeolite framework, because they become “trapped” in the cages of the minerals and only could form a pyramid. Researchers say this shape and size emitted the most light with an efficiency close to 100%.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
UK team harvests hydrogen from grass
Researchers from Cardiff University and Queen’s University Belfast have discovered a cheap method to extract significant amounts hydrogen from grass, opening up possibilities for sustainable clean energy.
The technique, described in the Royal Society journal Proceedings A, involves converting cellulose in grass into hydrogen using sunlight and metal-loaded titania photocatalysts (palladium, gold and nickel). Cellulose is a key building block for plants and the most abundant biopolymer on Earth, as well as being a plentiful source of hydrogen. Initially, the team combined the three catalysts with cellulose in a round bottom flask and subjected the mixture to light from a desk lamp, measuring the amount of hydrogen produced at 30-minute intervals.
“This really is a green source of energy,” said study co-author Professor Michael Bowker, from the Cardiff Catalysis Institute. “Hydrogen is seen as an important future energy carrier as the world moves from fossil fuels to renewable feedstocks, and our research has shown that even garden grass could be a good way of getting hold of it.”
Following the experiment with cellulose, the researchers then conducted a second experiment using simple fescue grass harvested from a domestic garden, and again obtained substantial amounts of hydrogen. Despite the relative simplicity of the process, the team believes it is the first time hydrogen has been acquired from raw biomass using photocatalysis.
“Up until recently, the production of hydrogen from cellulose by means of photocatalysis has not been extensively studied,” said Bowker. “Our results show that significant amounts of hydrogen can be produced using this method with the help of a bit of sunlight and a cheap catalyst.”
“Furthermore, we’ve demonstrated the effectiveness of the process using real grass taken from a garden. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that this kind of raw biomass has been used to produce hydrogen in this way. This is significant as it avoids the need to separate and purify cellulose from a sample, which can be both arduous and costly.”
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Tumor Patch Brings Three Weapons to Fight Cancer
MIT researchers have created an implantable patch for the administration of three completely different therapies to tumor sites in order to kill and prevent the recurrence of cancer. The hydrogel patch is embedded with gold nanorods that are able to heat up and ablate nearby tissue when illuminated by infrared light. The same rods are also infused with a chemotherapy agent, which is also released when infrared light causes the temperature of the nanorods to rise. In addition to thermal and chemotherapy, the patch also releases RNA gene therapy that targets oncogenes active in the cancer being targeted.
The patch was tested on mice with colorectal cancer and included RNA that blocks colorectal cancer oncogenes. The findings showed that the mice without the patch had a high relapse rate, while animals who first underwent tumor removal surgery and then had the patch applied to clean up the cancer’s remains showed total remission. Even without surgery, the patch worked successfully enough to destroy the tumors.
Next steps will include testing the patch in larger animals and delivering it in a minimally invasive way. The final goal is to allow for a well targeted therapeutic treatment of tumors without seriously affecting the rest of the body.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
EchoPixel Teams with HP to Release Clinical True 3D Viewer
Last year,EchoPixel, a Mountain View, California firm, received FDA clearance to introduce its True 3D Viewer, a platform for visualizing CT and MRI exams in 3D. The company has now announced that it is releasing the viewer that, thanks to a partnership with HP, now will run on the Zvr Interactive Virtual Reality Display.
Physicians wear a pair of glasses that work with the Zvr display to produce 3D images. The True 3D software provides a lot of visualization tools that allow the user to manipulate patient anatomy in different ways. A pen can be used to grab the viewed objects in 3D space and intuitively move them around, view slices, and zoom in and out, among other tasks.
Here’s a quick video showing off EchoPixel’s True 3D technology, though you really need to use the system itself to experience the 3D effect:
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Portable Holographic Microscope for Diagnosing Gout
These days gout is diagnosed by spotting monosodium urate crystals within synovial fluid sampled from patients’ joints. This requires a compensated polarized light microscope (CPLM), a device large and heavy enough to remain in the hospital laboratory, preventing its use at the point-of-care. Moreover, these types of microscope have an inherently narrow field-of-view and so make it difficult to see a sample all at once, and so impeding a much easier diagnosis.
UCLA researchers have now come up with a lens-free polarized microscope that has both a wide field-of-view and high-resolution, and featuring a color contrast comparable to that of CPLM. It’s cheap and easy to make, light, and can be made portable for use in different environments.
The microscope uses lens-free on-chip holographic imaging that passes light through a polarizer, sample, and then another polarizer before hitting an optical sensor. A computer then processes the data and constructs an image of what’s under the microscope. The entire image hitting the sensor remains in-focus and at high resolution, providing about 25 square millimeters of field of view, which is about 100 times more than with conventional optical microscopy.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
First Synthetic Cartilage Implant Approved by FDA
Arthritis at the base joint of the big toe often requires fusion surgery to prevent constant pain, but now there’s a new option from a company called Cartiva our of Alpharetta, Georgia. The newly FDA approved Cartiva Synthetic Cartilage Implant (SCI) is the first man-made cartilage replacement device to become available in the U.S.
It is implanted into bone after making a bore hole, with the native bone on the opposite side of the joint allowed to rest against it. It’s durable and has similar mechanical characteristics as natural cartilage, hopefully lasting a good deal of time.
The big advantage of the Cartiva SCI is that the toe is allowed to flex instead of remaining stiff compared to fusion surgery.
Il fatto è che a volte il mondo proprio non è pronto per accogliere una nuova idea, per buona che sia.
Dott. Massimo Lucani.
Odontoiatra
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/tomografia-coerenza-ottica-il-brevetto.html
Esame dell'omocisteina nel sangue: a cosa serve e perché farlo / Examination of homocysteine in the blood: what is it and why to do ?
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/esame-dellomocisteina-nel-sangue-cosa.html
L'importanza di assumere Betaina (Trimetilglicina) dagli alimenti / The importance of taking Betaine (Trimethylglycine) from foods.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/limportanza-di-assumere-betaina.html
Betaina, acido folico, vitamina B6 e B12 in soggetti anziani con iperomocisteinemia / Biotin, folic acid, vitamin B6 and B12 in elderly subjects with hyperhomocysteinemia
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/betaina-acido-folico-vitamina-b6-e-b12.html
Suspended Microchannel Resonators Measure Cell Weight to Help Select Drug Therapy / Un risonoratore sospeso a microcanali misura il peso di una cellula per aiutare a scegliere la corretta terapia...
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/carestream-onsight-3d-extremity-system.html
Advanced X-ray Imaging Technique Visualizes Fine Brain Structures in 3D. The patent process ENEA RM2012A000637 can be very useful in this application. / Avanzata tecnica per la formazioni di immagini a raggi X tecnica visualizza dettagliate strutture cerebrali in 3D. Il procedimento del brevetto ENEA RM2012A000637 può risultare utilissimo in questa applicazione.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/advanced-x-ray-imaging-technique.html
Suspended Microchannel Resonators Measure Cell Weight to Help Select Drug Therapy / Un risonoratore sospeso a microcanali misura il peso di una cellula per aiutare a scegliere la corretta terapia farmacologica.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/suspended-microchannel-resonators.html
Oxford surgeons perform world-first robotic eye surgery with R2D2 /Chirurghi eseguono ad Oxford il primo intervento chirurgico robotico al mondo sull'occhio con R2D2.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/oxford-surgeons-perform-world-first.html
Esiste un ruolo della alimentazione anche nelle attività cerebrali? / Is there also the role of nutrition in brain activity?
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/esiste-un-ruolo-della-alimentazione.html
Intervista al Professor Nisoli: aminoacidi essenziali e longevità, quali evidenze? / Interview with Professor Nisoli: essential amino acids and longevity, what is it the evidence?
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/intervista-al-professor-nisoli.html
Nanofish Swim Like Real Fish Thanks to Nanowires and Magnetic Fields / I nano pesci nuotano come pesci reali grazie a nanofili e campi magnetici.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/nanofish-swim-like-real-fish-thanks-to.html
Scoperti i meccanismi di una nuova malattia neurologica / Discovered the mechanisms of a new neurological disease.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/scoperti-i-meccanismi-di-una-nuova.html
First Successful Eye Surgeries Performed on the Preceyes System / Primo successo sul primo intervento chirurgico eseguito sul sistema Preceyes
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/first-successful-eye-surgeries.html
Prole sana da uno spermatozoo senza fecondazione / Healthy offspring without fertilization by a sperm.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/prole-sana-da-uno-spermatozoo-senza.html
UK radar system could improve avalanche analysis. Patent procedure ENEA RM2012A000637 could be very useful in this application / Il sistema radar del Regno Unito potrebbe migliorare l'analisi della valanga. La procedura del brevetto ENEA RM2012A000637 potrebbe essere molto utile in questa applicazione.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/uk-radar-system-could-improve-avalanche.html
Optogenetics Scientists Demonstrate Light Pacing of Cardiac Cells. Optical Defibrillation to Soothe Arrhythmic Hearts / Gli scienziati optogenetici dimostrano la stimolazione di cellule cardiache con luce. Defibrillazione ottica per attenuare le aritmie del cuore.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/optogenetics-scientists-demonstrate.html
Che vuol dire ricercatore?
Dopo aver cercato di capire informandomi da altri, ricerco di capire da solo sperimentando.
Dott. Massimo Lucani.
Odontoiatra
Metamaterials Pointing to Smart Contact Lenses That Can Change Their Optical Properties / I metamateriali consentono di realizzare lenti a contatto intelligenti che possono cambiare le loro proprietà ottiche.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/metamaterials-pointing-to-smart-contact.html
PCSK9: dalla scoperta al farmaco / PCSK9: from discovery to drug.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/pcsk9-dalla-scoperta-al-farmaco-pcsk9.html
WiSE Wireless Ultrasound-based LV Pacer to be Tried in U.S. / Sistema WiSE a base di ultrasuoni senza fili guidato da LV deve essere provato negli Stati Uniti.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/wise-wireless-ultrasound-based-lv-pacer.html
Ultrasound haptic technology could revolutionise man-machine interaction. / La tecnologia aptica ad ultrasuoni potrebbe rivoluzionare l'interazione uomo-macchina.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/ultrasound-haptic-technology-could.html
3D Organoids Mimic Real Lungs to Study Pulmonary Diseases / Organoidi 3D simulano veri polmoni per studiare le malattie polmonari.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/3d-organoids-mimic-real-lungs-to-study.html
Approfondimento sul colesterolo / depth study on cholesterol
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/approfondimento-sul-colesterolo-depth.html
Proteina C-reattiva / C-reactive protein
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/proteina-c-reattiva-c-reactive-protein.html
Ossidazione, infiammazione e aterosclerosi, un circolo vizioso da rompere grazie ai polifenoli delle olive / Oxidation, inflammation and atherosclerosis, a vicious circle to break thanks to polyphenols of olives.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/ossidazione-infiammazione-e_17.html
Niente più pillole: per guarire si hackera il sistema nervoso. Il procedimento del brevetto ENEA RM2012A000637 può risultare molto utile in quest'applicazione. / No more pills: to heal it hacks the nervous system. The patent process ENEA RM2012A000637 can be very useful in this application.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/niente-piu-pillole-per-guarire-si.html
Tutti i brevetti medici di Google. Il procedimento del brevetto ENEA RM2012A000637 può risultare molto utile a Google, non solo in campo medico. / All Google medical patents. The patent process ENEA RM2012A000637 can be very useful to Google, not only in the medical field.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/tutti-i-brevetti-medici-di-google-il.html
Le onde cerebrali possono rivelare i nostri segreti più profondi. Il procedimento del brevetto ENEA RM2012A000637 può risultare utilissimo per quest'applicazione avveniristica / Brain waves can reveal our deepest secrets. The patent process ENEA RM2012A000637 can be very useful for this futuristic application.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/le-onde-cerebrali-possono-rivelare-i.html
Svelata la struttura del colesterolo buono / Unveiled the structure of good cholesterol.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/svelata-la-struttura-del-colesterolo.html
Perché la chemioterapia è ancora necessaria / Because chemotherapy is still necessary.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/perche-la-chemioterapia-e-ancora.html
I polimeri sostituiranno gli antibiotici nel combattere i batteri? / Will the polymers replace antibiotics to fight the bacteria?
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/i-polimeri-sostituiranno-gli.html
Cortisolo od Ormone dello Stress / Cortisol or Stress hormone
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/cortisolo-od-ormone-dello-stress.html
Quando lo stress, le emozioni e i dispiaceri fanno male come un infarto / When stress, emotions and sorrows are bad like a heart attack.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/quando-lo-stress-le-emozioni-e-i.html
Tumori, scoperta una strategia di riparazione del Dna della cellula / Cancers, discovering a repair strategy of the cell's DNA.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/tumori-scoperta-una-strategia-di.html
Composti della curcuma aiutano la rigenerazione delle cellule staminali del cervello / Turmeric compounds help cell regeneration of brain stem.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/composti-della-curcuma-aiutano-la.html
4 Modi per potenziare l’assorbimento della Curcumina / 4 ways to enhance the absorption of Curcumin.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/4-modi-per-potenziare-lassorbimento.html
Il segreto dei tardigradi per sopravvivere negli ambienti estremi / The secret of tardigrades to survive in extreme environments.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/il-segreto-dei-tardigradi-per.html
Radio Signals Measure Heart Rate, Its Variability Almost as Accurately as ECG / Segnali radio misurano la frequenza cardiaca, la sua variabilità quasi accuratamente quanto un ECG.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/radio-signals-measure-heart-rate-its.html
Fumare modifica il Dna / Smoking changes the DNA.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/fumare-modifica-il-dna-smoking-changes.html
Mutamenti epigenetici che causano il tumore / Genetic changes that cause cancer.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/mutamenti-epigenetici-che-causano-il.html
Un unico fattore di regolazione per obesità e osteoporosi / A single adjustment factor for obesity and osteoporosis.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/un-unico-fattore-di-regolazione-per.html
Restrizione calorica e longevità. / Caloric restriction and longevity.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/restrizione-calorica-e-longevita.html
Vita lunga per il topo con i pomodori purpurei / Long life for the mouse with the purple tomatoes.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/vita-lunga-per-il-topo-con-i-pomodori.html
Malattie della pelle: focus sulla psoriasi / Skin diseases: focus on psoriasis.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/malattie-della-pelle-focus-sulla.html
L'origine dell'invecchiamento, dalla cellula all'organismo / The origin of aging, from the cell to body.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/lorigine-dellinvecchiamento-dalla.html
Zuckerberg: un piano da tre miliardi per curare le malattie del mondo. Il procedimento del brevetto ENEA RM2012A000637 sarà utilissimo per raggiungere i positivi risultati previsti in base soltanto alla quantità dei finanziamenti./ Zuckerberg: a plan from three billion to treat diseases in the world. The patent process ENEA RM2012A000637 will be very useful to achieve the positive results expected based only on the amount of funding.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/zuckerberg-un-piano-da-tre-miliardi-per.html
Come salvare i neuroni / How to save neurons.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/come-salvare-i-neuroni-how-to-save.html
L'altra faccia degli antiossidanti
"Alcuni danneggiano il Dna" / The other side of the antioxidants "Some damage the DNA"
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/laltra-faccia-degli-antiossidanti.html
Invecchiamento muscolare: scoperto un fattore chiave / Muscle Aging: discovered a key factor.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/invecchiamento-muscolare-scoperto-un.html
Perché con l'età anche i muscoli "invecchiano" /Because with age the muscles also "age".http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/perche-con-leta-anche-i-muscoli.html
I nove segni molecolari e cellulari dell'invecchiamento / The nine molecular and cellular signs of aging.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/i-nove-segni-molecolari-e-cellulari.html
Allarme tsunami in Italia, come e quando può colpire / Tsunami alarm in Italy, how and when it can strike.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/allarme-tsunami-in-italia-come-e-quando.html
MED-EL SYNCHRONY EAS Electric and Acoustic Hearing System for Partial Deafness FDA Cleared / MED-EL SYNCHRONY EAS sistema elettrico ed acustico per parziale sordità approvato dal FDA.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/med-el-synchrony-eas-electric-and.html
Scoperta una possibile chiave della longevità / Discovered a possible key to longevity.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/scoperta-una-possibile-chiave-della_28.html
E’ italiana la prima cura con staminali approvata al mondo / It's Italian the first treatment with stem approved in the world.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/e-italiana-la-prima-cura-con-staminali.html
Le cellule staminali del cordone ombelicale: gli attuali utilizzi e le sfide future / Stem cells from the umbilical cord: the current use and future challenges.
Segnalato dal Dott. Giuseppe Cotellessa / Reported by Dr. Joseph Cotellessa
Elementi sulle cellule staminali / Elements on stem cells.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/elementi-sulle-cellule-staminali.html
Nanostructures Within Contact Lenses Help Measure Glucose Through The Eye / Nanostrutture posizionate entro le lenti a contatto per aiutare a misurare il glucosio attraverso l'occhio.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/nanostructures-within-contact-lenses.html
Semi-Automatic Medical Image Segmentation Tool Works With Doc to Outline Targets. The patent process ENEA RM2012A000637 in the future will be the focal point for the development of innovative design software for the fully automated medical image analysis. / La segmentazione semiautomatica per l'analisi funziona con Doc per la diagnosi. Il procedimento del brevetto ENEA RM2012A000637 nel futuro costituirà il punto di riferimento per lo sviluppo di software di innovativa concezione per l'analisi completamente automatica dell'immagine medica.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/semi-automatic-medical-image_53.html
Le nuove aspirine (gli inibitori della COX-2), allarme antinfiammatori: "Rischio scompensi cardiaci" / The new aspirin (COX-2), anti-inflammatory alarm: "Heart Failure Risk"
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/le-nuove-aspirine-gli-inibitori-della.html
GE Receives FDA Clearance for MAGiC Multi-Contrast MRI Technique / GE riceve l'approvazione da FDA per la tecnica MRI Multi-Contrasto Magica.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/ge-receives-fda-clearance-for-magic.html
Riverain ClearRead CT Suppresses Vessels and Detects Nodules on Chest CT / Riverain Clear Read CT Sopprime vasi e rileva noduli sul CT del petto.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/09/riverain-clearread-ct-suppresses.html
Fgf21: l’ormone che allunga la vita / Fgf21: the hormone that lengthens life.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/10/fgf21-lormone-che-allunga-la-vita-fg.html
New Material for Printing Highly Accurate Replacements for Real Bones / Nuovo materiale per la stampa per la sostituzione altamente accurata di ossa vere.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/10/new-material-for-printing-highly.html
Cancro. Per fermarlo bisogna far morire di fame le cellule tumorali / Cancer. To stop him you have to starve cancer cells.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/10/cancro-per-fermarlo-bisogna-far-morire.html
AUTOFAGIA : LA NUOVA STRATEGIA BIOLOGICA PER LA LONGEVITÀ / AUTOPHAGY: A NEW STRATEGY FOR THE BIOLOGICAL LONGEVITY
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/10/genio-italiano-giuseppe-cotellessa_4.html
Scoperta la causa molecolare dell’idrocefalo / Discovered the molecular cause of hydrocephalus.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/10/scoperta-la-causa-molecolare.html
Nanomaterials strengthened and tailored for superiority / Nanomateriali rafforzatI e su misura per garantire la superiorità.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/10/nanomaterials-strengthened-and-tailored.html
Se la durata della vita ha un limite invalicabile / If the lifespan is an insurmountable limit.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/10/se-la-durata-della-vita-ha-un-limite.html
Nanoparticles Deliver siRNA to Prevent Joint Damage, Hopefully Treat Osteoarthritis / Le nanoparticelle rilasciano siRNA per prevenire il danno articolare, si spera così di trattare l'artrosi.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/10/nanoparticles-deliver-sirna-to-prevent.html
Microfibre fabrication supports cell growth and could regenerate tissue / La fabbricazione di microfibra sostiene la crescita delle cellule e potrebbe rigenerare il tessuto.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/10/microfibre-fabrication-supports-cell.html
Attacco al cuore del sistema immunitario / Attack on the heart of the immune system.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/10/attacco-al-cuore-del-sistema.html
Cellule staminali e fattori di crescita in ortopedia / Stem cells and growth factors in orthopedics.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/10/cellule-staminali-e-fattori-di-crescita.html
E' evidente, quindi, l'importanza dell'elettronica sia nella fase di componentistica a costi infinitesimi sia di sistema circuitistico intelligente, efficiente ed affidabile della realizzazione del primo prototipo a livello internazionale basato sull'applicazione del procedimento del brevetto del Dott. Giuseppe Cotellessa ENEA RM2012A000637.
Dott. Massimo Lucani
odontoiatra
Grazie al trapianto di cellule staminali 21enne paralizzato recupera l’uso delle braccia / Thanks to stem cell transplant 21 year old paralyzed recovers the use of arms.
http://genioitalianogiuseppecotellessa.blogspot.it/2016/10/grazie-al-trapianto-di-cellule.html
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