Getting nanotechnology in perspective

As with most things, everybody has an agenda when it comes to nano, according to the former CEO of a Chicago nanomaterials manufacturer. The people who make the materials are concerned of course with profitability and with observing all the laws and regulations governing worker safety. The scientists want funding for research and legislation requiring strict standards of safety. The universities want to encourage entrepreneurs, help take nano from lab to market but with a strong eye to keeping their government funding coming.

IIT recently started a collaboration between its Center for Ethics in the Professions and its Center for Entrepreneurship to invite local nano businesses to keep a continuing dialogue going, and to find ways to raise awareness among professionals and the public about the realities of nano manufacturing.

The Center’s director Vivian Weil recently invited a group to meet on IIT’s campus and talk about the best way to collaborate to continue building the library and use it to promote awareness.
The nano executives who attended this first "lunch and learn" session a few weeks ago talked about the safety precautions automatically put into practice for nano-manufacturing, as required by existing regulations. The Center for Ethics thas researched a significant body of knowledge about the nano industry and ethics and has compiled and cataloged it into a library.

The nanomaterials experts hastened to point out that nano-biotech is a whole different story. For things that humans might consume or inject or otherwise ingest, considerations are different. So there must be a unique set of standards that will be completely different from the materials side.

One of the execs pointed out that nanomaterials of various sorts have been in use for decades. It's just that no one called them nano, and the press hadn't yet picked up on the scare tactics often used to make scientific stories "news." Two products in particular are the carbon black used in women's eyeliner. It's the only material that will make eyeliner truly black—without it, the best they can do is medium gray. And another nanomaterial used in tires makes them more stable and longer lasting.

He said members of the public would never be willing to give up these qualities because the additives were labeled nano and "dangerous." Just as with asbestos, which can make people fatally ill even up to several decades after they’re exposed, people who are not sick from it will have no part of the cost and inconvenience of getting rid of the asbestos. They say they don't care if something "might" happen 30, 40 or 50 years from now. It's the same with nano.

To check out the resources at IIT’s Center for Ethics in the Professions, visit the NanoEthicsBank and their beta site Nano Portal for Industry and their NanoEthicsBank blog.

Nanotech teams with nitric oxide to help diabetics, organ transplants

A product that can help people with medical problems from controlling diabetes to growing hair to preserving transplant organs? Snake oil, anyone?

Nope. A blue bandage made with synthetic nanoparticles promises just such wonders. Its secret? When you wet the bandage, the way the fibers degrade releases nitric oxide--a natural chemical that works wonders for people but that diabetics don't make enough of. Their invention takes advantage of earlier efforts with nanofiber bandages that help wounds heal faster by releasing nitric oxide.

The researchers will focus, among other things, on making materials such as socks or wraps to improve blood flow in the feet of patients with diabetes.

Secrets of Nanotechnology for non-scientists - video conference

If you live in one of the states that's got a location, this sounds like it's worth attending. The Nanotechnology Colloqium is presenting a video-conference lecture through the auspices of the University of Texas by Jan Beck, PhD--whose credentials as an expert on nanoscale engineering are impressive.

The blurb says you don't have to know math or quantum physics to understand how the materials are made and how they act. Lots of real world examples of nano-materials in action. Read the announcement and register here--the date is Monday, October 20, from 12:00 to 1:30 CT.

In Chicago, it'll be broadcast at Illinois Institute of Technology, Stuart Building, room 21210 West 31st Street. The rest of the locations are in Texas--congrats to Chicago for snagging a venue.

Liposome and polymer technologies target delivery of anti-cancer agents

Like leaving simple but extremely attractive food out for mice to eat and lacing it with disguised poison, the NeoPharm company's NeoLipid® technology entices tumor cells to consume lots of fats (lipids) that are secretly loaded with drugs. The liposomal product--a microscopic spherical particle with an outside fat layer that encloses a compartment you can put liquids in--feeds the hungry tumor cell both the fats it craves and the anti-cancer drugs that will lead to its death.

Other researchers are studying carriers like polymer drug conjugates (pairs or other combinations) which can also be programmed to say when and where they will release their drug load. One problem is some of these polymers can't carry as much of the desired anti-cancer agents as the liposomes. Another possibility being studied is dendrimers, which are working well in mice--without poisoning them--but these haven't been used with humans yet. And although that story doesn't say so, according to this site dendrimers fall into the nanotechnology category and may carry their own risks.

Always glad to read about research into methods that try to spare the rest of the patient while trying to get to the bad cells.

Nanotechnology ignorance a danger?

Scientists are more worried about the potential dangers of inappropriate use of nanotechnologies than the public is. And that's mainly because most of the public has little or no idea what nanotechnology really is and what it can do.

In their recent telephone survey of American households and nanotech scientists and engineers, two university professors who did the study say this reaction is unusual compared to controversies that surrounded discoveries of the past like nuclear power and genetically modified foods. In those cases, scientists perceived them as less risky than the public did. And scientists, of course, are the ones who have the greatest knowledge of these things.

The main problem is that there's little research to prove or disprove dangers associated with nanotech. Manufacturers are simply plunging in and using this incredibly powerful technology to make things like stronger, more flexible materials (think tennis rackets and golf clubs) and antimicrobial food containers. Members of the public seemed more concerned about possible privacy violations when this technology can help create smaller surveillance devices and loss of US jobs when other countries would adopt the technology and "steal" business.

The good news? The public trusts scientists on this issue. So the next step is to get the government listening and sending funds to get that research done. More about nanotechnology in the Nature Nanotechnology journal.

And a reader commented to share this website that chronicles risks of nanotechnology. Thanks, Mathilde.

Nanostructures like Diamonds can deliver cancer drugs precisely

Nano looks like it may provide a newly precise way of aiming only at cancer cells and avoiding inflammation, thus leaving healthy cells in their natural state. Nanoengineers Mine Tiny Diamonds For Drug Delivery. Fascinating to learn that these "diamonds," which are structurally not unlike their namesake minerals, are welcomed by cells because they are so carefully organized. When cells welcome a substance, according to this report, they tend not to go haywire and express it with inflammation. Hmmm. Seems like a big useful clue in that statement for future researchers.

The technique here is to cluster several nanodiamonds together, apply the drug to the surfaces (which allows more drug to be used than with the spherical nanoparticles currently used), deliver it to the cancer site, and there let it break up--which then releases the drug.

They've even found that they can deliver nanodiamonds (without drugs) into the body and no harm comes to surrounding cells. These new guys could become the next-generation stem-cell-type magic.

Nano promises noninvasive cancer therapy - in Hematology/Oncology, Other Cancers

Some of the first forays into nanomedicine are looking pretty exciting. In an experiment with human liver cells, nanotubes inserted into cancer cells in vitro and heated up by radiofrequency fields have succeeded in eliminating the tumors completely. Progress in developing the therapy depends on targeting the nanotubes to hit just cancer cells within a living organism. Investigators are currently testing monoclonal antibodies, peptides, and other potential delivery vehicles for this purpose.

After decades of having no choice but to deliver treatments like chemotherapy and radiation that can't be targeted specifically at cancer cells, and having patients suffering a raft of unpleasant side effects, doctors must be pretty excited to think the day will soon come that they don't have to punish their patients with the treatment on top of what they're already suffering with the disease.