Tag Archives: nanomedicine

New: Single molecule sensor array

If there is a spectrum that can be detected by sensors, from very small to very big, then the sensor array built by engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, Cambridge, USA) can stake a claim for the very smallest – a single molecule. The array uses carbon nanotubes, which are rapidly becoming the [...]
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Two new cancer-killing nanoparticles

To use an overworked phrase, it’s a paradigm shift: Cancer research is learning how to ‘think small’ with the potential of nanotechnology – nanoparticles specifically. It’s a shift because medical science has been accustomed to cancer-fighting techniques on the level of bringing cannons to kill a fly. Where doctors once treated cancer with a body-wide [...]
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Nanoparticles identify metastasized cancer cells

One of the more common techniques evolving from the use of nanoparticles to study cell biology is the ability to ‘tag’ cells with colored (dyed) nanoparticles. In an important application of this technique, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology (USA) have been able to tag cancer cells that travel in the blood of mice [...]
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It had to happen: a medical “nano cocktail”

Sooner or later it would occur to medical nanotechnology researchers that combining various nanoparticles – and loading them with targeted drugs – might be more effective than administering them one by one. Of course, in the new tradition of packaging medical combinations in a marketable phrase, this is a “nano cocktail.”
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Stop the bleeding: Nanotech blood platelets

It’s a good example of the spreading use of nanotechnology – artificial blood platelets composed of nanoparticles. Platelets are a small blood-cell type and one of the principle components of blood coagulation, the process used by the body to stop bleeding. Applying nanotechnology to platelets is not an earth-shaking development but it seems a logical [...]
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Nanosensors testing blood for cancer markers

Testing lab samples of blood is one thing; there’s lots of control achieved by isolating components of the blood before testing. Testing whole blood, unfiltered and with all components in their usual mix, is another thing. The thing is; testing whole blood is what’s required in the real world. Whole blood is complicated by the [...]
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