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3D Printing on the Micrometer Scale

Details: Parent Category: Imaging; Category: News

At the Photonics West, the leading international fair for photonics taking place in San Francisco (USA) this week, Nanoscribe GmbH, a spin-off of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), presents the world’s fastest 3D printer of micro- and nanostructures. With this printer, smallest three-dimensional objects, often smaller than the diameter of a human hair, can be manufactured with minimum time consumption and maximum resolution. The printer is based on a novel laser lithography method.

“The success of Nanoscribe is an example of KIT’s excellent entrepreneurial culture and confirms our strategy of specifically supporting spin-offs. In this way, research results are transferred rapidly and sustainably to the market,” says Dr. Peter Fritz, KIT Vice President for Research and Innovation. In early 2008, Nanoscribe was founded as the first spin-off of KIT and has since established itself as the world’s market and technology leader in the area of 3D laser lithography.

Precisely engineering 3-D brain tissues

Details: Parent Category: Microbiology; Category: Medical

Borrowing from microfabrication techniques used in the semiconductor industry, MIT and Harvard Medical School (HMS) engineers have developed a simple and inexpensive way to create three-dimensional brain tissues in a lab dish.

The new technique yields tissue constructs that closely mimic the cellular composition of those in the living brain, allowing scientists to study how neurons form connections and to predict how cells from individual patients might respond to different drugs. The work also paves the way for developing bioengineered implants to replace damaged tissue for organ systems, according to the researchers.

“We think that by bringing this kind of control and manipulation into neurobiology, we can investigate many different directions,” says Utkan Demirci, an assistant professor in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST).

Demirci and Ed Boyden, associate professor of biological engineering and brain and cognitive sciences at MIT’s Media Lab and McGovern Institute, are senior authors of a paper describing the new technique, which appears in the Nov. 27 online edition of the journal Advanced Materials. The paper’s lead author is Umut Gurkan, a postdoc at HST, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Metal nanoparticles may improve cancer treatment

Details: Parent Category: Cancer; Category: Treatments

Research led by RMIT University has shown that cheap, non-toxic nanoparticles can enhance radiotherapy treatments for cancer.

An international team of researchers led by RMIT has investigated alternatives to gold nanoparticles, which have been shown to concentrate radiation used to treat cancer but are highly expensive and mildly toxic.

Doctoral researcher Mamdooh Alqathami said the team had identified bismuth as an ideal option, with tests showing that enhancing radiotherapy by using nanoparticles containing the heavy metal almost doubled the dose of radiation to surrounding cancerous tissue.

"By enhancing radiation in the tumour, doctors may be able to decrease the initial dose of radiotherapy, which will hopefully result in fewer side effects for the patient while having the same impact on the cancer," Mr Alqathami, a researcher in the School of Medical Sciences, said.

Semiconducting Graphene

Details: Parent Category: Nanotechnology; Category: Nanoelectronics

By fabricating graphene structures atop nanometer-scale “steps” etched into silicon carbide, researchers have for the first time created a substantial electronic bandgap in the material suitable for room-temperature electronics. Use of nanoscale topography to control the properties of graphene could facilitate fabrication of transistors and other devices, potentially opening the door for developing all-carbon integrated circuits.

Researchers have measured a bandgap of approximately 0.5 electron-volts in 1.4-nanometer bent sections of graphene nanoribbons. The development could provide new direction to the field of graphene electronics, which has struggled with the challenge of creating bandgap necessary for operation of electronic devices.