Tag Archives: Birgitte Svennevig

Nanoscientists speculate that artificial life forms could be medicine of the future

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Even after all these years, my jaw is still capable of dropping but then I read the details. This looks a lot like ‘medical nanobots’ which researchers have been talking about for a long time. Nice twist on a familiar theme. From an October 5, 2023 news item on ScienceDaily,

Imagine a life form that doesn’t resemble any of the organisms found on the tree of life. One that has its own unique control system, and that a doctor would want to send into your body. It sounds like a science fiction movie, but according to nanoscientists, it can—and should—happen in the future.

Creating artificial life is a recurring theme in both science and popular literature, where it conjures images of creeping slime creatures with malevolent intentions or super-cute designer pets. At the same time, the question arises: What role should artificial life play in our environment here on Earth, where all life forms are created by nature and have their own place and purpose?

Associate professor Chenguang Lou from the Department of Physics, Chemistry, and Pharmacy, University of Southern Denmark, together with Professor Hanbin Mao from Kent State University, is the parent of a special artificial hybrid molecule that could lead to the creation of artificial life forms. They have now published a review in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science on the state of research in the field behind their creation. The field is called “hybrid peptide-DNA nanostructures,” and it is an emerging field, less than ten years old.

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An October 5, 2023 University of Southern Denmark press release (also on EurekAlert) by Birgitte Svennevig, which originated the news item, shares the researcher’s (Chenguang Lou) vision for the research and more technical details about “hybrid peptide-DNA nanostructures” along with other international research efforts,

Lou’s vision is to create viral vaccines (modified and weakened versions of a virus) and artificial life forms that can be used for diagnosing and treating diseases.

“In nature, most organisms have natural enemies, but some do not. For example, some disease-causing viruses have no natural enemy. It would be a logical step to create an artificial life form that could become an enemy to them,” he says.

Similarly, he envisions such artificial life forms can act as vaccines against viral infection and can be used as nanorobots [also known as nanobots] or nanomachines loaded with medication or diagnostic elements and sent into a patient’s body.

“An artificial viral vaccine may be about 10 years away. An artificial cell, on the other hand, is on the horizon because it consists of many elements that need to be controlled before we can start building with them. But with the knowledge we have, there is, in principle, no hindrance to produce artificial cellular organisms in the future,” he says.

What are the building blocks that Lou and his colleagues in this field will use to create viral vaccines and artificial life? DNA and peptides are some of the most important biomolecules in nature, making DNA technology and peptide technology the two most powerful molecular tools in the nanotechnological toolkit today. DNA technology provides precise control over programming, from the atomic level to the macro level, but it can only provide limited chemical functions since it only has four bases: A, C, G, and T. Peptide technology, on the other hand, can provide sufficient chemical functions on a large scale, as there are 20 amino acids to work with. Nature uses both DNA and peptides to build various protein factories found in cells, allowing them to evolve into organisms.

Recently, Hanbin Mao and Chenguang Lou have succeeded in linking designed three-stranded DNA structures with three-stranded peptide structures, thus creating an artificial hybrid molecule that combines the strengths of both. This work was published in Nature Communications in 2022. (read the article here “Chirality transmission in macromolecular domains” and the press release at https://www.sdu.dk/en/om_sdu/fakulteterne/naturvidenskab/nyheder-2022/supermolekyle)

Elsewhere in the world, other researchers are also working on connecting DNA and peptides because this connection forms a strong foundation for the development of more advanced biological entities and life forms.

At Oxford University, researchers have succeeded in building a nanomachine made of DNA and peptides that can drill through a cell membrane, creating an artificial membrane channel through which small molecules can pass. (Spruijt et al., Nat. Nanotechnol. 2018, 13, 739-745)

At Arizona State University, Nicholas Stephanopoulos and colleagues have enabled DNA and peptides to self-assemble into 2D and 3D structures. (Buchberger et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2020, 142, 1406-1416)

At Northwest University [Northwestern University?], researchers have shown that microfibers can form in conjunction with DNA and peptides self-assembling. DNA and peptides operate at the nano level, so when considering the size differences, microfibers are huge. (Freeman et al., Science, 2018, 362, 808-813)

At Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, scientists have used hybrid molecules to create an onion-like spherical structure containing cancer medication, which holds promise to be used in the body to target cancerous tumors. (Chotera et al., Chem. Eur. J., 2018, 24, 10128-10135)

“In my view, the overall value of all these efforts is that they can be used to improve society’s ability to diagnose and treat sick people. Looking forward, I will not be surprised that one day we can arbitrarily create hybrid nanomachines, viral vaccines and even artificial life forms from these building blocks to help the society to combat those difficult-to-cure diseases. It would be a revolution in healthcare,” says Chenguang Lou.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the latest paper,

Peptide-DNA conjugates as building blocks for de novo design of hybrid nanostructures by Mathias Bogetoft Danielsen, Hanbin Mao, Chenguang Lou. Cell Reports Physical Science Volume 4, Issue 10, 18 October 2023, 101620 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xcrp.2023.101620

This paper is open access.

Could synergistic action of engineered nanoparticles have a health impact?

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Synergistic action can be difficult to study especially when you’re looking at nanoparticles which could be naturally occurring and/or engineered. I believe this study is focused on engineered nanoparticles (ENPs) and I think it’s the first one I’ve seen that examines synergistic action of any kind. So, bravo to the scientists for tackling a very ambitious project.

An October 1, 2020 news item on phys.org describes this work from Denmark,

Nanoparticles are used in a wide range of products and manufacturing processes because the properties of a material can change dramatically when the material comes in nano-form.

They can be used, for example, to purify wastewater and to transport medicine around the body. They are also added to, for example, socks, pillows, mattresses, phone covers and refrigerators to supply the items with an antibacterial surface.

Much research has been done on how nanoparticles affect humans and the environment and a number of studies have shown that nanoparticles can disrupt or damage our cells.

This is confirmed by a new study that has also looked at how cells react when exposed to more than one kind of nano particle at the same time.

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An October 1, 2020 University of Southern Denmark press release (also on EurekAlert) by Birgitte Svennevig, which originated the news item, provides more insight into the research,

The lead author of the study is Barbara Korzeniowska from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at SDU. The head of research is Professor Frank Kjeldsen from the same department.

His research into metal nanoparticles is supported by a European Research Grant of DKK 14 million.

“Throughout a lifetime, we are exposed to many different kinds of nano-particles, and we should investigate how the combination of different nano-particles affects us and also whether an accumulation through life can harm us,” says Barbara Korzeniowska.

She herself became interested in the subject when her little daughter one day was going in the bathtub and got a rubber duck as a toy.

– It turned out that it had been treated with nano-silver, probably to keep it free of bacteria, but small children put their toys in their mouths, and she could thus ingest nano-silver. That is highly worrying when research shows that nano-silver can damage human cells, she says.

In her new study, she looked at nano-silver and nano-platinum. She has investigated their individual effect and whether exposure of both types of nanoparticles results in a synergy effect in two types of brain cells.

– There are almost no studies of the synergy effect of nano particles, so it is important to get started with these studies, she says.

She chose nano-silver because it is already known to be able to damage cells and nano-platinum, because nano-platinum is considered to be so-called bio-inert; i.e. has a minimal interaction with human tissue.

The nanoparticles were tested on two types of brain cells: astrocytes and endothelial cells. Astrocytes are supporter cells in the central nervous system, which i.a. helps to supply the nervous system with nutrients and repair damage to the brain. Endothelial cells sit on the inside of the blood vessels and transport substances from the bloodstream to the brain.

When the endothelial cells were exposed to nano-platinum, nothing happened. When exposed to nano-silver, their ability to divide deteriorated. When exposed to both nano-silver and nano-platinum, the effect was amplified, and they died in large numbers. Furthermore, their defense mechanisms decreased, and they had difficulty communicating with each other.

– So even though nano-platinum alone does not do harm, something drastic happens when they are combined with a different kind of nano-particle, says Frank Kjeldsen.

The astrocytes were more hardy and reacted “only” with impaired ability to divide when exposed to both types of nano-particles.

An earlier study, conducted by Frank Kjeldsen, has shown a dramatic synergy effect of silver nanoparticles and cadmium ions, which are found naturally all around us on Earth.

In that study, 72 % of the cells died (in this study it was intestinal cells) as they were exposed to both nano-silver and cadmium ions. When they were only exposed to nano-silver, 25% died. When exposed to cadmium ions only, 12% died.

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We are involuntarily exposed

– Little is known about how large concentrations of nano-particles are used in industrial products. We also do not know what size particles they use – size also has an effect on whether they can enter a cell, says Barbara Korzeniowska and continues:

– But we know that a lot of people are involuntarily exposed to nano-particles, and that there can be lifelong exposure.

There are virtually no restrictions on adding nanoparticles to products. In the EU, however, manufacturers must have an approval if they want to use nanoparticles in products with antibacterial properties. In Denmark, they must also declare nano-content in such products on the label.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

The Cytotoxicity of Metal Nanoparticles Depends on Their Synergistic Interactions by Barbara Korzeniowska, Micaella P. Fonseca, Vladimir Gorshkov, Lilian Skytte, Kaare L. Rasmussen, Henrik D. Schrøder, Frank Kjeldsen. Particle Volume 37, Issue 8, August 2020,. 2000135 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ppsc.202000135 First published: 06 July 2020

This paper is behind a paywall.