Tag Archives: CINEMA

Quo Vadis (where are you going) Nanomedicine (journal) special issues

There are two issues, part one and part two, of the journal Nanomedicine asking the question: Where are you going? or Quo Vadis, if prefer the Latin. A Nov. 21, 2015 news item on Nanotechnology Now announces the special issues,

Nanomedicine, a leading MEDLINE-indexed journal, has published a special focus issue highlighting the interdisciplinary nature of this emerging field, which explores the medical application of nanotechnology to monitor, repair, and control human biological systems at the molecular level. Nanomedicine is published by Future Science Group.

A Nov. 20, 2015 Future Science Group press release on EurekAlert provides more detail,

“This special issue brings the different actors of nanomedicine closer together and encourages scientists to better understand the work of others who perform outside their own comfort zone,” said Michael Schillmeier, who co-guest-edited the two-volume issue with Robert Luxenhofer and Matthias Barz. “With a rather unique assemblage of input and opinion from scientists, philosophers, clinicians and social scientists, it is the beginning of an experiment in itself to rethink nanomedicine in the making.”

Contributing authors to the issue address the historical trajectory of the field, current debates, and future perspectives on nanomedical research. The articles position nanomedicine as not just a biological, chemical, and physical issue, but also a social issue. Of particular note, the articles bring together natural scientists, social scientists, clinicians and philosophers to both critically discuss and also engage with the creation of novel practices, concepts, methods, models and metaphors in nanomedicine. The authors also address the medical and regulatory needs of current nanomedical research and its possible future.

“Over the last decade, nanomedicine has become a field of innovative research and is now seen as having the potential to overcome many of the shortcomings of current disease treatment strategies. However, these exciting scientific advances have been accompanied by a number of issues which touch on the social, ethical and safety aspects of nanomedicine,” said Jonathan Wilkinson, Commissioning Editor of Nanomedicine. “This special issue seeks to address this, bringing together carefully selected experts from around the world who discuss the past, present and future of nanomedicine from a range of perspectives. We hope that the readers of the journal find the topics and viewpoints presented in the articles as interesting and thought-provoking as we have.”

The issues can be found here,

Special Focus Issue Part 1: Quo vadis nanomedicine: past, present and future of nanomedicine

Special Focus Issue Part 2: Quo vadis nanomedicine: past, present and future of nanomedicine

They feature a mix of papers that are open access or behind a paywall.

Here’s the introduction to the two issues (Note: Links have been removed),

As witnessed over the decade, ‘nanomedicine’ assembles diverse research agendas and practices, which aim to improve medical technologies, applications and practices. Clearly though, many promising concepts in the field of nanomedicine have a much longer tradition and link different fields of the life sciences and beyond. For instance Paul Ehrlich’s idea of the ‘magic bullet’ goes back to 1906 and still plays a role in conceptualizing and designing nanomedicine at the beginning of the 21st century. Irrespectively, if the ‘magic bullet’ will become a medical reality in the future or not, nanomedical research shows that novel ideas not only face a myriad of unsolved problems and unknowns, but also create scientific challenges and alter scientific practices. Moreover, since nanomedical research aims to innovating healthcare systems it requires a close participatory network of science, technology and society to address and engage with the issues posed by nanoscaled biomedical research.

The key argument of this two-volume special issue is that nanomedicine is as much a social issue as it is a biological, chemical, physical and so forth. With such a framework, this special issue contributes to a new era in the life sciences. The two-volume special issue addresses significant trajectories of the history, current debates and future perspectives of nanomedical research. It brings together natural scientists, social scientists, clinicians and philosophers to critically discuss but also engage with the creation of novel practices, concepts, methods, models and metaphors in nanomedicine. Authors also address the medical and regulatory needs in current nanomedical research and its possible futures.

Sociologist, philosopher and STS-scholar Michael Schillmeier argues that it is time to make nanomedicine public and protect nanomedicine from an excessive and often counter-productive ‘culture of promise’ of nanoscience and nanotechnology. He suggests to link three experimental ways of engaging with issues in life science and nanomedicine to improve current scientific practices: laboratory experiment and scientific analysis, public expert controversies, and publics [1].

Weitze and Heckl take on the issue of how science is communicated to the public. One particular problem may be that scientific results are being presented to the public, but the process of getting there often remains a black box for the interested public and even scientists from other fields [2]. Such practice disregards the importance of how facts are constructed. By contrast, in the ‘Open Nano Lab’ at the ‘Deutsche Museum’ in Munich, a research lab is out in the open and under scrutiny of the public.

Matthias Barz points out that simplifications in the complex task of developing nanomedicines are necessary to enable multidisciplinary research [3]. Scientists, however, need to be aware that current research strategies are prone to oversimplification or overgeneralization leading to unfavorable decisions in the developmental process itself.

Sociologist and STS-scholar Ghazal PourGashtasbi focuses on the processes of translation in nanomedical research practices and toxicology [4]. PourGashtasbi contributes to a context- and object-centered research agenda in Science and Technology Studies (STS). In particular, she addresses how nano-specific issues in medical research are exacerbated by uncertainty and unpredictability.

Robert Luxenhofer discusses variability and reproducibility in the process of synthesizing and characterizing polymers and nanomedicines [5]. Surprisingly, the issue of reproducibility, which is an undisputed necessity in life sciences, seems to be underappreciated in the first stages of nanomedicine development.

Philosopher and STS-scholar Xavier Guchet discusses the polysemic character of personalized medicine and nanomedicine [6]. He outlines rival epistemic and technological choices in research programs and argues that techno-epistemic plurality echoes conflicting expectations and values among today’s biomedicine actors.

Lamprecht tackles current issues of in vitro and in vivo characterization of nanomedicines [7]. Their works provide a critical overview on characterization methods available for nanomedicines and point out their specific limitations. By contrast, Baldelli-Bombelli and co-authors elaborate the influence of the protein corona on nanomedicines [8]. They outline past and present as well as possible future options of research on proteins and the absorption on different kinds of nanoparticles and related effects.

In his editorial the sociologist Nils Kubischok critically discusses the importance of past and present visions in nanomedical research [9]. The philosopher and STS-scholar Sacha Loeve discusses the historical roots and persistence of ‘war’-metaphors in current understandings of malign biomedical processes and related ways of nanomedical treatment [10]. Loeve also points out that novel metaphors beyond ‘war’ like that of the ‘oïkos:’ become powerful in understanding the social relevance of the nanobiomedical. Robin Pierce discusses the changes and potentialities of novel ‘therapeutic windows’ in translational nanomedicine [11]. Her paper analyzes three aspects of the therapeutic window in nanomedicine – temporal, spatial, and manner of construction in terms of the dimensions of modern medicine.

Diane Bowman and Jake Gatof outline the regulatory barriers for nanomedicine and emerging global questions and challenges of regulation [12]. They explore both existing and suggested frameworks that aim to deal with the regulation of emerging technologies and outline priority areas for action and general conclusions specific to nanomedicine. Jain’s editorial touches upon the issues of safety and ethics as well as personalized medicine [13].

While the majority of research in the field of nanomedicine addresses the therapy of cancer, Almeida [14], Owen and Rannard [15] as well as Zentel and Lehr [16] provide overviews on other unmet medical needs which may be tackled by nanomedical research. Antonio Almeida and co-authors describe the urgent medical need for nanoparticle platforms targeting bone infections, which are a severe problem in wound healing [14]. The authors expect that nanomedicines will provide new tools in the therapy of bone infections by providing an improved antibacterial and antibiofilm activity. Rudolf Zentel, Claus-Michael Lehr and co-authors also highlight the possible use of nanomedicines in the therapy of bacterial infections, but also describe concepts for nanoparticle-based tumor immune therapies [16]. In both approaches it is hoped that the intrinsic properties of nanomedicines can improve the therapeutic outcome. Andrew Owen and Steven Rannard on solid drug nanoparticles as a technology discuss a significantly different idea of drug delivery systems [15]. They also highlight special considerations for the treatment of chronic diseases such as HIV.

Clearly, though, cancer therapy remains a mainstay in nanomedicine research. Meiners and Bölükbas [17], as well as Christoph Alexiou [18] and co-authors provide comprehensive overviews on cancer nanomedicines. While Bölükbas and Meiners describe concepts for nanoparticle-mediated drug delivery for the therapy of lung cancer, Alexiou and co-authors outline the concept of magnetic field-guided drug delivery to solid tumors.

We hope that this special issue may help to bring the different actors of nanomedicine closer together and encourage scientists to better understand other actors which act outside their own comfort zone. We believe this special issue is rather unique in assembling scientists, philosophers, clinicians and social scientists. As such, it is the beginning of an experiment in itself to rethink nanomedicine in the making.
Financial & competing interests disclosure

Financial support for M Barz by the German Research Council (SFB 1066), CINEMA and the NMFZ Mainz is gratefully acknowledged. Financial support for R Luxenhofer through start-up funding by the Julius-Maximilians Universität Würzburg and the German Plastics Center SKZ is gratefully acknowledged. The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Happy reading!

Canada’s ‘nano’satellites to gaze upon luminous stars

The launch (from Yasny, Russia) of two car battery-sized satellites happened on June 18, 2014 at 15:11:11 Eastern Daylight Time according to a June 18, 2014 University of Montreal (Université de Montréal) news release (also on EurekAlert).

Together, the satellites are known as the BRITE-Constellation, standing for BRIght Target Explorer. “BRITE-Constellation will monitor for long stretches of time the brightness and colour variations of most of the brightest stars visible to the eye in the night sky. These stars include some of the most massive and luminous stars in the Galaxy, many of which are precursors to supernova explosions. This project will contribute to unprecedented advances in our understanding of such stars and the life cycles of the current and future generations of stars,” said Professor Moffat [Anthony Moffat, of the University of Montreal and the Centre for Research in Astrophysics of Quebec], who is the scientific mission lead for the Canadian contribution to BRITE and current chair of the international executive science team.

Here’s what the satellites (BRITE-Constellatio) are looking for (from the news release),

Luminous stars dominate the ecology of the Universe. “During their relatively brief lives, massive luminous stars gradually eject enriched gas into the interstellar medium, adding heavy elements critical to the formation of future stars, terrestrial planets and organics. In their spectacular deaths as supernova explosions, massive stars violently inject even more crucial ingredients into the mix. The first generation of massive stars in the history of the Universe may have laid the imprint for all future stellar history,” Moffat explained. “Yet, massive stars – rapidly spinning and with radiation fields whose pressure resists gravity itself – are arguably the least understood, despite being the brightest members of the familiar constellations of the night sky.” Other less-massive stars, including stars similar to our own Sun, also contribute to the ecology of the Universe, but only at the end of their lives, when they brighten by factors of a thousand and shed off their tenuous outer layers.

BRITE-Constellation is both a multinational effort and a Canadian bi-provincial effort,

BRITE-Constellation is in fact a multinational effort that relies on pioneering Canadian space technology and a partnership with Austrian and Polish space researchers – the three countries act as equal partners. Canada’s participation was made possible thanks to an investment of $4.07 million by the Canadian Space Agency. The two new Canadian satellites are joining two Austrian satellites and a Polish satellite already in orbit; the final Polish satellite will be launched in August [2014?].

All six satellites were designed by the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies – Space Flight Laboratory, who also built the Canadian pair. The satellites were in fact named “BRITE Toronto” and “BRITE Montreal” after the University of Toronto and the University of Montreal, who play a major role in the mission.  “BRITE-Constellation will exploit and enhance recent Canadian advances in precise attitude control that have opened up for space science  the domain of very low cost, miniature spacecraft, allowing a scientific return that otherwise would have had price tags 10 to 100 times higher,” Moffat said. “This will actually be the first network of satellites devoted to a fundamental problem in astrophysics.”

Is it my imagination or is there a lot more Canada/Canadian being included in news releases from the academic community these days? In fact, I made a similar comment in my June 10, 2014 posting about TRIUMF, Canada’s National Laboratory for Particle and Nuclear Physics where I noted we might not need to honk our own horns quite so loudly.

One final comment, ‘nano’satellites have been launched before as per my Aug. 6, 2012 posting,

The nanosatellites referred to in the Aug.2, 2012 news release on EurekALert aren’t strictly speaking nano since they are measured in inches and weigh approximately eight pounds. I guess by comparison with a standard-sized satellite, CINEMA, one of 11 CubeSats, seems nano-sized. From the news release,

Eleven tiny satellites called CubeSats will accompany a spy satellite into Earth orbit on Friday, Aug. 3, inaugurating a new type of inexpensive, modular nanosatellite designed to piggyback aboard other NASA missions. [emphasis mine]

One of the 11 will be CINEMA (CubeSat for Ions, Neutrals, Electrons, & MAgnetic fields), an 8-pound, shoebox-sized package which was built over a period of three years by 45 students from the University of California, Berkeley, Kyung Hee University in Korea, Imperial College London, Inter-American University of Puerto Rico, and University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez.

This 2012 project had a very different focus from this Austrian-Canadian-Polish effort. From the University of Montreal news release,

The nanosatellites will be able to explore a wide range of astrophysical questions. “The constellation could detect exoplanetary transits around other stars, putting our own planetary system in context, or the pulsations of red giants, which will enable us to test and refine our models regarding the eventual fate of our Sun,” Moffatt explained.

Good luck!

CINEMA; a ‘nano’satellite launched Aug. 3, 2012

I realize most eyes are on Mars and the Rover Curiosity but there are other launches also taking place.

The nanosatellites referred to in the Aug.2, 2012 news release on EurekALert aren’t strictly speaking nano since they are measured in inches and weigh approximately eight pounds. I guess by comparison with a standard-sized satellite, CINEMA, one of 11 CubeSats, seems nano-sized. From the news release,

Eleven tiny satellites called CubeSats will accompany a spy satellite into Earth orbit on Friday, Aug. 3, inaugurating a new type of inexpensive, modular nanosatellite designed to piggyback aboard other NASA missions.

One of the 11 will be CINEMA (CubeSat for Ions, Neutrals, Electrons, & MAgnetic fields), an 8-pound, shoebox-sized package which was built over a period of three years by 45 students from the University of California, Berkeley, Kyung Hee University in Korea, Imperial College London, Inter-American University of Puerto Rico, and University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez.

“This is a new way of doing space research, funded by the National Science Foundation with launch arranged by NASA,” said CINEMA principal investigator Robert Lin, professor emeritus of physics and former director of UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory. “This is our first try, but if everything works, we’re going to get a lot of good science out of this.”

CINEMA will obtain images of the “ring current,” an electrical current that encircles the Earth and which, during large magnetic “space storms,” can blow out power grids on the ground. By next year, CubeSat will be joined by three identical satellites – two launched by Korea and another NASA-launched CubeSat – that together will monitor the 3-dimensional structure of the ring current and warn of dangerous activity.

This is an international effort and according to the lead researcher this work was done on a very small budget ,

For three years, Lin has overseen the construction and testing of CINEMA, aided by 25 UC Berkeley science and engineering undergraduates and graduate students. For two summers and winter vacations, about 10 students from Korea came to SSL to assist, while 8 students from Puerto Rico came to Berkeley to help with the engineering.

“There is more risk with these projects, because we use off-the-shelf products, 90 percent of the work is done by students, and the parts are not radiation-hard,” he said. “But it is cheaper and has the latest hardware. I will be very impressed if it lasts more than a year in orbit.”

There was mention of a spy satellite and of the CubeSat’s physical dimensions,

CINEMA is one of five university-built CubeSats aboard the Atlas V rocket; the other six are military or commercial. The main payload is NROL-36, a classified satellite commissioned by the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office.

NASA’s CubeSat Launch initiative provides an opportunity for small satellite payloads to fly as auxiliary payloads on previously planned missions. The nanosatellites are made of cubes that are approximately four inches on a side, have a volume of about one quart, weigh about two pounds, and are meant to be grouped in twos or threes for a particular satellite. CINEMA, for example, is comprised of three cubes. Some two dozen CubeSats are built or under construction at universities alone, and these 11 are the first to go into orbit.

I must have old-fashioned notions about spying. If I were going to send up a spy satellite, I wouldn’t tell anyone.