Tag Archives: Dr. David Cramb

NanoProfessor education programme comes to the University of Calgary

1 Reply

In what appears to be a Canadian first, the University of Calgary has purchased a nanotechnology curriculum, NanoProfessor, from a company that also sells nanofabrication products, NanoInk. From the April 11, 2011 news item on Nanowerk,

NanoProfessor™, a division of NanoInk, Inc.® focused on nanotechnology education, announced today that the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada is the first school in Canada to implement the NanoProfessor Nanoscience Education Program. The University of Calgary’s Nanoscience program aims to provide participants with working knowledge of nanotechnology and valuable exposure to cutting-edge instrumentation used to fabricate nanomaterials. The NanoProfessor Program helps the University of Calgary meet this objective by providing instrumentation, curriculum, and hands-on labs to expand students’ understanding, skills, and real-world experience needed to succeed in the growing nanotechnology industry.

“We are proud to be the first school in Canada to implement the cutting-edge NanoProfessor Nanoscience Education Program. We are committed to providing our students with a meaningful education based on the principle of learning science by doing science,” said David Cramb, Director of the Nanoscience program at the University of Calgary. “Not only does the NanoProfessor Program enhance our ability to provide students with a practical learning experience, but NanoInk’s NLP 2000 Desktop Nanofabrication System allows us to expand our research capability through the versatility of Dip Pen Nanolithography® (DPN®).”

This reminds me of some of the product placement on television programmes but here the product placement is part of the curriculum. As I recall, Apple pioneered this technology incursion into schools. The idea being that if you give (or sell computers for a good price to schools) so children learn using your equipment they are more likely to purchase it as they look to own it for themselves.

Here’s a bit more about NanoProfessor,

NanoProfessor is an exciting and comprehensive Nanoscience Education Program combining cutting-edge desktop nanofabrication instruments with a stimulating curriculum. Students will be immersed into the rapidly growing field of nanotechnology through real hands-on experience in building custom-engineered nanoscale structures. With an incredible range of new applications from building solar cells to fighting cancer cells, nanotechnology is the future of science and engineering education.

And for more about NanoInk, you can go here.

By the way, I have an interview with David Cramb in my March 8, 2010 posting.

Interview with Dr. David T. Cramb; venture capital and nano and microsystems; NanoBusiness Alliance roundtable; science and artists

3 Replies

March 3, 2010, I posted about Dr. David Cramb, director of the Nanoscience Program and professor in the department of Chemistry at the University of Calgary, and his colleagues. They had just published a paper (Measuring properties of nanoparticles in embryonic blood vessels: Towards a physicochemical basis for nanotoxicity)  in Chemical Physics Letters about a new methodology they are developing to measure the impact of nanoparticles  on human health and the environment. Dr. Cramb very kindly answered some email questions about the study (abstract is here, article is behind a paywall).

  • Is this work on nanoparticles and blood vessels part of a larger project? i.e. Is this an OECD project; is there going to be an international report; is this part of a cross-Canada investigation into nanoparticles and their impact on health?

This is a collaborative project, but the reports that we generate will be available to Environment Canada and Health Canada. We have collaborators from both agencies.

  • In reading the abstract (for the article, which is behind a paywall and probably too technical for me), it seemed to me that this is a preliminary study which sets the stage for a nanoparticle study. In fact, you were studying quantum dots (CdSe/ZnS) and establishing that a particular kind of spectroscopy could be used to track the accumulation of nanoparticles in chicken embryos. Is this correct? And if so, why not study the nanoparticles directly?

A quantum dot is a type of nanoparticle.  So, in principle, we can apply our techniques to any other nanoparticle of interest.

  • What does CdSe/ZnS stand for?

cadmium selenide (in the centre of the nanoparticle) / zinc sulfide (coating on the outside)

  • What kind or kinds of nanoparticles are going to be used for the study moving forward from this one?

Similar but different sizes and surface chemistries. We want to understand what properties affect uptake into tissues and distribution in organs. That way we can predict risk.

  • From reading the abstract (and thanks to the person who wrote the explanation), I have a pretty good idea why chicken embryos are being used. [I’ll insert the description from the abstract here with attributions.] In another context, I have come across the notion that chickens in the US at least, I don’t know about Canada, have been so thoroughly compromised genetically that using their embryos for research is problematic. (brief note: I attended a lecture by Susan Squier, a noted academic, who had a respondent [a US scientist] claiming he moved to the UK because he didn’t feel confident experimenting with US chicken embryos.) What are your thoughts on this?

We aren’t doing genetic studies, so knowing the lineage of the embryos isn’t critical for us.

  • Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Nanoparticles are being used in many areas from cosmetics to pharmaceutical to energy. As yet, there is no evidence that the nanoscale formulation adds any risk to these applications. We in nanoscience believe that we must maintain due diligence to asess future risk and to make nanotechnology as green as possible.

Thank you Dr. Cramb for taking the time to explain your work.

On a completely other front, Harris & Harris Group a venture capital group that invests in nanotechnology and microsystems is holding a fourth quarter conference call on Friday, March 12, 2010.  From the Harris & Harris Group website,

With over 30 nanotechnology companies in our portfolio, Harris & Harris Group, Inc., is one of the most active nanotechnology investors in the world. We have funded companies developing nanoscale-enabled solutions in solid state lighting, emerging memory devices, printable electronics, photovoltaics, battery technologies, thermal and power management, next-generation semiconductor devices and equipment, quantum computing, as well as in various life-science applications of nano-structured materials.

We consider a company to fit our investment thesis if the company employs, intends to employ or enables technology that we consider to be at the microscale, nanoscale or smaller and if the employment of that technology is material to its business plan. We are interested in funding entrepreneurs with energy, vision and the desire to build great companies.

From the news release on CNN announcing the conference call,

The management of Harris & Harris Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:TINY) will hold a conference call to discuss the Company’s financial results for its fiscal fourth quarter and full year 2009, to update shareholders and analysts on our business and to answer questions, on Friday, March 19, 2010, at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time.

For details about accessing the webcast, please follow the link to the news release.

Still on business-related nanotechnology news, the NanoBusiness Alliance will be holding its annual Washington, DC roundtable, March 15-17, 2010. From the news item on Nanowerk,

The NanoBusiness Alliance, the world’s leading nanotechnology trade association, today announced that it will convene numerous nanotechnology industry executives in Washington, D.C. from March 15 – 17 for its 9th annual “Washington DC Roundtable”. As in past years, NanoBusiness Alliance members will participate in three days of high-level meetings with Members of Congress, Administration officials, and key staff.

If you are interested in the NanoBusiness Alliance, their homepage is here.

For today’s almost final entry, I’m going back to science and its relationship to art, a topic alluded to just prior to my introduction of the Cheryl Geisler (dean of the Faculty of Communication, Art and Technology at Simon Fraser University, Canada) interview. At the time I noted that art, science and technology are interconnected to justify my inclusion of art topics in this blog and, specifically, my inclusion of the Geisler interview. I just read an entry by David Bruggeman (Pasco Phronesis blog) which describes the impact that art can have. From the post,

… McCall’s art is certainly an influence on why I’m involved with science and technology today. You may not know it, but it’s likely you’ve seen his work in connection with reports on space, or in works of science fiction for the page or the screen …

McCall is Robert McCall, an important space artist who recently died. His website is here and Bruggeman provides other links to McCall’s works.

This bit has nothing to do with anything other than I’ve always thought thought Emma Peel was Steed’s (The Avengers) best partner and found this tribute (clips of Diana Rigg as Peel set to The Kinks) on Raincoaster here. (Scroll down the page.)

Bee silk; minnows and silver nanoparticles; David Cramb at U of Calgary finds way to measure nanoparticles in bloodstream; Rock Against Prisons

2 Replies

I had not realized that there’s an international drive to produce artificial insect silk until this morning. According to a news item on Nanowerk,

CSIRO [Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation] scientist Dr Tara Sutherland and her team have achieved another important milestone in the international quest to artificially produce insect silk. They have hand-drawn fine threads of honeybee silk from a ‘soup’ of silk proteins that they had produced transgenically.

These threads were as strong as threads drawn from the honeybee silk gland, a significant step towards development of coiled coil silk biomaterials.

“It means that we can now seriously consider the uses to which these biomimetic materials can be put,” Dr Sutherland said.

“We used recombinant cells of bacterium E. coli to produce the silk proteins which, under the right conditions, self-assembled into similar structures to those in honeybee silk.

If I understand this rightly,  ‘tinkering’ with bacterium E. coli makes this a transgenic system and I believe it’s a GEO (genetically engineered organism) and not a GMO (genetically modified organism). In any event, it’s also biomimetic because this process mimics a biological system.

On the practical side of things, insect silk could potentially be used for tough, lightweight textiles and medical applications such as sutures. You can read more about this in the Nanowerk news item.

A Purdue University study has added more evidence that silver nanoparticles are toxic to fish. According to the news item on physorg.com,

Tested on fathead minnows ╨ an organism often used to test the effects of toxicity on aquatic life — nanosilver suspended in solution proved toxic and even lethal to the minnows. When the nanosilver was allowed to settle, the solution became several times less toxic but still caused malformations in the minnows.

“Silver nitrate is a lot more toxic than nanosilver, but when nanosilver was sonicated, or suspended, its toxicity increased tenfold,” said Maria Sepulveda, an assistant professor of forestry and natural resources whose findings were published in the journal Ecotoxicology. “There is reason to be concerned.”

Coincidentally, Dr. David Cramb, director of the Nanoscience Program and professor in the department of Chemistry at the University of Calgary, and his colleagues have published a paper about a new methodology they are developing to measure the impact of nanoparticles (no specifics about which ones) on human health and the environment. From the news release on Eureka Alert, [Mar.4.10 ETA since I think the Eureka doesn’t last long, here’s a link to the same news on Azonano]

Cramb, director of the Faculty of Science’s nanoscience program, and his researchers have developed a methodology to measure various aspects of nanoparticles in the blood stream of chicken embryos. Their discovery is published in the March online edition of Chemical Physics Letters.

“With the boom in nanomaterials production there is an increasing possibility of environmental and/or human exposure. Thus there is a need to investigate their potential detrimental effects,” says Cramb. “We have developed very specialized tools to begin measuring such impacts.”

To close today off, I got a news release from poet Heather Haley (Vancouver, Canada based) about her latest local appearance,

Heather Haley was a member of Vancouver punk bands, the all-girl Zellots and the .45s with Randy Rampage and Brad Kent. Long-lost video of the Zellots will be screened and Heather will interviewed for a live webcast. She will perform poetry from her new collection, “Three Blocks West of Wonderland.” Hope to *see* you there.

ROCK AGAINST PRISONS Live Video Retrospective         Tuesday, March 9, 2010         7:00pm – 11:55pm
Little Mountain Gallery         195 east 26th Ave         Vancouver, BC
On March 9th, the social forces will be mounting an assault on the staid and the bland. From a Punk Rock Swap Meet to a Celebrity Auction, from an ‘umplugged’ stage to a Grand Slam Poetry Karaoke by some of the big stars of 1979, we are getting the Old Gang Together. We review the fabulous footage by doreen grey from the seminal 1979 gig and plan out the 2010 resurgence of the Vancouver Explosion.
Come on out and celebrate Vancouver’s living heritage with those who made it happen: Rabid, Female Hands, Devices, Zellots, Tunnel Canary, AKA, Subhumans. Special appearances. Door Prizes. Live Webcast and Kissing Booth. Fishnet stockings. Oodles of prime swag and fixins. Your every 1979 Punk nightmare come beautifully true.

You can also check out Heather’s latest work on her website.