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More on Nanopolis in China’s Suzhou Industrial Park

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As far as I can tell, the 2015 opening date for a new building is still in place but, in the meantime, publicists are working hard to remind everyone about China’s Nanopolis complex (mentioned here in a Jan. 20, 2014 posting, which includes an architectural rendering of the proposed new building).

For the latest information, there’s a Sept. 25  2014 news item on Nanowerk,

For several years now Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP) has been channeling money, resources and talent into supporting three new strategic industries: nano-technology, biotechnology and cloud computing.

In 2011 it started building a hub for nano-tech development and commercialization called Nanopolis that today is a thriving and diverse economic community where research institutes, academics and start-up companies can co-exist and where new technology can flourish.

Nanopolis benefits from the cross-pollination of ideas that come from both academia and business as it is right next door to the Suzhou Dushu Lake Science & Education Innovation District and its 25 world-class universities.

Earlier this year the University of California, Los Angles [sic] (UCLA) set up an Institute for Technology Advancement that is developing R&D platforms focusing on areas such as new energy technology and in particular nanotechnology. And Oxford University will soon join the growing list of world-class universities setting up centers for innovation there.

To develop a critical mass at Nanopolis SIP has offered incentive plans and provided incubators and shared laboratories, even including nano-safety testing and evaluation. It has also helped companies access venture capital and private equity and eventually go public through IPOs [initial public offerings {to raise money on stock exchanges}].

A Sept. 25, 2014 Suzhou Industrial Park news release (on Business Wire), which originated the news item, provides an interesting view of projects and ambitions for Nanopolis,

 To develop a critical mass at Nanopolis SIP has offered incentive plans and provided incubators and shared laboratories, even including nano-safety testing and evaluation. It has also helped companies access venture capital and private equity and eventually go public through IPOs.

Many companies in Nanopolis are already breaking new ground in the areas of micro and nano-manufacturing (nanofabrication, printed electronics and instruments and devices); energy and environment (batteries, power electronics, water treatment, air purification, clean tech); nano materials (nano particles, nano structure materials, functional nano materials, nano composite materials); and nano biotechnology (targeted drug delivery, nano diagnostics, nano medical devices and nano bio-materials).

Zhang Xijun, Nanopolis’ chief executive and president, says the high-tech hub goes beyond what typical incubators and accelerators provide their clients and he predicts that its importance will only grow over the next five years as demand for nano-technology applications continues to pick up speed.

“As more and more companies want upstream technology they are going to be looking more at nano-technology applications,” he says. “The regional and central government is taking this field very seriously–there is a lot of support.”

Nanopolis can also serve as a bridge for foreign companies in terms of China market entry. “Nanopolis has become like a gateway for companies to access the Chinese market, our research capabilities and Chinese talent,” he says.

Owen Huang, general manager of POLYNOVA, a nano-tech company that set up in SIP five years ago, counts Apple as one of its customers and has annual sales of US$4 million, says the excellent infrastructure, supply chain and international outlook in Nanopolis are part of its allure.

“This site works along the lines of foreign governments and there is no need to entertain local officials [as is often customary in other parts of China],” he says. “Everyone is treated the same according to international standards of business.”

Nanopolis also can serve as a kind of go-between for bilateral projects between businesses and governments in China and those from as far away as Finland, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic.

In November 2012, for example, China’s Ministry of Science and Technology and Finland’s Ministry of Employment and the Economy built the China-Finland Nano Innovation Centre to jointly develop cooperation in the research fields of micro-nanofabrication, functional materials and nano-biomedicine.

SIP is also raising the profile of nano-tech and its importance in Nanopolis by hosting international conferences and exhibitions. From Sept. 24-27 [2014] the industrial park is hosting the ChiNano conference, which will be attended by more than more 700 nano-tech specialists from over thirty countries.

Zhang emphasizes that collaboration between academia and industry is an essential aspect of innovation and commercialization and argues that Nanopolis’ appeal goes beyond professor-founded companies. “The companies are in a position to provide good internship programs for students and there are also joint professorship positions made possible,” he explains. “We can also optimize school courses so they are better linked to industry wherever possible.”

Nanopolis’ creators expect that their holistic approach to business development will attract more than 300 organizations and businesses and as many as 30,000 people to the site over the next five years.

Wang Yunjun, chief executive of Mesolight, is one of the success stories. Mesolight, a nano-tech company that specializes in semi-conductor nano-crystals or quantum dots used in flat panel TV screens, mobile phones and lighting devices, recently secured US$2 million in the first round of venture capital funding with the help of the industrial park’s connections in the industry.

Two years ago Wang moved to Nanopolis from Little Rock, Arkansas, where he had tried to get his company off the ground. He believes that returning to China and setting up his business in SIP was the best thing he could have done.

“The incubators in SIP are doing much more than the incubators in the United States,” he explains. “In the U.S. I was in an incubator but that just meant getting research space. Here I get a lot of resources. Most importantly, though, I was taught how to run a business.”

Albert Goldson, executive director of Indo-Brazillian Associates LLC, a New York-based global advisory firm and think tank, notes that while the immediate benefits of the industrial park are evident, there are even greater implications over the long-term, including the loss of talented Chinese who leave China to study or set up companies abroad.

“If one creates an architecturally compelling urban design along with a high-tech and innovative hub it will attract young Chinese talent for the long term both professionally and personally,” he says.

Jiang Weiming, executive chairman of the Dushu Lake Science & Education Innovation District concedes that SIP is not Silicon Valley and says that is why the industrial park is evaluating its own DNA and working out its own solutions.

“We have put in place a plan to train nanotech-specific talent and the same for biotech and cloud computing,” he says. “I think the collaboration between the education institutions and the enterprises is fairly impressive.”

Jiang points to faculty members who have taken positions as chief technical officers and vice general managers of science at commercial enterprises so that they have a better idea of what the company needs and how educational institutes can support them. And that in turn is helpful for their own research and teaching.

“The biggest task is to create a healthy ecosystem here,” he concludes.

So far, at least, the ecosystem in Nanopolis and across the rest of the industrial park appears to be thriving.

“The companies will find the right partners,” SIP’s chairman Barry Yang says confidently. “It’s not what the government is here for. What we want to do is provide a good platform and a good environment …Companies are the actors and we build the theaters.”

Between the news item and Business Wire, the news release is here in its entirety since these materials can disappear from the web. While Nanowerk does make its materials available for years but it can’t hurt to have another copy here.

The Nanopolis website can be found here. Note: the English language option is not  operational as of today, Sept. 26, 2014. The Chinano 2014 conference (Sept. 24 – 26) website is here (English language version available).

Referencing Indo-Brazillian Associates LLC, a New York-based global advisory firm and think tank, may have been an indirect reference to the group of countries known as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) or, sometimes, as BRIC ((Brazil, Russia, India, and China). Either of these entities may be mentioned with regard to a shift global power.

Canada’s Situating Science in Fall 2014

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Canada’s Situating Science cluster (network of humanities and social science researchers focused on the study of science) has a number of projects mentioned and in its Fall 2014 newsletter,

1. Breaking News
It’s been yet another exciting spring and summer with new developments for the Situating Science SSHRC Strategic Knowledge Cluster team and HPS/STS [History of Philosophy of Science/Science and Technology Studies] research. And we’ve got even more good news coming down the pipeline soon…. For now, here’s the latest.

1.1. New 3 yr. Cosmopolitanism Partnership with India and Southeast Asia
We are excited to announce that the Situating Science project has helped to launch a new 3 yr. 200,000$ SSHRC Partnership Development Grant on ‘Cosmopolitanism and the Local in Science and Nature’ with institutions and scholars in Canada, India and Singapore. Built upon relations that the Cluster has helped establish over the past few years, the project will closely examine the actual types of negotiations that go into the making of science and its culture within an increasingly globalized landscape. A recent workshop on Globalizing History and Philosophy of Science at the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore helped to mark the soft launch of the project (see more in this newsletter).

ARI along with Manipal University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, University of King’s College, Dalhousie University, York University, University of Toronto, and University of Alberta, form the partnership from which the team will seek new connections and longer term collaborations. The project’s website will feature a research database, bibliography, syllabi, and event information for the project’s workshops, lecture series, summer schools, and artifact work. When possible, photos, blogs, podcasts and videos from events will be posted online as well. The project will have its own mailing list so be sure to subscribe to that too. Check it all out: www.CosmoLocal.org

…

2.1. Globalizing History and Philosophy of Science workshop in Singapore August 21-22 2014
On August 21 and 22, scholars from across the globe gathered at the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore to explore key issues in global histories and philosophies of the sciences. The setting next to the iconic Singapore Botanical Gardens provided a welcome atmosphere to examine how and why globalizing the humanities and social studies of science generates intellectual and conceptual tensions that require us to revisit, and possibly rethink, the leading notions that have hitherto informed the history, philosophy and sociology of science.

The keynote by Sanjay Subrahmanyam (UCLA) helped to situate discussions within a larger issue of paradigms of civilization. Workshop papers explored commensurability, translation, models of knowledge exchange, indigenous epistemologies, commercial geography, translation of math and astronomy, transmission and exchange, race, and data. Organizer Arun Bala and participants will seek out possibilities for publishing the proceedings. The event partnered with La Trobe University and Situating Science, and it helped to launch a new 3 yr. Cosmopolitanism project. For more information visit: www.CosmoLocal.org

2.2. Happy Campers: The Summer School Experience

We couldn’t help but feel like we were little kids going to summer camp while our big yellow school bus kicked up dust driving down a dirt road on a hot summer’s day. In this case it would have been a geeky science camp. We were about to dive right into day-long discussions of key pieces from Science and Technology Studies and History and Philosophy of Science and Technology.

Over four and a half days at one of the Queen’s University Biology Stations at the picturesque Elbow Lake Environmental Education Centre, 18 students from across Canada explored the four themes of the Cluster. Each day targeted a Cluster theme, which was introduced by organizer Sergio Sismondo (Sociology and Philosophy, Queen’s). Daryn Lehoux (Classics, Queen’s) explained key concepts in Historical Epistemology and Ontology. Using references of the anti-magnetic properties of garlic (or garlic’s antipathy with the loadstone) from the ancient period, Lehoux discussed the importance and significance of situating the meaning of a thing within specific epistemological contexts. Kelly Bronson (STS, St. Thomas University) explored modes of science communication and the development of the Public Engagement with Science and Technology model from the deficit model of Public Understanding of Science and Technology during sessions on Science Communication and its Publics. Nicole Nelson (University of Wisconsin-Madison) explained Material Culture and Scientific/Technological Practices by dissecting the meaning of animal bodies and other objects as scientific artifacts. Gordon McOuat wrapped up the last day by examining the nuances of the circulation and translation of knowledge and ‘trading zones’ during discussions of Geographies and Sites of Knowledge.

…

2.3. Doing Science in and on the Oceans
From June 14 to June 17, U. King’s College hosted an international workshop on the place and practice of oceanography in celebration of the work of Dr. Eric Mills, Dalhousie Professor Emeritus in Oceanography and co-creator of the History of Science and Technology program. Leading ocean scientists, historians and museum professionals came from the States, Europe and across Canada for “Place and Practice: Doing Science in and on the Ocean 1800-2012”. The event successfully connected different generations of scholars, explored methodologies of material culture analysis and incorporated them into mainstream historical work. There were presentations and discussions of 12 papers, an interdisciplinary panel discussion with keynote lecture by Dr. Mills, and a presentation at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic by Canada Science and Technology Museum curator, David Pantalony. Paper topics ranged from exploring the evolving methodology of oceanographic practice to discussing ways that the boundaries of traditional scientific writing have been transcended. The event was partially organized and supported by the Atlantic Node and primary support was awarded by the SSHRC Connection Grant.

2.4. Evidence Dead or Alive: The Lives of Evidence National Lecture Series

The 2014 national lecture series on The Lives of Evidence wrapped up on a high note with an interdisciplinary panel discussion of Dr. Stathis Psillos’ exploration of the “Death of Evidence” controversy and the underlying philosophy of scientific evidence. The Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Science spoke at the University of Toronto with panelists from law, philosophy and HPS. “Evidence: Wanted Dead of Alive” followed on the heels of his talk at the Institute for Science, Society and Policy “From the ‘Bankruptcy of Science’ to the ‘Death of Evidence’: Science and its Value”.

In 6 parts, The Lives of Evidence series examined the cultural, ethical, political, and scientific role of evidence in our world. The series formed as response to the recent warnings about the “Death of Evidence” and “War on Science” to explore what was meant by “evidence”, how it is interpreted, represented and communicated, how trust is created in research, what the relationship is between research, funding and policy and between evidence, explanations and expertise. It attracted collaborations from such groups as Evidence for Democracy, the University of Toronto Evidence Working Group, Canadian Centre for Ethics in Public Affairs, Dalhousie University Health Law Institute, Rotman Institute of Philosophy and many more.

A December [2013] symposium, “Hype in Science”, marked the soft launch of the series. In the all-day public event in Halifax, leading scientists, publishers and historians and philosophers of science discussed several case studies of how science is misrepresented and over-hyped in top science journals. Organized by the recent winner of the Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering, Ford Doolittle, the interdisciplinary talks in “Hype” explored issues of trustworthiness in science publications, scientific authority, science communication, and the place of research in the broader public.

The series then continued to explore issues from the creation of the HIV-Crystal Meth connection (Cindy Patton, SFU), Psychiatric Research Abuse (Carl Elliott, U. Minnesota), Evidence, Accountability and the Future of Canadian Science (Scott Findlay, Evidence for Democracy), Patents and Commercialized Medicine (Jim Brown, UofT), and Clinical Trials (Joel Lexchin, York).

All 6 parts are available to view on the Situating Science YouTube channel.You can read a few blogs from the events on our website too. Some of those involved are currently discussing possibilities of following up on some of the series’ issues.

2.5. Other Past Activities and Events
The Frankfurt School: The Critique of Capitalist Culture (July, UBC)

De l’exclusion à l’innovation théorique: le cas de l’éconophysique ; Prosocial attitudes and patterns of academic entrepreneurship (April, UQAM)

Critical Itineraries Technoscience Salon – Ontologies (April, UofT)

Technologies of Trauma: Assessing Wounds and Joining Bones in Late Imperial China (April, UBC)

For more, check out: www.SituSci.ca

You can find some of the upcoming talks and the complete Fall 2014 Situating Science newsletter here.

About one week after receiving the newsletter, I got this notice (Sept. 11, 2014),

We are ecstatic to announce that the Situating Science SSHRC Strategic Knowledge Cluster is shortlisted for a highly competitive SSHRC Partnership Impact Award!

And what an impact we’ve had over the past seven years: Organizing and supporting over 20 conferences and workshops, 4 national lecture series, 6 summer schools, and dozens of other events. Facilitating the development of 4 new programs of study at partner institutions. Leveraging more than one million dollars from Nodal partner universities plus more than one million dollars from over 200 supporting and partnering organizations. Hiring over 30 students and 9 postdoctoral fellows. Over 60 videos and podcasts as well as dozens of student blogs and over 50 publications. Launching a new Partnership Development Grant between Canada, India and Southeast Asia. Developing a national consortium…And more!

…

The winners will be presented with their awards at a ceremony in Ottawa on Monday, November 3, 2014.

From the Sept. 11, 2014 Situating Science press release:

University of King’s College [Nova Scotia, Canada] professor Dr. Gordon McOuat has been named one of three finalists for the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada’s (SSHRC) Partnership Award, one of five Impact Awards annually awarded by SSHRC.

Congratulations on the nomination and I wish Gordon McQuat and Situating Science good luck in the competition.

US military wants you to remember

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While this July 10, 2014 news item on ScienceDaily concerns DARPA, an implantable neural device, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), it is a new project and not the one featured here in a June 18, 2014 posting titled: ‘DARPA (US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) awards funds for implantable neural interface’.

The new project as per the July 10, 2014 news item on ScienceDaily concerns memory,

The Department of Defense’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) up to $2.5 million to develop an implantable neural device with the ability to record and stimulate neurons within the brain to help restore memory, DARPA officials announced this week.

The research builds on the understanding that memory is a process in which neurons in certain regions of the brain encode information, store it and retrieve it. Certain types of illnesses and injuries, including Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), Alzheimer’s disease and epilepsy, disrupt this process and cause memory loss. TBI, in particular, has affected 270,000 military service members since 2000.

A July 2, 2014 LLNL news release, which originated the news item, provides more detail,

The goal of LLNL’s work — driven by LLNL’s Neural Technology group and undertaken in collaboration with the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Medtronic — is to develop a device that uses real-time recording and closed-loop stimulation of neural tissues to bridge gaps in the injured brain and restore individuals’ ability to form new memories and access previously formed ones.

…

Specifically, the Neural Technology group will seek to develop a neuromodulation system — a sophisticated electronics system to modulate neurons — that will investigate areas of the brain associated with memory to understand how new memories are formed. The device will be developed at LLNL’s Center for Bioengineering.

“Currently, there is no effective treatment for memory loss resulting from conditions like TBI,” said LLNL’s project leader Satinderpall Pannu, director of the LLNL’s Center for Bioengineering, a unique facility dedicated to fabricating biocompatible neural interfaces. …

LLNL will develop a miniature, wireless and chronically implantable neural device that will incorporate both single neuron and local field potential recordings into a closed-loop system to implant into TBI patients’ brains. The device — implanted into the entorhinal cortex and hippocampus — will allow for stimulation and recording from 64 channels located on a pair of high-density electrode arrays. The entorhinal cortex and hippocampus are regions of the brain associated with memory.

The arrays will connect to an implantable electronics package capable of wireless data and power telemetry. An external electronic system worn around the ear will store digital information associated with memory storage and retrieval and provide power telemetry to the implantable package using a custom RF-coil system.

Designed to last throughout the duration of treatment, the device’s electrodes will be integrated with electronics using advanced LLNL integration and 3D packaging technologies. The microelectrodes that are the heart of this device are embedded in a biocompatible, flexible polymer.

Using the Center for Bioengineering’s capabilities, Pannu and his team of engineers have achieved 25 patents and many publications during the last decade. The team’s goal is to build the new prototype device for clinical testing by 2017.

Lawrence Livermore’s collaborators, UCLA and Medtronic, will focus on conducting clinical trials and fabricating parts and components, respectively.

“The RAM [Restoring Active Memory] program poses a formidable challenge reaching across multiple disciplines from basic brain research to medicine, computing and engineering,” said Itzhak Fried, lead investigator for the UCLA on this project and  professor of neurosurgery and psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. “But at the end of the day, it is the suffering individual, whether an injured member of the armed forces or a patient with Alzheimer’s disease, who is at the center of our thoughts and efforts.”

LLNL’s work on the Restoring Active Memory program supports [US] President [Barack] Obama’s Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) initiative.

Obama’s BRAIN is picking up speed.

Protein nanomachines at the University of Washington

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Scouring pad or protein nanomachine?

Caption: This is a computational model of a successfully designed two-component protein nanocage with tetrahedral symmetry. Credit: Dr. Vikram Mulligan

Caption: This is a computational model of a successfully designed two-component protein nanocage with tetrahedral symmetry.
Credit: Dr. Vikram Mulligan

This illustration of a protein nanocage reminded me of a type of scouring pad, which come to think of it, I haven’t seen in any stores for some years. Getting back on topic, this nanocage is a first step to building nanomachines according to a June 5, 2014 news item on Nanowerk,

A route for constructing protein nanomachines engineered for specific applications may be closer to reality.

Biological systems produce an incredible array of self-assembling, functional protein tools. Some examples of these nanoscale protein materials are scaffolds to anchor cellular activities, molecular motors to drive physiological events, and capsules for delivering viruses into host cells.

Scientists inspired by these sophisticated molecular machines want to build their own, with forms and functions customized to tackle modern-day challenges. The ability to design new protein nanostructures could have useful implications in targeted delivery of drugs, in vaccine development and in plasmonics, which is manipulating electromagnetic signals to guide light diffraction for information technologies, energy production or other uses.

A recently developed computational method may be an important step toward that goal. The project was led by the University of Washington’s [Washington state] Neil King, translational investigator; Jacob Bale, graduate student in Molecular and Cellular Biology; and William Sheffler in David Baker’s laboratory at the University of Washington Institute for Protein Design, in collaboration with colleagues at UCLA [University of California at Los Angeles] and Janelia Farm.

The work is based in the Rosetta macromolecular modeling package developed by Baker and his colleagues. The program was originally created to predict natural protein structures from amino acid sequences. Researchers in the Baker lab and around the world are increasingly using Rosetta to design new protein structures and sequences aimed at solving real-world problems.

A June 4 (?), 2014 University of Washington news release by Leila Gray (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, provides more detail about the models and what the scientists hope to accomplish,

“Proteins are amazing structures that can do remarkable things,” King said, “they can respond to changes in their environment. Exposure to a particular metabolite or a rise in temperature, for example, can trigger an alteration in a particular protein’s shape and function.” People often call proteins the building blocks of life.

“But unlike, say, a PVC pipe,” King said, “they are not simply construction material.” They are also construction (and demolition) workers — speeding up chemical reactions, breaking down food, carrying messages, interacting with each other, and performing countless other duties vital to life.

…

With the new software the scientists were able to create five novel, 24-subunit cage-like protein nanomaterials. Importantly, the actual structures, the researchers observed, were in very close agreement with their computer modeling.

Their method depends on encoding pairs of protein amino acid sequences with the information needed to direct molecular assembly through protein-protein interfaces. The interfaces not only provide the energetic forces that drive the assembly process, they also precisely orient the pairs of protein building blocks with the geometry required to yield the desired cage-like symmetric architectures.

Creating this cage-shaped protein, the scientists said, may be a first step towards building nano-scale containers. [emphasis mine] King said he looks forward to a time when cancer-drug molecules will be packaged inside of designed nanocages and delivered directly to tumor cells, sparing healthy cells.

“The problem today with cancer chemotherapy is that it hits every cell and makes the patient feel sick,” King said. Packaging the drugs inside customized nanovehicles with parking options restricted to cancer sites might circumvent the side effects.

The scientists note that combining just two types of symmetry elements, as in this study, can in theory give rise to a range of symmetrical shapes, such as cubic point groups, helices, layers, and crystals.

King explained that the immune system responds to repetitive, symmetric patterns, such as those on the surface of a virus or disease bacteria. Building nano-decoys may be a way train the immune system to attack certain types of pathogens.

“This concept may become the foundation for vaccines based on engineered nanomaterials,” King said. Further down the road, he and Bale anticipate that these design methods might also be useful for developing new clean energy technologies.

The scientists added in their report, “The precise control over interface geometry offered by our method enables the design of two-component protein nanomaterials with diverse nanoscale features, such as surfaces, pores, and internal volumes, with high accuracy.”

They went on to say that the combinations possible with two-component materials greatly expand the number and variety of potential nanomaterials that could be designed.

It may be possible to produce nanomaterials in a variety of sizes, shapes and arrangements, and also move on to construct increasingly more complex materials from more than two components.

The researchers emphasized that the long-term goal of such structures is not to be static. The hope is that they will mimic or go beyond the dynamic performance of naturally occurring protein assemblies, and that eventually novel molecular protein machines could be manufactured with programmable functions. [emphasis mine]

The researchers pointed out that although designing proteins and protein-based nanomaterials is very challenging due to the relative complexity of protein structures and interactions, there are now more than a handful of laboratories around the world making major strides in this field. Each of the leading contributors have key strengths, they said. The strengths of the UW team is in the accuracy of the match of the designed proteins to the computational models and the predictability of the results.

It seems like it’s going to be several years before we have protein nanomachines. Here’s a link to and a citation for the research paper,

Accurate design of co-assembling multi-component protein nanomaterials by Neil P. King, Jacob B. Bale, William Sheffler, Dan E. McNamara, Shane Gonen, Tamir Gonen, Todd O. Yeates, & David Baker. Nature 510, 103–108 (05 June 2014) doi:10.1038/nature13404 Published online 25 May 2014

This paper is behind a paywall but there is a free preview via ReadCube Access.

For anyone curious about the Rosetta macromolecular modeling package used in this work, you can find out more here at the Rosetta Commons website.  As for Janelia Farm, it is a research center in Virginia and is part of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

A complete medical checkup in a stapler-sized laboratory

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I find this device strangely attractive,

© 2014 EPFL

A March 4, 2014 news item on Azonano provides more information,

About the size of a stapler, this new handheld device developed at EFPL [École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne] is able to test a large number of proteins in our body all at once-a subtle combination of optical science and engineering.

Could it be possible one day to do a complete checkup without a doctor’s visit? EPFL’s latest discovery is headed in that direction. Professor Hatice Altug and postoctoral fellow Arif Cetin, in collaboration with Prof. Aydogan Ozcan from UCLA [University of California at Los Angeles], have developed an “optical lab on a chip.” Compact and inexpensive, it could offer to quickly analyze up to 170,000 different molecules in a blood sample. This method could simultaneously identify insulin levels, cancer and Alzheimer markers, or even certain viruses. “We were looking to build an interface similar to a car’s dashboard, which is able to indicate gas and oil levels as well as let you know if your headlights are on or if your engine is working correctly,” explains Altug.

A March 3, 2014 EPFL news release, which originated the news item, describes the technique and the device in detail,

Nanoholes on the gold substrates are compartmented into arrays of different sections, where each section functions as an independent sensor. Sensors are coated with special biofilms that are specifically attracting targeted proteins. Consequently, multiple different proteins in the biosamples could be captured at different places on the platform and monitored simultaneously.

…

The diode then allows for detection of the trapped proteins almost immediately. The light shines on the platform, passes through the nano-openings and its properties are recorded onto the CMOS chip. Since light going through the nanoscaled holes changes its properties depending on the presence of biomolecules, it is possible to easily deduce the number of particles trapped on the sensors.

Laboratories normally observe the difference between the original wavelength and the resulting one, but this requires using bulky spectrometers. Hatice Altug’s ingenuity consists in choosing to ignore the light’s wavelength, or spectrum, and focus on changes in the light’s intensity instead. This method is possible by tuning into the “surface plasmonic resonance” – the collective oscillation of electrons when in contact with light. And this oscillation is very different depending on the presence or absence of a particular protein. Then, the CMOS chip only needs to record the intensity of the oscillation.

…

The size, price and efficiency of this new multi-analyze device make it a highly promising invention for a multiplicity of uses. “Recent studies have shown that certain illness like cancer or Alzheimer’s are better diagnosed and false positive results avoided when several parameters can be analyzed at once,” says Hatice Altug. “Moreover, it is possible to remove the substrate and then replace it with another one, allowing to be adapted for a wide range of biomedical and environmental research requiring monitoring of biomolecules, chemicals and bioparticles.” The research team foresees collaborating with local hospitals in the near future to find the best way to use this new technology.

Nanodiamond contact lenses in attempt to improve glaucoma treatment

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A School of Dentistry, at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) or elsewhere, is not my first thought as a likely source for work on improving glaucoma treatment—it turns out that I’m a bit shortsighted (pun intended).  A Feb. 14, 2014 news item on Azonano describes the issue with glaucoma treatment and a new delivery system for it developed by a research team at UCLA,

By 2020, nearly 80 million people are expected to have glaucoma, a disorder of the eye that, if left untreated, can damage the optic nerve and eventually lead to blindness.

The disease often causes pressure in the eye due to a buildup of fluid and a breakdown of the tissue that is responsible for regulating fluid drainage. Doctors commonly treat glaucoma using eye drops that can help the eye drain or decrease fluid production.

Unfortunately, patients frequently have a hard time sticking to the dosing schedules prescribed by their doctors, and the medication — when administered through drops — can cause side effects in the eye and other parts of the body.

In what could be a significant step toward improving the management of glaucoma, researchers from the UCLA School of Dentistry have created a drug delivery system that may have less severe side effects than traditional glaucoma medication and improve patients’ ability to comply with their prescribed treatments. The scientists bound together glaucoma-fighting drugs with nanodiamonds and embedded them onto contact lenses. The drugs are released into the eye when they interact with the patient’s tears.

The new technology showed great promise for sustained glaucoma treatment and, as a side benefit, the nanodiamond-drug compound even improved the contact lenses’ durability.

The Feb. 13, 2014 UCLA news release by Brianna Deane, which originated the news item, describes the nanodiamonds and how they were employed in this project,

Nanodiamonds, which are byproducts of conventional mining and refining processes, are approximately five nanometers in diameter and are shaped like tiny soccer balls. They can be used to bind a wide spectrum of drug compounds and enable drugs to be released into the body over a long period of time.

To deliver a steady release of medication into the eye, the UCLA researchers combined nanodiamonds with timolol maleate, which is commonly used in eye drops to manage glaucoma. When applied to the nanodiamond-embedded lenses, timolol is released when it comes into contact with lysozyme, an enzyme that is abundant in tears.

“Delivering timolol through exposure to tears may prevent premature drug release when the contact lenses are in storage and may serve as a smarter route toward drug delivery from a contact lens.” said Kangyi Zhang, co-first author of the study and a graduate student in Ho’s lab.

One of the drawbacks of traditional timolol maleate drops is that as little as 5 percent of the drug actually reaches the intended site. Another disadvantage is burst release, where a majority of the drug is delivered too quickly, which can cause significant amounts of the drug to “leak” or spill out of the eye and, in the most serious cases, can cause complications such as an irregular heartbeat. Drops also can be uncomfortable to administer, which leads many patients to stop using their medication.

But the contact lenses developed by the UCLA team successfully avoided the burst release effect. The activity of the released timolol was verified by a primary human-cell study.

“In addition to nanodiamonds’ promise as triggered drug-delivery agents for eye diseases, they can also make the contact lenses more durable during the course of insertion, use and removal, and more comfortable to wear,” said Ho, who is also a professor of bioengineering and a member of the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center and the California NanoSystems Institute.

Even with the nanodiamonds embedded, the lenses still possessed favorable levels of optical clarity. And, although mechanical testing verified that they were stronger than normal lenses, there were no apparent changes to water content, meaning that the contact lenses’ comfort and permeability to oxygen would likely be preserved.

By this time, I was madly curious as to what these contact lenses might look like and so I found this image, accompanying the researchers’ paper,  showing what looks like a standard contact lens with an illustration of how the artist imagines the diamonds and medications are functioning at the nanoscale,

nanodiamonds

[downloaded from http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nn5002968]

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

Diamond Nanogel-Embedded Contact Lenses Mediate Lysozyme-Dependent Therapeutic Release by Ho-Joong Kim, Kangyi Zhang, Laura Moore, and Dean Ho. ACS Nano, Article ASAP DOI: 10.1021/nn5002968 Publication Date (Web): February 8, 2014

Copyright © 2014 American Chemical Society

This paper is behind a paywall.

Getting neuromorphic with a synaptic transistor

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Scientists at Harvard University (Massachusetts, US) have devised a transistor that simulates the synapses found in brains. From a Nov. 2, 2013 news item on ScienceDaily,

It doesn’t take a Watson to realize that even the world’s best supercomputers are staggeringly inefficient and energy-intensive machines.

Our brains have upwards of 86 billion neurons, connected by synapses that not only complete myriad logic circuits; they continuously adapt to stimuli, strengthening some connections while weakening others. We call that process learning, and it enables the kind of rapid, highly efficient computational processes that put Siri and Blue Gene to shame.

Materials scientists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have now created a new type of transistor that mimics the behavior of a synapse. The novel device simultaneously modulates the flow of information in a circuit and physically adapts to changing signals.

Exploiting unusual properties in modern materials, the synaptic transistor could mark the beginning of a new kind of artificial intelligence: one embedded not in smart algorithms but in the very architecture of a computer. [emphasis mine]

There are two other projects that I know of (and I imagine there are others) focused on intelligence that’s embedded rather than algorithmic. My December 24, 2012 posting focused on a joint (National Institute for Materials Science in Japan and the University of California, Los Angeles) project where researchers developed a nanoionic device with a range of neuromorphic and electrical properties. There’s also the memristor mentioned in my Feb. 26, 2013 posting (and many other times on this blog) which features a ,proposal to create an artificial brain.

Getting back to Harvard’s synaptic transistor (from the Nov. 1, 2013 Harvard University news release which originated the news item),

The human mind, for all its phenomenal computing power, runs on roughly 20 Watts of energy (less than a household light bulb), so it offers a natural model for engineers.

“The transistor we’ve demonstrated is really an analog to the synapse in our brains,” says co-lead author Jian Shi, a postdoctoral fellow at SEAS. “Each time a neuron initiates an action and another neuron reacts, the synapse between them increases the strength of its connection. And the faster the neurons spike each time, the stronger the synaptic connection. Essentially, it memorizes the action between the neurons.”

In principle, a system integrating millions of tiny synaptic transistors and neuron terminals could take parallel computing into a new era of ultra-efficient high performance.

Here’s an image of synaptic transistors that the researchers from Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) have supplied,

Several prototypes of the synaptic transistor are visible on this silicon chip. (Photo by Eliza Grinnell, SEAS Communications.)

Several prototypes of the synaptic transistor are visible on this silicon chip. (Photo by Eliza Grinnell, SEAS Communications.)

The news release provides a description of the synatpic transistor and how it works,

While calcium ions and receptors effect a change in a biological synapse, the artificial version achieves the same plasticity with oxygen ions. When a voltage is applied, these ions slip in and out of the crystal lattice of a very thin (80-nanometer) film of samarium nickelate, which acts as the synapse channel between two platinum “axon” and “dendrite” terminals. The varying concentration of ions in the nickelate raises or lowers its conductance—that is, its ability to carry information on an electrical current—and, just as in a natural synapse, the strength of the connection depends on the time delay in the electrical signal.

Structurally, the device consists of the nickelate semiconductor sandwiched between two platinum electrodes and adjacent to a small pocket of ionic liquid. An external circuit multiplexer converts the time delay into a magnitude of voltage which it applies to the ionic liquid, creating an electric field that either drives ions into the nickelate or removes them. The entire device, just a few hundred microns long, is embedded in a silicon chip.

The synaptic transistor offers several immediate advantages over traditional silicon transistors. For a start, it is not restricted to the binary system of ones and zeros.

“This system changes its conductance in an analog way, continuously, as the composition of the material changes,” explains Shi. “It would be rather challenging to use CMOS, the traditional circuit technology, to imitate a synapse, because real biological synapses have a practically unlimited number of possible states—not just ‘on’ or ‘off.’”

The synaptic transistor offers another advantage: non-volatile memory, which means even when power is interrupted, the device remembers its state.

Additionally, the new transistor is inherently energy efficient. The nickelate belongs to an unusual class of materials, called correlated electron systems, that can undergo an insulator-metal transition. At a certain temperature—or, in this case, when exposed to an external field—the conductance of the material suddenly changes.

“We exploit the extreme sensitivity of this material,” says Ramanathan [principal investigator and associate professor of materials science at Harvard SEAS]. “A very small excitation allows you to get a large signal, so the input energy required to drive this switching is potentially very small. That could translate into a large boost for energy efficiency.”

The nickelate system is also well positioned for seamless integration into existing silicon-based systems.

“In this paper, we demonstrate high-temperature operation, but the beauty of this type of a device is that the ‘learning’ behavior is more or less temperature insensitive, and that’s a big advantage,” says Ramanathan. “We can operate this anywhere from about room temperature up to at least 160 degrees Celsius.”

For now, the limitations relate to the challenges of synthesizing a relatively unexplored material system, and to the size of the device, which affects its speed.

“In our proof-of-concept device, the time constant is really set by our experimental geometry,” says Ramanathan. “In other words, to really make a super-fast device, all you’d have to do is confine the liquid and position the gate electrode closer to it.”

In fact, Ramanathan and his research team are already planning, with microfluidics experts at SEAS, to investigate the possibilities and limits for this “ultimate fluidic transistor.”

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

A correlated nickelate synaptic transistor by Jian Shi, Sieu D. Ha, You Zhou, Frank Schoofs, & Shriram Ramanathan. Nature Communications 4, Article number: 2676 doi:10.1038/ncomms3676 Published 31 October 2013

This article is behind a paywall.

Diamonds in your teeth—for health reasons

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Scientists at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) in collaboration with their colleagues at the NanoCarbon Research Institute (Japan) are investigating the possibility of using nanodiamonds to promote bone growth that supports dental implants. From the Sept.18, 2013 news item on ScienceDaily,

UCLA researchers have discovered that diamonds on a much, much smaller scale than those used in jewelry could be used to promote bone growth and the durability of dental implants.

Nanodiamonds, which are created as byproducts of conventional mining and refining operations, are approximately four to five nanometers in diameter and are shaped like tiny soccer balls. Scientists from the UCLA School of Dentistry, the UCLA Department of Bioengineering and Northwestern University, along with collaborators at the NanoCarbon Research Institute in Japan, may have found a way to use them to improve bone growth and combat osteonecrosis, a potentially debilitating disease in which bones break down due to reduced blood flow.

The Sept. 17,2013 UCLA news release by Brianna Deane (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, describes how osteonecrosis affects bones and the impact that this new technique using nanodiamonds could have on applications for regenerative medicine (Note: A link has been removed),

When osteonecrosis affects the jaw, it can prevent people from eating and speaking; when it occurs near joints, it can restrict or preclude movement. Bone loss also occurs next to implants such as prosthetic joints or teeth, which leads to the implants becoming loose — or failing.
Implant failures necessitate additional procedures, which can be painful and expensive, and can jeopardize the function the patient had gained with an implant. These challenges are exacerbated when the disease occurs in the mouth, where there is a limited supply of local bone that can be used to secure the prosthetic tooth, a key consideration for both functional and aesthetic reasons.
….
During bone repair operations, which are typically costly and time-consuming, doctors insert a sponge through invasive surgery to locally administer proteins that promote bone growth, such as bone morphogenic protein.
Ho’s team discovered that using nanodiamonds to deliver these proteins has the potential to be more effective than the conventional approaches. The study found that nanodiamonds, which are invisible to the human eye, bind rapidly to both bone morphogenetic protein  and fibroblast growth factor, demonstrating that the proteins can be simultaneously delivered using one vehicle. The unique surface of the diamonds allows the proteins to be delivered more slowly, which may allow the affected area to be treated for a longer period of time. Furthermore, the nanodiamonds can be administered non-invasively, such as by an injection or an oral rinse.
“We’ve conducted several comprehensive studies, in both cells and animal models, looking at the safety of the nanodiamond particles,” said Laura Moore, the first author of the study and an M.D.-Ph.D. student at Northwestern University under the mentorship of Dr. Ho. “Initial studies indicate that they are well tolerated, which further increases their potential in dental and bone repair applications.”
“Nanodiamonds are versatile platforms,” said Ho, who is also professor of bioengineering and a member of the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center and the California NanoSystems Institute. “Because they are useful for delivering such a broad range of therapies, nanodiamonds have the potential to impact several other facets of oral, maxillofacial and orthopedic surgery, as well as regenerative medicine.”
Ho’s team previously showed that nanodiamonds in preclinical models were effective at treating multiple forms of cancer. Because osteonecrosis can be a side effect of chemotherapy, the group decided to examine whether nanodiamonds might help treat the bone loss as well. Results from the new study could open the door for this versatile material to be used to address multiple challenges in drug delivery, regenerative medicine and other fields.

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

Multi-protein Delivery by Nanodiamonds Promotes Bone Formation by L. Moore, M. Gatica, H. Kim, E. Osawa, & D. Ho. Published online before print September 17, 2013, doi: 10.1177/0022034513504952 JDR September 17, 2013 0022034513504952

This paper is behind a paywall.

Looking at nanoparticles with your smartphone

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Researcher Aydogan Ozcan and his team at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) have developed a device which when attached to a smartphone allows the user to view viruses, bacteria, and/or nanoparticles. (Yikes, I understood nanoparticles were perceptible with haptic devices and that any work on developing optical capabilities was pretty rudimentary). From the UCLA Sept. 16, 2013 news release on EurekAlert,

Aydogan Ozcan, a professor of electrical engineering and bioengineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, and his team have created a portable smartphone attachment that can be used to perform sophisticated field testing to detect viruses and bacteria without the need for bulky and expensive microscopes and lab equipment. The device weighs less than half a pound.

“This cellphone-based imaging platform could be used for specific and sensitive detection of sub-wavelength objects, including bacteria and viruses and therefore could enable the practice of nanotechnology and biomedical testing in field settings and even in remote and resource-limited environments,” Ozcan said. “These results also constitute the first time that single nanoparticles and viruses have been detected using a cellphone-based, field-portable imaging system.”

…

In the ACS [American Chemical Society]  Nano paper, Ozcan details a fluorescent microscope device fabricated by a 3-D printer that contains a color filter, an external lens and a laser diode. The diode illuminates fluid or solid samples at a steep angle of roughly 75 degrees. This oblique illumination avoids detection of scattered light that would otherwise interfere with the intended fluorescent image.

Using this device, which attaches directly to the camera module on a smartphone, Ozcan’s team was able to detect single human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) particles. HCMV is a common virus that can cause birth defects such as deafness and brain damage and can hasten the death of adults who have received organ implants, who are infected with the HIV virus or whose immune systems otherwise have been weakened. A single HCMV particle measures about 150–300 nanometers; a human hair is roughly 100,000 nanometers thick.

In a separate experiment, Ozcan’s team also detected nanoparticles — specially marked fluorescent beads made of polystyrene — as small as 90-100 nanometers.

To verify these results, researchers in Ozcan’s lab used other imaging devices, including a scanning electron microscope and a photon-counting confocal microscope. These experiments confirmed the findings made using the new cellphone-based imaging device.

For some reason I’m completely gobsmacked by the notion that I could look at nanoparticles on a smartphone at sometime in the foreseeable future.

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

Fluorescent Imaging of Single Nanoparticles and Viruses on a Smart Phone by Qingshan Wei, Hangfei Qi, Wei Luo, Derek Tseng , So Jung Ki, Zhe Wan, Zoltán Göröcs, Laurent A. Bentolila, Ting-Ting Wu, Ren Sun, and Aydogan Ozcan. ACS Nano, Article ASAP DOI: 10.1021/nn4037706 Publication Date (Web): September 9, 2013
Copyright © 2013 American Chemical Society

This paper is behind a paywall. Ozcan’s work was last mentioned here in a Jan. 21, 2013 posting about self-assembling liquid lenses.

 

Ouch, my brain hurts! Information overload in the neurosciences

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Alcino Silva, a professor of neurobiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and of psychiatry at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, has been working on the information overload problem in neuroscience for almost 30 years. In Silva’s latest effort he and his team are designing and testing  research maps, from the Aug. 8, 2013 news item  on ScienceDaily,

Before the digital age, neuroscientists got their information in the library like the rest of us. But the field’s explosion has created nearly 2 million papers — more data than any researcher can read and absorb in a lifetime.

That’s why a UCLA [University of California at Los Angeles] team has invented research maps. Equipped with an online app, the maps help neuroscientists quickly scan what is already known and plan their next study. The Aug. 8 edition of Neuron describes the findings.

The Aug. 8, 2013 UCLA news release written by Elaine Schmidt, which originated the news item, provides details about the team’s strategy for developing and testing this new tool,

Silva collaborated with Anthony Landreth, a former UCLA postdoctoral fellow, to create maps that offer simplified, interactive and unbiased summaries of research findings designed to help neuroscientists in choosing what to study next. As a testing ground for their maps, the team focused on findings in molecular and cellular cognition.

UCLA programmer Darin Gilbert Nee also created a Web-based app to help scientists expand and interact with their field’s map.

“We founded research maps on a crowd-sourcing strategy in which individual scientists add papers that interest them to a growing map of their fields,” said Silva, who started working on the problem nearly 30 years ago as a graduate student and who wrote, along with Landreth, an upcoming Oxford Press book on the subject. “Each map is interactive and searchable; scientists see as much of the map as they query, much like an online search.”

According to Silva, the map allows scientists to zero in on areas that interest them. By tracking published findings, researchers can determine what’s missing and pinpoint worthwhile experiments to pursue.

“Just as a GPS map offers different levels of zoom, a research map would allow a scientist to survey a specific research area at different levels of resolution — from coarse summaries to fine-grained accounts of experimental results,” Silva said. “The map would display no more and no less detail than is necessary for the researcher’s purposes.”

Each map encodes information by classifying it into categories and scoring the weight of its evidence based on key criteria, such as reproducibility and “convergence” — when different experiments point to a single conclusion.

The team’s next step will be to automate the map-creation process. As scientists publish papers, their findings will automatically be added to the research map representing their field.

According to Silva, automation could be achieved by using journals’ existing publication process to divide an article’s findings into smaller chapters and build “nano-publications.” Publishers would use a software plug-in to render future papers machine-readable.

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

The Need for Research Maps to Navigate Published Work and Inform Experiment Planning by Anthony Landreth and Alcino J. Silva.  Neuron, Volume 79, Issue 3, 411-415, 7 August 2013 doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2013.07.024

Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

I have provided a link to the HTML with thumbnail images version of the paper, which appears to  be open access (at least for now). I found this paper to be quite readable, from the Introduction,

The amount of published research in neuroscience has grown to be massive. The past three decades have accumulated more than 1.6 million articles alone. The rapid expansion of the published record has been accompanied by an unprecedented widening of the range of concepts, approaches, and techniques that individual neuroscientists are expected to be familiar with. The cutting edge of neuroscience is increasingly defined by studies demanding researchers in one area (e.g., molecular and cellular neuroscience) to have more than a passing familiarity with the tools, concepts, and literature of other areas (e.g., systems or behavioral neuroscience). [emphasis mine] As research relevant to a topic expands, it becomes increasingly more likely that researchers will be either overwhelmed or unaware of relevant results (or both).

Interestingly, neither author not any other team members (in addition to Nee, John Bickle, not mentioned in the news release, has co-written the forthcoming book with Silva and Landreth) mentioned seem to have any background in library or archival sciences or in information architecture or records management, all fields where people deal with massive amounts of information and accessibility issues. For example, the US National and Records Administration (NARA) is developing a data visualization tool (Action Science Explorer; my Dec. 9, 2011 posting profiles this project) to address some very similar issues to those faced in the neuroscience community.