NanomedicineCenter.com

Nanodevices detect bacteria in food

It is estimated that over eleven million Canadians suffer from some kind of illnesses caused by bacteria intake through food. Most of the cases aren’t serious, but some definitely are — especially with pregnant women, for example. That’s why scientists were thoroughly working on designing a device based on nanotechnology standards which will be able to detect bacteria (such as salmonella) in food.

Although the technology has advanced, at this moment there is no quick test which would detect bacteria in food. “At the moment, the problem is you have to take a sample, put it on petri dish and put in stove for one day or sometimes three days (it depends on the pathogen you’re looking for), and then you count the colonies and know whether or not there are these nasty microbes,” said Frans Kampers, a biotech researcher.

There are many other areas where nanotechnology standards could be used — for example, it is possible to lower the number of calories in food, by replacing the inside of fat molecules with water, leaving the outside of the droplets and the taste and texture of the food unchanged.

Adopted from materials provided by cbc.ca

Nanoprobes detect and destroy cancer

A scientist from Purdue University has developed a nanoprobe, with many antibodies attached to it (herceptin). It is supposed to be able to locate tumors and might one day be able to directly attack cancer cells.

Joseph Irudayaraj, the scientist, said: “If we have a tumor, these nanoprobes should have the ability to latch on to it. The probe could carry drugs to target, treat as well as reveal cancer cells.”

Nanoscale probes that were created before were based on gold nanorods or magnetic nanoparticles. However, Irudayaraj’s probes use both, and that strengthens their properties.
The probes would be injected into the body through a saline buffering fluid, and the Herceptin would find and attach to protein markers on the surface of cancer cells.

“When the cancer cell expresses a protein marker that is complementary to Herceptin, then it binds to that marker,” said Irudayaraj. “We are advancing the technology to add other drugs that can be delivered by the probes.”

This is an another proof that nanomedicine is growing every day, and it’s on the way to become huge in the near future.

The details are published in Angewandte Chemie.

Adopted from materials provided by purdue.edu

New treatment for bladder cancer

Scientists from University of Columbia have developed a new method for bladder cancer treatment. The experiments were done on mice — researchers “copied” almost all aspects of human bladder cancer. The new method disrupts a signaling pathway, known as mTOR, which blocks tumor growth. Scientists have found that a drug called rapamycin inhibits mTOR and slows down tumor growth in mice.

One of the researchers, Dr. Abate-Shen said: “We believe that this new mouse model of human bladder cancer will be invaluable to the field of bladder cancer research. Already it has provided a relevant preclinical model for therapeutic investigations and a strong rationale for targeting the mTOR signaling pathway in patients with invasive bladder cancer.”

“This new mouse model is enormously important for the study of bladder cancer,” said Daniel P. Petrylak, anohter member of the researching crew.

The details are published in Genes & Development.