A rather exciting story was circulating around the web this week with catchy headlines such as 'Optimal Particle Size for Anticancer Nanomedicines Discovered'. The paper ‘Investigating the optimal size of anticancer nanomedicine’ (PNAS - paywalled) explores the relationship between particle size and biological response (or in this case particle size and tumour retention time). It is a study of 3 drug–silica nanoconjugates (200nm, 50nm and 20nm). The 50nm particle was found to have the highest tumour tissue retention integrated over time. Interesting paper and still even more interesting is how science papers are reported on social media versus the reality of what the article is.
A new nanotube material made of titanium dioxide and sodium hydroxide has been recently reported in the Advanced Materials Journal looks like it may open up some new opportunities for energy storage devices. It may go a long way in solving some of the issues with energy storage (battery life and charging time). More info on the research group here.
Nanowires, Cantilevers and Nanoshells - want to learn more about nanotechnology in cancer? Check out the videojournal here at the NCI alliance for Nanotechnology in Cancer.
Magic nano: An interesting phenomenon has been reported in NatureNanotechnology (paywalled) for silver metal nanoparticles by a researchers at MIT in collaboration with colleagues from China and Japan and the USA. They investigate particles that appear, from the outside to be liquid droplets while their interiors retain a perfectly stable crystal configuration. More info here: http://www.rdmag.com/news/2014/10/solid-nanoparticles-can-deform-liquid.
NanoSafety: Up to date information on nanosafety related databases worldwide. See the latest report from the EU NanoSaferty Cluster here:
http://tinyurl.com/mtrmmbl