NBTC: Research Areas

Prions picked up by tuning fork detector

March 27, 2008 - Prions that cause disorders such as mad cow disease are notoriously difficult to detect in people or animals before symptoms arise. Now researchers are attempting to develop sensors that can detect prions by having them bind to a tiny ‘tuning fork’ that changes its tune when prions are present.
Prions are abnormally structured proteins that are able to convert normal proteins into the abnormal form. They are infectious and cause a number of neurodegenerative diseases. Historically, the only way to accurately detect the presence of prions in people has been to take a blood sample, inject it into a test animal, wait several months and then kill the animal and sample its brain tissue. Aside from being slow, expensive and somewhat grisly, this method is not particularly effective, with a correct diagnosis only 31% of the time.

Go to the Nature news article

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	Nanoday Brings Big and Small Out to Play With Nanotechnology
	March 31, 2008 - Yesterday, hundreds of kids — some just knee-high and others soon to be college applicants — ran up and down Duffield Atrium with all sorts of goody bags in tow. But their goody bags were not filled with party favors; instead they were labeled with scientific facts and filled with things like multicolored filter paper and edible but unfamiliar small red blobs. Examining the looks on their faces, one might think they kids were attending a party, but in fact it was the first Nanoday at Cornell, where families came to learn about nanotechnology. Each goody bag came from a different hands-on exhibit in Duffield Hall, with 20 different tables in all, ranging from making your own silly putty using simple chemical reactions to visualizing DNA in a small tube. The activities appealed to kids with familiar things, like silly putty, but also taught them about the nanotechnology involved in making them. About 1,000 elementary, middle and high schoolers, parents and teachers attended Cornell’s Nanoday, a week-long national event that began Saturday and was headed by the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network to raise awareness and educate the public about nanoscale science. Go to The Cornell Daily Sun news article


	C.U. Developing Artificial Vascular System
	November 12, 2007 - Imagine being able to grow new tissue in a laboratory from cells that can later be used to repair damaged organs. This possibility is becoming a reality, as Cornell researchers make remarkable strides with the development of an artificial microvascular system. This technology mimics the vascular system of the human body, carrying oxygen, sugar, proteins and growth factors to cells contained within a scaffold. The system is composed of microchannels embedded in a water-based gel, holding millions of living cells which can be formed to fit desired shapes. “Whereas most microfabrication is done into silicon or glass, here we are microfabricating into a living tissue to put in these capillaries,” said Prof. Abraham Stroock, chemical and bio-molecular engineering, a co-author of the study, “and we can then use these capillaries as the microvascular system to keep the tissue alive and direct the tissue towards the desired structure and biological function.” The research is a key development in tissue engineering, as past technology could not adequately circulate vital fluids among cells within a scaffold. “One of the limitations of growing tissue outside the body is that they’re not hooked up to a vascular system that nourishes them in the body,” said Prof. Lawrence Bonassar, biomedical engineering, another co-author of the study. “We can create an artificial vascular system to keep these tissues alive for longer and potentially make larger tissues than can be made with other existing technology.” This research has implications for patients in need of tissue repair or replacement. “We’re trying to grow a piece of living tissue that one day could be implanted back into a patient to repair a defect or an injured sight, or even replace a defective organ or tissue,” Stroock said. This system can also be used to distribute varying nutrients to specific cells, enabling researchers to manipulate which cells develop into specific tissues. This may prove extremely useful for patients who, for example, require a sample containing both cartilage and bone for a knee replacement. This type of technique may be feasible within three to five years, according to Prof. Jason Spector of Weill Cornell Medical College. Go to the full Cornell Sun article

		Ithaca-Weill collaborations spur videoconferencing upgrades
		October 12, 2007 - Students in Biophysical Methods (A&EP 570) are taught by Manfred Lindau, professor of applied and engineering physics, and Fred Maxfield, professor and chair of the Department of Biochemistry at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City. Maxfield doesn't commute. He lectures from New York City, appearing larger than life on a screen in 162 Hollister Hall. In this state-of-the-art classroom, anyone who wants to ask a question can push a small button to turn on a microphone embedded in the desk; a camera mounted on the front wall zooms in on the questioner, allowing Maxfield some visual feedback. The rest of the time he sees the whole classroom.
"The visual clue is important to the presenter," says Graham Kerslick, associate director of the Cornell Nanobiotechnology Center. "If people are looking slightly baffled, you know it's just a little over their heads." The Nanobiotechnology Center holds weekly seminars that also include Weill-Cornell faculty as virtual visitors, and a growing number of other research groups and classes are exploiting the ability to meet Weill faculty and students face-to-face, so to speak. Videoconferencing has become easier since Cornell established a 10 gigabit per second fiber optic pipeline between Ithaca and New York City, and Cornell Information Technologies' (CIT) Project Ezra has strung new fiber connections to classrooms. In turn, upgrades in technology have been spurred by the growth of intercampus collaborative research and teaching. Late last year the university approved a $1 million plan for new technology specifically to support Ithaca-Weill collaboration. Go to the full Chronicle article

Side-to-side shaking of nanoresonators throws off impurities, researchers find

October 12, 2007 - Tiny vibrating silicon resonators are of intense interest in nanotechnology circles for their potential ability to detect bacteria, viruses, DNA and other biological molecules. Cornell researchers have demonstrated a new way to make these resonators vibrate "in the plane" -- that is, side to side -- and have shown that this can serve a vital function: shaking off extraneous stuff that isn't supposed to be detected.
The research is reported in the July 14 online version of the journal Nano Letters and in the August print edition. The typical resonator is a cantilever -- a narrow strip of silicon a few millionths of a meter long that can be made to vibrate up and down like a diving board just after someone jumps off. In research aimed at building the much-sought "lab on a chip," Professor Harold Craighead's group at Cornell and other researchers have shown that by binding antibodies to such resonators they can cause pathogens to attach to them. At the nanoscale, just adding the mass of one bacterium, virus or large molecule is enough to change the resonant frequency of vibration of the cantilever by a measurable amount, thereby signaling the presence of the pathogen. Go to the full Chronicle Article

		CU researchers shed light on light-emitting nanodevice
		Oct. 3, 2007 - An interdisciplinary team of Cornell nanotechnology researchers has unraveled some of the fundamental physics of a material that holds promise for light-emitting, flexible semiconductors. The discovery, which involved years of perfecting a technique for building a specific type of light-emitting device, is reported in the Sept. 30 online publication of the journal Nature Materials. The interdisciplinary team had long studied the molecular semiconductor ruthenium tris-bipyridine. For many reasons, including its ability to allow electrons and holes (spaces where electrons were before they moved) to pass through it easily, the material has the potential to be used for flexible light-emitting devices. Sensing, microscopy and flat-panel displays are among its possible applications. The researchers set out to understand the fundamental physics of the material -- that is, what happens when it encounters an electric field, both at the interfaces and inside the film. By fabricating a device out of the ruthenium metal complex that was spin-coated onto an insulating substrate with pre-patterned gold electrodes, the scientists were able to use electron force microscopy to measure directly the electric field of the device.
			Go to the full Chronicle article

Researchers mimic vascular system to nourish engineered tissue for transplants
Oct. 5, 2007 - One day soon, laboratories may grow synthetically engineered tissues such as muscle or cartilage needed for transplants. In a major step forward, Cornell engineers describe in the journal Nature Materials a microvascular system they have developed that can nourish growing tissues.
The researchers have engineered tiny channels within a water-based gel that mimic a vascular system at the cellular scale and can supply oxygen, essential nutrients and growth factors to feed individual cells. The so-called gel scaffold can hold tens of millions of living cells per milliliter in a 3-D arrangement, such as in the shape of a knee meniscus, to create a template for tissue to form. In theory, the system could accommodate many kinds of tissue. "A significant impediment to building engineered tissues is that you can't feed the core," said Abraham Stroock, Cornell assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and one of the paper's senior authors. "Simply embedding this mimic of a microvascular system allows you to maintain the core of the tissue during culture." Gel scaffolds, he said, "are the culture flasks of the future." Go to the full Chronicle Article

Cornell's Nanobiotechnology Center to lead NSF-funded research in flexible electronics and biosensors
September 11, 2007 - Growing interest in using flexible electronics for next-generation biomedical devices has prompted the creation of a new graduate student research program at Cornell, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Cornell's Nanobiotechnology Center (NBTC) has received $3.2 million over five years from NSF's Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) program. Recruited IGERT fellows will work in teams to design and test biodevices -- from biologically compliant neural implants to wireless drug delivery -- using flexible electronics. Called the FlexEBio research grant, the program will focus on: biosensors; the material-biology interface; and flexible implantable electronics for medical monitoring, diagnostics and therapeutics. The broad research area of flexible electronics has been developing over the past decade, said Christopher Ober, the F.N. Bard Professor of Materials Engineering and principal investigator. Such efforts have to date produced flexible displays and flat-panel lighting, as well as circuitry printed onto flat, plastic substrates -- using methods similar to how an inkjet printer prints on paper. Go the full Chronicle article

Cornell researchers develop virus-size 'nanolamps' that could aid use of flexible electronic devices as sensors
February 12, 2007 - To help light up the nanoworld, a Cornell interdisciplinary team of researchers has produced microscopic "nanolamps" -- light-emitting nanofibers about the size of a virus or the tiniest of bacteria. In a collaboration of experts in organic materials and nanofabrication, researchers have created one of the smallest organic light-emitting devices to date, made up of synthetic fibers just 200 nanometers wide (1 nanometer is one-billionth of a meter). The potential applications are in flexible electronic products, which are being made increasingly smaller. Go the full Cornell Chronicle article here

	Harold Craighead Elected to National Academy of Engineering
	February 12, 2007 - Two members of Cornell's engineering faculty -- Harold Craighead, the Charles W. Lake Jr. Professor of Engineering, and Éva Tardos, professor and chair of the Department of Computer Science -- are among 64 new members and nine foreign associates elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Election to the academy is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to engineering faculty members. Go the full Cornell Chronicle article here

Five Cornell faculty members honored as AAAS Fellows
January 23, 2007 - Five members of the Cornell faculty have been named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world's largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science. The researchers will be recognized at the annual AAAS meeting, held this year in San Francisco on Feb. 17. Those being honored are Hector Abruña, the E.M. Chamot Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and department chair; Barbara Baird, professor of chemistry and chemical biology; Geoffrey William Coates, professor of chemistry and chemical biology; Michael Shuler, the S.B. Eckert Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the J. and M. McCormick Chair of Biomedical Engineering; and Mariana Wolfner, professor of molecular biology and genetics. Go the full Cornell Chronicle article here

Cornell-developed exhibit at Disney's Epcot offers youngsters a window into too-small-to-see nano world
November 17, 2006 - A world that is too small to see is going to seem a bit bigger when visitors get a chance to interact with, build, play and watch molecules in an interactive exhibit, "Too Small to See," which opens Nov. 18 at Epcot's Innoventions at Walt Disney World, Lake Buena Vista, Fla. And in mid-May through fall 2007, the arcade-like, 5,000-square-foot museum exhibition, developed by a team led by Carl Batt, the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Food Science at Cornell, will be at Ithaca's Sciencenter before traveling throughout the United States. The exhibit, aimed at 8- to 13-year-olds, helps visitors view the world at the atomic scale and to better understand just how small a nanometer -- one billionth of a meter -- is (it is to a meter what 2.5 centimeters are to about two-thirds of the way around the Earth.) Go to the Chronicle article


It's a really small world after all: Sciencenter puts big focus on little things
October 11, 2006 - A popular exhibition that introduces children to the world of nanotechnology returned Monday to Ithaca. The exhibition, “It's a Nano World,” will be at the Sciencenter through December. The exhibition is designed to teach children ages five years old to eight years old about Nanobiotechnology. Nanobiotechnology is the study and creation of biological technology on an extremely small scale. “It's using these very tiny tools to learn about living things, that's our main message throughout the exhibition,” said Catherine McCarthy, grant projects director for Sciencenter. McCarthy was also the exhibition's project manager. Go to Ithaca Journal article

			Cornell's Nanobiotechnology Center becomes model for teaching in Kentucky
		Jul 19, 2006 - A researcher from Kentucky State University has chosen Cornell's National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Nanobiotechnology Center (NBTC) to fulfill a faculty-training grant that will allow him to create a nanobiotechnology course at his home institution. Narayanan Rajendran, assistant professor of molecular microbiology and biotechnology at Kentucky State University and a visiting assistant professor at Cornell, was one of five faculty members nationwide to receive an award, funded by the NSF through the Quality Education for Minorities (QEM) Network, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C. The grant supports minority faculty members to train at one of 13 science and technology centers around the country and then to return to their home institutions and implement new programs and courses. Go to Chronicle Article.

Cornell Museum Exhibits Allow Children to Enter World of the Very, Very Small
Feb 18, 2006 - ST. LOUIS, Mo. - Science learning isn't all in books. Sometimes you can hold it in your hand, walk through it, sit inside it, play with it. Those approaches are especially effective with children and can make abstract concepts easier to understand. Take nanotechnology for example. Over the last three years, elementary school children all over the United States have been learning about incomprehensibly tiny things by walking through and playing with very large and colorful things in a traveling science museum exhibition created by Cornell University's National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Nanobiotechnology Center (NBTC) in partnership with the Sciencecenter, Ithaca's hands-on science museum, and Painted Universe, a local design firm. Go to Chronicle article.

	Cornell Scientists Build 'Nano-Keys' to Bind Cell Receptors and Trigger Allergic Reactions
	Feb 16, 2006 - ST. LOUIS, Mo. - Cornell University researchers have fabricated a set of 'nano-keys' on the same scale as molecules to interact with receptors on cell membranes and trigger larger-scale responses within cells, such as the release of histamines in an allergic response. How cell membranes control cellular function has long been studied but with few results. However, nanotechnology now gives researchers new tools to better understand the role of cell membranes in activitating responses within cells. Go to Chronicle article.

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This material is based upon work supported in part by the STC Program of the National Science Foundation under Agreement No. ECS-9876771. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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