News from the NNI Community - Research Advances Funded by Agencies Participating in the NNI

Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a new and potentially more effective way to deliver messenger RNA (mRNA) into cells. Their approach involves packing mRNA inside nanoparticles that mimic the flu virus. To make the nanoparticles, the researchers genetically engineered cells in the lab to express the hemagglutinin protein on their cell membranes. They then separated the membranes from the cells, broke them into tiny pieces, and coated them onto nanoparticles made from a biodegradable polymer that has been pre-packed with mRNA molecules inside.

A silicon device that can change skin tissue into blood vessels and nerve cells has advanced from prototype to standardized fabrication, meaning it can now be made in a consistent, reproducible way. This non-invasive nanochip device, developed by researchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine, can reprogram tissue function by applying a harmless electric spark to deliver specific genes in a fraction of a second. In laboratory studies, the device successfully converted skin tissue into blood vessels to repair a badly injured leg. The technology is currently being used to reprogram tissue to repair brain damage caused by stroke and to prevent and reverse nerve damage caused by diabetes. 

When a person experiences a trauma that leads to significant bleeding, the first few minutes are critical. It’s important that they receive intravenous medication quickly to control the bleeding, but delivering the medication at the right rate can prove challenging. Slower infusions can cause fewer negative reactions, but the medication might not work fast enough, particularly in the case of a serious trauma. Now, researchers at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, have developed a unique way of modifying the surfaces of nanoparticles within these life-saving medications to provide infusions that can be delivered more quickly, but with a reduced risk of negative reactions.

Researchers at Michigan State University have built a powerful microscope that uses light and electrons to study materials with an unparalleled resolution. The researchers have characterized graphene nanoribbons with atomic resolution, revealing clear information about how electrons are distributed within these structures.

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory have peeled off heterostructure thin films containing electric bubbles from a particular underlying material, or substrate, while keeping them fully intact. The electric bubbles are nanoscale objects with a radius of about 4 nanometers. The discovery may bring us one step closer to applications – in areas such as microelectronics and energy – that rely upon these unusual brittle structures.

Quantum dots, discovered in the 1990s, have a wide range of applications and are perhaps best known for producing vivid colors in high-end televisions. But for some potential uses, such as tracking biochemical pathways of a drug as it interacts with living cells, progress has been hampered by the tendency of quantum dots to randomly blink off. Now, a team of MIT chemists led by professors affiliated with the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies at MIT – a U.S. Army–sponsored MIT interdisciplinary research center – has come up with a way to control this unwanted blinking by firing a beam of mid-infrared laser light for a few trillionths of a second.

The ancient arts of origami, the art of paper-folding, and kirigami, the art of paper-cutting, have gained popularity in recent years among researchers building mechanical metamaterials. Folding and cutting 2D thin-film materials transforms them into complex 3D structures and shapes with unique and programmable mechanical properties. Now, researchers in the United States and China have divided origami- and kirigami-based mechanical metamaterials – artificially engineered materials with unusual mechanical properties – into three categories that include origami-based metamaterials (folding only), kirigami-based metamaterials (cutting only), and hybrid origami-kirigami metamaterials (both folding and cutting).

A research team led by engineers from Rice University has achieved a new benchmark in the design of atomically thin solar cells made of semiconducting perovskites, boosting their efficiency while retaining their ability to stand up to the environment. The researchers discovered that sunlight itself contracts the space between atomic layers in 2D perovskites enough to improve the material's photovoltaic efficiency by up to 18%, an astounding leap in a field where progress is often measured in fractions of a percent.

By using field-emission scanning electron microscopy, researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital and MIT have discovered a new mechanism by which cancer cells can disarm would-be cellular attackers. The scientists found that cancer cells can evade the immune system by extending nanoscale tentacles into an immune cell to pull out its mitochondria, the cell’s powerpack. These findings give potential new targets for developing the next generation of immunotherapies against cancer.

MIT scientists have demonstrated that nanoparticles containing anti-inflammatory drugs can counteract the early inflammation and damage to knee cartilage caused by injuries and osteoarthritis. The researchers hoped to determine whether osteoarthritis-like disease could be initiated “in a dish” to simulate what happens in humans after a knee injury by using the microgravity environment of the International Space Station. In addition to finding more effective treatments for osteoarthritis, the work in microgravity may lead to understanding how to repair joint damage, which may be crucial for future long-term space missions.