Detecting residual vapours of chemicals, explosives and biological agents without delving into people's luggage is the future of airport security with the help of cutting edge research at Queensland University of Technology (QUT).

Co-Leader of QUT's Applied Optics Program Dr Dmitri Gramotnev said his research had discovered special metallic structures called plasmonic waveguides that could focus light into nanoscale regions, unachievable in conventional optics. These structures may allow detection and identification of extremely small amounts of substances, even separate molecules in the air.

"This type of system could revolutionise airport security, air quality monitoring and forensic investigation," he said.

"To detect explosives, chemicals or biological agents currently a piece of tape is brushed over a person's luggage and it's taken away for testing. All going well with the newly developed nano-focusing technology, luggage could be monitored and any vapours from suspect agents detected as people pass through airports."

Dr Gramotnev said another application for the technology was in allowing computers to operate much faster and more efficiently.

"Current computers use electronic circuits which have practically reached their fundamental speed limit," he said.

"Optical computers have the potential to work thousands of times faster, but the problem to date has been that using optical fibres as interconnecting wires fails to result in the required levels of miniaturisation and integration of optical circuits.

"This would make optical computers huge in size and jeopardise their potential advantages over current electronic computers.

"Our plasmonic waveguides allow light to be very tightly localised and this is a feasible way of developing efficient optical "wires" and chips with the required level of integration similar to modern electronic chips."

Dr Gramotnev said the research was also being applied to developing new imaging techniques, trapping and manipulation of nano-particles and molecules on surfaces, and new photo-induced nanofabrication processes such as high quality nano-lithography.

Work done by Dr Gramotnev and his team has been cited six times this year in Nature and Science, they have been invited to speak at five international conferences in the last two years and have won an award for a research paper presented in Japan.

The plasmonics research at QUT is conducted in close collaboration with the University of Tokusima in Japan and the Center for Nano-scale Science and Engineering at the University of California Berkeley.

Former QUT PhD student Dr David Pile was also chosen to work as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California Berkley to further the research started at QUT.

http://www.qut.edu.au

Posted 14th August 2006

http://www.azonano.com/news.asp?newsID=2842

The EuroIndia project announces the launch of its website at www.euroindianet.info. EuroIndiaNet is designed to promote stronger collaboration between EU and Indian scientists and industrialists in the nanotechnologies and nanosciences. The project, coordinated by Sociedade Portuguesa de Inovação (SPI), began in April and is funded by the European Commission's 6th Framework Programme under the International Cooperation priority.

The website is the focus point for information about the project and a means of establishing and strengthening EU-India collaboration in nanotechnology. For example, it contains information about the project's events such as the forthcoming workshop to be held in Porto on 15th September 2006. This workshop will bring together high level nanotechnology strategy and policy makers to discuss strategies for increasing future collaborative activities between the EU and India in nanotechnology.

The workshop discussions will pave the way for an EU-India Nanotechnology Platform Strategy, encompassing research, industry and government whose implementation will aim to provide the framework necessary to further EU-India nanotechnology collaboration. This along with other means such as the networking opportunities provided during the project's events will contribute to fostering innovation in nanotechnology to the benefit of both the EU and India.

In addition to the project's events, the project's Message Forum provides another opportunity for discussing and developing collaborations. Other website features include useful links for those wanting to explore opportunities for research collaboration in nanotechnology in the EU and India. The project's informative reports will be posted on the website throughout the project and there are also plans for a database describing key infrastructure and organizations with the facility for scientists interested in EU-India collaborations in nanotechnology to register their details.

The project is being conducted by a number of highly prestigious institutions in addition to the coordinator SPI, Portugal including: the Institute of Nanotechnology, UK, Malsch TechnoValuation, The Netherlands, the Indian Institute of Science, India, the Science and Technology Park Pune, India, the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India and the University of Delhi South Campus, India.

Together the organizations comprising the project partnership will be studying the Policies, funding, support structures and training programmes fostering innovation in nanotechnology in the EU and India. They will collaborate with nanotechnology researchers to put together a booklet of "Who's who in Nanotechnology in India and Europe" and with high level experts to develop an "EU-India Nanotechnology Platform Strategy" that will aim to foster innovation through collaboration in nanotechnology to the competitive advantage of both the EU and India.

http://www.nanotech-now.com/news.cgi?story_id=16916

In a move to further boost the area of nano-technology, the government has set a bigger Nano Science and Technology Mission.

The bigger mission of the government would uplift this area in a comprehensive manner including Nano-Technology development through increased public private partnerships(PPP) and entrepreneurial ventures.

In a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, the Minister of Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, Kapil Sibal stated that the government has spent approximately Rs 2 bn over the past five years to promote R&D in the area of nano-technology and has already funded over 100 research projects to promote the sector.

Highlighting the fact, he informed that some major corporates have started investing in nanotechnology research at a modest level in the country.

Mahindra and Mahindra and Reliance have already established nanotechnology centres, he added.

http://www.myiris.com/newsCentre/newsPopup.php?
fileR=20060814160611088&dir=2006/08/14&secID=livenews

MUMBAI: Imagine a shirt which protects you from cold during the chill and cools you when its hot. In summers, it changes to a lighter colour. Come winter and it takes on a darker hue. Science fiction?

Not really. That's nanotechnology at work. Shirts like these will be created by putting a thing called nano-coating into it.

Stain and crease-free clothing, already available in the market, is the outcome of this technology. According to a report, nanotechnology is set to play a major part in drug delivery systems, especially for tumour therapies.

The report cites nanoparticles as being suited to curing conditions like cancer, as their sizes are comparable with tissue cells.

The emergence of nanotechnology is likely to affect just about every route of administration from oral to injectable.

"When combined with available binding agents, these nanoparticles can turn into targeted drug delivery systems," said Hrishikesh Bidwe from Frost & Sullivan.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1906192.cms

Manufacture of stain resistant clothes to light and strong tennis rackets…. The way things are created is being transformed by nanotechnology. But, this technology will have its greatest influence on the healthcare industry in future.

Researchers at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago think that remarkably new ways of diagnosing and treating ovarian cancer can be developed using nanotechnology. Rush researchers are using state-of-the-art nanotechnology to improve women's health. They are working in collaboration with Argonne National Laboratory and the Illinois Institute of Technology.

"While the mortality rates of many cancers have decreased significantly in recent decades, the rate for ovarian cancer had not changed much in the last 50 years, primarily due to delays in diagnosis," said Dr. Jacob Rotmensch, section director of gynecologic oncology at Rush. "By exploiting the unique properties of nanotechnology, we hope to detect ovarian cancer earlier using highly sensitive imaging tools and develop drug carriers that can deliver therapeutic agents inside tumor cells."

"A nanotechnology based approach is needed because diagnosis of early stage cancer requires the detection and characterization of very small quantities of biomarker," added Dr. Liaohai Chen, a molecular biologist and leader of the nano-bio group in the Biosciences Division at Argonne, and an adjunct faculty at Rush University Medical Center
A nanometer is one billionth of a meter or 1/80,000 the width of a human hair. Nanoscale devices can perform tasks inside the body that would otherwise not be possible, such as entering most cells and moving through the walls of blood vessels. As a result, nanoscale devices can readily interact with individual molecules on both the cell surface and within the cell, in ways that do not alter the behavior of those molecules.

One area of research involves developing a screening test that would not require removal of the ovary for biopsy. Collaborating with Dr. Rong Wang, an associate professor at Illinois Institute of Technology, the research team is using an atomic force microscope, a very-high resolution microscope that can investigate the interaction of individual protein molecules. With this microscope the research team can study the molecular structure of cancer versus non-cancer cells and compare the stiffness. Cancer tissues are more stiff than healthy tissues. Instead of removing the ovary to determine if cancerous tissue is present, a probe is currently under development to follow the tissue stiffness in vivo to diagnose cancer.

A second area of research involving nanotechnology uses viral particles as templates to fabricate uniform, nanometer imaging probes and drug carriers. The research team is extracting the DNA from viral particles and replacing it with imaging agents. The goal is to have the viral capsule adhere to a cancer cell and inject the imaging or a therapeutic agent into the cell. This technology could lead to early diagnosis and the development of targeted drug therapy that kills cancer cells while leaving the rest of the body unharmed.

"The development of a smart probe and carrier complex will provide significant advantage to the clinicians as they can locate the tumor, monitor the drug delivery vehicle and control drug release using imaging techniques," said Chen.

Another avenue of nanotechnology research at Rush is to develop nanometer sized contrast agents with ultrasound to diagnose ovarian cancer. Such nano ultrasonographic contrast media can pass through the smallest capillaries. These tiny bubbles light up on ultrasound and may be able to show the earliest vascular changes associated with ovarian malignancy. If this is successful, further research will be conducted to study targeted imaging as well as targeted therapy.

Ovarian cancer is the fifth-most common cancer among American women and claims the lives of more North American women each year than all other gynecologic malignancies combined. About 75 percent of patients are not diagnosed until the disease is in its later stages, and current therapies are not effective enough to successfully treat the disease in such advanced stages.

"There has been a great amount of progress made in the field of nanotechnology over the last five years, but it has not yet been applied to women's health," said Rotmensch. "We believe this 'small-particle' technology has the capability to quickly and sensitively detect cancer molecules earlier than ever before. This research opens new avenues that will directly impact patient care, such as drug development, diagnostic imaging and ultimately, prevention."

Source: Eurekalert

http://www.medindia.net/news/view_news_main.asp?str=2&x=13490