Iron Salts Produce Beautiful Crystal Landscape

Alexis Ostrowski's lab at Bowling Green State University studies reactions of iron salts, where iron (III) is reduced by light. Sometimes, the results are spectacular, like in this petri dish, where Fe(III) ammonium citrate (green) and potassium ferricyanide (orange and yellow) turn into  blue Fe(II) salts, like Prussian Blue etc.

Using Nature's Motors to Deliver Drugs

In a recent C&EN article, it was mentioned that bacteria and sperm have natural advantages over synthetic nanomotors when navigating the body’s byways. And as an example for how to exploit that they gave the example of how Sylvain Martel at the Polytechnique Montreal used a strain of Magnetococcus marinus bacteria called MC-1 to carry anticancer drugs into tumors within mice (Nat. Nanotechnol. 2016, DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2016.137). This bacteria species is a good choice for entering tumors, he says, because it likes a low-oxygen environment, which is typically found in tumors.

Martel’s team created the swimmers by covering individual MC-1 bacterial cells with over 70 nanosized liposomes containing anticancer drugs. This keeps the overall size of the swimmers under 2 µm, small enough to enter and move around within tumors, Martel says. The researchers tested the swimmers in mice that had colorectal tumors by injecting the swimmers a few millimeters outside the tumors, magnetically guiding the swimmers into the tumors, and then letting them penetrate deep inside. Up to 55% of the injected swimmers entered the tumors, concentrating around regions with particularly low oxygen levels.

Combination of MPI and MFH

Steve Conolly and his group together with Carlos Rinaldi and his group have just published an interesting article about combining magnetic fluid hyperthermia (MFH) and magnetic particle imaging (MPI). The physics germane to and exploited by MPI and MFH are similar, and the same magnetic particles can be used effectively for both. Consequently, the method of signal localization through the use of gradient fields in MPI can also be used to spatially localize MFH, allowing for spatially selective heating deep in the body and generally providing greater control and flexibility in MFH. Furthermore, MPI and MFH may be integrated together in a single device for simultaneous MPI-MFH and seamless switching between imaging and therapeutic modes.

The authors show simulation and experimental work quantifying the extent of spatial localization of MFH using MPI systems. They report the first combined MPI-MFH system and demonstrate on-demand selective heating of nanoparticle samples separated by only 3 mm (up to 0.4 °C per second heating rates and 150 W/g SAR deposition). They also show experimental data for MPI performed at a typical MFH frequency and show preliminary simultaneous MPI-MFH experimental data.

Check the paper out here.

Iron-Oxide Nanoparticle-Based Magnetic Resonance Contrast Agents

If you ever needed to know all about magnetic nanoparticles as MRI contrast agents, then you have it now all in one place. A large group of authors just published a comprehensive review of this field as chapter 4 of of the book "New Developments in NMR No. 13, Contrast Agents for MRI: Experimental Methods", Edited by Valerie C. Pierre and Matthew J. Allen, The Royal Society of Chemistry 2018.

If you can't find it in your library, then please contact Ladislau Vekas, he can help you out.

Fast Magnetic Data Storage

Magnetic data storage has long been considered too slow for use in the working memories of computers. Researchers at ETH have now investigated a technique by which magnetic data writing can be done considerably faster and using less energy. Instead of using a current-carrying coil producing a magnetic field to change the direction of magnetization they used an electric current passing through a specially coated semiconductor film. They found that the magnetization inversion happened in less than one nanosecond – considerably faster than in other recently studied techniques. In a first step, the researchers would now like to optimize their materials in order to make the inversion work even faster and at smaller currents.

Frontiers in Biomagnetic Particles Meeting 2017 - Excellent as Always!

The 2017 meeting in Asheville, NC, was a great success. This would not be possible without the outstanding talks, posters, and discussions that you can go and check out in the attached abstract booklet here. But it also would not be possible without the energy of the organizers, Jennifer Andrew, Mark Bolding, Thompson Mefford, to again find a great meeting location, excellent invited speakers, and allow for pleasant information exchange and a chance for a good time together. Thank you all!

For more information, check out this website.

Successful 5th Colloquium of the DFG Priority Program 1681

The 5^th Colloquium of the DFG Priority Program 1681: Field controlled particle matrix interactions: synthesis multi-scale modelling and application of magnetic- hybrid materials was held in the Bavarian cloister Benediktbeuern from September 27-29, 2017. This colloquium is part of a special program of the German Research Foundation (DFG), that started in January 2014 and is focused on novel magnetic hybrid materials research. The research ranges from magnetic material production to technical and medical applications and includes modelling of field dependent interaction with different matrices. The large program benefits from the cross-specialization collaboration of chemists, physicist, engineers, biologists, and medics.

Almost 4 years after the start of the program, 86 scientists from each of the 31 projects in the program presented their most recent research findings in scientific talks and posters in the atmosphere of very history-charged walls. The highlight of the annual three-day meeting was, as always, a hiking tour in the mountains that culminates in scientific presentations being given in an alpine hut without any projection equipment. This year, the selected two speakers presented their recently finished dissertations on “Ferrogel actuators for bioapplications” (Emilia Wisotzki, Leipzig) and on “Particle motion investigation by Mössbauer spectroscopy” (Joachim Landers, Duisburg-Essen).

The next colloquium will take place at the end of September 2018, at which time 5 of the 6 years  of the grant period will have elapsed. Planning future research in joint projects will then be in everybody's mind. For more information about this large German grant program, check out: http://www.magnetofluiddynamik.de/spp1681/index.php/willkommen

The Albus Award 2017 Goes to Anna Roig from ICMAB-CSIC

Congratulations to Prof. Anna Roig from the Group of Nanoparticles and Nanocomposites, Institut de Ciencia de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC) for obtaining and Albus Grifols Scientific Award.