From the 20th to the 22nd of November 2018 the PhD fellow Irene Anton attended to the NanoBio&Med conference organized at the Parc Científic of de Barcelona. This multidisciplinary congress was very useful to catch up with the recent advances in the rapidly evolving field of nanobiotechnology. Irene got the opportunity to present her results regarding bacterial nanocellulose interactions with human cells with both a poster and a talk. Her poster entitled “Bacterial nanocellulose and bacterial nanocellulose nanocomposites as substrates for cell culture” was selected for the best poster award sponsored by the journal Biomolecules MDPI.
Thanks to the MDPI publishing group for the prize!
Abstract: Magnetic hyperthermia is an oncological therapy where magnetic nanostructures, under a radiofrequency field, act as heat transducers increasing tumour temperature and killing cancerous cells. Nanostructure heating efficiency depends both on the field conditions and on the nanostructure properties and mobility inside the tumour. Such nanostructures are often incorrectly bench-marketed in the colloidal state and using field settings far off from the recommended therapeutic values. Here, we prepared nanoclusters composed of iron oxide magnetite nanoparticles crystallographically aligned and their specific absorption rate (SAR) values were calorimetrically determined in physiological fluids, agarose-gel-phantoms and ex vivo tumours extracted from mice challenged with B16-F0 melanoma cells. A portable, multipurpose applicator using medical field settings; 100 kHz and 9.3 kA m−1, was developed and the results were fully analysed in terms of nanoclusters’ structural and magnetic properties. A careful evaluation of the nanoclusters’ heating capacity in the three milieus clearly indicates that the SAR values of fluid suspensions or agarose-gel-phantoms are not adequate to predict the real tissue temperature increase or the dosage needed to heat a tumour. Our results show that besides nanostructure mobility, perfusion and local thermoregulation, the nanostructure distribution inside the tumour plays a key role in effective heating. A suppression of the magnetic material effective heating efficiency appears in tumour tissue. In fact, dosage had to be increased considerably, from the SAR values predicted from fluid or agarose, to achieve the desired temperature increase. These results represent an important contribution towards the design of more efficient nanostructures and towards the clinical translation of hyperthermia.
The N&N group wishes you all a happy Diwali!Today we celebrate a Hindu-originated festival also known as the festival of lights. This celebration lasts for five days in Hindu communities and clay lamps known as diyas are lit to signify the victory of good over evil. We learnt about this festivity thanks to Sumithra, a new PhD student at the N&N group coming from India. We are very pleased to belong to such an international research group!
Abstract: Iron oxides are among the major constituents of the deep Earth’s interior. Among them, the epsilon phase of Fe2O3 is one of the less studied polymorphs and there is a lack of information about its structural, electronic and magnetic transformations at extreme conditions. Here we report the precise determination of its equation of state and a deep analysis of the evolution of the polyhedral units under compression, thanks to the agreement between our experiments and ab-initio simulations. Our results indicate that this material, with remarkable magnetic properties, is stable at pressures up to 27 GPa. Above 27 GPa, a volume collapse has been observed and ascribed to a change of the local environment of the tetrahedrally coordinated iron towards an octahedral coordination, finding evidence for a different iron oxide polymorph. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-06966-9
From the 8th to the 12th of October 2018 Sole Roig, PhD candidate at the N&N group, participated in the 2nd Conference in Polymer Science (POLYMAR) dedicated to biopolymers and taking place in a cruise through the Aegean sea. Her presentation “Microstructuration and functionalization of bacterial cellulose” was awarded with the Best Oral Presentation by an early stage researcher price sponsored by Publishing MDPI, congratulations Sole!
“POLYMAR2018 was a very interesting congress with a new format I have never seen before. The industrial point of view of most of the talks offered me the possibility to learn new approaches that we can apply on our lab in order to make easier the commercialization of the materials we are investigating.”
On 10th Otober 2018 Anna Roig attended the 2018 Albus Scientific Awards Ceremony at Grifols headquarters in Sant Cugat. As one of the two awardees of the 2017 edition, she presented the results on the Albumin-iron oxide nanocages project.Carlos Moya is the post-doc working in this project. This year’s award recipients are:
Paolo Caraceni, MD, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna Bologna, Italy Project: Long‐term albumin administration in patients with decompensated cirrhosis: clinical and pathophysiological implications
Hanadi Sleiman, PhD, Department of Chemistry, McGill University, Montreal, Canada Project: Albumin as a passive targeting agent: effect of the protein binding on stability, bio distribution and therapeutic outcome of oligonucleotides and DNA nanoparticles
Anna Roig presenting the project on albumin nanocages
The call for the PhD grants form the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities “FORMACIÓN DE PROFESORADO UNIVERSITARIO (FPU) 2018” is now open. If you are a highly motivated student with a strong background in chemistry/physics do not hesitate to contact us (alaromaine@icmab.es)! The N&N group is offering a PhD project on the topic “Engineering Bacterial Cellulose Composites” aiming at developing new materials based on bacterial nanocellulose. Join us if you want to take part in this innovative project within an interdisciplinary and dynamic research group!
From September 26th to 28th, the postdoc researcher from the N&N group Dr. Carlos Moya attended the International Conference on Nanomedicine and Nanobiotechnology (ICONAN 2018) in Rome (Italy). He gave a talk about “Human serum Albumin pre-formed on SPIONS”.
13th and 14th September 2018 Anna Roig travelled to Palma de Mallorca in order to be part of a thesis defense committee at the Universitat de les Illes Balears. The title of the defended thesis was: Síntesis y aplicación de Compuestos Híbridos Nanoestructurados basados en Óxido de Hierro y/o Nanodiamantes. It was presented by María Susana Gutiérrez Gómez and supervised by Dr. Jeroni Morey Salvà and Dra. María Nieves Piña Capó.
Anna Roig was also invited to gave a seminar on this university with the title: “Celulosa biosintetizada pro bacterias como plataforma para crear nuevos materiales funcionales” where she explained our project on bacterial nanocellulose.
From September 9th to 13th, the PhD student Irene Anton stayed in Maastricht (The Netherlands) in order to participate in the ESB Congress 2018. She shared her work with the poster “Bacterial Nanocellulose (BNC) and BNC-TiO2 nanocomposites as cell carriers”. The topic of the conference was “materials for life” and Irene got a very nice opportunity to catch up with the latest advances on her research field.
Irene and her poster about biomedical applications of bacterial nanocellulose
