Dr. Maria Alejandra Ortega graduated with a thesis in “Development and validation of an optofluidic ultra-sensitive platform for specific and selective detection of relevant tumor markers in oncology” at the The Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO).
Abstract, Characterization of the in vivo behavior of nanomaterials aims to optimize their design, to determine their biological effects, and to validate their application. The characteristics of the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) advocate this 1 mm long nematode as an ideal living system for the primary screening of engineered nanoparticles in a standard synthetic laboratory. This review describes some practicalities and advantages of working with C. elegans that will be of interest for chemists and materials scientists who would like to enter the “worm” community, anticipates some drawbacks, and offers relevant examples of nanoparticle assessment by using C. elegans.
Elisa Carenza, Olivier Jordan, Pablo San Segundo Martínez, Radovan Jiřík, Zenon Starčuk jr., Gerrit Borchard, Anna Rosell* and Anna Roig*
J. Mater. Chem. B, 2015,
Accepted Manuscript
DOI: 10.1039/C4TB01895H
New drug delivery systems based on biodegradable magnetic nanocapsules for targeted delivery of pro-angiogenic proteins, potentially useful in therapeutic angiogenesis.
Laura Asturias studied Chemistry and defended her PhD at the University of Burgos. She has joined our group to work on the development of heavy metal sensors for marine environment. Laura will work hand in hand with Pengfei and will be supervised by Marti Gich.
Chiral habit selection on nanostructured epitaxial quartz films
Adrián Carretero-Genevrier,* Martí Gich,* Laura Picas, Clément Sanchez, Juan Rodriguez-Carvajal,*
Faraday Discussions, DOI: 10.1039/C4FD00266K
Understanding the crystallization of enantiomorphically pure systems can be relevant to diverse fields such as the study of the origins of life or the purification of racemates. Here, we report on polycrystalline epitaxial thin films of quartz on Si substrates displaying two distinct types of chiral habits that never coexist in the same film. We combine Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) analysis and computer-assisted crystallographic calculations to make a detailed study of these habits of quartz. By estimating the surface energies of the observed crystallites we argue that the films are enantiomorphically pure and we briefly outline a possible mechanism to explain the habit and chiral selection in this system.
Crystallization of hollow mesoporous silica nanoparticles
Glenna L. Drisko, Adrian Carretero-Genevrier, Alexandre Perrot, Martí Gich, Jaume Gàzquez, Juan Rodriguez-Carvajal, Luc Favre, David Grosso, Cédric Boissière, Clément Sanchez
ChemComm, DOI: 10.1039/x0xx00000x
Complex 3D nacrostructured nanoparticles are transformed from amorphous silica into pure polycrystalline α-quartz using catalytic quantities of alkaline earths as devitrificants. Walls as thin as 10 nm could be crystallized without losing the architecture of the particles. The roles of cation size and the mol% of incorporated devitrificant on crystallization behavior are studied, with Mg2+, Ca2+, Sr2+ and Ba2+ allproducing pure α-quartz under certain conditions.
Anna and Muling showed the bacterial cellulose paper developed in our group during the last episode of QUÈQUICOM, a science popularization program of the Catalan TV (TV3 and Canal 33).
Anna presented the work “Engineering Iron Oxide Nanoparticles for Angiogenic Therapies” at the THIRD WORKSHOP ON NANOMEDICINE, UABCEI, Laura González presented the poster “EVALUATION OF THE INTERACTION BETWEEN SUPERPARAMAGNETIC IRON OXIDE NANOPARTICLES AND THE MODEL ORGANISM Caenorhabditis elegans” and Simining Yu presented the poster “BOVINE SERUM ALBUMIN MODIFIES THE INTERACTION OF SPIONS WITH BREAST CANCER CELLS”