Monday 30th July
We celebrated summer time with the second international football match for the N&N group members together with other ICMAB researchers. It was another fun and tight match that ended with a victory for the team led by Dr. Ziliang Li. Thanks to all the players and organizers!
On Monday, July 16, 2018, the first ICMAB-CRAG meeting took place at CRAG. The goal of this meeting was to promote new collaborations among researchers from the ICMAB and the CRAG.
Anna Laromaine, who already collaborates with CRAG with the project “Plant nano-healing“, gave an overview about the C.elegans and the bacterial cellulose research lines in the N&N group. Later, Anna Roig presented the library of nanoparticles and its diverse applications that the N&N group has developed in the recent years.
Anna May, postdoc in our group, is from now on the new Communication & Outreach Officer at ICMAB. Anna holds a PhD in Materials Science and Technology and is currently studying a postgraduate course in Science Communication.
Nothing in science has any value to society if it is not communicated, and scientists are beginning to learn their social obligations. — Anne Roe (The Making of a Scientist (1953), 17)
We wish her all the luck in this new endeavour!
ICMAB organizes the summer school “Materials for Biomedical Applications”, which will present the design, development and application of new materials for a wide range of biomedical applications. The summer school is addressed to last year undergraduate, master and PhD students.
The school includes lectures from international and local speakers, hands on and management activities. As a consequence, this scientific school is an optimal opportunity to discover, learn and practise on material science focusing on fundamental science and applied research in the field of biomedicine.
The local organizing committee is formed by Arantzazu González, Anna Laromaine, Rosario Núñez, Jose Vidal-Gancedo and Gerard Tobias.
Anna Laromaine and Zhongrui Luo attended last week the VI Spanish Worm Meeting in Valencia (Spain), a biennial gathering of the scientific communitiy working with C. elegans. This meeting covers a wide range of topics, including development, neurobiology, aging and disease, metabolism and new technologies applied to C. elegans.
Anna gave the talk on “Evaluation of albumin pre-coated SPIONS in cell culture and C. elegans“ (Laura González-Moragas, Si-Ming Yu, Maria Milla, Anna Roig, Anna Laromaine) on Friday 10th March.
Luo presented the poster “Evaluation of the nano-bio interactions between Au-NPs and Caenorhabditis elegans“ (Laura González-Moragas, Zhongrui Luo, Anna Roig, Anna Laromaine). It was his first time in Valencia and he really enjoyed the meeting!
Mihaela Popovici, Senior Researcher at the Semiconductor Technology and Systems Unit at IMEC (Interuniversity MicroElectronics Center, Leuven, Belgium) is visiting the ICMAB this week, invited by Anna Roig.
On Monday she gave an ICMAB Seminar at 12 pm at Sala d’actes “Carles Miravitlles”, entitled “Crystalline phase dependency of the electrical performance of oxide dielectrics for semiconductor applications”.
Short abstract:
Continuous dimensional downscaling of dielectrics and metals in semiconductor industry requires improved, non-defective metal-dielectric interfaces in order to preserve the intrinsic properties of the nanomaterials at thicknesses ranging between 5 and 10 nm. For such thin films, atomic layer deposition (ALD) is nowadays envisaged as the most suited deposition technique to deliver conformal layers in high aspect ratio structures. The crystalline phase often determines the dielectric constant and the bandgap energy and consequently electrical characteristics such as capacitance and leakage current density in metal-insulator-metal capacitors. Other specific properties like ferroelectricity seems to be driven by the presence of a particular phase (e.g. orthorhombic) with potential applications in ferroelectric field effect transistor fabrication.
Short Bio:
Mihaela Popovici is a Senior Researcher in the Semiconductor Technology and Systems Unit at IMEC, Belgium. She received her PhD in Materials Science and Engineering in 2004, at the Politehnica University of Timisoara, Romania. She had a Marie Curie fellowship at ICMAB in 2002-2003 in the field of magnetic aerogels and was post-doctoral fellow at Philips Research Eindhoven in Photonic Materials and Devices during 2005-2007. She has been working for almost a decade at the nano-electronics R&D center of IMEC in Leuven, Belgium on memory chip scaling. At present she is the technical leader of the metal-insulator-metal capacitor project for DRAM applications. Her main expertise resides in dielectric oxides and metal thin films development, physical and electrical characterization and design of complex materials stacks with applications in nano-electronic devices.
This week we celebrated Christmas with all the ICMAB at La Masia Can Portell, in Collserola (on Wednesday) and with the NN Group (on Thursday’s Group Meeting).
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
See you all next year, with new and exciting science and activities!
Prof. Joel N. Meyer will give a Seminar entitled “Mechanisms of uptake and toxicity of silver nanoparticles in Caenorhabditis elegans“, today, December 15, at 12 pm at ICMAB Conference Room Carles Miravitlles.
Prof. Joel N. Meyer is Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies at Nicholas School of the Environment and Center for the Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology (CEINT), at Duke University, NC, USA.
Short abstract:
Engineered nanomaterials offer great opportunities due to their novel properties. However, there is concern that these novel properties may also result in deleterious effects on human and ecological health that are difficult to predict based only on an understanding of the chemical makeup. We tested a number of nanoparticles (NPs) for toxicity in the nematode model Caenorhabditis elegans, and found that certain silver NPs (AgNPs) were the most toxic of the NPs that we had tested. We therefore extended our studies to characterize environmental factors that might alter AgNP toxicity, as well as the uptake and mechanism of toxicity of AgNPs in C. elegans.
Because much AgNP waste is expected to end up in aquatic ecosystems, we tested the influence of environmental variables on toxicity. We found that higher ionic strength, the presence of natural organic matter, and sulfidation of the AgNPs (expected to occur in many environments after AgNP release) all significantly reduced Ag NP toxicity. Using physicochemical, genetic, and pharmacological rescue approaches, we found that the most toxic AgNPs -generally, the smallest- caused their effects largely via dissolution. Some AgNPs (typically less soluble due to size or coating) also caused toxicity via generation of reactive oxygen species, an effect specific to nanoparticulate silver. This effect was masked by the toxicity of silver ions except when dissolution was very limited. The toxicity of the tested AgNPs was almost never greater than would result from complete dissolution of the same mass of silver. We also found that endocytosis was an important mechanism for AgNP uptake. However, the specific mechanisms by which AgNPs or released silver ion cause toxicity remain unclear. Because AgNPs are used to kill microbes, and mitochondria are endosymbiotic descendants of bacteria, current studies are focused on testing the possibility that AgNPs cause some of their toxicity via disruption of mitochondrial function.
If you would like to arrange a meeting with Prof. Joel N. Meyer please contact: Dr. Anna Laromaine (alaromaine@icmab.es).
Today and tomorrow (November 21-22) we have at ICMAB the members of the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) of the Severo-Ochoa program, formed by internationally highly recognised researchers.
For this reason, this morning the coordinators of each Research Line have presented the main highlights, objectives and future perspectives of each Research Line. In the afternoon, the SAB members, guided by a PhD Student, had the opportunity to learn about the on-going research of each Research Group, with the help of the dedicated posters.
Our group had four posters on show:
Irene Anton was the guide of Luis M. Liz-Marzán, from CIC biomaGUNE, San Sebastián (Spain).
News at ICMAB webpage here.
The 5 FUNMAT “Severo Ochoa” Research Lines at ICMAB are:
RL1: SUSTAINABLE ENERGY CONVERSION AND STORAGE SYSTEMS (download)
RL2: SUPERCONDUCTORS FOR POWER APPLICATIONS: CLEAN AND SECURE ENERGY (download)
RL3: OXIDE ELECTRONICS (download)
RL4: MOLECULAR ELECTRONICS (download)
RL5: MULTIFUNCTIONAL NANOSTRUCTURED BIOMATERIALS: SMART NANOMEDICINE (download)
The N&N Group participates in three of them: RL1, RL3 and RL5.
Thank you to JAGS for the brand new posters, which are exposed in the MATGAS Hall.
The N&N group participates in the @NextGEM_eu project, for which we prepared this video explaining how we work with c.elegans. 🪱
👉 Dr. @PolAlonso1 explains how we use these nematodes and why they are useful for assessing biological effects.
#BioEM #5G
We are thrilled to announce that Dr. @AnnaRoig8 from the @NNgroupICMAB research group (@icmabCSIC, Barcelona, Spain) will be offering a talk on "Opportunities of bacterial nanocellulose in healthcare". This Wednesday at 12.15h at the BBT Weekly Meetings, at @EEBE_UPC
