Nanotechnology Now

Our NanoNews Digest Sponsors
Heifer International



Home > Press > Electric fields remove nanoparticles from blood with ease

An artist's representation of the nanoparticle removal chip developed by researchers in Professor Michael Heller's lab at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. An oscillating electric field (purple arcs) separates drug-delivery nanoparticles (yellow spheres) from blood (red spheres) and pulls them towards rings surrounding the chip's electrodes. The image is featured as the inside cover of the Oct. 14 issue of the journal Small.
CREDIT: Stuart Ibsen and Steven Ibsen.
An artist's representation of the nanoparticle removal chip developed by researchers in Professor Michael Heller's lab at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. An oscillating electric field (purple arcs) separates drug-delivery nanoparticles (yellow spheres) from blood (red spheres) and pulls them towards rings surrounding the chip's electrodes. The image is featured as the inside cover of the Oct. 14 issue of the journal Small.

CREDIT: Stuart Ibsen and Steven Ibsen.

Abstract:
Engineers at the University of California, San Diego developed a new technology that uses an oscillating electric field to easily and quickly isolate drug-delivery nanoparticles from blood. The technology could serve as a general tool to separate and recover nanoparticles from other complex fluids for medical, environmental, and industrial applications.

Electric fields remove nanoparticles from blood with ease

San Diego, CA | Posted on November 24th, 2015

Nanoparticles, which are generally one thousand times smaller than the width of a human hair, are difficult to separate from plasma, the liquid component of blood, due to their small size and low density. Traditional methods to remove nanoparticles from plasma samples typically involve diluting the plasma, adding a high concentration sugar solution to the plasma and spinning it in a centrifuge, or attaching a targeting agent to the surface of the nanoparticles. These methods either alter the normal behavior of the nanoparticles or cannot be applied to some of the most common nanoparticle types.

"This is the first example of isolating a wide range of nanoparticles out of plasma with a minimum amount of manipulation," said Stuart Ibsen, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of NanoEngineering at UC San Diego and first author of the study published October in the journal Small. "We've designed a very versatile technique that can be used to recover nanoparticles in a lot of different processes."

This new nanoparticle separation technology will enable researchers -- particularly those who design and study drug-delivery nanoparticles for disease therapies -- to better monitor what happens to nanoparticles circulating in a patient's bloodstream. One of the questions that researchers face is how blood proteins bind to the surfaces of drug-delivery nanoparticles and make them less effective. Researchers could also use this technology in the clinic to determine if the blood chemistry of a particular patient is compatible with the surfaces of certain drug-delivery nanoparticles.

"We were interested in a fast and easy way to take these nanoparticles out of plasma so we could find out what's going on at their surfaces and redesign them to work more effectively in blood," said Michael Heller, a nanoengineering professor at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering and senior author of the study.

The device used to isolate the drug-delivery nanoparticles was a dime-sized electric chip manufactured by La Jolla-based Biological Dynamics, which licensed the original technology from UC San Diego. The chip contains hundreds of tiny electrodes that generate a rapidly oscillating electric field that selectively pulls the nanoparticles out of a plasma sample. Researchers inserted a drop of plasma spiked with nanoparticles into the electric chip and demonstrated nanoparticle recovery within 7 minutes. The technology worked on different types of drug-delivery nanoparticles that are typically studied in various labs.

The breakthrough in the technology relies on designing a chip that can work in the high salt concentration of blood plasma. The chip's ability to pull the nanoparticles out of plasma is based on differences in the material properties between the nanoparticles and plasma components. When the chip's electrodes apply an oscillating electric field, the positive and negative charges inside the nanoparticles reorient themselves at a different speed than the charges in the surrounding plasma. This momentary imbalance in the charges creates an attractive force between the nanoparticles and the electrodes. As the electric field oscillates, the nanoparticles are continually pulled towards the electrodes, leaving the rest of the plasma behind. Also, the electric field is designed to oscillate at just the right frequency: 15,000 times per second.

"It's amazing that this method works without any modifications to the plasma samples or to the nanoparticles," said Ibsen.

###

This work was supported by the National Cancer Institute.

####

For more information, please click here

Contacts:
Liezel Labios

858-246-1124

Copyright © University of California, San Diego

If you have a comment, please Contact us.

Issuers of news releases, not 7th Wave, Inc. or Nanotechnology Now, are solely responsible for the accuracy of the content.

Bookmark:
Delicious Digg Newsvine Google Yahoo Reddit Magnoliacom Furl Facebook

Related Links

Full paper: "Recovery of Drug Delivery Nanoparticles from Human Plasma Using an Electrokinetic Platform Technology," by Stuart Ibsen, Avery Sonnenberg, Carolyn Schutt, Rajesh Mukthavaram, Yasan Yeh, Inanc Ortac, Sareh Manouchehri, Santosh Kesari, Sadik Esener, and Michael J. Heller. The paper was published in the Oct. 14, 2015 issue of the journal Small:

Related News Press

News and information

Researchers develop artificial building blocks of life March 8th, 2024

How surface roughness influences the adhesion of soft materials: Research team discovers universal mechanism that leads to adhesion hysteresis in soft materials March 8th, 2024

Two-dimensional bimetallic selenium-containing metal-organic frameworks and their calcinated derivatives as electrocatalysts for overall water splitting March 8th, 2024

Curcumin nanoemulsion is tested for treatment of intestinal inflammation: A formulation developed by Brazilian researchers proved effective in tests involving mice March 8th, 2024

Cancer

University of Toronto researchers discover new lipid nanoparticle that shows muscle-specific mRNA delivery, reduces off-target effects: Study findings make significant contribution to generating tissue-specific ionizable lipids and prompts rethinking of mRNA vaccine design princi December 8th, 2023

Super-efficient laser light-induced detection of cancer cell-derived nanoparticles: Skipping ultracentrifugation, detection time reduced from hours to minutes! October 6th, 2023

The medicine of the future could be artificial life forms October 6th, 2023

Chung-Ang University researchers develop novel DNA biosensor for early diagnosis of cervical cancer: The electrochemical sensor, made of a graphitic nano-onion/molybdenum disulfide nanosheet composite, detects human papillomavirus (HPV)-16 and HPV-18, with high specificity September 8th, 2023

Govt.-Legislation/Regulation/Funding/Policy

What heat can tell us about battery chemistry: using the Peltier effect to study lithium-ion cells March 8th, 2024

Researchers’ approach may protect quantum computers from attacks March 8th, 2024

The Access to Advanced Health Institute receives up to $12.7 million to develop novel nanoalum adjuvant formulation for better protection against tuberculosis and pandemic influenza March 8th, 2024

Optically trapped quantum droplets of light can bind together to form macroscopic complexes March 8th, 2024

Nanomedicine

High-tech 'paint' could spare patients repeated surgeries March 8th, 2024

Researchers develop artificial building blocks of life March 8th, 2024

Curcumin nanoemulsion is tested for treatment of intestinal inflammation: A formulation developed by Brazilian researchers proved effective in tests involving mice March 8th, 2024

The Access to Advanced Health Institute receives up to $12.7 million to develop novel nanoalum adjuvant formulation for better protection against tuberculosis and pandemic influenza March 8th, 2024

Discoveries

What heat can tell us about battery chemistry: using the Peltier effect to study lithium-ion cells March 8th, 2024

Researchers’ approach may protect quantum computers from attacks March 8th, 2024

High-tech 'paint' could spare patients repeated surgeries March 8th, 2024

Nanoscale CL thermometry with lanthanide-doped heavy-metal oxide in TEM March 8th, 2024

Announcements

What heat can tell us about battery chemistry: using the Peltier effect to study lithium-ion cells March 8th, 2024

Curcumin nanoemulsion is tested for treatment of intestinal inflammation: A formulation developed by Brazilian researchers proved effective in tests involving mice March 8th, 2024

The Access to Advanced Health Institute receives up to $12.7 million to develop novel nanoalum adjuvant formulation for better protection against tuberculosis and pandemic influenza March 8th, 2024

Nanoscale CL thermometry with lanthanide-doped heavy-metal oxide in TEM March 8th, 2024

Interviews/Book Reviews/Essays/Reports/Podcasts/Journals/White papers/Posters

Researchers develop artificial building blocks of life March 8th, 2024

How surface roughness influences the adhesion of soft materials: Research team discovers universal mechanism that leads to adhesion hysteresis in soft materials March 8th, 2024

Curcumin nanoemulsion is tested for treatment of intestinal inflammation: A formulation developed by Brazilian researchers proved effective in tests involving mice March 8th, 2024

Nanoscale CL thermometry with lanthanide-doped heavy-metal oxide in TEM March 8th, 2024

Patents/IP/Tech Transfer/Licensing

Getting drugs across the blood-brain barrier using nanoparticles March 3rd, 2023

Study finds nanomedicine targeting lymph nodes key to triple negative breast cancer treatment: In mice, nanomedicine can remodel the immune microenvironment in lymph node and tumor tissue for long-term remission and lung tumor elimination in this form of metastasized breast cance May 13th, 2022

Metasurfaces control polarized light at will: New research unlocks the hidden potential of metasurfaces August 13th, 2021

Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals Announces Closing of Agreement with Takeda November 27th, 2020

Nanobiotechnology

High-tech 'paint' could spare patients repeated surgeries March 8th, 2024

Researchers develop artificial building blocks of life March 8th, 2024

Curcumin nanoemulsion is tested for treatment of intestinal inflammation: A formulation developed by Brazilian researchers proved effective in tests involving mice March 8th, 2024

The Access to Advanced Health Institute receives up to $12.7 million to develop novel nanoalum adjuvant formulation for better protection against tuberculosis and pandemic influenza March 8th, 2024

NanoNews-Digest
The latest news from around the world, FREE




  Premium Products
NanoNews-Custom
Only the news you want to read!
 Learn More
NanoStrategies
Full-service, expert consulting
 Learn More











ASP
Nanotechnology Now Featured Books




NNN

The Hunger Project