When it comes to designing something, it’s hard to find a better source of inspiration than Mother Nature. Using that principle, a diverse, interdisciplinary group of researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory is mimicking bacteria to synthesize magnetic nanoparticles that could be used for drug targeting and delivery, in magnetic inks and high-density memory devices, or as magnetic seals in motors.

Commercial room-temperature synthesis of ferromagnetic nanoparticles is difficult because the particles form rapidly, resulting in agglomerated clusters of particles with less than ideal crystalline and magnetic properties. Size also matters. As particles get smaller, their magnetic properties, particularly with regard to temperature, also diminish. … Continue Reading »

Doctors’ quest to see what is happening inside a living body has been hampered by the limits on detecting tiny components of internal structures and events. Now a team of Stanford University School of Medicine researchers has developed a new type of imaging system that can illuminate tumors in living subjects-getting pictures with a precision of nearly one-trillionth of a meter.

This technique, called Raman spectroscopy, expands the available toolbox for the field of molecular imaging, said team leader Sanjiv Sam Gambhir, MD, PhD, professor of radiology. He is the senior author of a study describing the method that will be published in the March 31 advance online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. … Continue Reading »