Researchers at Oregon State University reach Milestone in use of Nanoparticles to kill Cancer with Heat

Abstract:
Researchers at Oregon State University have developed an improved technique for using magnetic nanoclusters to kill hard-to-reach tumors.

 

Magnetic nanoparticles – tiny pieces of matter as small as one-billionth of a meter – have shown anti-cancer promise for tumors easily accessible by syringe, allowing the particles to be injected directly into the cancerous growth.

Once injected into the tumor, the nanoparticles are exposed to an alternating magnetic field, or AMF. This field causes the nanoparticles to reach temperatures in excess of 100 degrees Fahrenheit, which causes the cancer cells to die.

But for some cancer types such as prostate cancer, or the ovarian cancer used in the Oregon State study, direct injection is difficult. In those types of cases, a “systemic” delivery method – intravenous injection, or injection into the abdominal cavity – would be easier and more effective.

The challenge for researchers has been finding the right kind of nanoparticles – ones that, when administered systemically in clinically appropriate doses, accumulate in the tumor well enough to allow the AMF to heat cancer cells to death.

Olena Taratula and Oleh Taratula of the OSU College of Pharmacy tackled the problem by developing nanoclusters, multiatom collections of nanoparticles, with enhanced heating efficiency. The nanoclusters are hexagon-shaped iron oxide nanoparticles doped with cobalt and manganese and loaded into biodegradable nanocarriers.

Findings were published in ACS Nano.

“There had been many attempts to develop nanoparticles that could be administered systemically in safe doses and still allow for hot enough temperatures inside the tumor,” said Olena Taratula, associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences. “Our new nanoplatform is a milestone for treating difficult-to-access tumors with magnetic hyperthermia. This is a proof of concept, and the nanoclusters could potentially be optimized for even greater heating efficiency.”

The nanoclusters’ ability to reach therapeutically relevant temperatures in tumors following a single, low-dose IV injection opens the door to exploiting the full potential of magnetic hyperthermia in treating cancer, either by itself or with other therapies, she added.

“It’s already been shown that magnetic hyperthermia at moderate temperatures increases the susceptibility of cancer cells to chemotherapy, radiation and immunotherapy,” Taratula said.

The mouse model in this research involved animals receiving IV nanocluster injections after ovarian tumors had been grafted underneath their skin.

“To advance this technology, future studies need to use orthotopic animal models – models where deep-seated tumors are studied in the location they would actually occur in the body,” she said. “In addition, to minimize the heating of healthy tissue, current AMF systems need to be optimized, or new ones developed.”

The National Institutes of Health, the OSU College of Pharmacy and Najran University of Saudi Arabia supported this research.

Also collaborating were OSU electrical engineering professor Pallavi Dhagat, postdoctoral scholars Xiaoning Li and Canan Schumann of the College of Pharmacy, pharmacy graduate students Hassan Albarqi, Fahad Sabei and Abraham Moses, engineering graduate student Mikkel Hansen, and pre-pharmacy undergrads Tetiana Korzun and Leon Wong.

Copyright © Oregon State University

Oregon St. University: New hydronium-ion battery show promise for sustainable energy storage

February 20, 2017

 
A new type of battery developed by scientists at Oregon State University shows promise for sustainable, high-power energy storage.

It’s the world’s first battery to use only hydronium ions as the charge carrier.
The new battery provides an additional option for researchers, particularly in the area of stationary storage.

 
Stationary storage refers to batteries in a permanent location that store grid power – including power generated from alternative energy sources such as wind turbines or solar cells – for use on a standby or emergency basis.

 
Hydronium, also known as H3O+, is a positively charged ion produced when a proton is added to a water molecule. Researchers in the OSU College of Science have demonstrated that hydronium ions can be reversibly stored in an electrode material consisting of perylenetetracarboxylic dianhydridem, or PTCDA.

 
This material is an organic, crystalline, molecular solid. The battery, created in the Department of Chemistry at Oregon State, uses dilute sulfuric acid as the electrolyte.
Graduate student Xingfeng Wang was the first author on the study, which has been published in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition, a publication of the German Chemical Society.

 
“This may provide a paradigm-shifting opportunity for more sustainable batteries,” said Xiulei Ji, assistant professor of chemistry at OSU and the corresponding author on the research. “It doesn’t use lithium or sodium or potassium to carry the charge, and just uses acid as the electrolyte. There’s a huge natural abundance of acid so it’s highly renewable and sustainable.” Ji points out that until now, cations – ions with a positive charge – that have been used in batteries have been alkali metal, alkaline earth metals or aluminum.
“No nonmetal cations were being considered seriously for batteries,” he said.
The study observed a big dilation of the PTCDA lattice structure during intercalation – the process of its receiving ions between the layers of its structure. That meant the electrode was being charged, and the PTCDA structure expanded, by hydronium ions, rather than extremely tiny protons, which are already used in some batteries.

 
“Organic solids are not typically contemplated as crystalline electrode materials, but many are very crystalline, arranged in a very ordered structure,” Ji said. “This PTCDA material has a lot of internal space between its molecule constituents so it provides an opportunity for storing big ions and good capacity.” The hydronium ions also migrate through the electrode structure with comparatively low “friction,” which translates to high power.
“It’s not going to power electric cars,” Ji said. “But it does provide an opportunity for battery researchers to go in a new direction as they look for new alternatives for energy storage, particularly for stationary grid storage.”

More information: Xingfeng Wang et al, Hydronium-Ion Batteries with Perylenetetracarboxylic Dianhydride Crystals as an Electrode, Angewandte Chemie International Edition (2017). DOI: 10.1002/anie.201700148
Provided by: Oregon State University

‘Quantum dot’ technology may help light the future

Summary: Oregon State University: Advances in manufacturing technology for ‘quantum dots’ may soon lead to a new generation of LED lighting that produces a more user-friendly white light, while using less toxic materials and low-cost manufacturing processes that take advantage of simple microwave heating. It could help the nation cut its lighting bill in half.

Advances at Oregon State University in manufacturing technology for “quantum dots” may soon lead to a new generation of LED lighting that produces a more user-friendly white light, while using less toxic materials and low-cost manufacturing processes that take advantage of simple microwave heating.

The cost, environmental, and performance improvements could finally produce solid state lighting systems that consumers really like and help the nation cut its lighting bill almost in half, researchers say, compared to the cost of incandescent and fluorescent lighting.

The same technology may also be widely incorporated into improved lighting displays, computer screens, smart phones, televisions and other systems.

A key to the advances, which have been published in the Journal of Nanoparticle Research, is use of both a “continuous flow” chemical reactor, and microwave heating technology that’s conceptually similar to the ovens that are part of almost every modern kitchen.

The continuous flow system is fast, cheap, energy efficient and will cut manufacturing costs. And the microwave heating technology will address a problem that so far has held back wider use of these systems, which is precise control of heat needed during the process. The microwave approach will translate into development of nanoparticles that are exactly the right size, shape and composition.

“There are a variety of products and technologies that quantum dots can be applied to, but for mass consumer use, possibly the most important is improved LED lighting,” said Greg Herman, an associate professor and chemical engineer in the OSU College of Engineering.

“We may finally be able to produce low cost, energy efficient LED lighting with the soft quality of white light that people really want,” Herman said. “At the same time, this technology will use nontoxic materials and dramatically reduce the waste of the materials that are used, which translates to lower cost and environmental protection.”

Some of the best existing LED lighting now being produced at industrial levels, Herman said, uses cadmium, which is highly toxic. The system currently being tested and developed at OSU is based on copper indium diselenide, a much more benign material with high energy conversion efficiency.

Quantum dots are nanoparticles that can be used to emit light, and by precisely controlling the size of the particle, the color of the light can be controlled. They’ve been used for some time but can be expensive and lack optimal color control. The manufacturing techniques being developed at OSU, which should be able to scale up to large volumes for low-cost commercial applications, will provide new ways to offer the precision needed for better color control.

By comparison, some past systems to create these nanoparticles for uses in optics, electronics or even biomedicine have been slow, expensive, sometimes toxic and often wasteful.

Oher applications of these systems are also possible. Cell phones and portable electronic devices might use less power and last much longer on a charge. “Taggants,” or compounds with specific infrared or visible light emissions, could be used for precise and instant identification, including control of counterfeit bills or products.

OSU is already working with the private sector to help develop some uses of this technology, and more may evolve. The research has been supported by Oregon BEST and the National Science Foundation Center for Sustainable Materials Chemistry.

---

Story Source:

The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Oregon State University. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

---

Journal Reference:

1. Robert C. Fitzmorris, Richard P. Oleksak, Zheng Zhou, Benjamin D. Mangum, Juanita N. Kurtin, Gregory S. Herman. Structural and optical characterization of CuInS2 quantum dots synthesized by microwave-assisted continuous flow methods. Journal of Nanoparticle Research, 2015; 17 (7) DOI: 10.1007/s11051-015-3123-1

Nanotech system, cellular heating may improve treatment of ovarian cancer

Oct 17, 2013 

    

       Enlarge        

 A new drug delivery system that incorporates heat, nanotechnology and chemotherapy shows promise in improving the treatment of ovarian cancer. Credit: Oregon State University

The combination of heat, chemotherapeutic drugs and an innovative delivery system based on nanotechnology may significantly improve the treatment of ovarian cancer while reducing side effects from toxic drugs, researchers at Oregon State University report in a n

The findings, so far done only in a laboratory setting, show that this one-two punch of mild hyperthermia and chemotherapy can kill 95 percent of ovarian cancer cells, and scientists say they expect to improve on those results in continued research.

The work is important, they say, because ovarian cancer – one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths in women – often develops resistance to chemotherapeutic drugs if it returns after an initial remission. It kills more than 150,000 women around the world every year.

“Ovarian cancer is rarely detected early, and because of that chemotherapy is often needed in addition to surgery,” said Oleh Taratula, an assistant professor in the OSU College of Pharmacy. “It’s essential for the chemotherapy to be as effective as possible the first time it’s used, and we believe this new approach should help with that.”

It’s known that elevated temperatures can help kill cancer cells, but heating just the cancer cells is problematic. The new system incorporates the use of iron oxide nanoparticles that can be coated with a cancer-killing drug and then heated once they are imbedded in the cancer cell.

Other features have also been developed to optimize the new system, in an unusual collaboration between engineers, material science experts and pharmaceutical researchers.

A peptide is used that helps guide the nanoparticle specifically to cancer cells, and the nanoparticle is just the right size – neither too big nor too small – so the immune system will not reject it. A special polyethylene glycol coating further adds to the “stealth” effect of the nanoparticles and keeps them from clumping up. And the interaction between the cancer drug and a polymer on the nanoparticles gets weaker in the acidic environment of cancer cells, aiding release of the drug at the right place.

“The hyperthermia, or heating of cells, is done by subjecting the magnetic nanoparticles to an oscillating, or alternating magnetic field,” said Pallavi Dhagat, an associate professor in the OSU School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and co-author on the study. “The nanoparticles absorb energy from the oscillating field and heat up.”

The result, in laboratory tests with ovarian cancer cells, was that a modest dose of the chemotherapeutic drug, combined with heating the cells to about 104 degrees, killed almost all the cells and was far more effective than either the drug or heat treatment would have been by itself.

Doxorubicin, the cancer drug, by itself at the level used in these experiments would leave about 70 percent of the cancer cells alive. With the new approach, only 5 percent were still viable.

The work was published in the International Journal of Pharmaceutics, as a collaboration of researchers in the OSU College of Pharmacy, College of Engineering, and Ocean NanoTech of Springdale, Ark. It was supported by the Medical Research Foundation of Oregon, the PhRMA Foundation and the OSU College of Pharmacy.

“I’m very excited about this delivery system,” Taratula said. “Cancer is always difficult to treat, and this should allow us to use lower levels of the toxic chemotherapeutic drugs, minimize side effects and the development of drug resistance, and still improve the efficacy of the treatment. We’re not trying to kill the cell with heat, but using it to improve the function of the drug.”

Iron oxide particles had been used before in some medical treatments, researchers said, but not with the complete system developed at OSU. Animal tests, and ultimately human trials, will be necessary before the new system is available for use.

Drug delivery systems such as this may later be applied to other forms of cancer, such as prostate or pancreatic cancer, to help improve the efficacy of chemotherapy in those conditions, Taratula said.

Explore further:     New ovarian cancer treatment succeeds in the lab

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-10-nanotech-cellular-treatment-ovarian-cancer.html#jCp

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-10-nanotech-cellular-treatment-ovarian-cancer.html#jCp

Antifreeze materials, nanoparticle inks may lead to low-cost solar energy

(Nanowerk News) A process combining some comparatively  cheap materials and the same antifreeze that keeps an automobile radiator from  freezing in cold weather may be the key to making solar cells that cost less and  avoid toxic compounds, while further expanding the use of solar energy.

And when perfected, this approach might also cook up the solar  cells in a microwave oven similar to the one in most kitchens.

Engineers at Oregon State University have determined that  ethylene glycol, commonly used in antifreeze products, can be a low-cost solvent  that functions well in a “continuous flow” reactor – an approach to making  thin-film solar cells that is easily scaled up for mass production at industrial  levels.

The research, just published in Material Letters (“Continuous flow mesofluidic synthesis of Cu2ZnSnS4 nanoparticle  inks”), a professional journal, also concluded this approach will work with  CZTS, or copper zinc tin sulfide, a compound of significant interest for solar  cells due to its excellent optical properties and the fact these materials are  cheap and environmentally benign.

These  copper zinc tin sulfide nanoparticles help form a solar cell that could cost  less and perform well.

“The global use of solar energy may be held back if the  materials we use to produce solar cells are too expensive or require the use of  toxic chemicals in production,” said Greg Herman, an associate professor in the  OSU School of Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering. “We need  technologies that use abundant, inexpensive materials, preferably ones that can  be mined in the U.S. This process offers that.”

By contrast, many solar cells today are made with CIGS, or  copper indium gallium diselenide. Indium is comparatively rare and costly, and  mostly produced in China. Last year, the prices of indium and gallium used in  CIGS solar cells were about 275 times higher than the zinc used in CZTS cells.

The technology being developed at OSU uses ethylene glycol in  meso-fluidic reactors that can offer precise control of temperature, reaction  time, and mass transport to yield better crystalline quality and high uniformity  of the nanoparticles that comprise the solar cell – all factors which improve  quality control and performance.

This approach is also faster – many companies still use “batch  mode” synthesis to produce CIGS nanoparticles, a process that can ultimately  take up to a full day, compared to about half an hour with a continuous flow  reactor. The additional speed of such reactors will further reduce final costs.

“For large-scale industrial production, all of these factors –  cost of materials, speed, quality control – can translate into money,” Herman  said. “The approach we’re using should provide high-quality solar cells at a  lower cost.”

The performance of CZTS cells right now is lower than that of  CIGS, researchers say, but with further research on the use of dopants and  additional optimization it should be possible to create solar cell efficiency  that is comparable.

Source: Oregon State University

Read more: http://www.nanowerk.com/news2/newsid=31173.php#ixzz2YPG6QoL5