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Self-Assembled Materials Form Mini Stem Cell Lab
Northwestern University, News Center
by Megan Fellman
March 27, 2008
EVANSTON, Ill. --- Imagine having one polymer and one small molecule that instantly assemble into a flexible but strong sac in which you can grow human stem cells, creating a sort of miniature laboratory. And that sac, if used for cell therapy, could cloak the stem cells from the human body’s immune system and biodegrade upon arriving at its destination, releasing the stem cells to do their work.
Futuristic? Only in part. A research team from Northwestern University’s Institute for BioNanotechnology in Medicine has created such sacs and demonstrated that human stem cells will grow in them. The researchers also report that the sacs can survive for weeks in culture and that their membranes are permeable to proteins. Proteins, even large ones, can travel freely across the membrane.
Paralyzed Mice Walk Again
ABC News
by Lee Dye
May 1, 2007
Samuel Stupp has a bunch of mice that used to drag their hind legs behind them when they crawled around his Illinois lab, but they have miraculously regained at least partial use of their rear legs.
Astonishingly, their severed spinal cords have been repaired, at least partly, without surgery or drugs. All it took was a simple injection of a liquid containing tiny molecular structures developed by Stupp and his colleagues at Northwestern University. Six weeks later, the mice were able to walk again. They don't have their former agility, but their injuries should have left them paralyzed for life.
Stupp is on the cutting edge of one of the most exciting fields in medical research: regenerative medicine. If he and others in the field are on the right track, one of these days tragic diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's will be a thing of the past. And the crippled will walk again as the human body repairs itself in ways that it cannot do today.
If I Only Had a Nano-Heart
Science
by Robert F. Service
September 12, 2006
Mice induced to have heart attacks or given other wounds have quickly made a full recovery, thanks to a little help from nanotechnology. If the new results translate to humans, they could someday offer hope to millions of victims of heart attacks and other major injuries.
Even on a cellular level, wound healing takes time. The body must target a large number of molecules called growth factors to just the right area to help repair the damage. Samuel Stupp, a chemist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and colleagues wondered whether they could speed up the process by injecting a bit of nanotechnology into the mix. The new tools are molecules called peptide amphiphiles. Once injected into the body, the amphiphiles self-assemble into long, thin nanofibers, which hang out in the wound area.
Something to be Proud Of...
New Scientist
by Anna Gosline
September 9, 2006
IT IS all too easy to paint a grim picture of chemistry in the UK. Undergraduate enrolment in chemistry courses began to plummet in the late 1990s, bottoming out in 2003 with barely 3000 students. These dwindling numbers, coupled with the high cost of teaching the subject, have led some universities to shut down their departments. Chemists graduating from the University of Exeter, King's College London and Queen Mary, University of London, have all seen windows boarded up behind them.
Countless papers, talks and initiatives have been spawned in an effort to entice students back into the field. Working chemists should venture into classrooms, they say, armed with demonstrations of the big, loud and dangerous reactions of past schooldays. Chemistry teachers should have chemistry degrees to impart their enthusiasm to students, reckons the UK government.
But maybe there is a simpler way to turn the tide: good old-fashioned PR. One way to do this is by demonstrating how chemistry can step up to the challenges of the modern world, be it answering energy needs, addressing climate change or improving our health. So New Scientist polled a selection of leading chemists and asked them what we should be celebrating in today's chemistry, and how this research will answer the future demands of life, just as it has done for the past 200 years.
Nanostructures Help Build Blood Vessels
Chemical & Engineering News
by Bethany Halford
August 17, 2006
Nanofibers coated with bound heparin chains, which aid in blood vessel growth, is formed by cylindrical aggregation of charged peptide amphiphiles with hydrocarbon chain core. Using the biopolymer heparin and a nanofiber scaffold, researchers at Northwestern University have developed a novel nanostructure that promotes blood vessel growth. The system, developed by Samuel I. Stupp and his colleagues, could become an important tool in regenerative medicine, where new blood vessel formation is critical for healing wounds.
Nanofibres spin a sticky web for blood vessels
Nature Materials
by Philip Ball
August 17,2006
Self-assembling nanofibres designed to bind to a biomolecule that helps to promote blood-vessel formation (angiogenesis) have been shown by a team at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, to stimulate vessel growth in real biological tissue. The angiogenic fibres are the latest fruits of the efforts of Sam Stupp and his co-workers at Northwestern to use nanostructures for tissue engineering and medicine.
Nanotechnologists Seek
Biological Niches
Cell
by Ivan
Amato
December 16, 2005
Biologists are embracing nanotechnology—the engineering and
manipulating of entities in the 1 to 100 nm range—and are exploiting its
potential to develop new therapeutics and diagnostics.
In late
August, behind closed doors at the austere National Academy of Sciences in
Washington D.C., Samuel Stupp, a materials scientist and director of the
Institute for BioNanotechnology in Medicine at Northwestern University,
showed a video clip for a committee evaluating the United States'
billion-dollar-a-year National Nanotechnology Program.
Northwestern
team assembling oil alternative
Chicago Sun
Times
by Sandra
Guy
December 21, 2005
New fuels to wean America from
its oil dependence have become the new Holy Grail, and a professor at
Northwestern University in Evanston has made an important step in that
search.
Samuel I. Stupp is recognized in Scientific American
magazine's December issue for his work that could lead to cheap, viable
solar energy. The magazine chose 50 researchers to honor for "shaping the
future of technology."
Nano World: Nano for stem-cell
research
Washington Times (UPI)
By
Charles Q. Choi
June 13,
2005
Cutting-edge
nanotechnology is beginning to help advance the equally pioneering field
of stem-cell research, with devices that can precisely control stem cells
and provide self-assembling biodegradable scaffolds.
Carbon Nanotubes with Amphiphilic
Peptides Dissolve in Water
American Chemical
Society – Heart Cut
by Ben Zhong
Tang
June 13,
2005
S. I. Stupp and co-workers at Northwestern
University, Evanston and Chicago, IL, took a “noncovalent” approach and
made the nanotubes hydrophilic by wrapping them with peptide amphiphiles.
Nanofibers Seed Blood
Vessels
April 1, 2005
At the ACS meeting, chemist
Sam Stupp of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, reported that
his team has developed a novel variety of self-assembling nanofibers that
strongly promote the growth of new blood vessels both in cell cultures and
preliminary animal tests.
Research team develops gel to
grow blood vessels
The Daily
Northwestern
by Elizabeth
Sabrio
April 08, 2005
With new
nanotechnology developed by a Northwestern research team, blood vessels
could be created to heal tears or blockage with a simple injection.
Materials Potpourri -
Regenerative Medicine Meets Nanotechnology
Chemical &
Engineering News
by
Bethany Halford
January 3,
2005
Nanomaterials
built from a simple family of self-assembling molecules may offer hope for
treating serious injuries such as stroke and spinal cord trauma, according
to new results from Northwestern University chemistry professor Samuel I.
Stupp and colleagues.
Molecular line-up: using
nanoscale self-assembly for organic electronics
Annual Report 2004 -
Office
of Research
Northwestern University
(cover)
By
harnessing the power of supramolecular chemistry, Samuel Stupp's
laboratory has created a group of electronically useful molecules that
organized themselves in water, the first step in creating an aqueous,
low-cost fabrication process for plastic electronics.
Future of Tissue
Engineering
New York Academy of
Sciences
by Denise
Caruso
September 19,
2004
Samuel
Stupp chose to address a future covered by a broader umbrella than simply
tissue engineering--that of regenerative medicine. Stupp presented many
examples of research being done in this broader area--some of it
completed, some still in progress--that has yielded enormously promising
results.
Biotechnology Brings Hope to Tissue
Regeneration ![]() ![]() ![]()
Innovation
Magazine
by Lay Leng
TAN
Applying synthetic molecules in regenerative
medicine may translate to the repair of spinal-cord injury, bone, and
heart tissue.
Nanomedicine's Promise Is Anything but
Tiny
Washington
Post
by Rick
Weiss
January 31,
2005
It was a small wedding. Very small. But big
changes are coming from the marriage of medicine and nanotechnology, the
new branch of science that deals with things a few millionths of an inch
in size.
Color Collective: Polymer
self-assembles into light-emitting film
Science
News
by Alexandra
Goho
December 11, 2004
Stacks of sheets of light-emitting organic molecules
that assemble into nanoscale structures could be more efficient and
luminescent than existing display materials based on organic substances.
Scientists
Grow Neurons Using Nanostructures
January
27, 2004
Scientists at
Northwestern University have designed synthetic molecules that promote
neuron growth, a promising development that could lead to the reversal of
paralysis due to spinal cord injury.
Bioengineers build scaffold to grow
neurons
CBC News
(Canada)
January 23, 2004
Scientists have designed gel-like
molecules that promote neuron growth. They say it could someday lead to a
way to regenerate damaged spinal cords.
Self-assembling scaffold for
spinal-cord repair; 'Liquid' bridge could help severed nerve cells
grow
Nature
by Helen R. Pilcher
January
23, 2004
It may well be the smallest scaffolding in the world,
and the easiest to set up. Researchers have devised a tiny self-assembling
structure that they hope will help repair damaged spinal cords.
New NU
stem-cell gel advances spinal injury
research
Chicago Tribune
by
Jeremy Manier
January 23, 2004
In a study that could lead
to new treatments for spinal cord injury, Northwestern University
researchers have coaxed neural stem cells to grow in a specially
engineered gel that could be injected directly to a site of spinal damage.
Injectable
scaffold aids rebuilding of nerves
New
Scientist
by Laura Spinney
January 22, 2004
A
liquid that forms a gel-like mass of nanofibres on contact with water
could provide the most promising vehicle yet for the regeneration of
damaged spinal cords.
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY:
Living In
The Materials World
by Mitch
Jacoby
Chemical &
Engineering News
January 5, 2004
The annual fall meeting of the Materials Research Society draws
record-sized crowd for wide-ranging discussions on materials
research.
The matrix, reinvented
by David
Cyranoski
Nature
August 21, 2003
Interest in
culturing cells in three dimensions has taken off in the past few years --
but when it comes to the basic tool of the trade, most researchers are
still using 1980s technology. [PDF]
Bone That Grows Back
by Ann
Marie Cunningham
ScienCentral News
June 19,
2003
Suppose you break a bone, and go to the emergency room. Imagine
that a doctor there could start growing your bone back. As this
ScienCentral News video reports, one nanotechnologist says he’s taken a
big step towards making this medical miracle real.
Plastic Electric
by
Jessica Gorman
Science News
May 17, 2003
For
the last century, technology has blossomed in an age of plastics. We drive
cars with plastic parts, we wear eyeglasses with plastic lenses, and we
sip mineral water from plastic bottles. Plastic cell phones connect us to
family and friends, and plastic keys typed these very words. Plastics may
now be entering additional avenues of technological greatness based on one
of their newer properties—electrical conductance.
Bringing a sense of order to
plastics
by David
Bradley
Spotlight/PSIgate
March 1,
2003
US chemists are using liquid
crystals as templates to help them synthesise novel plastics that conduct
electricity. The technique could be used in the leap from laboratory to
mass production of polymer-based components for displays, foil-batteries,
and microelectronics devices.
Polymers Line Up
by Mitch Jacoby
Chemical &
Engineering News
February 17,
2003
Bright
cell phone and laptop displays that burden neither power supplies nor
pocketbooks may soon become available. At Northwestern University,
researchers have come up with a simple procedure for preparing films of
conducting polymers with a high degree of order--a property that boosts
the performance of the materials when used in electronic applications [Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 42, 778
(2003)].
Molecular template makes nanoscale helix
by Jessica Gorman
Science
News
July 13, 2002
Using ribbons made of
organic molecules as minuscule templates, researchers have coaxed a
semiconductor material into tiny helical coils. Made of cadmium sulfide,
the helical structures could serve as components of future nanoscale
sensors and other devices, says Samuel Stupp of Northwestern University in
Evanston, Ill.
CHEMISTRY:
Helical
Semiconductors
Editor's
Choice: Highlights of the recent research
Science
June 7, 2002
One of the
aims of supramolecular chemistry is to build assemblies of molecules in a
controllable fashion. These structures are held together by relatively
weak noncovalent interactions and thus might be easily reconfigurable into
a variety of morphologies for possible applications in
nanotechnology.
Supramolecular
organic structures as templates for inorganic nano-objects
The
Institute of Nanotechnology
June 2002
Because of their
special optical and electronic properties, new nanostructures of inorganic
materials are of interest as building blocks for nanotechnological
devices. A promising starting point for the synthesis of such materials
seems to be the use of "templates" or molds made of organic molecules that
arrange themselves into highly organized nanostructures and guide the
shape and size of inorganic compounds.
Molecular-scale biomimicry
by William L.
Murphy & David J. Mooney
Nature Biotechnology
January
2002
The design of self-assembling biomaterials that mimic complex
biological structures represents a considerable challenge. This is perhaps
not surprising when one considers that such structures have undergone
millions of years of evolutionary optimization. Fortunately for us,
biomimetics research is proceeding on a rather faster time scale, as
demonstrated by a recent paper in Science by Stupp and
colleagues.
Nanofibers
could help bones heal, Northwestern Researchers
Report
United Press International
November 26,
2001
Researchers report in the journal Science they have
designed a nanoscale molecular scaffolding that resembles the basic
structure of bone.
Scientists Design Molecules That Mimic Nanostructure of
Bone
November 26, 2001
Scientists at
Northwestern University have become the first to design molecules that
could lead to a breakthrough in bone repair. The designer molecules hold
promise for the development of a bonelike material to be used for bone
fractures or in the treatment of bone cancer patients and have
implications for the regeneration of other tissues and
organs.
SELF-ASSEMBLING MATERIALS:
Coated Nanofibers Copy
What's Bred in the Bone
by Robert F.
Service
Science
November 23,
2001
If imitation is flattery, Sam Stupp has just paid nature a high
compliment. On page 1684, Stupp, a materials scientist at Northwestern
University in Evanston, Illinois, and his postdocs Jeffrey Hartgerink and
Elia Beniash report creating a self-assembling material, made from organic
molecules with a mineral coat, that closely mimics bone.
Stories of modern science... from
UPI
New Material Mimics Bone
by Jim
Kling
United Press International
November 23,
2001
Scientists at Northwestern University have designed molecules that
could lead to a breakthrough in bone repair, according to a report in this
week's edition of the journal Science. The molecules hold promise for the
development of a bonelike material to be used for bone fractures or in the
treatment of bone cancer patients, and have implications for the
regeneration of other tissues and organs.
Molecule has potential to repair bones, scientists
say
by Lee
Bowman, Scripps Howard News Service
The Washington Times, Section: Part
A, Nation, Page A7
November 23, 2001 (Friday, Final
Edition)
Scientists at Northwestern University have designed
molecules that mimic the function of natural scaffolding for human bones,
opening the possibility of repairs and even regeneration of bones lost to
cancer.
Nanotechnology:
Boning up on
biology
by T. Andrew
Taton
Nature
August 21, 2003
Interest in
culturing cells in three dimensions has taken off in the past few years --
but when it comes to the basic tool of the trade, most researchers are
still using 1980s technology.
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY:
Mimicking
the way nature grows bone
by Ron
Dagani
Chemical
& Engineering News
July 9, 2001
It used to be
that scientists seeking to repair or restore human tissues would try any
material at hand that seemed to offer some promise, regardless of how
foreign it was to the human body. But as their understanding of biology
and their skills in fashioning new materials have advanced, scientists
have sought to emulate nature as much as possible. This has meant devising
biomaterials that are not only biocompatible and biodegradable, but also
nanostructured--because that's what nature does. |
