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Nanotechnology, often shortened to nanotech, is the use of matter on atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scales for industrial purposes. The earliest, widespread description of nanotechnology referred to the particular technological goal of precisely manipulating atoms and molecules for fabrication of macroscale products, also now referred to as molecular nanotechnology. A more generalized description of nanotechnology was subsequently established by the National Nanotechnology Initiative, which defined nanotechnology as the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers (nm). This definition reflects the fact that quantum mechanical effects are important at this quantum-realm scale, and so the definition shifted from a particular technological goal to a research category inclusive of all types of research and technologies that deal with the special properties of matter which occur below the given size threshold. It is therefore common to see the plural form "nanotechnologies" as well as "nanoscale technologies" to refer to the broad range of research and applications whose common trait is size.
Electrophysiology is the branch of physiology that studies the electrical properties of biological cells and tissues. It involves measurements of voltage changes or electric current or manipulations on a wide variety of scales from single ion channel proteins to whole organs like the heart. In neuroscience, it includes measurements of the electrical activity of neurons, and, in particular, action potential activity. Recordings of large-scale electric signals from the nervous system, such as electroencephalography, may also be referred to as electrophysiological recordings. They are useful for electrodiagnosis and monitoring.
Indium tin oxide (ITO) is a ternary composition of indium, tin and oxygen in varying proportions. Depending on the oxygen content, it can be described as either a ceramic or an alloy. Indium tin oxide is typically encountered as an oxygen-saturated composition with a formulation of 74% In, 18% Sn, and 8% O by weight. Oxygen-saturated compositions are so typical that unsaturated compositions are termed oxygen-deficient ITO. It is transparent and colorless in thin layers, while in bulk form it is yellowish to gray. In the infrared region of the spectrum it acts as a metal-like mirror.
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The patch clamp technique is a laboratory technique in electrophysiology used to study ionic currents in individual isolated living cells, tissue sections, or patches of cell membrane. The technique is especially useful in the study of excitable cells such as neurons, cardiomyocytes, muscle fibers, and pancreatic beta cells, and can also be applied to the study of bacterial ion channels in specially prepared giant spheroplasts.
Graphene is an allotrope of carbon consisting of a single layer of atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice nanostructure. The name is derived from "graphite" and the suffix -ene, reflecting the fact that the graphite allotrope of carbon contains numerous double bonds.
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Nader Pourmand is a Professor of Biomolecular Engineering leading the Biosensors and Bioelectrical Technology Group at the Baskin School of Engineering at the University of California Santa Cruz, Baskin School of Engineering.
Nanoarchitectures for lithium-ion batteries are attempts to employ nanotechnology to improve the design of lithium-ion batteries. Research in lithium-ion batteries focuses on improving energy density, power density, safety, durability and cost.
Automated patch clamping is beginning to replace manual patch clamping as a method to measure the electrical activity of individual cells. Different techniques are used to automate patch clamp recordings from cells in cell culture and in vivo. This work has been ongoing since the late 1990s by research labs and companies trying to reduce its complexity and cost of patch clamping manually. Patch clamping for a long time was considered an art form and is still very time consuming and tedious, especially in vivo. The automation techniques try to reduce user error and variability in obtaining quality electrophysiology recordings from single cells.
A rapidly increasing list of graphene production techniques have been developed to enable graphene's use in commercial applications.
Techniques have been developed to produce carbon nanotubes in sizable quantities, including arc discharge, laser ablation, high-pressure carbon monoxide disproportionation, and chemical vapor deposition (CVD). Most of these processes take place in a vacuum or with process gases. CVD growth of CNTs can occur in vacuum or at atmospheric pressure. Large quantities of nanotubes can be synthesized by these methods; advances in catalysis and continuous growth are making CNTs more commercially viable.
Self-cleaning surfaces are a class of materials with the inherent ability to remove any debris or bacteria from their surfaces in a variety of ways. The self-cleaning functionality of these surfaces are commonly inspired by natural phenomena observed in lotus leaves, gecko feet, and water striders to name a few. The majority of self-cleaning surfaces can be placed into three categories:
- superhydrophobic
- superhydrophilic
- photocatalytic.
Tissue nanotransfection (TNT) is an electroporation-based technique capable of gene and drug cargo delivery or transfection at the nanoscale. Furthermore, TNT is a scaffold-less tissue engineering (TE) technique that can be considered cell-only or tissue inducing depending on cellular or tissue level applications. The transfection method makes use of nanochannels to deliver cargo to tissues topically.
A probe tip is an instrument used in scanning probe microscopes (SPMs) to scan the surface of a sample and make nano-scale images of surfaces and structures. The probe tip is mounted on the end of a cantilever and can be as sharp as a single atom. In microscopy, probe tip geometry and the composition of both the tip and the surface being probed directly affect resolution and imaging quality. Tip size and shape are extremely important in monitoring and detecting interactions between surfaces. SPMs can precisely measure electrostatic forces, magnetic forces, chemical bonding, Van der Waals forces, and capillary forces. SPMs can also reveal the morphology and topography of a surface.
Patch-sequencing (patch-seq) is a method designed for tackling specific problems involved in characterizing neurons. As neural tissues are one of the most transcriptomically diverse populations of cells, classifying neurons into cell types in order to understand the circuits they form is a major challenge for neuroscientists. Combining classical classification methods with single cell RNA-sequencing post-hoc has proved to be difficult and slow. By combining multiple data modalities such as electrophysiology, sequencing and microscopy, Patch-seq allows for neurons to be characterized in multiple ways simultaneously. It currently suffers from low throughput relative to other sequencing methods mainly due to the manual labor involved in achieving a successful patch-clamp recording on a neuron. Investigations are currently underway to automate patch-clamp technology which will improve the throughput of patch-seq as well.
References
- ↑ Stanley, John; Pourmand, Nader (2020-10-01). "Nanopipettes—The past and the present". APL Materials. 8 (10): 100902. Bibcode:2020APLM....8j0902S. doi: 10.1063/5.0020011 . ISSN 2166-532X.
- ↑ K. Hu, Y. Wang, H. Cai and V. Mirkin, Analytical Chemistry, 2014, 86, 8897-8901
- ↑ Y. Fu, H. Tokuhisa and L. Baker, Chemical Communications, 2009, 4877-4879
- 1 2 M. Schrlau, E. Falls, B. Ziober and H. Bau, Nanotechnology, 2008, 19, 0151101
- ↑ R. Singhal, S. Bhattacharyya, Z. Orynbayeva, E. Vitol, G. Friedman and Y. Gogotsi, Nanotechnology, 2010, 21, 015304
- ↑ Jayant, Krishna; Wenzel, Michael; Bando, Yuki; Hamm, Jordan P.; Mandriota, Nicola; Rabinowitz, Jake H.; Plante, Ilan Jen-La; Owen, Jonathan S.; Sahin, Ozgur; Shepard, Kenneth L.; Yuste, Rafael (January 2019). "Flexible Nanopipettes for Minimally Invasive Intracellular Electrophysiology In Vivo". Cell Reports. 26 (1): 266–278.e5. doi:10.1016/j.celrep.2018.12.019. PMC 7263204 . PMID 30605681.
- ↑ Hugh, Jeffrey Mc; Makarchuk, Stanislaw; Mozheiko, Daria; Fernandez-Villegas, Ana; Schierle, Gabriele S. Kaminski; Kaminski, Clemens; Keyser, Ulrich; Holcman, David; Rouach, Nathalie (2023). "Diversity of dynamic voltage patterns in neuronal dendrites revealed by nanopipette electrophysiology". Nanoscale. doi:10.1039/D2NR03475A. PMC 10373629 . S2CID 258642817.