Our colleagues at Nature Materials are over the Hynes Convention Center this week tweeting up the Materials Research Society meeting. Check out their page Here’s a sample from today:
In Marios’ Demetriou’s talk on damage-tolerant metallic glasses. The glass they discovered is strong w/ fracture toughness! #mrsfall10 /jh
Darrell Schlom (Cornell) now talks how layered oxides can be used to control thermal conductivity (eg for thermoelectrics) #mrsfall10 /jh
Daniel Kiener now in U/P/T on how nanopillar testing could identify new irradiation-tolerant materials #mrsfall10 /jh
While chewing my fossil fuel-heated pizza in session X, learned that Norway’s electricity comes 100% from hydropower. Impressive! #mrsfall10
Imagine what one can do with magnets and superconductors on silicon! In sssion K now
to hear Chang-Beom Eom abt oxides on silicon #mrsfall10
Also see the meeting blog, which is being staffed by students:
Multifunctional Nanoparticles for Biomedical ApplicationsThis morning I veered from my standard schedule of going to the NN symposium (biomineralization etc.) and attended Symposium QQ on multifuntional nanoparticles for biomed applications. These were some pretty neat talks. I was very excited to the shear variety of materials and strategies being used to solve biomedical problems with nanoparticles.
The first few talks discussed thoroughly the possibilities of using genetic therapies delivered by nanoparticles. Though the treatment method was similar, the materials used and techniques proposed were not. There were multi-layered particles, gold particles and calcium phosphate particles. While a majority of the talks discussed the particles being delivered in solution, there was also some mention of embedding the particles into polymer layers for a different delivery method.
After the genetic therapies, discussions on magnetic particles began to take over. Speakers mentioned using magnetic particles not only for imaging but for delivering therapeutic molecules and acting as therapeutic agents themselves. Particles have even been shown to cross the blood brain barrier!
The variety in the talks, as well as the extent of the work discussed is great news for the future of medicine. With the plethora of obstacles that biology can throw at us scientists, knowing the potential depth of our tool box is very exciting.
Posted by Trevor Goff on December 01, 2010 at 11:24 AM | Permalink
I visited Symposium OO and heard a talk on “Possible Degradation Mechanism of Zirconia Ceramic under Bio-medical Conditions” by Yoshimura. He started off the talk by stating that one of his most important papers was published in 1988, the year I was born! Since then he has expanded his work, but that paper from twenty years ago, “Phase Stability of Zirconia,” is the groundwork for all of his later research.The talk was interesting because it is focused on when zirconia breaks down, and it explains how degradation occurs using fundamental knowledge.
Fun fact: Zirconia is used as material for “teeth screws”Posted by Erica Lin on November 30, 2010 at 04:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0