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Originally this was posted over at Roland Piquequaille’s Emerging Trends Blog. (Link) 

U.S. researchers have used a new technique named cryo-EM (short for ‘Electron cryomicroscopy) to capture images of a virus at a resolution of 4.5 angstroms — less than half of a nanometer. As said the lead researcher, ‘This is the highest resolution ever achieved for a living organism of this size.’ The team thinks this should help to develop new disease treatments. Of course, this kind of research has a cost. It requires high-end electron microscopes and powerful computing resources. The next microscope used for this project will be installed in 2009 for a cool $2 million. And in order to generate the 3-D images at this very high resolution with their current microscope, the research team used the power of 7,000 computers at Purdue University. But read more…

You can see above an image of the bacteriophage Epsilon15 studied by Wen Jiang. On the left, the bacteriophage which has approximative diameter of 700 angstroms is shown at a resolution of 4.5 angstroms — the highest resolution achieved for a living organism of this size. On the right are shown “seven subunits in an asymmetric unit, annotated in different colours. Each subunit contains one copy of [baseplate proteins gp7 and gp10? (Credit: Wen Jiang lab, via Nature). Here is a link to a larger and better version of the image on the top left.

This research project has been led by Wen Jiang, an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Purdue University, and members of
his research group. “In addition to Jiang, Matthew L. Baker, Joanita Jakana and Wah Chiu from Baylor College of Medicine, and Peter R. Weigele and Jonathan King from Massachusetts Institute of Technology worked on the project.”

Now, let’s look at the advantages brought by the cryo-EM imaging technique. “The imaging technique, called cryo-EM, has the added benefit of maintaining the sample being studied in a state very similar to its natural environment. Other imaging techniques used regularly, such as X-ray crystallography, require the sample be manipulated. ‘This method offers a new approach for modeling the structure of proteins in other macromolecular assemblies, such as DNA, at near-native states,’ Jiang said. ‘The sample is purified in a solution that is very similar to the environment that would be found in a host cell. It is as if the virus is frozen in glass and it is alive and infectious while we examine it.’”

And why is this imaging technique different from other ones currently used? “In electron microscopy, a beam of electrons takes the place of the light beam used in a conventional microscope. The use of electrons instead of light allows the microscope to “see” in much greater detail. Cryo-EM cools specimens to temperatures well below the freezing point of water. This decreases damage from the electron beam and allows the specimens to be examined for a longer period of time. Longer exposure time allows for sharper, more detailed images.”

For more information, this research work has been published in a recent issue of Nature under the title “Backbone structure of the infectious 15 virus capsid revealed by electron cryomicroscopy” (Volume 451, Number 7182, Pages 1130-1134, February 28, 2008). Here is a link to
the abstract. The images above have been extracted from this page.

Sources: Purdue University News, March 5, 2008; and various websites

For those of you that are working in nanotech or are interested in how nano will effect your lives should take some time and visit The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies Site. This site and the information there is a collaboration between the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and The Pew Charitable Trusts. Their Mission Statement is interesting in their goals. They also have some great content on there:

1. Frontpage with Nano News
2. Green Nano discussion series
3. Inventories of nano products in (Medicine, Agriculture/Food, & Consumer)
4. A list of government sponsors research on EH&S of Nano.
5. Some of the research projects they are sponsoring.
6. Some Publications they have been involved in.

One interesting item on the site I didn’t list above is the Nano Google Maps Mashup. One static image is shown below that shows the relative activity in Nano across the United States. At the link you can zoom in on your area and see the companies locally are working in Nano. Looking at my area, I know the data collection is not complete, but the concepts is a nice way to visualize the geographical relationships to data.

So is your company on the map? If it is you should at least check out the rest of the data at the site.

The original article for this post was actually carried by the BBC News a while back, but I thouht it was worth some

discussion here.

The news announcement in question talks about some work done by Steve Rimmer’s research group at the University of Sheffield. Their research is basically about how to generate lumiscence when a specific biological binding happens. What this would enable is that when one of the customized tags they create comes into contact with the specific pathogen it is specific to, the tag will generate

luminescence. Their work focuses primarily on the tag design coupling the work in flourescent

polymers with the work on biological specific binding agents. I really like that their application is in portable detection of pathogens or bio-threats. To

the right is an image of anthrax (Top:not using this technique) and the second image is one from the Rimmer group website looking at bio-luminescnence detection (specifically: Bottom: Micrograph showing fluorescent particles inside dermal fibroblast cells (blue = particles, red = F-actin)). One specific application the article mentions is the ability to spread a gel of their material into a open wound and quickly determine the presence of bacteria or instance.

I think this is an excellent example of convergence in technology to solve problems. In this case they are combining advances in portable optics and microelectronics, the large biochemistry advancement in target specific binding, and their experise which is the design of highly specialized polymeric units designed for light emission and luminescence. This is a perfect example of “Convergence Problem Solving”, leveraging advances in adjacent fields with your core piece of expertise of technology to really do something beyond the scope of any of the individual pieces of technology you are combining.

Look at this post for how I use this as the basic example for a creativity and ideation examples.