IEEE Transactions on Nanobioscience 

About: IEEE Transactions on Nanobioscience is an academic journal published by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Medicine & Computer science. It has an ISSN identifier of 1536-1241. Over the lifetime, 1214 publications have been published receiving 30459 citations. The journal is also known as: Nanobioscience, IEEE transactions on.

Molecular Communication and Networking: Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract: The ability of engineered biological nanomachines to communicate with biological systems at the molecular level is anticipated to enable future applications such as monitoring the condition of a human body, regenerating biological tissues and organs, and interfacing artificial devices with neural systems From the viewpoint of communication theory and engineering, molecular communication is proposed as a new paradigm for engineered biological nanomachines to communicate with the natural biological nanomachines which form a biological system Distinct from the current telecommunication paradigm, molecular communication uses molecules as the carriers of information; sender biological nanomachines encode information on molecules and release the molecules in the environment, the molecules then propagate in the environment to receiver biological nanomachines, and the receiver biological nanomachines biochemically react with the molecules to decode information Current molecular communication research is limited to small-scale networks of several biological nanomachines Key challenges to bridge the gap between current research and practical applications include developing robust and scalable techniques to create a functional network from a large number of biological nanomachines Developing networking mechanisms and communication protocols is anticipated to introduce new avenues into integrating engineered and natural biological nanomachines into a single networked system In this paper, we present the state-of-the-art in the area of molecular communication by discussing its architecture, features, applications, design, engineering, and physical modeling We then discuss challenges and opportunities in developing networking mechanisms and communication protocols to create a network from a large number of bio-nanomachines for future applications

Surface-modified superparamagnetic nanoparticles for drug delivery: preparation, characterization, and cytotoxicity studies

Abstract: Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles have been used for many years as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agents or in drug delivery applications. In this study, a novel approach to prepare magnetic polymeric nanoparticles with magnetic core and polymeric shell using inverse microemulsion polymerization process is reported. Poly(ethyleneglycol) (PEG)-modified superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles with specific shape and size have been prepared inside the aqueous cores of AOT/n-Hexane reverse micelles and characterized by various physicochemical means such as transmission electron microscopy (TEM), infrared spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy (AFM), vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM), and ultraviolet/visible spectroscopy. The inverse microemulsion polymerization of a polymerizable derivative of PEG and a cross-linking agent resulted in a stable hydrophilic polymeric shell of the nanoparticles. The results taken together from TEM and AFM studies showed that the particles are spherical in shape with core-shell structure. The average size of the PEG-modified nanoparticles was found to be around 40-50 nm with narrow size distribution. The magnetic measurement studies revealed the superparamagnetic behavior of the nanoparticles with saturation magnetization values between 45-50 electromagnetic units per gram. The cytotoxicity profile of the nanoparticles on human dermal fibroblasts as measured by standard 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide assay showed that the particles are nontoxic and may be useful for various in vivo and in vitro biomedical applications.

Potassium channels

Abstract: Potassium channels are integral membrane proteins that selectively transport K/sup +/ across the cell membrane. They are present in all mammalian cells and have a wide variety of roles in both excitable and nonexcitable cells. The phenotypic diversity required to accomplish their various roles is created by differences in conductance, the timecourse and mechanisms of different gating events, and the interaction of channels with a variety of accessory proteins. Through the integration of biophysical, molecular, structural, and theoretical studies, significant progress has been made toward understanding the structural basis of K/sup +/ channel function, and diseases associated with K/sup +/ channel dysfunction.

Multiple SVM-RFE for gene selection in cancer classification with expression data

Abstract: This paper proposes a new feature selection method that uses a backward elimination procedure similar to that implemented in support vector machine recursive feature elimination (SVM-RFE). Unlike the SVM-RFE method, at each step, the proposed approach computes the feature ranking score from a statistical analysis of weight vectors of multiple linear SVMs trained on subsamples of the original training data. We tested the proposed method on four gene expression datasets for cancer classification. The results show that the proposed feature selection method selects better gene subsets than the original SVM-RFE and improves the classification accuracy. A Gene Ontology-based similarity assessment indicates that the selected subsets are functionally diverse, further validating our gene selection method. This investigation also suggests that, for gene expression-based cancer classification, average test error from multiple partitions of training and test sets can be recommended as a reference of performance quality.

Carbon nanotubes for biomedical applications

Abstract: Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have many unique physical, mechanical, and electronic properties. These distinct properties may be exploited such that they can be used for numerous applications ranging from sensors and actuators to composites. As a result, in a very short duration, CNTs appear to have drawn the attention of both the industry and the academia. However, there are certain challenges that need proper attention before the CNT-based devices can be realized on a large scale in the commercial market. In this paper, we report the use of CNTs for biomedical applications. The paper describes the distinct physical, electronic, and mechanical properties of nanotubes. The basics of synthesis and purification of CNTs are also reviewed. The challenges associated with CNTs, which remain to be fully addressed for their maximum utilization for biomedical applications, are discussed.