From the company:

RainStorm technology creates an island of simplicity in the controlled chaos of the laboratory. It utilizes simplicity and speed to inspire scientists to design experiments in ways previously unaffordable or unimaginable. The platform is aligned with current applications to accelerate workflow and throughput. This approach has generated quantifiable benefits:

Individualized reactions based on proven methods with minimal opportunity for process induced bias or error, while avoiding the disadvantages and limitations of multiplexed assay formats

Full control of the discrete droplets with our microfluidic elements and advanced signal processing, providing operators simple and streamlined workflows

Picoliter reaction volumes providing favorable reaction kinetics and efficient utilization of precious samples

Physical characteristics that allow the flexibility to meet the needs of a variety of applications

The speed and higher precision of millions of reactions per hour in a compact instrument footprint, avoiding the need for large automation solutions

Increased statistical confidence provided by large numbers of replicate measurements

The ability to easily capture the output of on-chip processes, empowering the technology with both preparative and analytical capabilities

By deflecting the costs inherent in large automation solutions and circumventing the complexities of multiplex assays, the RainStorm droplet-based technology platform easily adapts to applications in high-growth life science markets.

Here's a video, slowed down by a factor of 1,000, showing RainDance's droplet sorting system:

RainDance technology page...

More from Boston Globe...

Full story: Nanotechnology transport systems get a closer look...

From Michael Berger at Nanowerk:

An area of particular interest is differentiation of MSC [mesenchymal stem cells] into cardiomyocytes (let's simply call them 'heart muscle cells') for damaged heart muscle tissue. In a heart attack, part of the heart muscle loses its blood supply and cells in that part of the heart die, thereby damaging the muscle. This reduces the ability of the heart to pump blood around the body. Considering that coronary heart disease is the leading cause of death in most Western countries (in America with almost half a million fatalities and well over 1 million new and recurrent coronary attacks), stem cell therapy – to repair heart muscle cells, and restore the viability and function of the area already damaged – could have a tremendous impact on modern medicine.

"Recently, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been generating great excitement in the fields of bioengineering and drug delivery research – however, very little is known about the affect of CNTs on MSC response" Dr. Valerie Barron tells Nanowerk. "Therefore, the main aim of one of our recent research studies was to investigate the effect of CNTs on human MSC (hMSC) biocompatibility, proliferation and multipotency."

In this study, Barron, a Senior Researcher at the National Centre for Biomedical Engineering Science at National University of Ireland (NUI), together with collaborators from NUI's Regenerative Medicine Institute and Department of Anatomy, investigated a range of different types of CNTs,including single-walled nanotubes (SWCNTs), multi-walled nanotubes (MWCNTs) and functionalized CNTs.

More nitty-gritty details at the Nanowerk...

“The polyketal microparticles we developed are simply a vehicle to get the drugs inside the body to the diseased area as quickly as possible,” said Niren Murthy, assistant professor in the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. “The major advantage to using these polyketals to deliver drugs is that they degrade into biocompatible compounds that don’t accumulate in a patient’s tissue or cause additional inflammation.”

Details about the polyketals and clinical applications were described during three presentations on August 18-20 at the 236th American Chemical Society National Meeting in Philadelphia. This research – initially started in 2003 – is funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

In a presentation on August 19, graduate student Scott Wilson detailed a new polyketal derivative aimed at enhancing the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease – an illness that causes the large and small intestines to swell.

The new polymer has the advantage of stability in both acids and bases. It degrades only in the presence of reactive oxygen species, which are present in and around inflamed tissue. Cell culture experiments have demonstrated that the microparticles degraded more rapidly in cells that overproduced superoxide, a reactive oxygen species.

“Delivering proteins inside microparticles has been limited because getting the protein into the microparticles required organic solvents that frequently destroyed the proteins,” explained Murthy. “To overcome this problem, we developed a method of simply immobilizing the protein on the surface of the microparticles.”

The researchers incorporated a nitrilotriacetic acid-lipid conjugate into the polyketal. In a one-step procedure, they mixed the microparticles with the proteins and centrifuged them. That immobilized the proteins on the surface of the polyketals. Laboratory experiments conducted under physiological conditions have shown that half of the bound proteins were released within 24 hours.

Press release: Polyketal microparticles show promise as drug delivery vehicle...

Image: Scanning electron microscope image of polyketal microparticles loaded with the therapeutic enzyme superoxide dismutase, which is used to treat acute liver failure. (Georgia Tech Image: Courtesy of Niren Murthy)

The researchers used nanotubes that they had coated with polyethylene glycol (PEG), a common ingredient in cosmetics. The PEG they used was a form that has three little branches sprouting from a central trunk. Stuffing the trunks into the linked hexagonal rings that make up the nanotubes created a visual effect that Dai [Hongjie Dai, professor of chemistry] described as looking like rolled-up chicken wire with feathers sticking out all over. The homespun sounding appearance notwithstanding, the nanotubes proved to be highly effective delivery vehicles when the researchers attached the paclitaxel to the tips of the branches.

Dai's team has found in earlier work (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 105, No. 5, 1410-1415, Feb. 5, 2008) that coating nanotubes with PEG was an effective way to keep the nanotubes circulating in the bloodstream for up to 10 hours, long enough to find their way to the target location and much longer than free medication would circulate. Although attaching the paclitaxel to the PEG turned out to reduce the circulation time, it proved to still be long enough to deliver a highly effective dose inside the tumor cells.

All blood vessel walls are slightly porous, but in healthy vessels the pores are relatively small. By tinkering with the length of the nanotubes, the researchers were able to tailor the nanotubes so that they were too large to get through the holes in the walls of normal blood vessels, but still small enough to easily slip through the larger holes in the relatively leaky blood vessels in the tumor tissue.

That enabled the nanotubes to deliver their medicinal payload with tremendous efficiency, throwing a therapeutic wrench into the cellular means of reproduction and thus squelching the hitherto unrestrained proliferation of the tumor cells.

Press release: Slipping through cell walls, nanotubes deliver high-potency punch to cancer tumors in mice

Abstract in Cancer Research...

The researchers used nanotubes that they had coated with polyethylene glycol (PEG), a common ingredient in cosmetics. The PEG they used was a form that has three little branches sprouting from a central trunk. Stuffing the trunks into the linked hexagonal rings that make up the nanotubes created a visual effect that Dai [Hongjie Dai, professor of chemistry] described as looking like rolled-up chicken wire with feathers sticking out all over. The homespun sounding appearance notwithstanding, the nanotubes proved to be highly effective delivery vehicles when the researchers attached the paclitaxel to the tips of the branches.

Dai's team has found in earlier work (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 105, No. 5, 1410-1415, Feb. 5, 2008) that coating nanotubes with PEG was an effective way to keep the nanotubes circulating in the bloodstream for up to 10 hours, long enough to find their way to the target location and much longer than free medication would circulate. Although attaching the paclitaxel to the PEG turned out to reduce the circulation time, it proved to still be long enough to deliver a highly effective dose inside the tumor cells.

All blood vessel walls are slightly porous, but in healthy vessels the pores are relatively small. By tinkering with the length of the nanotubes, the researchers were able to tailor the nanotubes so that they were too large to get through the holes in the walls of normal blood vessels, but still small enough to easily slip through the larger holes in the relatively leaky blood vessels in the tumor tissue.

That enabled the nanotubes to deliver their medicinal payload with tremendous efficiency, throwing a therapeutic wrench into the cellular means of reproduction and thus squelching the hitherto unrestrained proliferation of the tumor cells.

Press release: Slipping through cell walls, nanotubes deliver high-potency punch to cancer tumors in mice

Abstract in Cancer Research...

From Nanowerk:

Neuzil [Dr. Pavel Neuzil, researcher at the Institute of Microelectronics in Singapore] explains that the typical reflection spectra of an in-house-fabricated LSPR chip exhibits absorption peaks at 555 nm for water and 645 nm for ethanol. "Measuring only the intensity of the reflected light at a few selected wavelengths could lead to a calculation of the peak shift" he says. "In fact, a LSPR system with high reproducibility could even be based on the amplitude of the reflected light intensity at a selected wavelength. The consequence of this is significant as this would allow replacement of the spectrum analyzer and subsequent signal processing scheme by a single source of monochromatic light and a photodiode as detector. The resulting photocurrent output could then be converted into a voltage by an operational amplifier with a resistor in a feedback loop (I/V converter) and detected by a voltmeter."

The two researchers have started this work accidentally. They were conducting an advanced lithography experiment for researchers from a sister institute using a method called lift-off: silicon wafers with 200 mm diameters were covered with light sensitive material (photo resist) and exposed by deep UV light creating a regular pattern of 150 nm diameter holes in the photoresist. The next step was gold deposition over the photoresist and final step was supposed to be photoresist removal by dissolving in a suitable solvent such as acetone together with the gold above the photoresist.

Read the rest at Nanowerk...

Article in Analytical Chemistry: Palm-Sized Biodetection System Based on Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance

Nanowerk: The current status of nanotechnology-based therapeutics in humans...

Image credit: Wellcome images: Nanobot with red blood cells...

From the article abstract:

Magnetic cobalt spinel ferrite nanoparticles coated with biocompatible polygalacturonic acid were functionalized with ligands specific for targeting expressed EphA2 receptors on ovarian cancer cells. By using such magnetic nanoparticle−peptide conjugates, targeting and extraction of malignant cells were achieved with a magnetic field. Targeting ovarian cancer cells with receptor specific peptide-modified magnetic nanoparticles resulted in cell capture from a flow stream in vitro and from the peritoneal cavity of mice in vivo. Successful removal of metastatic cancer cells from the abdominal cavity and circulation using magnetic nanoparticle conjugates indicate the feasibility of a dialysis-like treatment and may improve long-term survival rates of ovarian cancer patients. This approach can be applied for fighting other cancers, such as leukemia, once the receptors on malignant cells are identified and the efficacy of targeting ligands is established.

Abstract in J. Am. Chem. Soc....

Image: In red are nanoparticles coated with a tumor targeting peptide attached to an ovarian cancer cell. Credit: J. Am. Chem. Soc. Copyright 2008 American Chemical Society

More from MIT Technology Review..

From the abstract in PNAS:

We designed an ανβ3-targeted nanoparticle (NP) encapsulating the cytotoxic drug doxorubicin (Dox) for targeted drug delivery to the ανβ3-expressing tumor vasculature. We observed real-time targeting of this NP to tumor vessels and noted selective apoptosis in regions of the ανβ3-expressing tumor vasculature. In clinically relevant pancreatic and renal cell orthotopic models of spontaneous metastasis, targeted delivery of Dox produced an antimetastatic effect. In fact, ανβ3-mediated delivery of this drug to the tumor vasculature resulted in a 15-fold increase in antimetastatic activity without producing drug-associated weight loss as observed with systemic administration of the free drug.

Press release: "Smart Bomb" Nanoparticle Strategy Impacts Metastasis...

Abstract in PNAS...

More in WIRED...