Thermal Stability of Polystyrene Latex Self-Assembled Arrays Studied by Atomic Force Microscopy

Preliminary observation of the heat softening of self-assembled polystyrene latex arrays on the submicron scale using atomic force microscopy is reported. Samples of latex self-assembled arrays have been studied in the temperature range from the room temperature up to 120°C. It has been shown that the submicron scale structure remains stable up to the softening point of polystyrene. The experimental set-up used is described and the results obtained are discussed

Science and Technology for A Sustainable Human Development

At the end of the NanoWorld Conference in San Francisco 25 April 2018 it was decided to formalize the move of the NanoWorld Journal Headquarter from Texas (USA) at United Scientific Group to Bergamo (Europe) at Fondazione ELBA Nicolini, moving also to Paris the Nano World Conferences from March 4-6 2019, previously in San Francisco and Boston

Langmuir-Blodgett Protein Multilayer Nanofilms by XFEL

Serial femtosecond crystallography (SFX) at X-ray free electron lasers (XFELs) has created many new opportunities for protein crystallography, including radiation damage mitigation and the study of dynamics at room temperature. This field is rapidly evolving, requiring new methods of macromolecule organization into diffracting arrays, since current methods of sample preparation and delivery are often the bottleneck which limits productivity. We propose here the LangmuirBlodgett (LB) protein nanofilm technology as a novel approach for direct \u201con chip\u201d protein molecules organization into the 3D ordered diffracting arrays. The combination of this advanced technology with the XFEL for fixed target SFX has the potential to become an important tool for the structure determination of proteins that are difficult to crystallize, such as membrane proteins of life science interest and with pharmaceutical industry impac

Langmuir-Blodgett Technology for Drugs Production and Delivery: Insights and Implications from an In Silico Study

Insulin dynameomics here reported as a database pertaining to a series of Molecular Dynamics (MD) ran for Protein Data Bank (PDB) entries consisting in bioinformatics and molecular dynamics simulation of Langmuir-Blodgett and classical insulin with and without insulin receptor, appears to have profound implications for drug design and endocrinology. The slight differences in conformation and dynamics here reported may indeed explain why LB-insulin is more stable when binds to its receptor (lower free energy) and this could be useful when designing new drugs and pharmaceuticals

NAPPA-Based Vaccines for a New Proteogenomics Approach for Public Health

Vaccinology was developed for the first time in 1796 when Jenner empirically implemented a vaccine against smallpox using animal-to-human cowpox inoculation. Since then, it has become a very complex science due to the merging of disciplines ranging from structural and functional, cellular and molecular biology and immunology to bioinformatics and nanobiotechnology, as well as systems biology and synthetic biology and engineering. In the frame of evidence-based medicine (EBM), evidence-based vaccinology emerged as an important sub-field: vaccinology has nowadays become more and more predictive and personalized. With the discovery that many patients with cancer develop antibodies against p53 (the so-called oncoantibodies), it was evident that oncoprotein are immunogenic and can be used for immunotherapeutics purposes. In this manuscript, we report Nucleic Acid Programmable Protein Arrays (NAPPA)-based Quartz Crystal Microbalance (QCM) measurement of p53 immunogenicity and kinetics, in the perspective of developing an effective p53 therapy. NAPPA-based QCM_D can be a useful platform for proving the immunogenicity of oncoprotein-based vaccines. Recently, the field of vaccinology has extended from vaccines for infectious diseases to vaccines not only preventive but also therapeutic for chronic-degenerative diseases such as cancer. Peptide-based immunotherapeutics has been proven to be quite effective for cancer treatment and NAPPA-based QCM_D has the promise of providing clinicians with quick, rapid and cheap measurement of oncoprotein kinetics and bindings with immune cells. Moreover, it can be a precious tool for implementing personalized and predictive vaccinology

Synchrotron powder diffraction study of radiation damage in Langmuir Blodgett nanotemplate crystallised protein

Polycrystalline samples of lysozyme were prepared with and without a Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) thin film template via both the hanging drop method and batch crystallisation. Powder diffraction methods are used to compare these samples and to measure their resistance to radiation damage at room temperature. The X-ray induced amorphisation of the samples was followed as a function of time and it was shown that diffraction does not entirely disappear even at very long exposure times. Two distinct kinetic timescales are evident suggesting that early and late stage processes are quite different. Radiation damage was also shown to be localized in the sample in the region where the beam impinges