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Posts on Jan 1970

Rosa Villa explains how New graphene implants can help to better understand the brain


A graphene implant that detects brain activity at extremely low frequencies could improve the technology of the electrodes to analyze the state of our brain, has been developed by researchers from several research institutes of the CSIC in Catalonia and the CIBER-BBN.

Last First of February , Rosa Villa, Scientific Director of NANBIOSIS U8 Micro – Nano Technology Unit was interviewed in Ágora, a program of Scientific Dissemination of Radio Aragón. Dr. Villa, researcher of the Biomedical Applications Group of the Institute of Microelectronics of Barcelona and CIBER in Bioengineering, Biomaterials and Nanomedicine, explains the relevance of the research carried out, together with several institutes of the CSIC in Catalonia, on the application of new materials to the study of brain activity.

The brain is composed of many neurons that communicate with each other. This communication occurs through electric currents that are detected with electrodes placed on the surface of the head or above the brain. Brain waves are very different if we are awake or asleep or when we have certain pathologies. The electrodes with which these electrical signals
were analyzed used to be large; thanks to the microelectronics began to make increasingly smaller electrodes that could identify communications much better but that small size also makes their limited reach, since they do not always take all the degrees of frequency.

Graphene has opened the degree of frequencies to detect the electrical signals of the brain. So far the electrodes were placed on top of the hair (for example the encephalograms) but now, although it has only been done in animals for the moment, the microelectrodes are already being placed as implants on the brain itself, which are left on the surface or they dig in to access more depth. When this is done, the brain feels invaded and isolates that electrode generating a scar, which is why more compatible materials are sought that are not rejected by the brain, such as graphene. Overcoming this technical limitation makes accessible the large amount of information that is below 0.1 Hz, while it facilitates the design of new brain-computer interfaces can register a wide range of frequency of what is occurring in a site of the brain.

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Cancer metabolism in a snapshot: MRS(I)

Margarida Julià‐Sapé, Ana Paula Candiota and Carles Arús, Scientific Director and Scientific Coordinators of Nanbiosis U25 NMR: Biomedical Applications I, are the authors of a new article in the journal NMR in Biomedicine: “Cancer metabolism in a snapshot: MRS(I)

The article contains a revision of the contribution of MRS(I) to the in vivo evaluation of cancer‐metabolism‐derived metrics, mostly since 2016. Strategies include the following: (1) quantification of single oncometabolite content such as 2HG; (2) selected metabolite ratios such as total Cho to NAA in gliomas, ratios related to Cho, Cr, citrate and polyamines in prostate cancer or Lac/Pyr in hyperpolarized 13C MRSI; and (3) the whole 1H MRSI(I) pattern, through pattern recognition analysis, allowing detection of response to therapy in preclinical brain tumours before detectable volume changes.

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Quatsomes. A new family of nanocarriers for drug delivery

The XXXVII edition of the Biennial Meeting of the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry (RSEQ) will be held from the 26th to the 30th of May in Donostia-San Sebastian

Prof. Jaume Veciana, Scientific Director of NANBIOSIS and unit 06  of NANBIOSIS -ICTS  Biomaterial Processing and Nanostructuring Unitwill present on May 28th 2019 a lecture entitled “Quatsomes. A new family of nanocarriers for drug delivery” at the Simposium “From Chemistry to Nanomedicine” (http://bienal2019.com/simposios.php). In this lecture the advantages and disavatages of such a kind of nanocarriers will be presentaed as well as some of their applications as nanomedicines.”

Deadline for sending abstracts: January 30 (http://bienal2019.com/en/communications.php) 

Early registration until March 2. 

There are scholarships available for students members of the RSEQ and for any of the groups indicated in http://bienal2019.com/becas.ph

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