Nanomaterials have become increasingly important in medicine, manufacturing, and consumer products. The fundamental understanding in effects of nanoparticles (NPs) on and their interactions with biomolecules and organismal systems have yet to be achieved. In this chapter, we f ...

Comet assay provides a rapid and reliable way to screen genotoxic effects of a wide variety of nanoparticles. Single cell gel electrophoresis assay (SCGE) or comet assay gained in popularity as a standard technique and is widely used for testing novel particles or chemicals for genotoxicity, ...

Nanotechnology exploits the fact that nanoparticles exhibit unique physicochemical properties, which are distinct from larger particles of the same composition. It follows that nanoparticles may also express distinct bioactivity and unique interactions with biological ...

Ever since the discovery of carbon nanotubes, there has been an increasing interest in technologies that rely upon these incredibly small particles for their unique properties. However, assessment of their biological consequences has been riddled with assay limitations. Here, we de ...

Despite the wealth of studies related to the isolation and synthesis of metallic nanoparticles, few studies have been conducted to extract nanoparticles from plants. Nanoparticles isolated from plants have been demonstrated to have unique properties for biomedical and industri ...

Organically modified silica (ORMOSIL) nanoparticles, owing to the presence of lipophilic organic groups, can host active lipophilic molecules in their interior, as well as form electrostatic complex with therapeutic agents such as genes on their surface. Owing to this fact, they have nu ...

Biocompatibility, stability, and efficiency remain among the major goals in the development of new drug delivery systems. Herein we describe a facile method for encapsulation of Bone Morphogenetic Protein-2 (BMP-2) at high concentrations and in mild conditions by exploiting the ther ...

Crotamine is a basic, 42-residue polypeptide derived from snake venom that has been shown to possess cell-penetrating properties. Crotamine forms nanoparticles with a variety of DNA and RNA molecules, and crotamine-plasmid DNA nanoparticles are selectively delivered into activ ...

Therapeutic gene delivery systems offer the potential for the treatment of a range of inherited and acquired inherited diseases. In contrast with viral gene vectors, the nonviral gene vectors provide a safer alternative and additional advantage such as the improved delivery efficien ...

Here we review the scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) characterization technique and STEM imaging methods. We describe applications of STEM for studying inorganic nanoparticles, and other uses of STEM in biological and health sciences and discuss how to interpret S ...

Scientific evaluation of potential environmental hazards resulting from man-made nanomaterials has been hampered by the inability to optimally detect cell-associated nanoparticles. We have successfully imaged TiO2 nanoparticles in ARPE-19 cells using different light m ...

Nanoparticulate systems are widely used for site-specific drug and gene delivery as well as for medical imaging. The mode of nanoparticle-cell interaction may have a significant effect on the pathway of nanoparticle internalization and subsequent intracellular trafficking. To ...

Evaluation of the potential hazard of man-made nanomaterials has been hampered by a limited ability to observe and measure nanoparticles in cells. A FACSCalibur™ flow cytometer was used to measure changes in light scatter from cells after incubation with TiO2 nanoparticle. Both the side sc ...

The use of single molecules as building blocks for practical electronic devices and sensors has high potential for novel applications due to the versatility of electronic properties of the molecules. Nano-sized molecules offer great potential for further miniaturization of elect ...

Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis (NTA) is an image analysis-based technique that deduces the particle size from the changing position of scattering diffusing particles in a sequence of images. It is shown that a basic understanding of the underlying physical principles largely helps to ...

Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis (NTA) provides direct and real time visualization, sizing, and counting of particulate materials between 10 nm and 1 μm in liquid suspension. The technique works on a particle-by-particle basis, relating the degree of movement under Brownian motion to the ...

In recent years, the near-infrared fluorescence (NIRF) labeled iron nanoparticles were synthesized and applied to labeling human cells for monitoring the engraftment process, imaging tumors, testing intracellular molecular environment surrounding the nanoparticles, a ...

Hydrophilic semiconductor nanoparticles are very attractive for various biological applications, such as in optical sensing, tracing, and imaging of biological molecules-of-interest, because of their broad excitation wavelength, tunable emission wavelength, strong p ...

Here, we describe typical methods and provide detailed experimental protocols for synthesizing and processing various semiconductor nanoparticles which have potential application in biology and medicine. These include synthesis of binary semiconductor nanoparticl ...

The interest in quantum dots (QD) and a number of reported life sciences applications increased dramatically over the last decade. The popularity of QDs stems from better photostability, higher extinction �co-efficients, and unique optical properties such as superior light absorp ...