Next-Generation Single-Dose Antidotes for Opioid Overdoses

Next-generation single-dose antidotes for opioid overdoses
Covalent nanoparticles (top) release naloxone (purple structures) slowly over 24 hours. Credit: Marina Kovaliov

The U.S. opioid epidemic is being driven by an unprecedented surge in deaths from fentanyl and other synthetic opiates. Fentanyl’s powerful effects are long-lasting, and even tiny amounts of the drug can lead to an overdose. Antidotes, such as naloxone, do not last long enough in the body to fully counter the drug, requiring repeated injections. Now, scientists report that they are developing single-dose, longer-lasting opioid antidotes using polymer nanoparticles.

The researchers will present their results today at the American Chemical Society (ACS) Spring 2019 National Meeting & Exposition.

“We became interested in this problem while trying to make non-addictive pa...

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Hubble Spots Flock of Cosmic Ducks

This is a Hubble image of Messier 11.
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, P. Dobbie et al.

This star-studded image shows us a portion of Messier 11, an open star cluster in the southern constellation of Scutum (the Shield). Messier 11 is also known as the Wild Duck Cluster, as its brightest stars form a “V” shape that somewhat resembles a flock of ducks in flight.

Messier 11 is one of the richest and most compact open clusters currently known. By investigating the brightest, hottest main sequence stars in the cluster, astronomers estimate that it formed roughly 220 million years ago...

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Engineering for High-Speed Devices

If you use a smartphone, laptop, or tablet, then you benefit from research in photonics, the study of light. The research involved fabricating devices at UD’s Nanofabrication Facility.
Credit: Kathy F. Atkinson

New research explores graphene-silicon devices for photonics applications. If you use a smartphone, laptop, or tablet, then you benefit from research in photonics, the study of light. At the University of Delaware, a team led by Tingyi Gu, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, is developing cutting-edge technology for photonics devices that could enable faster communications between devices and thus, the people who use them.

The research group recently engineered a silicon-graphene device that can transmit radiofrequency waves in less than a picoseco...

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Designer Organelles bring new Functionalities into Cells

The authors see the newly developed synthetic host as a city. On the one hand, typical cellular processes — seen as encapsulated, isolated, and made up of non-interchangeable elements — are represented as repetitive structures: squared, isolated blocks which are always fenced, just like membranous organelles. On the other hand, the image highlights the making of a new organelle — a new building that is not fenced — which is accessible to the rest of the city while having its own identity, a building which is more dynamic and flexible.
Credit: Gemma Estrada Girona

Scientists create membraneless organelle to build proteins in living cell. For the first time, scientists have engineered the complex biological process of translation into a designer organelle in a living mammalian cell...

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