Illustration demonstrating the anti-cancer effect of the drug combination. Credit: Evi Bieler, NanoImaging Lab, University of Basel

A combination of a diabetes medication and an antihypertensive drug can effectively combat specific cancer cells. Metformin is the most widely prescribed drug for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. Besides its blood sugar lowering effect, it also displays anti-cancer properties. The usual therapeutic dose, however, is too low to effectively fight cancer. The team has now made an unexpected discovery: The antihypertensive drug syrosingopine potentiates the anti-cancer efficacy of metformin. Apparently, this drug combination drives cancer cells to programmed “suicide.”

At higher doses, the antidiabetic drug inhibits the growth of cancer cells but could also induc...

Design of sHDL nanodisc platform for personalized cancer vaccines.

Researchers at the University of Michigan have had initial success in mice using nanodiscs to deliver a customized therapeutic vaccine for the treatment of colon and melanoma cancer tumors. “We are basically educating the immune system with these nanodiscs so that immune cells can attack cancer cells in a personalized manner,” said James Moon, the John Gideon Searle assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences and biomedical engineering.

Personalized immunotherapy is a fast-growing field of research in the fight against cancer. The therapeutic cancer vaccine employs nanodiscs loaded with tumor neoantigens, unique mutations found in tumor cells...

In the proposed system, a carbon nanotube is suspended between two leads, below a tip electrode, and above a gate. The pair of leads and the tip are two separate electron reservoirs with different temperatures. Electrons can tunnel between the nanotube and the reservoirs. Although electron exchange between the two reservoirs is prevented, electron-electron interaction couples the two reservoirs, allowing for a heat flow. Credit: A. Vikström et al. ©2016 American Physical Society

Illustrating the unusual way things work on the nanoscale, scientists have designed a new nanoelectromechanical system (NEMS) that produces mechanical motion due to the interactions between electrons—yet unlike similar systems, this system does not require any electric current...

The magnetic structure of a skyrmion is symmetrical around its core; arrows indicate the direction of spin. Credit: ill./©: Benjamin Krüger, JGU

Another breakthrough in future magnetic storage devices has been made by JGU and MIT resesarchers. Already in March 2016, the international team investigated structures, which could serve as magnetic shift register or racetrack memory devices. This type of storage promises low access times, high information density, and low energy consumption. Now, the team achieved the billion-fold reproducible motion of special magnetic textures, so-called skyrmions, between different positions, which is exactly the process needed in magnetic shift registers thereby taking a critical step towards the application of skyrmions in devices.

The experiments were ca...