Nanotechnology for HEALTH

The main ambition of this line is to develop applications that provide lacking medical solutions to diagnostic and therapeutic problems that are impossible to address by other approaches. The IMN focuses its activities on three areas: nanostructured biointerfaces, nanomechanics and nanophotonics.

Nanostructured biointerfaces for implant applications can be an alternative to antibiotics to address the problem of infection from the very first stage by preventing the biofilm formation. Also, nanostructured biomaterials improve the growth of eukaryotic cells. Obtaining both effects simultaneously, that is, to produce surfaces that exhibit opposite behavior regarding cells and bacteria proliferation is a hot topic in Nanomedicine where the IMN is highly involved.

Nanomechanics can be used in biomedical applications to detect bioanalytes and to measure some of their properties (mass, elasticity, viscosity). Nanomechanical sensing consists on harnessing the mechanical response (position, deflection, vibration, etc) of engineered nanostructures (beams, disks, etc.) to the presence and mechanical properties of a given bioanalyte of interest, so that such response provides information about its concentration, properties or state. Given the mechanical nature of many fundamental processes involved in disease biology, nanomechanics opens a unique route towards an increasingly better understanding of disease mechanisms leading to new targets for more specific and earlier diagnostic and therapeutic treatments.

Nanophotonics exploits singular light-matter interactions when matter is structured at the nanoscale. Nanostructured metals provide the chance to engineer the interactions between plasmon resonances and bioanalytes in order to develop various types of sensors. For example, because the highly concentrated light near metallic nanostrucures is sensitive to molecular dynamics, these nanostructures can function as sensors for understanding molecular-level biological processes involved in disease initiation or progression. Also, with the increased scattering and/or absorption cross sections, metal nanoparticles are extremely sensitive labels for immunoassays and molecular spectroscopy. Plasmonic sensing technology is thus a significant focus of research at the IMN.

Research Groups working on HEALTH
 
Acronim Name IP email
B-nano Bio-nano-Mecanical Lab Prof. Javier Tamayo javier.tamayo@csic.es
MetalNano Metallic nanostructures and magneto-plasmonics Prof. Gaspar Armelles magnetoplasmonics@imn.cnm.csic.es
AFM-Mi Atomic Force Microscopy Methods and Instrumentation Dr. Mónica Luna monica.luna@csic.es
NanoPod Nanophotonic Devices Dr. Aitor Postigo pabloaitor.postigo@imn.cnm.csic.es

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