Department für Nanobiotechnologie (DNBT)

Metal nanoparticles have highly reactive surfaces that have long been the mainstay of surface-based catalysis. Assemblies of nanoparticles make it possible to improve the efficiency of catalysts and to recycle them, making chemistry more efficient and sustainable, as well as reducing complexity by reducing the number of reaction steps. Prof. Khakyzadeh at Toosi University in Iran has developed a new nanoparticle-based catalyst for one-pot and odorless synthesis of unsymmetrical aryl sulfides by crossover C–S bond formation. Dr. Shirmardi Shaghasemi from BIMat helped characterized the novel system useful for synthesis of a broad range of therapeutically active compounds.

Positive strand RNA viruses replicate in specialized niches called membranous web within the cytoplasm of host cells. How this web is created is still not understood. However, as part of the IGS BioNanoTech with NTU Singapore, we investigated a novel route by which self-associating virus peptides can make lipid vesicles spontaneously form such webs.

Can you make better drug delivery vehicles by combining the properties of the cell membrane with synthetic polymers? In a new paper from BIMat in Langmuir, we revealed how easy such membranes rupture and which mechanical properties they inherit from polymers and which from lipids.

Who would have thought that one can magnetically control the structure of polymers in biomedical nanoparticles within nanometers? Well, maybe we could, but it required the work of Martina Schroffenegger from the Institute for Biologically Inspired Materials to demonstrate to the world that this and more is possible when designing magnetic core-shell nanoparticles

BOKU develops the science to make more environmentally friendly and lower cost nanomaterials that provide more color to your TV display. Now, we try to go commercial and were accepted into the INiTS incubator as one of five teams out of 142!

We congratulate Philipp Fabian to having successfully defended his master thesis "Self-assembly of polymer coated nanoparticles on water-oil interfaces" on 1st of April. (No joke!) In his thesis he synthesized thermoresponsive magnetic nanoparticles and investigated how they could be used to emulsify biocompatible oils into nanoscale vehicles for future encapsulation and triggered release of poorly soluble drugs. The thesis was supervised by Prof. Erik Reimhult at the Institute for Biologically Inspired Materials (BIMat).