Investigadores de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia en Bogotá han desarrollado unas tiritas biodegradables para las heridas que aceleran el proceso de la cicatrización y reducen el dolor que sufren los afectados. Además, están preparadas para que poco a poco se vayan deteriorando sin que el paciente tenga necesidad de quitárselas.

Estudio demuestra que quitosana/IL-12 es una sustancia efectiva para inmunoterapia anti-tumores

A new study by a University of Arkansas biomedical engineer and his colleagues at the National Cancer Institute demonstrates further promise for chitosan/interleukin-12 as an effective anti-tumor immunotherapy. The researchers had already demonstrated success with chitosan/IL-12 in the treatment of superficial bladder cancer in mice, for which human clinical trials will likely begin in 2011. But recent findings revealed that injections of chitosan/IL-12 eradicated aggressive colorectal and pancreatic tumors as well.

Desarrollo de nanopartículas a partir de crustáceos para eliminar contaminantes tipo pesticidas usados en la agricultura y que por acción de la lluvia estos lixiviados llegan a los mantos acuíferos, ríos y lagos.

When Flavio Campagnaro bought brewing equipment from an auction at a closing Molson factory in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, it wasn’t with the intention of brewing up batches of homemade beer. Instead he’s using the drums too cook up something far more potent: pesticides.

Campagnaro is the vice president of manufacturing for ViveNano, a biotech startup that’s hoping its technology can help diminish residual chemicals in agricultural runoff. Traditional pesticides, including those used on organic crops, require what ViveNano’s CEO Keith Thomas calls a “soup of chemicals” to become water-soluble streams capable of killing weeds and other pests.

And you likely know the rest of the story – it rains, and these chemicals drain from the fields into groundwater, rivers, lakes, and streams, where they wreak havoc on the ecosystem, drinking water, and oceans.

El material podría usarse en pintura para autos que se repara con el sol

En el futuro quizás lo único que necesite para reparar la pintura de su auto será un rayo de sol.

Científicos en Estados Unidos crearon un nuevo material que, dicen, puede autoreparar sus roturas y rasguños cuando se le expone a un rayo de luz ultravioleta.

El secreto del material, afirman los investigadores en la revista Science, está en que utiliza moléculas hechas de chitosan, una sustancia natural que se deriva de las conchas y caparazones de crustáceos como el camarón.

Producen la película quirúrgica más delgada del mundo (60nm) con quitosana y alginato de sodio

TO GO WITH AFP DOUNIAMAG STORY Japan’s Waseda University researcher Toshinori Fujie displays the ultra thin flexible surgical sheet, made of chitosan from crab shell and sodium alginate from kelp at his laboratory in Tokyo on July 8, 2009. Waseda’s professor Shinji Takeoka and his team developed the world’s thinest adhesive sheet, in thickness of 60-nanometer, and they reported to use the nanosheets for wound dressing materials to repair the inner pleura of wounded dogs without complication. AFP PHOTO / Yoshikazu TSUNO (Photo credit should read YOSHIKAZU TSUNO/AFP/Getty Images)