31^st Nano Congress for Future Advancements August 29-30, 2019 London, UK

Henrique Faneca is principal investigator at Centre for Neuroscience and Cell Biology, and invited assistant professor at University of Coimbra. He received is PhD degree in Biochemistry from Coimbra University in 2005. The main focus of his research are the development of lipid- and polymer-based nanosystems for gene and drug delivery into target cells and the generation of new antitumor strategies, involving different gene therapy approaches either per se or in combination with chemotherapeutic agents. Henrique Faneca is author of more than 45 scientific papers corresponding to over 1500 citations and to an h-index of 19.

Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most frequent cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide. Combination of different chemotherapeutics drugs may offer advantages for the treatment of HCC. Nanotechnology has made exceptional headway, emerging as a revolutionary platform to treat a wide variety of tumors, mainly due to prolonged drug release, as well as increased cell internalization. In this work, we have developed a drug delivery system, a hybrid nanoparticle formulation, which allows the specific delivery into HCC cells. The hybrid nanoparticle comprises a core of PLGA coated by a lipidic envelope constituted by 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine; cholesterol and 1,2-distearoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine-N-[methoxy(polyethylene glycol)-2000] (PEG) with a specific ligand (GalNac) covalently attached. The obtained nanosystems were characterized by transmission electron microscopy, dynamic light scattering, zeta potential analysis and differential scanning calorimetry, showing a mean diameter (ï‚» 150 nm) and a surface charge (ï‚» -25 mv) suitable for in vivo applications. The hybrid nanoparticle enables the release of two drugs demonstrated through release studies of fluorescent probes and drugs in dialysis. The presence of GalNac (a specific ligand to the asialoglycoprotein receptor that is overexpressed in HCC) allowed the internalization of the nanosystems and the release of the drugs preferentially in HCC cells, as demonstrated by flow cytometry and confocal microscopy. This new nanosystem represents an added value in the fight against the global scourge of hepatocellular carcinoma.

A-Young Sung has conducted academic research at Harvard University and Oxford University as a visiting professor. She is the vice president of Society for Korea Standards Certification and safety. She has published more than 100 papers in reputed journals and has been serving as an editorial board member of Korean Optometry Society.

The development of ophthalmic lens materials has been consistently attempted to reduce these side effects and foreign body sensation. The basic properties that ophthalmic lenses should have are comfortable fit and wettability, which greatly affect the ophthalmic side effects. Ophthalmic lenses can be evaluated based on their basic physical and optical properties, such as their water content, light transmittance, wettability, and oxygen permeability. The roughness of the carbon surface is also known to greatly influence the wettability of the material. The wettability can be improved through various surface treatments. The isocyanate material that was used in this experiment is known to increase the degree of crosslinking and to improve the mechanical properties when it reacts with polyuria; thus, it is widely used as an adhesive, a hardener, and the like. This study aimed to manufacture a high-wettability and high-strength ophthalmic lens by adding HDI and carbon nanoparticles at various ratios into the basic-combination Ref. prepared using HEMA, a base polymer used as a material for hydrophilic ophthalmic lenses; EGDMA, a crosslinking agent; and AIBN, an initiator. And also, the physical properties (i.e., refractive index, water content, contact angle, light transmittance, tensile strength, breaking strength, and absorbance) were measured. When HDI and carbon nanoparticles were added, the water content decreased but the tensile and breaking strengths increased, along with the wettability, according to the carbon nanoparticle addition ratio. In particular, when two additives were used together, the strength increased due to the interaction between the HDI and carbon nanoparticles.

Jing LIU is currently a lecturer of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. She received her B.S. (Materials Science and Engineering) from Tongji University and her MSC degree (Materials Science) from Loughborough University, UK. In 2012, she obtained her PhD degree followed with a postdoctoral position at from Loughborough University. Her research interests focus on catalysis, nano ceramics and metal-ceramic interpenetrating composites.

It is known that addition of alkaline promoters can help to improve the coking resistance of the metal/support composite catalysts for methane reforming with CO2 (dry reforming of methane, DRM). The metal/promoter/support composites for DRM catalysis are conventionally obtained from alkaline species impregnation and then high temperature H2 reduction. This two-step process usually leads to a random distribution of metal–promoter interaction. We herein report a novel magnesiothermic method to reduce Ni from oxide precursor and introduce alkaline Mg(II) into the composite at the same time, which also gratifies the interaction between the promoter and metal nanoparticles (NPs). The as prepared catalysts show good activity and outstanding coking resistance in DRM.

Gaafar M.R. has completed her master and M.D. from Alexandria University. She is a professor of Medical Parasitology in Faculty of Medicine, Alexandria University. She has published more than 20 papers in reputed journals.

Toxoplasmosis is a worldwide infection caused by obligate intracellular protozoan parasite which is Toxoplasma gondii. Chitosan and silver nanoparticles were synthesized to be evaluated singly or combined for their antitoxoplasma effects as prophylaxis and as treatment in the experimental animals. Results were assessed through studying the parasite density, studying the ultrastructural parasite changes and estimation of serum gamma interferon. Weight of tissue silver was assessed in different organs. Results showed that silver nanoparticles used singly or combined with chitosan have promising antitoxoplasma potentials. The animals that received these compounds showed statistically significant decrease in the mean number of the parasite count in the liver and the spleen, when compared to the corresponding control group. Light microscopic examination of the peritoneal exudates of animals receiving these compounds showed stoppage of movement and deformity in shape of the tachyzoites, whereas, by Scanning Electron microscope, the organisms were mutilated. Moreover, gamma interferon was increased in the serum of animals receiving these compounds. All values of silver detected in different tissues were within the safe range. Thus, these nanoparticles proved their effectiveness against the experimental Toxoplasma infection.

Tao Wang has completed his PhD at the age of 25 years from the key laboratory of laser technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, P. R. China. He is the Professor of Huazhong University of Science and Technology. He has published more than 55 papers in reputed journals and has been serving as an Member of SPIE from January 1997 and the Chinese Optical Society from 1990. His research interests include Optoelectronic Devices and Integration, Biological Optical Sensing, Information Optics and Photonics Technologies, Nonlinear Optics and Applications, Nanophotonics, Nanostructures and Nanometrology

In the past decade, noble metals-based plasmonic metamaterials have been extensively researched and employed in fields such as optical filtering, biosensing, thermoelectric acquisition and photodetection, which mostly benefits from the localized or non-localized plasmonic resonance modes of metallic nanostructure arrays that form the plasmonic metamaterials. In this work, we propose a significantly sensitive refractive index sensor based on gold nanotube hyperbolic metamaterial. Effective dielectric tensor components of the gold nanotube array are numerically obtained by the Maxwell-Garnett effective medium theory for shell-liked structure, in which we demonstrate the k-space hyperbolic dispertion relation from visible to near-infrared regime. In order to theoretically verify the sensing capability of the gold nanotube array-based hyperbolic metamaterial, we design an attenuated total reflectance (ATR) configuration to calculate the reflectance spectrum utilizing the transfer matrix method (TMM). In our simulation model, the plasmonic hyperbolic metamaterial is equivalent to a extremely anisotropic media layer with one component of the permittivity tensor negative to the other two. The results show that four distinctive reflection dips with narrow bandwidths representing for the high-k bulk plasmonic resonance modes are achieved in the near-infrared wavelength range. Moreover, the four dips have significant shift as the refractive index of superstrate changes slightly. Ultra-high sensitivities of 16,700 nm/RIU and 43,300 nm/RIU which exceed that of localized-plasmon based schemes by two orders of magnitude are obtained at the resonance wavelengths of 1448 nm and 2324 nm, respectively. Meanwhile, the figure of merit (FOM) for the two modes reaches 198 and 620, respectively. Given the outstanding refractive index sensing capability, we believe that the proposed gold nanotube hyperbolic metamaterial has potential application in the fields of label-free biosensing and spectroscopy.

Henrique Faneca is principal investigator at Centre for Neuroscience and Cell Biology, and invited assistant professor at University of Coimbra. He received is PhD degree in Biochemistry from Coimbra University in 2005. The main focus of his research are the development of lipid- and polymer-based nanosystems for gene and drug delivery into target cells and the generation of new antitumor strategies, involving different gene therapy approaches either per se or in combination with chemotherapeutic agents. Henrique Faneca is author of more than 45 scientific papers corresponding to over 1500 citations and to an h-index of 19.

Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles (MSNs) have been considered as promising drug delivery systems, namely for carrying anticancer drugs, in order to improve the efficacy of conventional chemotherapy treatments. In this work, we developed a novel and effective redox and pH-responsive drug delivery system, based on MSNs, to address hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells. To this intent, tetrasulfide-based MSNs (TMSNs) were developed and functionalized with (3-aminopropyl) triethoxysilane (APTES) (TMSNs-NH2). The obtained TMSNs had a mean diameter of 165 ± 21 nm, with a surface area of 745 m2/g and an average pore diameter of 2.3 nm. The presence and homogeneous distribution of sulfur throughout the TMSNs framework were confirmed through Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy coupled with Energy-dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (STEM-EDS), as well as CHNS elemental analysis, which revealed that about 32 mol% of BTESPT was integrated into the nanoparticle structure. TMSNs were successfully functionalized with amine groups using an eco-friendly post-synthetic grafting process. The success of the APTES grafting process was confirmed through a zeta potential analysis, as well as the analysis of nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherms of TMSNs-NH2, which revealed a decrease in surface area and pore volume when compared with unfunctionalized TMSNs. In addition, the developed nanosystems were evaluated as anticancer drug delivery systems, using Epirubicin (Epi) as a model drug to study their drug loading and release profiles, which confirmed their responsive release. Finally, the cytotoxicity of the nanosystems in HepG2 cell line was assessed by Alamar Blue assay and the results revealed promising drug release effectiveness.

Lian Gao Lian Gao (born in 1945) is currently Distinguished Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. After receiving his PhD degree in inorganic nonmetallic materials in 1986 from Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, he continued his research in Imperial College, London as a postdoctoral research associate and then in Max-Planck Institute of Metallurgy, Germany as a visiting scholar. After that, he served as a staff scientist in Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. His research focus has been on high temperature structural ceramics, carbon nanotubes dispersion, high-performance ceramic nanocomposites, and dye sensitized solar cells. His current research investigations involve the development of energy and enviromental materials for applications in energy reservation, photoelectrocatalysis and heterogeneous catalysis. Prof. Gao is an Academician of World Ceramic Academy of Sciences and rated as HiCi scholar by Institute of American Intelligence. He has received numerous awards inlcuding the frist prize of Shanghai Natural Science Award in 2009 and the Award from Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation for Scientific and Technological Progress in 2010.

A unique three dimensional (3D) hierarchical microcapsule structure (NiSx@NCV) has been put forward, which is realized by the ensemble of N-doped carbon vesicles encapsulating dual-NiSx (αNiS/NiS2) nanoparticles via an in-situ nanospace confined pyrolysis strategy. The NiSx@NCV shows a high pseudocapacitance of 1600 F/g at 1 A/g and an impressive rate performance (capacitance retention ratio of 84.5%, from 1 to 25 A/g). Benefiting from the intriguing configuration, a kind of high performance asymmetric supercapacitors (ASCs) has been fabricated, using 3D NiSx@NCV microcapsules and nanoporous carbon (NPC) as positive and negative electrodes, respectively. The fabricated ASCs achieve a capability of 135.06 F/g at 1 A/g and exhibit outstanding rate capability at 32 A/g. More importantly, a high capacitance retention ratio of 87% is still achieved at current density from 32 to 300 A/g, which well displays the ultrahigh rate performance of NiSx@NCV//NPC ASCs. In addition, NiSx@NCV//NPC ASCs deliver an attractive energy density of 48.02 Wh/kg at a power density of 800 W/kg, and still maintain 30 Wh/kg even at an ultrahigh power density of 240 kW/kg. This is attributed to rich the redox reaction and interface effect of dual-NiSx nanoparticles, abundant active sites and high electrical conductivity from N-doped carbon vesicles.