Researchers may have unlocked a more sustainable and affordable way for producing key ingredients for everyday materials such as plastics, clothing fibers, and insulation foams. The secret: lead dioxide. 

Researchers at the Nano Life Science Institute (WPI-NanoLSI), Kanazawa University, report in ACS Applied Nano Materials a new method to precisely measure nuclear elasticity—the stiffness or softness of the cell nucleus—in living cells. By employing a technique called Nanoendoscopy-AFM (NE-AFM), which inserts a nanoneedle probe directly into cells, the team revealed how cancer cell nuclei stiffen or soften depending on chromatin structure and environmental conditions.

The findings provide fundamental insights into how the physical properties of cancer cell nuclei change during disease progression, highlighting their potential as biomarkers for diagnosis and treatment evaluation.

Researchers at the Nano Life Science Institute (WPI-NanoLSI), Kanazawa University, report in the Journal of the American Chemical Society the use of three-dimensional atomic force microscopy (AFM) and molecular dynamics simulations to determine the structure of water in the hydration of different types of chitin nanocrystals, and how this affects their mechanical properties, reactivities, and interactions with enzymes and reactants.