NANO @ IOWA
News from the Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Institute at UI
July 29, 2015
Items in red are new this issue.
(Others are carried forward from previous issues.)
1. Upcoming conferences and seminars including nanoscience and nanotechnology:

ICANM 2015: International Conference & Exhibition on Advanced & Nano Materials
Ottawa, Canada
August 10-12, 2015
http://icanm2015.iaemm.com/Home.php

ICEENN 2015: 10th International Conference on the Environmental Effects of Nanoparticles
and Nanomaterials
Vienna, Austria
September 6-10, 2015
https://nanoenvironment2015.univie.ac.at

4th International Conference and Exhibition on Materials Science & Engineering
Orlando, Florida
September 14-16, 2015
http://materialsscience.conferenceseries.com/#

Biochemistry seminar: Following nature's lead in constructing membrane protein
nanodisc complexes
Mark Fisher, PhD, Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology,
University of Kansas Medical Center
Thursday September 24, 10.30-11.30 am, Medical Education Research Facility, 2117,
375 Newton Road

SPIE: Scanning Microscopies
Monterey, California
September 29 – October 1, 2015
http://spie.org/x104030.xml

International Symposium on Clusters and Nanomaterials (ISCAN)
Richmond, Virgina
October 26-29, 2015
http://www.iscan.vcu.edu

SETAC North America 36th Annual Meeting
Salt Lake City, Utah
November 1-5, 2015
http://www.setac.org/events/event_details.asp?id=489394&group=

5th International Conference on Nanotek and Expo
San Antonio, Texas
November 16-18, 2015
http://nanotechnologyexpo.conferenceseries.com/
2. Upcoming grant opportunities and funding requests in nanoscience and nanotechnology:

University of Iowa GAP Funding
UIVentures, University of Iowa
Deadline dates: Pre-proposal June 1 – July 31, 2015; Full proposal: July 1 – August 31, 2015
http://uiventures.uiowa.edu/university-iowa-gap-funding

Science, Technology, and Society
National Science Foundation
15-506
Deadline Date: August 3, 2015
http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=5324

Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 Department of Defense Multidisciplinary Research Program of the
University Research Initiative
Department of Defense
ONR-15-FOA-0011
Deadline Dates: September 8, 2015 (Letter of Intent); December 7, 2015 (Full proposal)
http://grantbulletin.research.uiowa.edu/dod-university-multidisciplinary-research-initiativemuri-including-collabrations-united-kingdom

NSF: Science of Science and Innovation Policy
National Science Foundation
PD 09-7626
Deadline Date: September 9, 2015
http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=501084

Nanomanufacturing
National Science Foundation
PD 14-1788
Deadline Dates: September 1 – September 15, 2015
http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=13347

Bioengineering Research Grants
National Institutes of Health
PAR-13-137
Deadline Date: September 25, 2015
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-13-137.html

Use of the NASA Physical Sciences Informatics System
NASA
NNH15ZTT001N-15PSI_A
Deadline Date: September 30, 2015
http://nspires.nasaprs.com/external/solicitations/summary.do?method=init&solId={88074AD32C25-81A8-6EED-D87C6C7459D1}&path=open

Nanomaterials Health Implications Research (NHIR): Comprehensive Evaluation of
Interactions between Engineered Nanomaterials and Biological System
National Institutes of Health
RFA-ES-15-013
Deadline dates: October 5, 2015 (Internal deadline); November 30, 2015 (Proposal deadline)
https://research.uiowa.edu/grantTrack/preselection.php?get=uiwins&GrantID=18105&Type=2

Nano-Biosensing
National Science Foundation
PD 14-7909
Deadline dates: October 1 – 20, 2015
http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=503353

Interfacial Processes and Thermodynamics
National Science Foundation
PD 14-1414
Deadline dates: October 1 – 20, 2015
http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=13362

Fluid Dynamics
National Science Foundation
PD 14-1443
Deadline dates: October 1 – 20, 2015
http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=13365

NSF: Environmental Health and Safety of Nanotechnology
National Science Foundation
PD 14-1179
Deadline dates: October 1 – 20, 2015
http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=501030

Electronics, Photonics and Magnetic Devices
National Science Foundation
PD 13-1517
Deadline Dates: October 1 – November 2, 2015
http://nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=13379

Communications, Circuits, and Sensing-Systems
National Science Foundation
PD 13-7564
Deadline dates: October 1 – November 2, 2015
http://nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=13381

NSF Major Research Instrumentation Program MRI Instrument Acquisition or Development
National Science Foundation
15-504
Deadline Dates: October 30, 2015 (Internal deadline); January 13, 2016 (Sponsor deadline)
https://research.uiowa.edu/grantTrack/preselection.php?get=uiwins&GrantID=18031&Type=2

Cultivating Cultures for Ethical STEM (CCE STEM)
National Science Foundation
15-528
Deadline Dates: December 8, 2015 (Internal deadline); February 16, 2016 (Sponsor deadline)
https://research.uiowa.edu/grantTrack/preselection.php?get=uiwins&GrantID=18060&Type=2

2015 Broad Agency Announcement Engineer Research and Development Center
Department of Defense
FOA Number: W912HZ-15-BAA-01
Deadline Date: January 31, 2016
http://nano.gov/node/1373

Army Research Laboratory BAA for Basic and Applied Scientific Research
Department of Defense
FOA Number: W911NF-12-R-0011
Deadline Date: March 31, 2017
http://www.arl.army.mil/www/default.cfm?page=8

Image-guided Drug Delivery in Cancer
National Institutes for Health (NIH)
FOA Number: PA-09-253
Deadline Dates: January 25, May 25, and September 25, annually
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-09-253.html

Exploratory/Developmental Bioengineering Research Grants
National Institutes for Health (NIH)
FOA Number: PA-12-284
Deadline Dates: January 25, May 25, and September 25, annually
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-12-284.html

Development of Multifunctional Drug and Gene Delivery Systems
National Institutes for Health (NIH)
FOA Number: PA-10-048
Deadline Dates: February 5, June 5, and October 5, annually
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-10-048.html

Nanoscience and Nanotechnology in Biology and Medicine
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
FOA Number: PA-11-148
Deadline Dates: February 5, June 5, October 5, annually
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-11-148.html

Bioengineering Nanotechnology Initiative
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
FOA Number: PA-10-149
Deadline Dates: April 5, August 5, December 5, annually
http://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=53500

Cancer Diagnostic and Therapeautic Agents Enabled by Nanotechnology
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
FOA Number: PAR-10-286
Deadline Dates: April 5, August 5, December 5, annually
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-10-286.html
3. Recent news and updates from NNI:

The Graduate College is sponsoring the 10th Annual Summer Undergraduate Research
Conference on Wednesday July 29 (1:30 – 4:30 pm) at the Iowa Memorial Union, Main
Lounge
Students from the NNI REU summer program will be presenting posters. Please go along and
support the students, and see what students from other programs have been researching!

CHEM:5118:0001 Nanomaterials course Fall 2015
Basic principles associated with nanoscience and nanotechnology; fabrication and synthesis,
size dependent properties, characterization, applications of materials at nanometer length
scales, recent technological breakthroughs in the field. Open to graduate standing or advanced
undergraduate standing in engineering and science. See link for more information.
https://isis.uiowa.edu/isis2/courses/details.page?_ticket=lwAeVZm9rxtZ-QI_qZ5_vZCDYvyiRaJ&id=796170&ci=157310
4. Highlights of some new interesting nanoscience and nanotechnology research and articles:

A new way to black gold
If colloidal gold self-assembles into the form of larger vesicles, a three-dimensional state can be
achieved that is called "black gold" because it absorbs almost the entire spectrum of visible
light. How this novel intense plasmonic state can be established and what its characteristics and
potential medical applications are is explored by Chinese scientists and reported in the journal
Angewandte Chemie ("Black Gold: Plasmonic Colloidosomes with Broadband Absorption SelfAssembled from Monodispersed Gold Nanospheres by Using a Reverse Emulsion System"). Metal
nanostructures can self-assemble into superstructures that offer intriguing new spectroscopic
and mechanical properties. Plasmonic coupling plays a particular role in this context. For
example, it has been found that plasmonic metal nanoparticles help to scatter the incoming
light across the surface of the Si substrate at resonance wavelengths, therefore enhancing the
light absorbing potential and thus the effectivity of solar cells.
http://www.nanowerk.com/nanotechnology-news/newsid=40860.php

Nanotechnology research leads to super-elastic conducting fibers for artificial muscles,
sensors
An international research team based at The University of Texas at Dallas has made electrically
conducting fibers that can be reversibly stretched to over 14 times their initial length and
whose electrical conductivity increases 200-fold when stretched. The research team is using the
new fibers to make artificial muscles, as well as capacitors whose energy storage capacity
increases about tenfold when the fibers are stretched. Fibers and cables derived from the
invention might one day be used as interconnects for super-elastic electronic circuits; robots
and exoskeletons having great reach; morphing aircraft; giant-range strain sensors; failure-free
pacemaker leads; and super-stretchy charger cords for electronic devices. In a study published
in the July 24 issue of the journal Science, the scientists describe how they constructed the
fibers by wrapping lighter-than-air, electrically conductive sheets of tiny carbon nanotubes to
form a jelly-roll-like sheath around a long rubber core. The new fibers differ from conventional
materials in several ways. For example, when conventional fibers are stretched, the resulting
increase in length and decrease in cross-sectional area restricts the flow of electrons through
the material. But even a "giant" stretch of the new conducting sheath-core fibers causes little
change in their electrical resistance, said Dr. Ray Baughman, senior author of the paper and
director of the Alan G. MacDiarmid NanoTech Institute at UT Dallas.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150723181609.htm

New study shows how nanoparticles can clean up environmental pollutants
Many human-made pollutants in the environment resist degradation through natural processes,
and disrupt hormonal and other systems in mammals and other animals. Removing these toxic
materials — which include pesticides and endocrine disruptors such as bisphenol A (BPA) —
with existing methods is often expensive and time-consuming. In a new paper published this
week in Nature Communications, researchers from MIT and the Federal University of Goiás in
Brazil demonstrate a novel method for using nanoparticles and ultraviolet (UV) light to quickly
isolate and extract a variety of contaminants from soil and water. Ferdinand Brandl and Nicolas
Bertrand, the two lead authors, are former postdocs in the laboratory of Robert Langer, the
David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. (Eliana
Martins Lima, of the Federal University of Goiás, is the other co-author.) Both Brandl and
Bertrand are trained as pharmacists, and describe their discovery as a happy accident: They
initially sought to develop nanoparticles that could be used to deliver drugs to cancer cells.
Brandl had previously synthesized polymers that could be cleaved apart by exposure to UV
light. But he and Bertrand came to question their suitability for drug delivery, since UV light can
be damaging to tissue and cells, and doesn’t penetrate through the skin. When they learned
that UV light was used to disinfect water in certain treatment plants, they began to ask a
different question. “We thought if they are already using UV light, maybe they could use our
particles as well,” Brandl says. “Then we came up with the idea to use our particles to remove
toxic chemicals, pollutants, or hormones from water, because we saw that the particles
aggregate once you irradiate them with UV light.”
https://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/nanoparticles-clean-environmental-pollutants-0721

Tiny wires, great potential
Harvard scientists have developed a first-of-its-kind method of creating a class of nanowires
that one day could have applications in areas ranging from consumer electronics to solar
panels. The technique, developed by Bobby Day and Max Mankin, graduate students working in
the lab of Charles Lieber, the Mark Hyman Jr. Professor of Chemistry, takes advantage of two
long-understood principles. One is Plateau-Rayleigh instability, an aspect of fluid dynamics that
describes why a thin stream of water breaks up into smaller droplets. The other involves crystal
growth. The technique is described in a paper recently published in the journal Nature
Nanotechnology. “This is really a fundamental discovery,” Day said. “We’re still in the early
stages, but we think there is a lot of room for discovery, both of fundamental properties of
these structures as well as applications.”
http://www.rdmag.com/news/2015/07/tiny-wires-great-potential
About NANO @ IOWA
NANO @ IOWA is a biweekly electronic newsletter to inform faculty, staff and students about important
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