News

A Purdue University-patented technology shows promise in using microscopic bubbles filled with oxygen to help with various medical treatments, including improving cancer therapeutics and helping wounds heal faster.

Samara Biotech LLC, a Purdue startup, has developed an easy-to-use method to inject oxygen “nanobubbles” intravenously so they can be targeted precisely at wounds or cancerous tumors. The bubbles do not actually do the therapies, but enhance other therapies, such as improving chemotherapeutics or radiation efficacy, said Pushpak Bhandari, Samara Biotech founder.

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A multidisciplinary team of researchers led by Steve Son, a professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University, has received a $7.5 million grant by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) to study piezoenergetics, which combines piezoelectric properties with energetic materials such as explosives, propellants, and pyrotechnics.

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Starfish Engineering LLC, a Purdue University-affiliated startup, is seeking funding to build a prototype imaging device so that it can pursue testing of a way to map arteries in the roof of a person’s mouth to help avoid complications and improve outcomes in oral surgery.

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Steelhead trout that spawn multiple times have more than twice the lifetime reproductive success of single spawning trout, suggesting there is a substantial benefit associated with repeat spawning. But it comes with a tradeoff, according to new research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Repeat spawners make the dangerous journey from the ocean to their freshwater spawning grounds multiple times throughout their lives, while single spawners take the risk only once.

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Researchers at Purdue University and Stanford University believe they have found a novel laser light sensing technology that is more robust and less expensive than currently available with a wide range of uses, including a way to guide fully autonomous vehicles.

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Purdue University scientists have found another pathway that Listeria uses to enter the bloodstream, suggesting that forms of the foodborne bacteria considered benign may be more dangerous than once thought.

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Purdue researchers have created a transparent polymer film that also conducts electricity, introducing an inexpensive organic material for applications such as the screens of electronic devices.

While some polymers can already conduct electricity with the help of a process called chemical doping, none have yet been made that conduct just as well in a transparent form. This combination could find use in TV, phone and computer screens that currently use a relatively expensive inorganic material, indium tin oxide, to serve as a transparent conductor.

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Purdue professor Jeff Miller worked with researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles to characterize extremely small titanium dioxide that could help convert visible light into renewable energy.

On its own, titanium dioxide captures ultraviolet light but not visible light, leaving out half of the solar spectrum. UCLA researchers discovered that adding boron oxide to titanium dioxide resulted in nanoparticles capable of absorbing a wider range of light to be transformed for electricity and other energy uses.

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Purdue University researchers have demonstrated the ability of a thin film to conduct heat on just its surfaces, identifying a potential solution to overheating in electronic devices such as phones and computers.

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The way that an earwig insect folds its wings could be applied to how engineers preprogram technology to perform certain tasks, according to research published on March 23 in the journal Science.

The earwig insect has more folds in its wings than any other organism in the animal kingdom but uses minimal energy to move. Through simulations and creating a 4-D replica of these folds, researchers from ETH Zürich in Switzerland and Purdue University have likened the wing to self-folding origami that could inform how to make machines be more adaptable and responsive with less energy used.

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