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The latest news and blog posts from the World Nano Foundation.
Researchers build longest highly-conductive molecular nanowire
As our devices get smaller and smaller, the use of molecules as the main components in electronic circuitry is becoming ever more critical. Over the past 10 years, researchers have been trying to use single molecules as conducting wires because of their small scale, distinct electronic characteristics, and high tunability. But in most molecular wires, as the length of the wire increases, the efficiency by which electrons are transmitted across the wire decreases exponentially. This limitation has made it especially challenging to build a long molecular wire—one that is much longer than a nanometer—that actually conducts electricity well.
Columbia researchers announced today that they have built a nanowire that is 2.6 nanometers long, shows an unusual increase in conductance as the wire length increases, and has quasi-metallic properties. Its excellent conductivity holds great promise for the field of molecular electronics, enabling electronic devices to become even tinier. The study is published today in Nature Chemistry.
Molecular wire designs
The team of researchers from Columbia Engineering and Columbia's department of chemistry, together with theorists from Germany and synthetic chemists in China, explored molecular wire designs that would support unpaired electrons on either end, as such wires would form one-dimensional analogs to topological insulators (TI) that are highly conducting through their edges but insulating in the center.
While the simplest 1D TI is made of just carbon atoms where the terminal carbons support the radical states—unpaired electrons, these molecules are generally very unstable. Carbon does not like to have unpaired electrons. Replacing the terminal carbons, where the radicals are, with nitrogen increases the molecules' stability. "This makes 1D TIs made with carbon chains but terminated with nitrogen much more stable and we can work with these at room temperature under ambient conditions," said the team's co-leader Latha Venkataraman, Lawrence Gussman Professor of Applied Physics and professor of chemistry.
Breaking the exponential-decay rule
Through a combination of chemical design and experiments, the group created a series of one-dimensional TIs and successfully broke the exponential-decay rule, a formula for the process of a quantity decreasing at a rate proportional to its current value. Using the two radical-edge states, the researchers generated a highly conducting pathway through the molecules and achieved a "reversed conductance decay," i.e. a system that shows an increasing conductance with increasing wire length.
"What's really exciting is that our wire had a conductance at the same scale as that of a gold metal-metal point contacts, suggesting that the molecule itself shows quasi-metallic properties," Venkataraman said. "This work demonstrates that organic molecules can behave like metals at the single-molecule level in contrast to what had been done in the past where they were primarily weakly conducting."
The researchers designed and synthesized a bis(triarylamines) molecular series, which exhibited properties of a one-dimensional TI by chemical oxidation. They made conductance measurements of single-molecule junctions where molecules were connected to both the source and drain electrodes. Through the measurements, the team showed that the longer molecules had a higher conductance, which worked until the wire was longer than 2.5 nanometers, the diameter of a strand of human DNA.
Laying the groundwork for more technological advancements in molecular electronics
"The Venkataraman lab is always seeking to understand the interplay of physics, chemistry, and engineering of single-molecule electronic devices," added Liang Li, a Ph.D. student in the lab, and a co-first author of the paper. "So creating these particular wires will lay the groundwork for major scientific advances in understanding transport through these novel systems. We're very excited about our findings because they shed light not only on fundamental physics, but also on potential applications in the future."
The group is currently developing new designs to build molecular wires that are even longer and still highly conductive.
Magnetic nanoparticles can release anti-cancer microRNA on command
Researchers are pursuing ever-more sophisticated treatments to tackle lung cancer. Traditional chemotherapy can have serious side-effects throughout the body, so many new treatments are highly targeted. These methods allow controlled release directly at the tumor using selective agents that are less likely to produce off-target effects.
An article published in Biomedical Engineering Advances presents such a strategy. Daniel Hayes and colleagues at Pennsylvania State University in the United States created magnetic nanoparticles that can be triggered to release a therapeutic payload when stimulated using a magnetic field.
The technique should allow a doctor to administer the nanoparticles intravenously and then expose the tumor to an alternating magnetic field radiofrequency (AMF-RF) from outside the body. This will trigger the nanoparticles flowing through the area to heat up slightly and release their therapeutic payload precisely where it is needed.
The payload in question is a short strand of RNA known as a microRNA. In this case, the researchers connected the nanoparticles to a synthetic version of a microRNA called miR-148b, which has been shown to have tumor suppressing activity. Using a heat-sensitive chemical bond called a Diels-Alder cycloadduct, they joined the particles and microRNA, so that the bond would disintegrate and release the microRNA when heated using AMF-RF.
Upon testing their nanoparticles in lung cancer cells, the research team found that the particles successfully entered the cells and released their microRNA payload when exposed to AMF-RF. One day later, the researchers performed tests to see if the treated cancer cells had died.
They found that a significant number of cells had died in the group that received the nanoparticle/ AMF-RF treatment compared with groups that received no treatment, nanoparticles with no payload, or fully loaded nanoparticles but no AMF-RF. The results demonstrate that the technique has significant promise, and could pave the way for more advanced studies in animals.
Generating high-resolution self-packaged liquid metal nanopatterns
In a new report now published in Matter, Licong An, and a team of scientists in materials engineering, industrial engineering, and the nanotechnology center at Purdue University, U.S., and Wuhan University, China, described an advanced laser lithography method. The technique facilitated the formation of electronically self-protective liquid metal patterns with feature sizes in the sub-microscale, to form one of the highest resolution metal surface patterns to date. The unique structure and robust patterns offered electrical functionality in spite of external damage. Such high-resolution, electrical, self-protective materials are suited for next-generation nano applications.
Introducing a new method: Pulsed laser lithography (PLL)
The field of high-density electronics is of great significance in materials engineering, and is suited to form high-density patterns for integrated electronics in harsh environments. Materials and industrial scientists have used room-temperature gallium indium (EGaIn) to develop high-density patterns due to their distinct properties including high fluidity, high electrical conductivity and high deformability. Research efforts to develop high-resolution liquid metal patterns are based on lithography patterning, among a diverse range of methods, with broad appeal in electronic applications across liquid metal batteries, microfluidics and energy harvesting devices.
In this work, primary author and research associate Licong An, who is presently at the materials engineering department at Purdue University, described the method as a "practical and scalable technique to fabricate self-packaged, high-resolution liquid metal patterns." The team intend to "practically integrate electric chips for use in harsh environments." The scientists primarily introduced the pulsed laser lithography method in this work to develop 3D liquid metal patterns with sub-micron level resolution, protected via a mechanically stable oxide package shell. Licong An highlighted the significance of this approach: "For the first time, the one-step lithography method can be directly used to pattern liquid metal," he said.
He further defined the practical implications of the method "due to the high surface tension and flowing patterns, when compared to traditional lithography patterning. This is the first time that a lithography method is used to directly pattern liquid metals." The work described here is therefore "a first effort to introduce advanced laser lithography as a one-step process to directly generate highly efficient liquid metal patterns," he said.
The experiments: Liquid metal nanoparticle (LMNP) development
The research team summarized the method of developing high-resolution liquid metal patterns in four steps. At first, they sprayed a liquid metal nanoparticle (LMNP) onto a substrate to form an LMNP thin film. Then focused the pulsed laser beam on the thin film surface, where the incidence beam scattered due to its surface nanostructure, followed by ablation of the LMNPs and substrate where the peak energy intensity reached an ablation threshold. The laser-induced shock acted as a squeeze to generate pressure on the liquid metal particles and the team used laser energy as the main parameter to control the formation of high-resolution patterns. The team regulated the ultrafast heating and cooling rate by laser, to generate a 3D uniform oxide layer on the top surface of the 3D architecture, with boosted mechanical stability, for high stability in the face of exterior damage.
Licong An emphasized this work as "one of the highest-resolution liquid metal patterns to date," and said, "High-resolution liquid metal patterns maintained feature sizes as small as 0.5 µm, with 0.5 µm line spacing to form one of the highest resolution liquid metal patterns to date at the sub-micron scale."
The synthesis of liquid metal nanoparticles (LMNPs)
The research team developed the liquid metal nanoparticles, according to previous reports, by ultrasonically dispersing bulk EGaIn alloy in ethanol, to form LMNPs via molecular self-assembly, with an average diameter of about 200 nm. A thin oxide layer also typically formed rapidly during the sonicating process to hold the metal particles to spherical shapes. An et al. spray-coated the as-prepared LMNPs onto a silicon-based substrate to form a thin-film of nanoparticles and kept the thin-film nonconductive, while using a fiber laser source to produce the nanopatterns. Licong An highlighted the mechanism of the advanced laser lithography technique, "the method could induce a high laser pressure, to act as a squeeze shock to generate pressure on the liquid metal particles." He continued, "when the squeeze goes by, the 200 nm particles are extruded to a 20 nm robust oxide shell, which acts as a robust package to protect the liquid metal patterns underneath from being damaged."
Materials characterization and a breakthrough
The scientists confirmed the formation of laser-induced periodic liquid metal patterns via energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy methods and elemental mappings to show the presence of silicon, gallium and oxide, with liquid metal imprinted on the underlying substrate. The breakthrough laser technique also broke the laser optical limit. Licong An said, "Everyone knows that there is a direct correlation between the liquid metal pattern resolution and processing tool size, our breakthrough laser lithography broke this common knowledge, to generate patterns with sub-micron resolution for the first time."
He believes that "the patterns could reach a much higher calibration if a laser with a smaller wavelength is used." The team also simulated the formation of nanopatterns and emphasized the one-step process of direct liquid metal pattern deposition; another significant feature of the study. They combined a range of experimental methods to characterize the proprietary elemental composition of the oxide package shell covering the liquid metal nanopatterns with boosted mechanical properties—compared to pre-existing conventional methods of liquid-metal pattern generation.
Outlook: Progress and potential
In this way, Licong An and colleagues developed electronically self-protective, high-resolution liquid metal patterns via a pulsed laser lithography (PLL) method to create one of the highest resolution liquid metal patterns to date. The team envision applications of the new material in next-generation nanoscale practices, with high integration densities, suited for demanding applications. The research team comprised of key collaborations between the primary author and Research Fellow Licong An, and interdisciplinary colleagues, including Professor Gary J. Cheng, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Protein nanoparticle vaccine shows potential for broader, safe SARS-CoV-2 vaccines
A nanoparticle vaccine that combines two proteins that induce immune responses against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that has caused the global pandemic, has the potential to be developed into broader and safe SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, according to researchers in the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State University.
The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has caused more than six million deaths since 2019 and is a public health burden worldwide. The virus is rapidly evolving, characterized by the emergence of several significant variants.
To combat the virus, the spike protein (S) is the preferred target antigen for vaccine development based on its essential function and abundant neutralizing epitopes. However, current vaccines are limited in protecting against different variants.
This study, conducted in mice, investigates the immune responses induced by two proteins, the spike protein and its relatively conserved stem subunit (S2) of the spike protein. The results, published in the journal Small, found that the assembly of the two proteins into double-layered protein nanoparticles improves the immunogenicity of the proteins.
"The entire S protein has been used as the major antigen in vaccines against this ongoing pandemic," said Dr. Baozhong Wang, senior author of the study and Distinguished University Professor in the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State University. "However, as the number of infections continues to rise, more and more variants have appeared and supplanted the ancestral virus. For this reason, the efficacy and protection of current vaccines are under constant threat and need continuous improvement.
"In contrast, the stem is more conserved and has fewer mutations across lineages. In addition, the stem could induce effective antibody neutralization and vigorous antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) activity against multiple variants of S protein. This work shows that the stabilized stem subunit could be a potential antigen for a SARS-CoV-2 universal vaccine against unpredictable variants."
The study found immunization with the stem induced balanced Immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies with potent and broad ADCC activity, a type of immune reaction in which infected cells are coated with antibodies that then recruit certain types of white blood cells to kill the infected cells. In addition, the double-layered protein nanoparticles constructed from the stem and the full-length spike protein induced more robust ADCC and neutralizing antibodies than the stem and spike protein, respectively.
The researchers also discovered nanoparticles produce more potent and balanced serum IgG antibodies than the corresponding soluble protein mixture, and the immune responses are sustained for at least four months after the immunization. With a more balanced IgG isotype antibody induced by the stem, long-lasting immune responses, and excellent safety profiles, the double-layered protein nanoparticles have the potential to be developed into broader SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, the study reports.
"The stabilized, conserved S2 stem subunit demonstrated its potential as a universal SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidate against unpredictable variants," said Dr. Yao Ma, first author of the study and a postdoctoral research fellow in the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State University. "Our double-layered protein nanoparticles incorporating the full-length spike protein and the S2 stem induced robust and long-term immune responses and exhibited a safety profile in our primary studies, providing an option for current SARS-CoV-2 vaccine development."
"The pandemic is far from over, and new variants continue to emerge and pose a massive threat to human health. Therefore, the updating of vaccines needs to keep pace with the times to avoid another pandemic with an unpredictable new variant."
Co-authors of the study include Yao Ma (first author), Ye Wang, Chunhong Dong, Gilbert X. Gonzalez, Wandi Zhu, Joo Kim, Lai Wei, Sang-Moo Kang, and Baozhong Wang (senior author) of the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State University.
Making chemical separation more eco-friendly with nanotechnology
Chemical separation processes are essential in the manufacturing of many products from gasoline to whiskey. Such processes are energetically costly, accounting for approximately 10–15 percent of global energy consumption. In particular, the use of so-called "thermal separation processes," such as distillation for separating petroleum-based hydrocarbons, is deeply ingrained in the chemical industry and has a very large associated energy footprint. Membrane-based separation processes have the potential to reduce such energy consumption significantly.
Membrane filtration processes that separate contaminants from the air we breathe and the water we drink have become commonplace. However, membrane technologies for separating hydrocarbon and other organic materials are far less developed.
Penn Engineers are developing new membranes for energy-efficient organic separations by rethinking their physical structure on the nanoscale.
Nanofiltration using self-assembling membranes has been a major research area for Chinedum Osuji, Eduardo D. Glandt Presidential Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and his lab. The performance of these membranes was highlighted in a previous study describing how the structure of the membrane itself helped to minimize the limiting tradeoff between selectivity and permeability that is encountered in traditional nanofiltration membranes. This technology was also included in last year's Y-Prize competition, and the winners have advanced a case for its use to produce non-alcoholic beer and wine in a startup called LiberTech.
Now, Osuji's latest study adapts the membrane for filtration in organic solutions such as ethanol and isopropyl alcohol, and its self-assembling molecules make it more efficient than traditional organic-solvent nanofiltration (OSN).
The study, published in Science Advances, describes how the uniform pores of this membrane, can be fine-tuned by changing the size or concentration of the self-assembling molecules that ultimately form the material. This tunability now opens doors for the use of this membrane technology in solving more diverse real-world organic filtration problems. Researchers in the Osuji lab, including first author and former postdoctoral researcher, Yizhou Zhang, postdoctoral researcher, Dahin Kim and graduate student, Ruiqi Dong, as well as Xunda Feng of Donghua University, contributed to this work.
One challenge the team faced was the difficulty of maintaining membrane stability in organic solvents with different polarities. They selected molecular species, surfactants, that exhibited low solubility in organic fluids, and which could be effectively linked together chemically to provide the required stability. The surfactants self-assemble in water when they are above a certain concentration, and form a soft gel. Such self-assembly—the formation of an ordered state—as a function of concentration is referred to as lyotropic behavior: "lyo-" referring to solution, and "-tropic" referring to order. The gels thus formed are called lyotropic mesophases.
The membranes developed in this study were created by forming first forming lyotropic mesophases of the surfactant in water, spreading the soft gel as a thin film, and then using a chemical reaction to link the surfactants together to form a nanoporous polymer. The size of the pores in the polymer are set by the self-assembled structure of the lyotropic mesophase.
"At a certain concentration in an aqueous solution, the surfactant molecules aggregate and form cylindrical rods, and then those rods will self-assemble into a hexagonal structure, yielding a gel-like material," says Osuji. "One of the ways we can manipulate the permeability, or size of the pores in our membranes, is by changing the concentration and size of the surfactant molecules used to create the membrane itself. In this study, we manipulated both of those variables to tune our pore sizes from 1.2 nanometers down to 0.6 nanometers."
These membranes are compatible with organic solvents and can be tailored to address different separation challenges. Organic solvent nanofiltration can reduce the footprint of traditional thermal separation processes. The uniform pore size of the membranes developed here provide compelling advantages in terms of membrane selectivity, and ultimately, energy efficiency as well.
"A specific application for this technology is in biofuel production," says Osuji. "The isolation of water-miscible alcohols from bioreactors is a key step in the manufacturing of ethanol and butanol biofuels. Membrane separations can reduce the energy used in separation of the product alcohols or fuels, from the aqueous medium in the reactor. The use of membranes is particularly advantageous in smaller scale operations such as this, where distillation is not cost effective."
"Additionally, the manufacturing of many pharmaceutical products often involves several steps of synthesis in different solvent environments. Those steps require the transfer of a chemical intermediate from one solvent to another miscible solvent, making this new membrane a perfect solution to drug development filtration needs."
Next steps for their research involve both theory and practice. The team plans to develop new models for membrane rejection and permeability that address the unique flow pattern of solutions through their membranes as well as identify additional future applications for their tunable technology.
New process aims to strip ammonia from wastewater
A dash of ruthenium atoms on a mesh of copper nanowires could be one step toward a revolution in the global ammonia industry that also helps the environment.
Collaborators at Rice University's George R. Brown School of Engineering, Arizona State University and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory developed the high-performance catalyst that can, with near 100% efficiency, pull ammonia and solid ammonia—aka fertilizer—from low levels of nitrates that are widespread in industrial wastewater and polluted groundwater.
A study led by Rice chemical and biomolecular engineer Haotian Wang shows the process converts nitrate levels of 2,000 parts per million into ammonia, followed by an efficient gas stripping process for ammonia product collection. The remaining nitrogen contents after these treatments can be brought down to "drinkable" levels as defined by the World Health Organization.
"We fulfilled a complete water denitrification process," said graduate student Feng-Yang Chen. "With further water treatment on other contaminants, we can potentially turn industrial wastewater back to drinking water."
Chen is one of three lead authors of the paper that appears in Nature Nanotechnology.
The study shows a promising alternative toward efficient processes for an industry that depends upon an energy-intensive process to produce more than 170 million tons of ammonia per year.
The researchers knew from previous studies that ruthenium atoms are champs at catalyzing nitrate-rich wastewater. Their twist was combining it with copper that suppresses the hydrogen evolution reaction, a way to produce hydrogen from water that in this case is an unwanted side effect.
"We knew that ruthenium was a good metal candidate for nitrate reduction, but we also knew there was a big problem, that it could easily have a competing reaction, which is hydrogen evolution," Chen said. "When we applied current, a lot of the electrons would just go to hydrogen, not the product we want."
"We borrowed a concept from other fields like carbon dioxide reduction, which uses copper to suppress hydrogen evolution," added Wang. "Then we had to find a way to organically combine ruthenium and copper. It turns out that dispersing single ruthenium atoms into the copper matrix works the best."
The team used density functional theory calculations to explain why ruthenium atoms make the chemical path that connects nitrate and ammonia easier to cross, according to co-corresponding author Christopher Muhich, an assistant professor of chemical engineering at Arizona State.
"When there is only ruthenium, the water gets in the way," Muhich said. "When there is only copper, there isn't enough water to provide hydrogen atoms. But on the single ruthenium sites water doesn't compete as well, providing just enough hydrogen without taking up spots for nitrate to react."
The process works at room temperature and under ambient pressure, and at what the researchers called an "industrial-relevant" nitrate reduction current of 1 amp per square centimeter, the amount of electricity needed to maximize catalysis rate. That should make it easy to scale up, Chen said.
"I think this has big potential, but it's been ignored because it's been hard for previous studies to reach such a good current density while still maintaining good product selectivity, especially under low nitrate concentrations," he said. "But now we're demonstrating just that. I'm confident we'll have opportunities to push this process for industrial applications, especially because it doesn't require big infrastructure."
A prime benefit of the process is the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions from traditional industrial production of ammonia. These are not insignificant, amounting to 1.4% of the world's annual emissions, the researchers noted.
"While we understood that converting nitrate wastes to ammonia may not be able to fully replace the existing ammonia industry in the short term, we believe this process could make significant contributions to decentralized ammonia production, especially in places with high nitrate sources," Wang said.
Alongside the new study, Wang's lab and that of Rice environmental engineer Pedro Alvarez, director of the Nanotechnology Enabled Water Treatment (NEWT) Center, recently published a paper in the Journal of Physical Chemistry C detailing the use of cobalt-copper nanoparticles on a 3D carbon fiber paper substrate as an efficient catalyst to synthesize ammonia from nitrate reduction. This low-cost catalyst also showed great promise for the denitrification in wastewater.
Direct printing of nanodiamonds at the quantum level
Diamond nanocrystals, namely nanodiamonds, which host point defects such as nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers, are a promising quantum material.
A central requirement to realize practical applications is the placement of individual NV centers at will on integrated circuits. This is critical for implementing quantum technologies, leading to a number of exciting opportunities and emerging fields such as quantum computers, quantum communications, and quantum metrology.
However, a flexible, universal route is still needed for achieving nanoscale accuracy, scalability, cost-effectiveness and efficient coupling with a wide range of nanophotonic circuitries.
Several methods, such as the sophisticated "pick-and-place" nanomanipulation approach, have been devised to position the nanodiamonds with NV centers on various substrates and circuits. However, this prerequisite continues to suffer from coarse positioning accuracy, low throughput, and process complexity.
The team led by Dr. Ji Tae Kim from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Dr. Zhiqin Chu from the Electrical and Electronic Engineering of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) has developed a nano-precision printing method for nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond at the quantum level, meeting the technological requirements.
This novel approach is practical and cost-effective, paving the way for manufacturing of quantum information processing device, quantum computing and biosensing devices.
The research achievement has been published in Advanced Science in an article titled "On-Demand, Direct Printing of Nanodiamonds at the Quantum Level."
The NV center is a point-defect in the diamond lattice and is the most common defect in nanodiamonds. It has emerged as a powerhouse for quantum systems due to their robust quantum states even at room temperature while other quantum systems such as superconducting quantum interference device can only operate at cryogenic temperatures, i.e., from -150 degrees C (-238 degrees F) to absolute zero (-273 degrees C or -460 degrees F).
Specifically, this atom-like, solid-state device, with its optically addressable spin-degrees-of-freedom, provides the key functionalities for serving as the quantum bit and/or quantum sensor in solid-state quantum processors.
'Diamond is the hardest material, so it is difficult to craft'
The researchers have developed an innovative way to tackle this issue. They have utilized electrical dispensing of nanodiamond-laden liquid droplets with sub-attoliter (< 10-18liter) volume for placing NV-centers directly on universal substrates.
"To the best of our knowledge, the developed technique, for the first time, shows sub-wavelength positional accuracy, single-defect-level quantity control, and freeform patterning capabilities, meeting the technological requirements which marks a significant breakthrough in quantum device manufacturing," said Dr. Chu Zhiqin.
Anti-viral drugs can be final solution as WHO warns against lowering our guard to COVID-19
Suggestions that COVID-19 is on the wane have been strongly contradicted by the World Health Organization’s senior pandemics scientist, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove.
And her criticism of virus complacency has fuelled calls for research and development of anti-viral drugs to stop all coronaviruses at source, in addition to ongoing vaccines and testing for COVID-19 variants.
Dr Van Kerkhove, a highly regarded infectious disease epidemiologist and World Health Organization (WHO) Head of the Emerging Diseases and Zoonoses Unit, delivered her wake-up call in a BBC TV interview where she insisted that COVID-19 was still evolving and the world must evolve with it:
“It will not end with this latest wave (Omicron) and it will not be the last variant you will hear us (WHO) speaking about – unfortunately,” she told BBC interviewer Sophie Raworth.
Countries with high immunity and vaccination levels were starting to think the pandemic is over, she added, but despite 10 billion vaccine doses delivered globally, more than three billion people were yet to receive one dose, leaving the world highly susceptible to further COVID mutations - a global problem for which a global solution was needed.
She also challenged assumptions that the COVID Omicron variant was mild: “It is still putting people in hospital…and it will not be the last (variant). There is no guarantee that the next one will be less severe. We must keep the pressure up – we cannot give it a free ride.”
WNF Chairman Paul Stannard said: “We welcome Dr Van Kerkhove’s timely intervention. Too many people think we can sit back with COVID now, forgetting lessons learned the hard way.
“Such as there’s always another variant just around the corner, and testing and vaccines are not the complete answer.
“Even if Omicron seems milder than its predecessors – though this may be due to vaccinations and growing herd immunity – who can say that a more fatal COVID mutation will not follow, or an all-new virus is waiting to strike.
“Many other pathogens have entered humans in last 15 years including SARS, Ebola, Zika virus and Indian Flu variants, so permanent pandemic protection investment is vital to restoring confidence in our way of life and the global markets.
“An even older lesson is Spanish Flu (1918-20): the death toll was relatively contained initially, lulling people already fatigued by WW1 devastation into thinking the worst was over.
“But that virus then mutated into its most deadly strain, killing 50 million people when Earth’s population numbered less than two billion. All of which suggests we must maintain or redouble our efforts against COVID-19 and other potential threats.
“We have already benefitted from greater healthcare investment and research due to the pandemic: experts say the first six months of the emergency delivered sector progress equivalent to the previous 10 years.
“This helped unusually rapid deployment of new and better testing and vaccines that have driven down infection, hospitalization and deaths, but we hope that the WHO view will now foster a new and potentially more effective development against COVID and other threats – anti-viral drugs.
“Instead of attacking the virus like a vaccine, anti-viral drugs aim to stop it functioning in the human body. Merck and Pfizer say they have re-purposed existing drugs to do just that.
“But a better option is gathering momentum using nanomedicine, AI and advanced computational technology to develop all-new drugs more quickly and effectively, potentially delivering breakthroughs against many serious killers, including viruses, cancers and heart disease.
“WNF believes these can disrupt the traditional pharmaceutical industry as Tesla has done in the auto industry, or SpaceX and Blue Origin have done in space.”
California-based Verseon has developed an AI and computational drug development platform and has six drug candidates, including an anti-viral drug to potentially block all coronaviruses and some flu variants, potentially transforming pandemic protection.
This could be on the market within 18 months after securing a final $60 million investment, a small amount compared to the $1 billion pharma industry norm for a single new drug (source: Biospace), and weighed against 5.6 million COVID deaths globally and an estimated $3 trillion in economic output (source: Statista) lost since the start of the pandemic.
Verseon Head of Discovery Biology Anirban Datta said: “Vaccines and the current anti-viral drugs are retrospective solutions that don’t treat newly emergent strains. We need a different strategy to avoid always being one step behind viral mutations.
“So, we switched target from the virus to the human host. If we stop SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) entering our cells which, unlike viruses, don’t mutate then we have a long-term solution.
“Even better, the strategy should work against other coronaviruses and influenza strains that use the same mechanism as SARS-CoV-2 to infect cells – a key point, since it surely won’t be the last pandemic to affect humanity.”
Nanomedicine and AI computational drug delivery is key to beating never-ending COVID mutation cycle
As the world reels from the rise of another COVID-19 variant – the omicron strain – attention again rightly focuses on vaccine protection.
But the big question increasingly asked is: “Can this end the pandemic or do we always face being outflanked by the next new variant?”
Pfizer admitted this week that we could still be ‘managing’ COVID variants into 2024 as the virus moves, hopefully, from pandemic to endemic.
This suggests that the world desperately needs robust new anti-viral drugs that stop all coronaviruses at source, using the latest nanotechnology and AI drug discovery applications.
Industry experts admit that the current crop of mRNA vaccines represent a major step-up. Developed in record time, they have been highly effective in preventing symptoms, viral load and the spread of prior COVID-19 variants.
But viral mutations continue to degrade vaccine effectiveness, particularly for respiratory viruses like influenza and COVID-19.
And a large part of global society either can’t access, or worse, refuses vaccination, thereby enabling these viruses to mutate in unprotected hosts and perpetuate the ‘Groundhog Day’ nightmare that humanity keeps re-living.
In contrast, anti-viral drugs should be easier to distribute, more readily taken up, and protection of the majority is less likely to be compromised if certain people choose not to take the drugs.
They work differently: instead of enabling the virus to mutate, they disrupt or block the process. One approach was described as “like putting diesel in a petrol engine,” according to a Daily Telegraph report quoting Stephen Griffin, associate professor in the School of Medicine, University of Leeds.
Established drug giants, Merck and Pfizer, recently announced COVID-19 anti-virals repurposed from prior programs, though questions have been raised about how long these drugs last in the body and their dosage frequency.
Merck’s Molnupiravir – modified from an anti-flu drug - needs eight doses daily and while Pfizer’s Paxlovid only needs four, it must be partnered with an HIV drug to prevent the liver filtering it out before it can act.
There is still more to understand about their efficacy: although Paxlovid’s estimated effectiveness in preventing adverse outcomes such as severe illness or death remains high for now, Molnupiravir’s effectiveness has been revised down to potentially only 30%.
It has also been suggested that they become less effective as the virus continues to mutate. All of which prompts three questions:
Firstly, are these drugs a better answer than vaccines?
Secondly, rather than always playing catch-up with such viruses why not stop them entirely in the first place, through new drug discoveries?
Thirdly, who will come up with such solutions?
Last week, Nano Magazine ran a major international report on new trends in nanomedicine and the use of AI and other technologies in drug discovery.
Various companies were mentioned, including London-based BenevolentAI, which joined a public-private consortium to find treatments for COVID.
BenevolentAI identified Baricitinib as an existing drug to repurpose for treating COVID-19, but according a report in The Lancet, the drug prevented just one additional death in every 20 Baricitinib-treated patients against a placebo batch in a later clinical trial.
Nano Magazine’s report also mentioned California-based Verseon as one of the more promising companies in drug discovery, and its Head of Discovery Biology Anirban Datta said:
“Vaccines and the current anti-viral drugs are retrospective solutions that don’t treat newly emergent strains. We need a different strategy to avoid always being one step behind viral mutations.
“Verseon’s thinking is to focus on blocking the host mechanism through which SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) enters cells. Unlike viruses, the host’s cells don’t mutate, so going after the proteins on host cells that allow viral entry is a long-term solution.
“Given the emergence of yet another highly infectious strain like omicron, we have just started a program at Verseon that does exactly that.”
Data added that other coronaviruses and influenza strains use the same mechanism as SARS-CoV-2 to infect cells – a key point, since it won’t be the last pandemic to affect humanity.
Paul Stannard, Chairman of the World Nano Foundation said: “This is exactly why our not-for-profit organisation has put together an international consortium of investment partners for future pandemic protection and preparedness.
“Because eventually encroachment on natural habitats, handling practices for living and butchered animals, or other issues will introduce yet another pathogen against which humans have no natural defense, so we are in a race against time to develop broad-spectrum antiviral drugs that block entry into our body cells.
And the stakes could be far higher next time, according to Dr. Mike Ryan Executive Director of the Health Emergencies Program at WHO (World Health Organization):
“This pandemic has been very severe. It has affected every corner of this planet. But this is not necessarily the big one.”
Another anti-viral drug hit the headlines this week when the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) announced that it would deploy Sotrovinab, a GlaxoSmithKline anti-viral drug for clinically vulnerable patients, such as cancer patients, organ transplant recipients and other high-risk groups.
Nanosensor and Digital Twin technologies come together at COP26 to help deliver a circular economy as part of the race to zero
Deploying billions of highly accurate and secure nanosensors interconnected to a global Digital Twin network can enable real-time monitorisation of emissions within urban and agricultural environments.
Nanosensors and Digital Twins are forecast to be pivotal to discussions between international nations and bodies at COP26 in Glasgow, the UK, from October 31st until November 12th and predicted to have a significant impact on the future of carbon tracking.
This technology collaboration will enable global organisations to reward organisations and people globally for tracking and managing emissions to reverse Climate Change while holding to account countries and industries that don't.
Sensors can be positioned in every urban and rural space, including major rainforests and polluting cities, allowing global carbon emission tracking with unprecedented real-time accuracy.
Digital Twin technology will calculate the carbon emission data gathered by nanosensors, providing a globally sharable, highly accurate representation of how countries, companies, households, and individuals manage emissions in a way that supports the creation of a circular economy - a key sustainability strategy for the world as well as industry leaders to fight climate change.
This particular model for a circular economy is still evolving in terms of data and metrics, but indicators suggest this approach and enabling technologies such as Nanotechnology, and Digital Twins are vital to holding people to account while rewarding industry, governments, and the public for their work in driving down carbon emissions to net-zero.
Former Brazilian ambassador and diplomat and a Harvard scholar, Arnildo Schildt, has been developing a project based on this new model and will be presenting this at the COP26 summit in Glasgow, UK (October 31st to November 12th) – an event being billed as a catalyst for action and tech adoption in the Climate Change battle.
This project will use nanosensors to track deforestation and pollution to help accurately manage carbon credits and offsets, enabling the reduction of emissions and highly accurate tracking of data on deforestation.
Schildt said: "We have been working tirelessly now for two years developing a model with governments, the UN, international banks, academics and industry partners as well as investors to harness the power of Digital Twin and nanosensor technology to solve two massive challenges for our environment simultaneously.
"We have a delegation going to COP26 and will follow this with other partnership meetings in the UK, Canada and the US straight after the Glasgow event to make this a reality."
Schildt's initiative in vital rural areas mirrors the urban and agricultural work conducted by US-based Cityzenith, which uses Digital Twin technology to decarbonise the built environment, tracking, managing, and reducing emissions in buildings across metropolitan areas and major international cities as well as linking this to carbon rewards, credits, and other global incentive programs for sustainability.
Cityzenith was referenced by an independent global research group report from ABI research on the 28th of October, naming the company one of three, including The Ellen MacArthur Foundation and Vodafone, that can deliver the infrastructure required for a functional circular economy.
Currently, cities generate 70% of world emissions. Cityzenith’s international Clean Cities – Clean Future initiative has major world cities joining the program, using its Digital Twin platform SmartWorldOS to reduce carbon emissions in buildings by 50-100%, operating costs by 35% and increase productivity by 20%, another independent report by Ernst and Young on Digital Twins aligns with this.
Las Vegas and New York were the first two cities to sign up, with projects in Phoenix and others expected to follow over the next few months.
Cityzenith CEO Michael Jansen said: "We are confident that the Clean Cities – Clean Future initiative will demonstrate the combined power of Digital Twin and IoT technology to transform mobility, walkability, and emissions/air pollution, while linking all of this to carbon rewards and other carbon related incentives via one interconnected Digital Twin platform.
"And COP26 can play a huge role in bringing the climate crisis into the public spotlight, by acknowledging and backing technologies such as Digital Twins and nanotechnology to make a difference in the fight to protect the planet."
The UK will also bring a national Digital Twin program to the summit through Anglian Water, BT, and UK Power Networks, which have partnered to foster better outcomes for the built environment.
The project aims to deliver an Information Management Framework which can ensure secure, resilient data sharing and effective information management. At the same time, the program identifies a range of benefits to society, business, the environment, and the broader economy.
Co-Founder of the World Nano Foundation, Paul Sheedy, said:
"Nanotechnologies such as nanosensors and quantum dots can track and monitor anything, holding and transmitting infinite amounts of secure data around the world.
"Combining nanotechnology with advanced Digital Twin platforms is game-changing for the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and ESG investors that support such impact investing."
Nanotechnology and Digital Twins were both named in 2021 as the top 5 tech growth sectors forecast to quadruple over the next five years; each sector is predicted to enjoy a combined growth of more than 400% in that time.
Technology can cure healthcare’s inflation sickness
Digitisation and new technologies must be used to counter the spiralling and unsustainable cost of healthcare, say experts.
Medical care budgets around the world soared 6.8% in 2020 against a global inflation rate of just 2.4%, according to insurance brokerage and advisory company Willis Towers Watson.
This highlights a longstanding problem for many first world countries. For instance, the UK’s average annual healthcare expenditure increase since 1958/59 has been 3.9%, consistently higher than its own national and the global inflation average over those years.
Technology can cure healthcare’s inflation sickness
And the Office for National statistics estimates £269 billion was spent on UK healthcare in 2020 – 20% more than 2019.
The World Nano Foundation (WNF), a not-for-profit organisation that supports commercialising nanoscale technology including nanomedicines, says the issue must be addressed:
"Current operation of global healthcare is simply not sustainable,” said WNF co-founder Paul Sheedy. “Our centralised model uses hospitals to treat almost every ailment or condition, but patients should only come to hospital when they cannot be treated and monitored at home. This is what has fuelled this above-inflation high-cost system and incidentally, also exacerbated the COVID-19 infection rate.
"And developing countries are trying to copy these costly and inefficient systems too, leading to poorer quality of care and disease infection risk.”
Instead, he called for a decentralised and sustainable model, utilising digitisation and technology:
"Last year's pandemic showed that we already had the technology to diagnose and treat patients at home through telemedicine, while cost-effective remote health monitoring devices for multiple diseases and health issues are also arriving and improving constantly.
"Meanwhile, other technology and treatments are also being developed to enable hospitals and health centres to treat patients more quickly and effectively, and avoid being overloaded.”
Paul Stannard, chairman and general partner at the Vector Innovation Fund (VIF), which specialises in investment towards healthcare technology and pandemic protection, also voiced support:
"COVID-19 has shown us that global healthcare must evolve into a more efficient, cost-effective system, and I’m hugely encouraged to see how healthcare tech investment soared 47% in 2020 to a new sector high of $51 billion, with healthcare tech investment deal sizes rising to record levels during 2021 so far.
"Investors are continuing to back the sector to thrive, after seeing that healthtech is on the verge of some ground-breaking innovations."
Technology investment will transform global healthcare away from an illness service
Healthcare must become a genuine health service, not an illness service, according to Robert Stern, chairman of digital health champion Future Perfect.
It was currently too reactive instead of preventive, he argued further in an article for the influential multi-media Health Tech Digital outlet:
“The journey a patient takes is, in theory, a simple, step-by-step process. When no more care is needed, the journey ends – until the next problem arises.
“It waits for problems to appear before action is taken. It doesn’t make use of the active, digitally enabled patient.”
Technology investment will transform global healthcare away from an illness service
Stern advocates a two-prong approach to creating a preventive healthcare system: empowering the patient to prevent illness and then breaking down barriers to prevention over cure.
He urges increased use of healthcare apps to empower patients while integrating them with patient journey records. With patients managing their own care, problems could be spotted sooner, helping to avoid crisis while giving patients greater access to their GPs and specialists.
“These apps could become a staple part of the patient journey that often traverses beyond the pathway of any one particular condition. This would allow both patient and clinicians to have a view of the patient’s history to date and, also, keep an eye on the future,” he added.
Stern also wants interconnected electronic records tracking a patient’s complete healthcare history and journey through the system – past, present, and future:
“Person-based illness prevention is already known to be ‘investible’ and pursuing prevention by leveraging joined-up records could offer so much more.”
But Stern stresses that investment is critical:
“Take public healthcare and apply it to person-based illness prevention. Organise and synergise existing collection systems and apply the data to the person. It changes the dynamic of the patient journey from being focused on the extremes of acute illness to being about health – the whole cycle.”
“There are so many examples you can think of where this might work, from asthma to diabetes, and we need investment in this area to make it happen.”
World Nano Foundation chairman Paul Sheedy agrees strongly with Stern that investment into healthtech and nanomedicines has to be accelerated, as we cannot afford the hugely inefficient centralised healthcare systems that we have. We have to move to a point of care model that supports early intervention and protection:
“A prevention-based healthcare system would drastically reduce healthcare costs, prevent suffering for many individuals, and free up time for healthcare professionals to save more lives. The benefits are undeniable – we simply must invest.
“We need to back emerging therapies too. No healthcare system can completely prevent illness, so we need the best treatments available to us when needed. Investing in therapies will help to create more accessible, portable treatments, further decentralising healthcare worldwide.”
Paul Stannard a general partner of the Vector Innovation Fund, which recently launched a sub-fund raising an initial $300m for future healthcare, as well as pandemic protection and preparedness, focusing on precision medicine, advanced point of care, early intervention diagnostics and AI technologies that support sustainable healthcare, the global economy, and human longevity.
“Over 50% of the world’s healthcare budgets go on putting a sticky plaster on people’s health, but most of it is spent on the last six weeks of our lives, essentially end of life care, which cannot be the best model for a healthy world. We have been tracking these advanced technologies for five years and are seeing huge potential upsides for global health, which will deliver much more affordable and accessible technology solutions that deliver better outcomes and, ultimately, a more sustainable healthcare ecosystem.
“The recent pandemic has profoundly highlighted that early intervention is key to solving the biggest health challenges we face and moving to a more decentralised model based on technology investment is the key to sustainable health and improving life longevity.”
Top five tech growth sectors forecast to quadruple over next five years
Five key tech sectors will enjoy a combined growth of more than 400% over the next five years, according to market reports.
These innovation pacesetters – nanotechnology, AI, Digital Twins, genomics and other biotech life sciences – attracted a combined $892.63 billion of investment in 2020, set to rocket to $2.44 trillion by 2025.
Top five tech growth sectors forecast to quadruple over next few years
Paul Stannard, Chairman of the Vector Innovation Fund (VIF) – an international alternative investment vehicle for advancing enabling technologies globally – said:
“These top five tech growth sectors are the ones currently lighting up investment opportunities, and we have specifically aligned our investment pipeline to them. They hold the key to solving major global challenges relating to sustainability, healthcare, energy, food resources and equal and fair distribution of innovation worldwide.
“Most tech sectors are growing, but these game-changers attracting that $2+ trillion investment won’t be companies enhancing things that already exist, like simply making your TV screen sharper.
“We are backing tech companies that transform how we deal with healthcare and future pandemics, sustainable clean energy, food production and combine these opportunities with AI and machine learning.
“Our fund’s first key target is health tech, which has enjoyed record levels of investment in the wake of COVID, so we would focus on potential nanomedicine breakthroughs such as reversing degenerative diseases and cancers or creating a multi-vaccine to protect us from a range of diseases.
“And while funds like ours can supply management expertise, our target companies are also those showing the skill to commercialise and monetise their offering to a willing market.
“What we have seen with the pandemic as well as Climate Change is a global realisation that we must also accelerate investment in enabling technologies supporting environmental, social & corporate governance (ESG) and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) principles where impact can deliver better outcomes for everyone.”
The Top Five tech growth sectors highlighted by market reports are:
1. Artificial Intelligence has the most far-reaching potential, and the market is forecast to grow 16-fold from $62.35 billion in 2020 to $997.77 billion by 2028 at a 40.2% CAGR, being the catalyst for accelerating almost all tech sectors and has already shown how it can enhance food science, lower retail and banking costs, and develop medical advances such as remote patient monitoring and more intelligent clinical diagnosis.
AI is transforming future healthcare, food, energy, transport, construction, aviation, and many other sectors. Combining AI with nanotechnologies, for instance, allows platform technologies to re-invent the industries over this decade.
According to data gathered by StockApps.com, in the last quarter of 2020, there was a massive surge in investment in AI technology companies totalling $73.4 billion, which was a $15 billion increase on the start of 2020. In the first half of 2021, we have seen 4,080 investment deals in AI technology companies, according to the investment monitoring platform Pitchbook. The average investment deal flow value has increased nearly three-fold in 2020.
2. Nanotechnology is set to grow its market from $54.2 billion in 2020 to $126.8 billion by 2027, which has enabled significant advances in medicine, electronics, environmental solutions, and materials, with the potential to improve drug delivery procedure and storage, and renewable energy. For example, COVID-19 accelerated both vaccine and virus testing and also drove specific developments such as nanotech material masks that filter out 99.9% of bacteria, viruses, and particulates.
According to the investment monitoring platform, Pitchbook, in 2020, $5.56 billion was invested in nanotechnology companies. In the first half of 2021, there has already been $7.72 billion of investment in nanotechnology companies, from 775 deals, with the average deal size value increasing three-fold in just the last six months.
Paul Sheedy, a co-founder of the World Nano Foundation (WNF), said: “The COVID pandemic is fuelling an investment trend behind the nanoscale tech that is already being billed as the ‘COVID Decade’ and driven by the fear of human and economic devastation from another pandemic.
“And that risk is high: there are only ten clinically approved solutions to over 220 viruses known to affect humans, and we can expect at least two new viruses to spill from their natural hosts into humans annually, but nanotech and biotech can help counter this threat.”
3. Biotechnology is the biggest and most mature market here, forecast to grow from $752.88 billion in 2020 to $2.44 trillion by 2028 at a 15.83% CAGR through significant effects on agriculture, improving the nutritional value and preservation of foods, minimising waste, and healthcare advances – the last being highlighted by the record-breaking speed of the Pfizer COVID vaccine development last year.
According to Nature magazine, global biotech funding in 2020 had its best year ever: 73 life science firms alone raised a collective $22 billion. Private fund-raising also mushroomed by 37% on the previous year - already a stellar year. This is being further fuelled with the COVID-19 mitigation market and the advent of a surge of investment in pandemic protection and preparedness using multi vaccines, autoimmune treatments and early intervention testing. Pitchbook has recorded 3,800 deals in biotechnology companies in the first half of 2021, totalling $34.48 billion in investment in these companies. Again, the average investment level is nearly three times what it was the previous year, and post valuations of invested biotech companies have doubled from 2020.
4. Digital Twins are a new up and coming high growth tech sector, forecast to grow 15-fold from $3.1 billion in 2020 to $48.2 billion by 2026 at a 58% CAGR, with the technology already widely used in the construction, energy, healthcare, automotive, and aerospace sectors, and new fields opening up all the time.
According to Pitchbook, last year, there was $103.8 million of capital invested from just 53 investors into the Digital Twins technology start-ups. One company, Cityzenith, has added over 5000 new investors in the last 18 months, raising $10 million to date.
Cityzenith uses its Digital Twin SmartWorldProOS™ software platform to enable architects, planners, and energy providers to track, manage, and reduce emissions and energy waste from individual buildings, infrastructure, and even whole cities and has just reported major contract wins and seen its share price rocket 161% in early 2021. The company is partway through a $15 million Regulation A+ investment raise to scale up its international commercial opportunities.
The Digital Twin sector is an interesting space with tremendous growth opportunities for nimble, fast-moving start-ups who have the opportunity to compete with major conglomerates in this dynamic field such as Microsoft, Siemens, Phillips and Bentley.
5. Genomics is a market set to grow from $20.1 billion in 2020 to $62.9 billion by 2028 through its key role in healthcare innovation and tailoring care to an individual patient while providing more data on diseases and human genetics. The World Health Organisation reports that gene sequencing was critical to the rapid development of COVID-19 tests and other tools used to manage the virus outbreak.
According to Pitchbook, investment capital in genomics companies has more than doubled in value per deal in 2021 over the previous year. So far in 2021, post-investment valuations have also more than doubled against the whole of 2020.
Paul Stannard added: “The accelerated innovation since the COVID-19 pandemic is astonishing – some experts say we witnessed ten years’ growth in the last 18 months of the outbreak – giving us a glimpse of even greater possibilities, especially when some of these pacesetters, such as nanotech, genomics and Digital Twins are able to advance, accelerate and complement each other.
“If it is backed by astute and enlightened investment, our future is looking bright!”
Gordon Brown warns G7 that vaccination must be fair and global to defeat COVID-19
Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown believes at least $30 billion is needed annually for an effective global vaccination plan.
And Brown wants this high on the agenda for next week's G7 Summit in Cornwall, England, an intergovernmental organization of leading economies comprising the UK, US, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and Canada.
Apart from needing to democratise jab access, Brown made it clear in April that he fears disparity will have repercussions down the line for both rich and developing countries yet vaccines are still being prioritised for the Western and European world.
Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown calls for major investment in order to ensure an ongoing effective global vaccination plan.
Our World in Data reported on June 3rd that more than 26.1m British, 136m American, 16.3m German and 11.5m French citizens are fully vaccinated, yet the Africa Centres of Disease Control and Prevention confirmed on June 2nd that only 0.51% of Africans were fully vaccinated; the continent has a population of 1.2 billion.
In a Guardian newspaper exclusive, Brown said: "Immunising the West but only a fraction of the developing world is already fuelling allegations of 'vaccine apartheid' and will leave COVID-19 spreading, mutating and threatening the lives and livelihoods of us all for years to come.
"We need to spend now to save lives, and we need to spend tomorrow to carry on vaccinating each year until the disease no longer claims lives. And this will require at least $30 billion a year, a bill no one so far seems willing to fully underwrite."
Yearly mass global vaccination support would also protect G7 nations financially in the long run, according to political risk consultancy Eurasia, which reported how G7 economies would be $500 billion better off by 2025 if such a plan took place this summer.
Despite G7 inaction, the private sector stepped up in 2020; funding from large companies, investment funds, and non-traditional investors reached record highs, while also providing healthtech companies with essential innovation support that some experts say advanced the sector ten years in just six months.
Investment monitoring platform Pitchbook reported that healthtech investment soared 47% in 2020 to a new high of $51 billion, with the sector already attracting £3.79 billion in further funding this year.
Venture Capital (VC) biotech and pharma deal activity also notched a record $28.5 billion of capital across 1,073 deals, while IPOs by VC-backed biotech companies raised $11.5 billion in capital across 73 biotech public listings, with a record total exit value of $37.3 billion.
Paul Stannard, general partner and co-founder of the Vector Innovation Fund (VIF), said:
"Governments must continually invest in global vaccine deployment and democratising jab access, but healthtech investment overall must also be maintained or further increased for the foreseeable future.
"The current investment levels are astonishing. However, to speed development of tech advances needed to eliminate COVID-19, prevent future pandemics, and realise a more accessible, decentralised global healthcare system that benefits all, investment levels must continue."
VIF recently launched a sub-fund raising an initial $300m for pandemic protection and future healthcare, focusing on precision medicine, advanced point of care, and AI technologies that support sustainable healthcare, the global economy, and human longevity.
Investors attracted by healthcare’s robot revolution
Can robot doctors and nurses ever replace humans? The jury is still out on that, but an artificial intelligence (AI) ‘robot revolution’ is already sweeping through healthcare.
And even as debate rages in the UK over a post-COVID return to normal face-to-face consultations with family doctors, Dr Alan Stout, of the British Medical Association, said:
“It’s highly unlikely that we will have the desire or the capacity to return to a 100% face-to-face model. The phone-first model and the use of technology will allow surgeries to remain sustainable and accessible and provides a better service than pre-Covid.”
Caption – The future is here, with a ‘robot revolution’ sweeping through healthcare.
MarketsandMarkets says the AI in healthcare market was worth $4.9 billion in 2020 also creating substantially more value for an overall healthcare industry worth up to $410 billion per year by 2025.
Highlighted failures within traditional healthcare systems during the COVID-19 pandemic have driven AI advances on many fronts towards a better and more sustainable healthcare model.
For instance, health issues can be prevented in the first place by wearables and apps, which can make health recommendations for patients. Devices such as smartwatches and biosensors could also help detect health issues before conditions become critical.
But the next big step is virtual assistants, a market expected to take off in the next decade $2.8 billion by 2027 AI offers healthcare workers more time to focus on patient care and, with more patients willing to use home diagnostics, should enable a more decentralised healthcare system.
Paul Stannard, Chairman of the not-for-profit World Nano Foundation that fosters the nanotechnology sector, which has enabled so many healthcare breakthroughs, said:
“We may be resistant at first but virtual assistance and robotics are the future of healthcare. Japan is leading the way with a government-funded national initiative to develop data-driven AI and internet of things technologies that will increase the efficiency and quality of healthcare delivery.
“AI also offers more precision as it can automate the analysis of test results, while robotics can increase the success rate of surgeries.
Stannard also co-founded the Vector Innovation Fund, which recently launched a $300 million sub-fund for pandemic protection and future healthcare, and he added:
“This pandemic has taught us a lot; we can learn from the flaws it identified and maintain investment in technologies for a more sustainable future in healthcare and prepare and protect ourselves against future pandemics so that we can meet them in a timely, systematic, and calm manner.”
Healthcare is just part of a trend towards more use of AI following the COVID outbreak. According to the Global AI Adoption Index 2021, 43% of IT professionals surveyed say their company has accelerated the rollout of AI due to the pandemic. An NHSX survey of 368 AI developers and procurers also found that the pandemic had helped accelerate progress in some areas.
Surging nanomedicine investments improve global healthcare and pandemic protection
COVID-19’s outbreak has coincided with investments flooding into nanomedicine healthcare companies, according to the latest data.
Nano Magazine have highlighted a report by marketdataforecast.com that the global nanomedicine market worth $141.34 billion in 2020, will rise to $258.11bn by 2025.
The report also highlights a huge upsurge of investment support from governments and funds to develop nano therapies for vaccines, diagnostic imaging, regenerative medicine, and drug delivery following the impact of COVID-19.
Furthermore, nanomedicines offer huge advantages for wider healthcare also impacted by the pandemic and Long-COVID after-effects upon cardiovascular, respiratory, neurological, immunological-related diseases.
This aligns with investment monitoring platform Pitchbook’s forecast that health tech investment overall will top $10 trillion by 2022 and that nanomedicine investment has grown the sector by 250% in the last five years.
Median nanotech healthcare deal sizes have also doubled since 2019, from £1 million to £2m in 2021, while the number of deals in 2020 was greater than ever, overtaking 100 deals in a single year for the first time.
Nanomedicine is transforming healthcare innovation and delivering early intervention and targeted drug delivery and testing
Investment is already aiding innovation as nanotech researchers and scientists work to improve biomedical devices such as prosthetics, provide new cancer treatments, and develop bone healing therapies, along with more innovations that could transform global healthcare.
Nanotech researchers have found nanobodies that block the COVID-19 and, potentially, other coronaviruses from entering cells and developed mask designs at nanoscale making them both cheaper and more effective.
The fast global response to the pandemic was also enabled by nanotechnology, being pivotal in Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccine development and Innova Medical Group’s 30-minute lateral flow COVID tests.
World Nano Foundation co-founder Paul Stannard said COVID-19 highlighted weaknesses in healthcare systems across the developed world, proving that long-term, innovative solutions are needed to enable change and prevent future pandemics, with nanomedicine playing an ever greater role in this transformation of global healthcare.
And while impressed by rising investments in and recognition for the nanotech sector, he warned against any let-up in this trend:
“Nanotechnology is not only crucial to our current healthcare systems, but researchers and scientists in this field are on the cusp of therapies, devices, and innovation that will revolutionise how we move forward.”
“To ensure pandemic preparedness, high-quality healthcare, and longevity, we must invest in nano healthtech and care innovations.”
His message was echoed by Kojo Annan (son of late and former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan) who is a general partner in the Luxembourg-based Vector Innovation Fund, which recently launched a sub-fund raising an initial $300m for pandemic protection and preparedness.
Annan said: “A virtuous circle is developing between investment and healthtech.
“Lately, we have seen the development of multiple vaccines, acceleration of technologies linked to decoding the genome, the rise of nanomedicine and the use of artificial intelligence to monitor infectious diseases and new pathogens.
“More investment in sustainable healthtech funding can only accelerate this trend, bringing fairer and global distribution of healthcare, greater affordability, and preventive and early intervention healthcare, all ultimately improving the longevity of life.
“The pandemic has also transformed telemedicine investment and demonstrated that nanoscience and innovation could deliver more resilient societies and ecosystems for healthcare.”
Tech investing is the key to Biden’s ‘Race to Zero’ to avoid climate crisis
President Biden’s ‘Race to Zero’ to reduce carbon emissions is underway, and go-ahead companies are jockeying to deliver emerging tech solutions to win it.
Leading nations including the USA (2nd biggest carbon emitter globally*), UK (17th), France (19th), Denmark, New Zealand, Japan(5th), and South Korea (8th) have committed to reaching net-zero by 2050. The world’s No1 emitter, China, has committed to net-zero by 2060. However, the International Energy Agency forecasts 2021 carbon emissions will be the second-highest ever recorded annually.
"It's easy to see the financial and environmental benefits of using advanced technology to accelerate the launch of ‘Race to Zero’, pushing back against urban pollution, health risk and Climate Change and a future multi-trillion-dollar cost in economic and environmental damage," said Vector Innovation Fund Co-Founder & The World Nano Foundation’s Paul Stannard.
Cities cover just 3% of the Earth but contribute 70% of global carbon emissions. Advanced technologies can provide the essential interconnectivity to drive this down.
Yet many tech companies say the tools for reaching net-zero already exist. One sector, in particular, is forging ahead in the battle to reduce carbon emissions in our cities using AI Digital Twin technology.
One Digital Twin market pioneer involved is Cityzenith’s whose SmartWorldOS™ software platform can create virtual replicas of buildings and urban areas to track, manage and optimize carbon emissions to minimize environmental damage.
The US company’s tech is currently deployed in multiple international megaprojects, including a substantial ground-breaking de-carbonization energy scheme for US cities.
Cityzenith’s CEO Michael Jansen said, “Cities are the key battleground, and that’s why we made our ‘Clean Cities – Clean Future’ pledge to donate our SmartWorldOS™ software platform to key cities one by one to drive down their carbon emission”.
Swiss-based company Climeworks has focused on carbon capture rather than emission management. Its Orca facility is designed to suck some 4,000 tons of carbon dioxide from the air each year.
Climeworks Christoph Beuttler believes carbon capture facilities like Orca must go mainstream if we are to reach net-zero:
"In order to stay within the 1.5-degree goal (to avoid Climate Change), we have 8-10 years left of current emissions, and we will not make that so, globally, we will have to remove CO2 from the atmosphere permanently."
Fortunately, technology now attracts significant investment. Cityzenith has added over 5000 investors as part of its $15m Regulation A+ crowdfunding raise since the end of 2020. Climate-focused investment funds such as US-based Congruent Ventures and the European fund, 2150, have recently supported start-ups and companies developing essential climate solutions. This form of investment is forecasted to run into trillions of dollars in the next 5 to 10 years.
But Cityzenith's Jansen added: " We must invest immediately, to act now and more effectively to protect our planet. "
Jansen's upcoming FREE investment webinar, 'Join The Race to Zero – Investing in Technology For Sustainable Cities,' will take place virtually on Tuesday 11 May at 08:00 CT and 13:00 CT. To learn more about using emerging tech to combat Climate Change, please sign up here.
Nanotechnologies are poised to have a huge impact on agriculture
Science is about big ideas that change the world. But sometimes, big impacts come from the tiniest of objects.
Nanotechnology might sound like science fiction, but it represents technologies that have been developed for decades. Nanotechnological approaches have found real-world applications in a wide range of areas, from composite materials in textiles to agriculture.
Agriculture is one of the oldest human inventions, but nanotech provides modern innovations that could dramatically improve the efficiency of our food supply and reduce the environmental impact of its production.
Agriculture comes with costs that farmers are only too familiar with: Crops require substantial amounts of water, land and fuel to produce. Fertilizers and pesticides are needed to achieve the necessary high crop yields, but their use comes with environmental side effects, even as many farmers explore how new technologies can reduce their impact.
The tiniest of objects
Nanotechnology is the science of objects that are a few nanometres—billionths of a meter—across. At this size, objects acquire unique properties. For example, the surface area of a swarm of nanoscale particles is enormous compared to the same mass collected into single large-scale clump.
Varying the size and other properties of nanoscale objects gives us an unprecedented ability to create precision surfaces with highly customized properties.
Employing particles
Traditionally, applying chemicals involves first mixing the active ingredients in water and then spraying the mixture on crops. But the ingredients do not mix easily, making this an inefficient process that requires large quantities of water.
To improve efficiency and reduce environmental impact, farmers need their fertilizers and pesticides to reach their crops and be absorbed into the plant exactly where they're needed—into the roots or the leaves, for example. Ideally, they could use just enough of the chemical to enhance the crop's yield or protect it from attack or infection, which would prevent excess from being wasted.
Custom-made nanoscale systems can use precision chemistry to achieve high-efficiency delivery of fertilizers or pesticides. These active ingredients can be encapsulated in a fashion similar to what happens in targeted drug delivery. The encapsulation technique can also be used to increase the amount dissolved in water, reducing the need for large amounts.
Current applications
Starpharma, a pharmaceutical company, got into this game a few years ago, when it set up a division to apply its nanotechnological innovations to the agriculture sector. The company has since sold its agrochemical business.
Psigryph is another innovative nanotech company in agriculture. Its technology uses biodegradable nanostructures derived from Montmonercy sour cherries extract to deliver bioactive molecules across cell membranes in plants, animals and humans.
My lab has spent years working in nanoscience, and I am proud to see our fundamental understanding of manipulating polymer encapsulation at the nanoscale make its way to applications in agriculture. A former student, Darren Anderson, is the CEO of Vive Crop Protection, named one of Canada's top growing firms: they take chemical and biological pesticides and suspend them in "nanopackets"—which act as incredibly small polymer shuttles—to make them easily reach their target. The ingredients can be controlled and precisely directed when applied on crops.
Existing infrastructure
One bonus of these nanotech developments is that they don't actually require any new equipment whatsoever, which is a tremendous advantage in the financially challenging agricultural industry. Farmers simply mix these products using less water and fuel to make efficiency gains.
Other agricultural uses for nanotech include animal health products, food packaging materials and nanobiosensors for detecting pathogens, toxins and heavy metals in soil. It wouldn't be a surprise to see the widespread use of these new applications in the near future.
As nanotechnologies take flight, this kind of productivity gain will be critical for farmers and a big deal for the rest of us, as the Earth's population continues to grow and the effects of climate change become increasingly obvious. Farmers will need to do more with less.
Fortunately, a few billionths of a meter is the very definition of less. With the help of tiny nanotech, global agriculture is on the verge of some very big things.
Image: Shutterstock - Vadym Zaitsev
Lessons of COVID-19 trigger radical 10-year Government plan to level up healthcare
· Health plan will target smoking, obesity, food, clean air, and child health
· Priority given to levelling up ‘postcode inequalities’ in healthcare
· Technology-led investment will drive better diagnostics, early intervention and more de-centralised health system
A year of COVID-19 has exposed decades of travelling the tragically wrong path in UK healthcare according to a Government-backed ‘Levelling Up Health’ (LUH) presentation and report today.
Specialists drawn from healthcare, academia and industry heard how the pandemic may have caused 40,000 needless UK deaths, highlighted postcode-driven inequalities in healthcare, and confirmed the UK literally as ‘the sick man of Europe’.
It will now drive a radical shake-up with Chief Medical Officer (CMO) for England, Prof Chris Whitty, as a ‘health supremo’ overseeing all issues feeding into the nation’s well-being and longevity and reporting direct to the Prime Minister and his Cabinet.
A 10-year Health Improvement Plan will target smoking, obesity, food, clean air, and child health and Prof Whitty said the NHS would also be re-shaped, within a 10-year plan for unified action across all functions including Whitehall:
“No-one owns the whole problem and therefore we aim to bring these different government departments together in terms of resources and budgets.”
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the LUH report had had been widely praised ahead of publication, and had prompted a re-focussing on the nation’s health and a goal to add five years to people’s longevity by 2035:
“80% of our budget goes on acute care, in other words patching people up, and we have to change this in one of the most important healthcare reforms for a generation.”
Mr Hancock highlighted two main themes to this: Prof Whitty’s new remit and how “the NHS will benefit from this through reversing the silos that exist currently.”
He said Whitehall had to change too, as things like transport and air quality both impact on health, but relevant budgets are split between different government departments – Prof Whitty’s new role was to help bring these together.
Mr Hancock said: “This is a unique opportunity and there has never been a better time to do this following the huge learning from managing COVID-19, where we have broken these silos to create real impact and change and this has never been better illustrated than through the vaccine programme.”
He added that investment in technology and a healthcare model based on prevention, early detection and early intervention is key to the Government’s 10-year plan.
Mr Hancock also highlighted the importance of the Government’s data strategy, as identifying people’s genome is massively helping with diagnostics, and enabling much better health outcomes through use of AI and other early intervention measures.
The LUH report said its ‘Ten-Year Health Improvement Plan’, along with targeted funding for areas with poor health, would complement the Government’s post-COVID ‘Building Back Better’ blueprint for economic growth, improved health resilience, and reduced health inequalities:
“A healthier nation would be a great asset and a great investment. There would be public support for launching such an ambition,” said the report, underpinning this through stark facts and comment:
· 90% of those who died with COVID had significant prior poor health.
· The most deprived places had much higher COVID deaths; 345 per 100,00 in Blackburn and Darwen - five times more than South Cambridgeshire (68 per 100,000) – and suggesting that 40,000 fewer people would have died if the whole nation’s healthcare had been ‘levelled up’.
· The UK has the unhealthiest population in Europe: a significant drag on economic growth that also increases our exposure to future pandemics.
· Health is the principal reason for 1.2 million people aged 50-64 being out of work, and people living in the most deprived places in England get significant long-term poor health conditions 19 years earlier than those in the least deprived ones, and they stop work earlier and die earlier.
· Health inequality between the North and South costs £13 billion a year in lost productivity and 30% of the productivity gap between the North and the rest of England is due to ill-health.
· Premature poor health increases demand on the NHS, for social care and welfare support; becoming healthier is fundamental to growth, resilience, and NHS sustainability.
Paul Stannard, co-founder of the not-for-profit World Nano Foundation attended the meeting and said: “I was pleased to hear Mr Hancock talk about early diagnosis and prevention being key, as many of the waiting lists are not for treatments but caused by delays in testing and diagnostics. It was also good to hear the Government’s commitment to diagnostic hubs and genomic sequencing.
“COVID-19 has been devastating but this is just the response needed to re-shape our healthcare system to be protected and prepared for the world’s next major health threat, while also transitioning to a more de-centralised, point-of-care, early intervention model benefitting from the latest healthcare technology.
“Rapid deployment of new vaccines and rapid mass testing devices show what can be achieved when the will and investment are fully behind healthcare.
“That’s why we have partnered with the Vector Innovation Fund to launch an initial $300 million international healthtech sub-fund for pandemic protection and preparedness that will have a wider impact on future healthcare provision.
“Investment in nanotechnology diagnostics, therapies, novel treatments, genome sequencing, and precision medicines is already helping the cause with record amounts of funding enabling healthtech advances in less than a year, which would have taken 10 years previously, along with delivering wearable health sensors, telemedicine, highly-targeted drugs and treatments, as well as breakthroughs in testing.”
‘COVID decade’ creates $10 trillion impact upon healthcare innovation investment
Healthcare technology investment in 2020 soared 47% to a new high of $51 billion and figures show it will rocket to even greater heights.
Overall healthcare investment is tipped to pass $10 trillion by 2022 on a 10-year upward trajectory, already being called the ‘COVID decade’ for investment into disruptive innovation supporting pandemic protection and preparedness.
The spin-off from this research is also creating opportunities to democratise and decentralise healthcare through early detection diagnostics and early intervention therapies, and precision medicine, all set to transform global health and human longevity.
A further sign of where new investment is going came with the recent launch of a $300 million Pandemic Protection Sub-fund by the Luxembourg-based Vector Innovation Fund (VIF) focusing on this ‘new age’ healthtech, and preparation for the next global healthcare challenge.
The new fund forms part of $17 billion (source: Pitchbook) in venture funding for healthcare innovation in recent years related to infectious diseases.
Scottish Health Innovations reports how accelerating investment has advanced the healthcare sector 10 years in just six months, through new data-driven technologies and digitisation, while vaccines have developed at unprecedented speed; the research and rollout for the Pfizer and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines were the fastest in history.
Testing has improved too; lateral flow tests (LFTs) from the world’s largest manufacturer, Innova Medical, are now 99.9% accurate yet take just 30 minutes to show results and help identify new variants and isolate asymptomatic carriers.
Using cutting edge nanotechnology these LFTs have been adopted by a world class UK testing and vaccine regime, now including a new national health agency UKHSA to protect against future health threats.
But far more is needed to avoid repetition of COVID-19’s devastation: 2.74m deaths to date, $5.6 trillion in global GDP lost, plus severe financial, health, and social impacts - mental health problems, unemployment, and poverty have all soared, while many people with life-threatening diseases have gone undiagnosed.
And the world is still alarmingly unprepared for another pandemic. COVID-19 was transmitted from animals, and scientists now know that two new ‘zoonotic’ viruses have done this every year for the last century, yet the Royal Society of Chemistry claims only 10 of 220 viruses known to infect humans have antiviral drugs available to combat them.
Against such odds, says the Executive Chair of Scottish Health Innovations, Graham Watson, healthcare innovation, rapid development, and early adoption must become routine in what he calls an “optimal investment ecosystem”.
This had been lacking according to leading medical journal, The Lancet, which reported that a pre-COVID assessment exposed a need for faster medical manufacturing and distribution during a possible pandemic, and commented: "A true, end-to-end R&D ecosystem must deliver needed products to people as rapidly as possible, and at scale in a globally fair and equitable fashion.”
Paul Sheedy, co-founder of the not-for-profit World Nano Foundation, argued strongly against any easing of investment into nanomedicines, and nano diagnostics towards better healthcare and pandemic protection:
"Nanomedicine investment alone grew 250% in the last five years, according to Pitchbook, while equity funding to digital health companies hit an all-time high last year, reaching $26.5 billion, but it has to be maintained if we are to avoid the human and economic devastation of another COVID.”