From BBC Article “Nanotech helps blind hamsters see”:

An interesting article from the BBC examines what seems to be a way to produce self-assembling scaffolds for nerve regeneration: “The researchers injected the blind hamsters at the site of their injury with a solution containing synthetically made peptides – miniscule molecules measuring just five nanometres long. Once inside the hamster’s brain, the peptides spontaneously arranged into a scaffold-like criss-cross of nanofibres, which bridged the gap between the severed nerves. The scientists discovered that brain tissue in the hamsters knitted together across the molecular scaffold, while also preventing scar tissue from forming. Importantly, the newly formed brain tissue enabled the brain nerves to re-grow, restoring vision in the injured hamsters.”

And from a KurzweilAI we have “Researchers Grow Bone Cells on Carbon Nanotubes”:

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside have shown, for the first time, that bone cells can grow and proliferate on a scaffold of carbon nanotubes.

Because carbon nanotubes are not biodegradable, they behave like an inert matrix on which cells can proliferate and deposit new living material, which becomes functional, normal bone, according to the paper. They therefore hold promise in the treatment of bone defects in humans associated with the removal of tumors, trauma, and abnormal bone development and in dental implants.

Thanks to betterhumans

University of Michigan physician and researcher James Baker has developed multipurpose nanoparticles precisely engineered to slip past barriers such as blood vessel walls, latch onto cancer cells, and trick the cells into engulfing them as if they were food. These Trojan particles flag the cells with a fluorescent dye and simultaneously destroy them with a drug.

The heart of Baker’s approach is a highly branched molecule called a dendrimer. Each dendrimer has more than a hundred molecular “hooks” on its surface. To five or six of these, Baker connects folic-acid molecules. Because folic acid is a vitamin, most cells in the body have proteins on their surfaces that bind to it. But many cancer cells have significantly more of these receptors than normal cells. Baker links an anticancer drug to other branches of the dendrimer; when cancer cells ingest the folic acid, they consume the deadly drugs as well.

technology review

Mihri Ozkan of Electrical Engineering and Cengiz Ozkan of Mechanical Engineering at UCR’s Bourns College of Engineering are developing devices 100,000 times thinner than a human hair, that can listen to cancerous cells, deliver chemotherapy to them and leave surrounding healthy tissue intact.

Standard practice of injecting dyes into cells to find those affected by a certain disease has unintended, often unwanted, effects.

Focusing on the electrical signals cells emit is far more benign process and one that holds a great deal of promise, when coupled with nanofabrication techniques.

“You effectively listen to the cells. The ones with cancer emit a different signal than healthy ones,” said Cengiz Ozkan. Using DNA and nanotube technologies, he is also developing a drug delivery system that targets the cancerous cells.

PhysOrg