Volume 19 Issue 1, January 2024

In a major advancement for synthetic biology, dynamin A has been identified as a minimal component enabling cell division in synthetic cells, moving us one step nearer to realizing the ambition of creating synthetic life forms.

To determine the physiologically relevant oligomeric form of membrane proteins is extremely challenging. Now an elegant method of counting the oligomers in membrane proteins in near-native states is presented, using photobleaching and nanodiscs formed directly from cellular membranes.

Drawing inspiration from classical semiconductor technology, a strategy to address many quantum dots through a small number of control lines is presented. The two-dimensional array consisting of 16 germanium quantum dots can be tuned in the few-hole regime with odd charge fillings and individually addressable tunnel couplings.

Nanoscale inhomogeneity is a major barrier to achieving high nonlinear efficiency in nanophotonic lithium-niobate waveguides. Using adapted poling in the waveguide — to circumvent the inhomogeneity and restore ideal phase matching — is shown to break through this efficiency limit.

Two-photon lithography has advantages for precise additive manufacturing at the nanoscale, but its printing speed is currently too slow for large-scale practical applications. A sensitive photoresist based on zirconium oxide hybrid nanoparticles is shown to increase the linear printing speed of two-­photon lithography up to the order of metres per second.

This Perspective discusses the current understanding of extracellular vesicles within the context of their movement into and out of blood circulation, with an outlook on leveraging extracellular vesicle nanobiology for mechanistic insights as well as diagnostic and nanotherapeutic applications in both physiological and pathological contexts.

An efficient control strategy is designed for quantum dot arrays, drawing inspiration from classical semiconductor technology. A two-dimensional array of 16 semiconductor quantum dots is operated using only a few shared control lines.

A giant spin Hall effect with long spin diffusion length and coexisting with ferromagnetism is observed in AB-stacked MoTe₂/WSe₂ moiré hetero-bilayers.

A transfer approach for monolayer MoS₂ using polypropylene carbonate shows a negligible residue coverage of ~0.08% and an ultralow Ohmic contact resistance of ~78 Ω µm, with an excellent on/off ratio of ~10¹¹ at 15 K.

A major limiting factor for nonlinear efficiencies in lithium niobate waveguides, nanoscale thickness inhomogeneity, has been tackled using a fabrication approach called adapted poling.

A novel ZrO₂-based photoresist enables an additive manufacturing printing speed of 7.77 m s^–1, with 38 nm resolution.

Signal amplification through hybridization chain reaction by targeting conserved regions of the M13mp18 bacteriophage-based scaffold sequences is used for in situ imaging of unlabelled DNA origami nanostructures.

Bacterial protein dynamin A is shown to self-assemble at the membrane neck of dumbbell-shaped liposomes, triggering membrane hemi-scission and full scission, establishing dynamin-based single protein as a minimal synthetic divisome for synthetic cells.

An untethered phototactic soft machine composed of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) hydrogel blended with graphene oxide and gold nanoparticles demonstrates underwater full-space artificial phototaxis and manoeuvres around obstacles in natural sunlight.

Native-nanoBleach, a single-molecule imaging technique with a spatial resolution of ~10 nm, quantifies the oligomeric distribution of membrane proteins directly from native membranes at endogenous expression levels with their proximal native membrane environment using amphipathic copolymer nanodiscs.

Nanoparticle penetration into tumours is an obstacle to cancer therapeutics. Here the authors show that the tumour vascular basement membrane constitutes a barrier that reduces nanoparticle delivery and demonstrate an immune-driven strategy to overcome the barrier, increasing nanoparticle movement into tumours.

Quantum biological electron transfer has potential in diagnostic and therapeutic settings. Here the authors report the triggered apoptosis of cancer cells using electricical input to wirelessly induce redox interactions at bio-nanoantennae in proximity to cancer cells.

Biosynthesis of magnetosomes is of interest for a range of applications. Here, factors needed for magnetosome biosynthesis are evaluated and new diverse bacteria are engineered to biofabricate magnetic nanoparticles, facilitating translation to biotechnology and nanomedicine.

Non-invasive monitoring of oxygen levels has implications in a wide range of applications. Here, the authors report that biological imaging beyond 1,500 nm enables in vivo quantitative assessment of oxyhaemoglobin saturation at vascular resolution with high sensitivity.