The Safe-and-Sustainable-by-Design (SSbD) framework is increasingly recognized as a key approach for the development of next-generation advanced materials, ensuring that safety, environmental impact, and functionality are integrated from the earliest stages of innovation. Within this paradigm, bio-inspired materials offer an important strategy for creating multifunctional solutions that combine high efficacy with intrinsic biological compatibility. Getting inspiration from naturally occurring functional molecules—such as antimicrobial peptides and extracellular matrix components—self-assembling polymeric systems can be engineered to generate coatings capable of providing antimicrobial, anti-biofilm, anti-inflammatory, and regenerative properties across a wide range of surfaces, materials and geometries.
The activities presented here focus on the development and translation of bio-inspired multifunctional coatings for healthcare applications, including medical devices, wound care materials, and hospital environments. A particular attention is given to the design of coatings that can be integrated onto diverse substrates while maintaining safety for patients, healthcare workers, and the environment.
Within this context, the Horizon 202 NOVA project explores the application of SSbD principles to the development of safe and sustainable antimicrobial coatings for hospital textiles, aiming to reduce nosocomial infections while minimizing ecological impact and chemical hazards. In parallel, Horizon 2020 TOXBOX project enables the integration of predictive toxicological assessment and early-stage safety screening via a dedicated instrument into the material development pipeline. Together, these approaches support the development of high-performance coatings that combine biological inspiration, functional efficacy, and demonstrable safety and sustainability for next-generation healthcare technologies.

From Nanomedicine to Nanofarming: Precision Delivery for Climate-Resilient Crops

Gregory V. Lowry, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA

glowry@cmu.edu

Key Words: Plant Nanobiotechnology, sustainable agriculture, precision agriculture, plant digital twin.

Abstract

Current agricultural practices are resource intensive, notoriously inefficient, and unsustainable. Moreover, crop productivity is threatened by climate change. Approaches adapted from precision nanomedicine can precisely deliver active agents, nutrients, and genetic materials into crop plants to improve agrochemical utilization efficiency and increase their resilience to climate change. However, achieving this goal requires a greater understanding of how nanocarriers interact with plant surfaces and biomolecules, viable targeting approaches in plants, and more sustainable sourcing of nanocarrier materials. This understanding can be used to improve nanocarrier design for efficiency, efficacy, and sustainability. This talk will discuss progress made towards these goals, providing illustrative examples of targeted delivery and approaches to mitigate climate induced plant stress. The key scientific and technical barriers that must be addressed to realize the benefits of plant nanobiotechnology will be presented and discussed.

Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have been studied extensively owing to their distinctive physicochemical properties and broad applications in catalysis, sensing and biomedicine. Focussing on catalysis, their unique potential becomes particularly pronounced when their dimensions fall below approximately 5 nm, where they enter a fundamentally different size regime. At this scale, their behaviour diverges not only from bulk gold but also from larger (10–100 nm) nanostructures.

In the sub-5 nm regime, the predominance of surface atoms means that reactivity and thermodynamic stability can be dominated by ligand interactions. Furthermore, ultrasmall particles frequently deviate from bulk crystallographic symmetry, adopting reconstructed or non-crystalline motifs that can give rise to emergent chiral behaviour. Together, these characteristics create opportunities to exploit size-dependent phenomena for catalytic control.

This work examines synthetic and stabilisation strategies for aqueous-phase sub-5 nm AuNPs functionalised with carboxylate- and thiol-containing ligands. By integrating high-resolution electron microscopy with computational modelling, we investigate growth pathways, structural evolution and stability controls. Systematic variation of pH, ligand identity and concentration reveals that nanoparticle size and morphology are highly sensitive to solution chemistry, with pre-nucleation clusters acting as long-lived intermediates that influence subsequent growth. Simulations (molecular dynamics and density functional theory) provide insight into ligand-mediated stabilisation and indicate size-dependent chirality.

Taken together, these findings advance understanding of particle–ligand interactions at the smallest accessible nanoscale dimensions. They demonstrate how precise synthetic control, coupled with molecular-level modelling, can establish rational design principles for tailoring nanoparticle structure and functionality. Such insights lay the groundwork for engineering gold nanomaterials whose catalytic performance can be systematically tuned through size control.

Acknowledgment: The presenter acknowledges a Royal Society Wolfson Fellowship (RSWF\R2\192007) and the work of doctoral students Pak Leung Aidan Yiu and Henry Gauder.

The use of advanced materials and more specifically 2-dimensional (2D) nanoscale materials in medicine has been growing at an unprecedented rate for a variety of therapeutic, diagnostic or combinatory applications. The clinical translation of advanced materials that are being discovered or synthetically engineered is considered by many the critical factor to determine the ´success´ or ´failure´ in the use of nanotechnology in medicine. In this talk, our more than a decade-long efforts in the transformation of a single form of 2D material, that of graphene oxide nanosheets, from an advanced nanoparticle type to a medical grade and clinically used technology will be discussed.

Two types of graphene oxide-based technologies have been developed: nanosheet aqueous suspensions as a platform agent for pharmaceutical use and a reduced graphene oxide electroactive matrix for neural interface device use. Recent progress in the clinical development of both forms of graphene oxide nanosheets will be described, with emphasis on two very different first-in-human clinical investigation studies undertaken recently to unlock their clinical use [1, 2]. Lessons learnt [3] will be highlighted to ponder whether the graphene oxide nanosheets journey could serve as a case study on the broader pathway to early-stage clinical translation of advanced materials.

References

1. Viana, D. et al., Nature Nanotechnology, 2024, 19, 514–523.
2. Andrews, J. et al., Nature Nanotechnology, 2024, 19, 705–71
3. Kostarelos, K. et al., Nature Reviews Electrical Engineering, 2024, 1(2), 75-76.

Nanomaterials are increasingly present in agricultural fields, either intentionally through the application of nanopesticides and nanofertilizers or unintentionally through the use of sewage sludge as a soil amendment or fertiliser. The soil biota, including plants, invertebrates, and the microbiome, can become non-target recipients during the application of agrochemicals or amendments. Consequently, it is essential to investigate the toxicity, accumulation, and community change patterns that nanomaterials present in agroapplications can induce. Laboratory-based toxicity studies will be presented that examine the interaction between invertebrates and the microbiome, or target plant exposure, along with higher-tier mesocosm trials, providing valuable insights into how these materials influence biota health and community changes. A case study of a Cu-based nanopesticide (as an intentional source) will be used to holistically explore how invertebrates, plants, and the microbiome respond to different Cu forms when applied in agriculture. These studies are critical for understanding the fate, toxicity, and traits of nanomaterials in agriculture, contributing to the development of safer and more efficient agrochemical products.

Acknowledgments This study was supported by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT): under the frame of SIINN, the ERA-NET for a Safe Implementation of Innovative Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, within the project Nano-FARM - Fate and Effects of Agriculturally relevant Materials (ERANET SIIN 2014, SIINN/0001/2014), and through national funds, under the project/grant UID/50006 + LA/P/0094/2020

The growing demand for decentralized diagnostics and real-time monitoring has accelerated the development of nanobiosensors for point-of-care (PoC) applications. To be effectively deployed in real-world settings, such devices should comply with the World Health Organization’s REASSURED criteria—Real-time connectivity, Ease of specimen collection, Affordable, Sensitive, Specific, User-friendly, Rapid and robust, Equipment-free, and Deliverable to end users. Meeting these requirements is particularly challenging and must be carefully balanced depending on the intended application scenario, resource availability, and operational environment.

In this context, we explore the design and development of sustainable nanobiosensing platforms that combine advanced nanomaterials with scalable and low-cost fabrication technologies. Our work leverages a wide range of nanomaterials, including metallic nanoparticles, quantum dots, and two-dimensional materials, to enable both optical and electrical transduction mechanisms. Particular emphasis is placed on environmentally conscious substrates such as paper and flexible plastics, together with ubiquitous manufacturing approaches including screen printing, inkjet printing, and stamping.

We present representative examples of nanobiosensors ranging from simple optical assays to fully integrated electrical devices, operating either as standalone systems or in connection with smartphones for data acquisition, processing, and wireless transmission. Applications span human health and environmental monitoring, including cancer biomarkers, neurodegenerative disease indicators, viral and pathogenic detection, and chemical pollutants. Wearable and portable formats are also discussed, highlighting their potential for continuous and on-site monitoring.

Overall, this work illustrates how sustainable materials and fabrication strategies can be combined with nanotechnology to deliver REASSURED-compliant PoC biosensors, paving the way toward accessible, scalable, and impactful diagnostic solutions.

Respiratory tract infections are the third leading cause of death worldwide, with airborne transmission as their primary propagation route. Virus-containing aerosols can remain suspended in air and retain infectivity for hours.

Operando Raman studies demonstrate the key role of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in enabling efficient VOC combustion at low temperatures. This expertise in combustion catalysis is highly relevant to airborne pathogen inactivation strategies.

Through the H2020 NanoInformaTIX project, focused on the reactive bases of nanoparticle toxicity, we developed predictive frameworks for the environmental health and safety of nanomaterials by elucidating how nanomaterial reactivity governs cell viability. In this context, acellular oxidative stress assays were established to correlate surface reactivity with adverse outcomes, classifying nanomaterials into three categories: inert materials with negligible cytotoxicity; highly reactive materials inducing cell death; and intermediately reactive materials that cause sublethal damage and trigger autophagic responses.

Building on this oxidative damage paradigm, through the LaCaixa SafeAir project, we extend this knowledge to the remediation of airborne viruses and bacteria using catalytic filters. Our acellular assays, based on probe organic reactions, have been adapted to quantify the oxidative potential of catalytic systems and benchmarked against viral inactivation determined by plaque assays. These studies include human coronavirus 229E (HCoV-229E) and SARS-CoV-2, and rhinovirus 14 (RV-14).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. We gratefully acknowledge the funding from European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 814426 (NanoInformaTIX), CSIC PTI+ Salud Global, NextGenerationEU (Regulation EU 2020/2094), by “la Caixa” Bank Foundation, LCF/PR/HR22/52420032 and COST Action CA23139 Net4CleanAir.

Efficient and cost-effective routes to engineer photovoltaic materials are essential, with metal oxides such as TiO₂ playing a key role. Precise control of phase composition and defects in metal-oxide thin films is crucial for improving performance in energy conversion and photocatalysis.

Pulsed laser deposition (PLD) is widely used for metal-oxide thin films due to its stoichiometric transfer and versatility. Dual-frequency RF plasma-enhanced PLD (PE-PLD) further improves the process by independently controlling ion flux through the high-frequency (HF) power and ion energy through the low-frequency (LF) power, enabling more precise thin-film growth. In this study, TiO₂ thin films were grown on glass substrates using dual RF PE-PLD, and their properties were evaluated as a function of HF and LF powers.

XRD and Raman analyses show that LF power strongly affects phase evolution, driving TiO₂ from a mixed anatase/rutile composition to an almost pure rutile phase due to increased LF-driven ion energy, which enhances ion bombardment and phase transformation. This control enables rutile formation below 400 °C, suitable for heat-sensitive substrates.

AFM reveals that increasing HF power raises the density of anatase-like nanostructures and surface roughness, while higher LF power reduces these features and keeps roughness nearly constant.

XPS shows that dual-RF PE-PLD significantly modifies TiO₂ surface chemistry. HF power increases oxygen desorption and vacancy concentration, reflected in higher Ov/O-M ratios, whereas LF power yields denser and more stoichiometric films with fewer vacancies.

Optical measurements show that both HF and LF powers reduce the indirect bandgap, with HF producing the strongest shift due to vacancy-related states, consistent with XPS.

The results presented here are based on our recently published study and highlight the potential of dual RF PE-PLD TiO₂ films for photocatalysis and photoelectrochemical hydrogen evolution.

Composite fibers of carbon nanomaterials and polymers can result in high-performance fibers when spun by the wet-spinning method if efficient interfacial interaction occurs between the carbon nanomaterials and the selected polymers used as coagulants [1-4]. This process implies the fabrication of gel fibers as a result of the collapse of dispersions of carbon nanomaterials when injected into a coagulation bath. When dried, those gel fibers become solid fibers with high carbon nanomaterial contents (≥ 50 wt.%), significantly higher than those achieved by other fiber spinning technologies, such as melt-spinning or electrospinning.

The high affinity of ionic liquids (ILs) and polymeric ionic liquids (PILs) for carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and the multifunctional characteristics of their composites inspired us to consider the use of PIL solutions as coagulation baths in fiber wet-spinning processes. Hence, we here report on the use of an imidazolium-based PIL for the fabrication of CNT/PIL composite fibers. These fibers were wet-spun by injecting anionic surfactant-assisted aqueous dispersions of single walled CNT (SWCNT) in a PIL solution that acted as flocculation agent. SWCNT/PIL fibers were highly conducting (90-130 S·cm^-1), displayed remarkable electrochemical capacitance (40 F·g^-1), and percentage of capacitance retention (~50%) values, comparable to those of thermally rGO fibers (50 F·g^-1 and ~30%, respectively). Fiber spinning mechanism for SWCNT/PIL fibers is here discussed in terms of an ion exchange reaction involving SWCNT/PIL and the anionic surfactant used [5].

The authors acknowledge support from Fundación Domingo Martínez and the Aragón regional government (project E25_23R).

1. A. B. Dalton, et at., Nature,423 (2003) 703.

2. E. Muñoz et al., Adv. Eng. Mater., 6 (2004) 801.

3. E. Muñoz et al., Adv. Mater., 17 (2005) 1064.

4. Z. Lin, et al., Carbon 248 (2026) 121105.

5. E. Muñoz et al., submitted.

The development of selective and robust sensors for gases and VOCs requires material platforms capable of bridging molecular-level recognition with macroscopic electrical transduction. In this work, we present a rational design approach that couples molecularly imprinted polymer nanoparticles (MIP-NPs)—tailored for analytes of markedly different polarity—with conductive electrospun nanofibres based on MWCNT-loaded polymers. This combined strategy enables control over the sensing mechanism by orchestrating the chemistry, morphology and dielectric behaviour of the hybrid material. Although synthesised from identical monomers and crosslinkers, MIP-NPs imprinted for non-polar (e.g., terpene-like) templates and for highly polar analytes (NH₃/NH₄⁺) display pronounced differences in size, external functional-group distribution and surface polarity. These variations govern their compatibility with host polymers, their degree of dispersion or clustering within nanofibres, and ultimately their ability to perturb MWCNT percolation pathways upon analyte adsorption. The hosting polymers—PVP, PAN and PMMA—were selected for their contrasting hydrophilicity, water-uptake behaviour, and dielectric responses, offering an opportunity to tailor key aspects of the sensing architecture: fibre diameter (150–600 nm), surface roughness , nanoparticle localisation, MWCNT connectivity, and analyte diffusion under variable humidity. SEM and SEM-TEM analyses show that hydrophobic MIP-NPs distribute uniformly within PVP and PMMA fibres, whereas NH₃-imprinted NPs, being more polar, tend to form heterogeneous domains in hydrophilic matrices, enhancing local swelling and dielectric modulation. Gas-sensing tests under controlled humidity (40–70% RH) reveal that the measured electrical response emerges from a synergistic interplay between MIP-driven molecular recognition, polymer-specific affinity toward water and analytes, and the nanofibrous architecture that mediates MWCNT conduction. Non-polar VOCs primarily influence matrix–CNT interactions, while NH₃ induces stronger dielectric, swelling and humidity-coupled effects, particularly in hydrophilic hosts. Overall, this study demonstrates that rational materials design—integrating MIP chemistry, polymer physics and nanofibre morphology—provides a versatile route to engineer selective gas/VOC sensors, enabling tunable responses across a broad polarity and humidity range.