UCLA team creates nano valve

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UCLA

chemists have created what they say is the first nano valve that can be opened and closed at will to trap and release molecules. The discovery, federally funded by the US National Science Foundation, is published in the July 19 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"This paper demonstrates unequivocally that the machine works," said Jeffrey I. Zink, a UCLA professor of chemistry and biochemistry, a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA, and a member of the research team. "With the nano valve, we can trap and release molecules on demand. A nano valve potentially could be used as a drug delivery system."

"The valve is like a mechanical system that we can control like a water faucet," said UCLA graduate student Thoi Nguyen, lead author on the paper. "Trapping the molecule inside and shutting the valve tightly was a challenge. The first valves we produced leaked slightly."

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