OUR VISION
Iron is one of three elements (cobalt – Co, iron – Fe, and nickel – Ni) that are magnetic at room temperature. The solution of school glue with borax and water produces a putty-like material that’s elastic and flows very slowly. The glue is actually made of a polymer material. In their natural states, metals such as brass, copper, gold and silver will not attract magnets. This is because they are weak metals to start with. Magnets only attach themselves to strong metals such as iron and cobalt and that is why not all types of metals can make magnets stick to them. Iron is an extremely well-known ferromagnetic metal. It is, in fact, the strongest ferromagnetic metal. It forms an integral part of the earth’s core and imparts its magnetic properties to our planet. That is why the Earth acts as a permanent magnet on its own. Due to their properties such as superparamagnetism, high surface area, large surface-to-volume ratio, easy separation under external magnetic fields, iron magnetic nanoparticles have attracted much attention in the past few decades. Various modification methods have.
MAKE INNOVATIVE NANOMATERIALS ACCESSIBLE TO EVERYONE
OUR MISSION: link nanotechnologies to expand the treatment offer
SUPERBRANCHE’ innovation is based on a connection between different nanotechnologies in order to diversify the possibilities of solid cancer treatment. We exploit the potential of nanomaterials whose main interest is to exacerbate the active targeting of tumors for their early and specific detection while reducing side effects. SUPERBRANCHE is now positioned as a producer dedicated to the synthesis of nanotechnological materials for Nanomedicine. In the midterm, SUPERBRANCHE will also commercialize targeted therapeutic (radiotherapy, magnetic hyperthermia, radiosensitization) tools in oncology.
OUR AMBITION : HEAL PEOPLE
Our vision and ambition is to become a pharmaceutical company, to heal people, and to participate in the re-industrialization of the Grand Est Region in advanced nanotechnologies.
At the heart of our innovation: The design of nanoparticles for targeted diagnosis and therapy is of paramount importance in oncology to reduce side effects and lead to personalized medicine.
Such systems must meet a long list of criteria:
- these nanoparticles must be selectively directed towards the cells and organs of the body involved in the pathological process, in order to minimize side effects,
- they must be non-toxic, biodegradable or easily and quickly excreted,
- they must not be recognized or eliminated by the body’s immune system until they reach their target and must not cause allergic reactions,
Ideally, they are generic, that is, they are « programmable » to control a wide variety of diseases by docking to any chosen target structure and being able to transport any drug.
The design of inorganic nanoparticles is expanding rapidly mainly because of their remarkable optical, magnetic or electronic properties. Thus, their use is multiple, sometimes leading to the development of new fields of research because new properties appear at the « nano » scale. For example, in Nanomedicine, where nanoparticles enable the development of innovative diagnostic and/or therapeutic solutions, or even disruptive ones. For optimal efficiency in such a sector, nanoparticles must exhibit a number of properties, among which, first and foremost, good biocompatibility and optimal biodistribution. To achieve this, it is necessary to coat them with an organic shell that will also allow mastering the interactions with biological fluids.
In this way, dendrons perfectly meet the needs of nanomedicine. They are branch-shaped molecules, composed of an anchor/focal point and reactive ends, whose size and conformation can be finely controlled at the nanometre scale. Depending on the physico-chemical properties of their peripheral groups, dendrons can drastically reduce the main issues encountered in the development of diagnostic agents and therapeutic tools, such as aggregation and non-specific interactions, low biocompatibility, high toxicity or antigenicity.
The choice of the chemical functionality in the dendritic structure is strategic. Among the possible anchor points, phosphonic acids have strong affinities with metal oxides, ensuring a quasi-covalent bond on their surface. This interaction makes the hybrid nanomaterial formed (nanoparticle or implant) extremely stable in vivo while protecting it from oxidation and thus preserving, for example, the magnetic properties of the nanoparticles. At the opposite end, peripheral groups can also play an important role. Indeed, they can be coupled to bioactive molecules such as drugs, chromophores or targeting ligands, which then provide additional functionality to the dendron. Finally, the synthesis of dendrons, from generation to generation, allows to adapt it to the size of the grafted nanoparticle, thus minimizing the thickness of the organic shell and resulting in the smallest possible objects, which can be intravenously injected.
At Superbranche, we currently offer a range of dendrons, of different generations, meeting the needs of nanomedicine. Composed of a biphosphonic anchor point, they also display a carboxylic acid end to further functionalize them. We invite you to discover them in our « products » tab which will be implemented soon with other structures.
Over the past decades, lipids, polymers and metal-based nanoparticles have emerged in medicine to address new health challenges. Chemical composition, size, shape, morphology and magnetic behavior are the most important criteria for determining their applications in this field.
Metal oxide nanoparticles in particular are relevant both in diagnosis and therapy due to their original magnetic properties. When composed of iron oxide, these nanoparticles have been used thanks to their response to an external magnetic field and their biocompatibility: as a contrast agent for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or in therapy for the treatment of cancer by magnetic hyperthermia or controlled drug release. Such magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles have also applications in biosensing or cell separation.
But to be effective, iron oxide nanoparticles must answer a full set of criteria regarding their size, shape and morphology, which will condition their magnetic behavior and thus determine their possible applications.
In addition to size and composition, it is essential to design the surface of superparamagnetic iron oxides, not only to improve their biocompatibility and stability in physiological media but also their pharmacokinetics. Indeed, nanoparticles with a hydrodynamic diameter higher than 100 nm are captured by immune cells, reducing their availability in blood flow and tissues. In contrast, nanoparticles between 10 and 100 nm have a high circulating time in the bloodstream, giving them a high potential for systemic therapies by maximizing the possibility of reaching the target tissue.
Nanoparticle coatings are more and more developed to provide additional bioactive functions, ensuring targeting and combination therapy (drug encapsulated in the nanoparticle coating). Dendritic architectures in particular are ideal coatings because of their defined structure and composition, as well as their highly adjustable surface chemistry. For more information on this subject, we invite you to read our dedicated article: « Nanoparticle coating, a key architecture ».
At Superbranche, we currently offer two ranges of iron oxide nanoparticles: dendronized (which can be functionalized with several biologically relevant molecules) or not. They are spherical and small-sized (10 or 20 nm), answering the current needs of nanomedicine, whether in diagnosis or therapy. Intravenously injectable and water soluble, they can be used as a contrast agent for MRI (10 & 20 nm), as a tracer for Magnetic Particle Imaging (20 nm) or as a magnetic hyperthermia therapy agent (20 nm). To discover them, we invite you to visit our « products » tab.
What is our innovation about?
By their simplicity and controlled size, our nanoparticles for MRI or MPI diagnosis and hyperthermia or radiosensitization therapy can be injected intravenously unlike those developed by our main competitors which can only be injected into or near the tumor and which target the tumor in a passive way. The capacity of being injected intravenously set the stage to active targeting, early diagnosis of cancer spreading (micrometastases or circulating tumor cells detection) and so to an early stage therapy. Torrent for macos.
Furthermore, the architecture and design of our dendritic nanoproducts make them sturdy in biological media and reluctant to adsorb plasmatic proteins.
Finally, our compounds combine diagnosis properties through different medical imaging methods (MRI, MPI) to therapeutic attributes (magnetic hyperthermia, radiosensitization) : A single injected compound will be able to ensure both diagnosis and therapy, thus simplifying image-guided therapy.
Delphine Felder-Flesch
VIDEO of the Grand Prix i-Lab 2019, Superbranche as a National innovation contest winner
Geoffrey Cotin
Strasbourg University
My thesis in 180 seconds
To know more about SUPERBRANCHE’ history and team, please go to the ABOUT US tab
Magnetic Cereal
Magnets Reveal Hidden Cereal Ingredient!
Many cereals are fortified with added iron, one of many necessary vitamins and minerals. These items are added to the mix when the cereal is are made, so it is a bit like taking your vitamin with the cereal.
Since iron is attracted to magnets, finding it can be an instructive science experiment. We like it because we’re experimenting with new ideas using everyday stuff that most people are already familiar with. If you're using strong magnets to try this experiment with kids, be sure to include adult supervision. Strong magnets are not toys!
What is Food Fortification?
Food that is fortified has vitamins and minerals added to it for their health benefits. Fortified cereals are a well known example.
While there are arguments for and against it, foritification has definitely addressed a number of large-scale, across-the-population epidemics. A well-known example is iodized salt, which was introduced in 1924. Adding iodine to salt has reduced Idodine Deficiency Disorder (IDD), occurence of mental retardation, hypothyroidism and goiter. Another example is the addition of Vitamin D to milk, margarine and cereals. This has reduced bone deformations, rickets, and other health problems associated with Vitamin D deficiencies.
These things have been working for so long, we're no longer even familiar with some of the once common diseases they have prevented.
Iron Magnetic Field
For the record, the iron in your cereal isn’t really hidden – Iron is listed right on the box as an added ingredient.
How much iron is in there?
In one serving of cereal, there is a pretty tiny amount of iron added. How much is there? Let’s see if we can make an educated guess.
The side of that Life cereal box says that one serving contains 50% of the daily requirement. How much is that? Well, what’s recommended for you depends on your age and gender. According to this source, it can vary from about 8 to 18 mg (milligrams) per day. We’re not sure what number the cereal box is basing its numbers on, but it’s probably somewhere in this range.
Iron Magnetic Moment
How much iron is 8-18 mg? That’s hard to visualize. We don’t deal with milligrams enough in our daily lives to be able to picture that. If it were a solid cube of raw iron, how big would it be? If our math is right, we’re figuring it would be a cube of iron that is about 1mm square. That’s tiny!
Of course, in the cereal this iron is ground into a find dust and spread throughout. Let’s see if we can find it hidden in there.
Grind the cereal & find evidence of iron
We started with dry cereal and crushed it into a fine powder with a mallet. The smaller the pieces you can grind it into, the better these experiments will work. In the pictures and videos that follow, we did not go to extraordinary lengths to make the grinding too fine. (We used the patience level of a few kids to judge when it was done.)
As a first try, we simply rubbed the end of a magnet around in the crushed cereal. Sure enough, some of the cereal stuck to the edges of the magnet. Since that's where the magnetic field is strongest, it makes sense that it sticks there.
We found that a few pieces of cereal dust stuck to the edges of the XLTK-YEL magnetic thumbtack and the B666 block magnets we tested with. There’s nothing special about using those two blocks – we just had them handy at home from a TIN1 sample pack of magnets.
We also suggest simple cylinder magnets like the D6C or strong D8C magnets for this sort of check.
Move the cereal around
We also were successful in seeing evidence of the iron by moving a magnet around underneath the paper plate. Slowly moving it around made a few tiny pieces of cereal move around to follow the magnet.
Can we make it more obvious?
Seeing that bit of cereal move around is somewhat subtle. Unless you’re really looking up close, you might not easily see it. Can we make the motion of the cereal more obvious?
We sprinkled a little of the cereal across the top of a shallow bowl full of water. Some of the cereal floated on top. By moving a magnet near the cereal, but not touching the cereal or water, we can make clumps of the cereal move toward the magnet. It is fairly obvious how the clumps of cereal sail across the top of the water!
We used D68PC-RB and B666 magnets to demonstrate, plus a dangerously strong DCY0 cylinder. If you use really large magnets like this, be careful handling them! They are not for kids, and can be dangerous if allowed to slam into other objects or magnets.
Get the iron out of the cereal so we can see it firsthand.
Up to this point, everything we’ve seen is good evidence that there is iron in the cereal, but we have not seen the actual iron. We have seen it attracted to and moved towards a magnet, but the iron remained embedded within the tiny particles of cereal.
Now let’s see if we can separate the iron from the cereal using magnets. To do this, we put the serving of cereal in a ziplock back along with some water. Let this sit for a while, perhaps 20 minutes or so. This allows the cereal to soften into a soggy mush.
After a while, take a strong magnet and move it slowly around the cereal mush from the outside of the bag. We set the magnet on the table and set the bag on top of it, then slushed the mixture around slowly. After a while of this, we found a little bit of black iron dust stuck right to the magnet! In the video below, you can clearly see this bit of iron moving around to stick to the magnet.
This is a great science experiment for all ages. Adult supervision recommend with strong magnets!