US military accused of secret climate spraying operation dumping 60 million tons of toxic nanoparticles into the skies

Comment: And we wonder why humanity is struggling with its health?

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Daily Mail

he US military has been accused of spraying toxic chemicals into the air for decades as part of a secret program that has backfired in its goal of stopping global warming.

Dane Wigington, an environmental researcher for 30 years, claimed that the conspiracy surrounding 'chemtrails' is not only true but has actually crippled the Earth's ability to naturally overcome the pollution caused by humans.

The 'chemtrail' conspiracy focuses on the idea that the government has been spraying a host of dangerous chemicals from commercial airliners for several reasons, including to control the weather and make people sick.

The vast majority of scientists and the US government have long declared this theory as false, and most condensation trails, or 'contrails', seen in the sky are the result of water vapor from aircraft exhaust freezing into ice crystals as it hits cold air at high altitudes.

However, Wigington said that lab tests on rain samples, photos of specialized planes carrying these chemicals, government documents, and whistleblower testimony all show clear evidence that a secret program has attempted to weaponize weather.  

The researcher claimed that the US military has built a massive weather control program over the last years, with chemical spraying ramping up in the 1990s to block sunlight and cool the planet.

He estimated that airliners equipped with secret nozzles and tanks on their wings, filled with aluminum, barium, manganese, graphene, and various polymers, have dumped between 40 and 60 million tons of nanoparticles in the sky every year.

'These programs are literally disabling the planet's counterbalancing life support systems,' Wigington said on the Tucker Carlson Show.

Wigington claimed that the US military has been the main group spraying chemtrails throughout the world, using their own planes as well as secretly modified commercial jets to hide the operation.

The researcher claimed he has been collecting evidence about this program for 27 years, noting that Congress has even acknowledged the existence of this operation, which allegedly dates back to the 1940s. 

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World’s First Int’l Governing Body & Judicial Authority Declares mRNA Injections Biological & Technological Weapons of Mass Destruction

Dr Joseph Sansone and Lawyer Lisa|Europe Reloaded

 

[...] After reviewing hundreds of pages of evidence from my current case, including scientific papers and legal briefs filed in the Florida court system, as well other scientific papers, the Alliance of Indigenous Nations (A.I.N.) International Tribunal, issued a declaration and ORDER declaring the MRNA nanoparticle injections biological and technological weapons of mass destruction.

The Alliance of Indigenous Nations (A.I.N.) International Tribunal is the first governing body and judicial authority in the world to issue an ORDER declaring MRNA nanoparticle injections biological and technological weapons of mass destruction.

In addition to legal briefs and scientific studies, the Alliance of Indigenous Nations (A.I.N.) reviewed affidavits filed in my current case in the Florida court system from Ana Mihalcea, M.D., PhD; Rima Laibow, M.D.; Karen Kingston; Andrew Zywiec, M.D.; Marivic Villa, M.D., and Avery Brinkley, M.D.. Dr. Ben Marble, M.D., and Dr. Paul Alexander, PhD.; and the late Francis Boyle, J.D., PhD, the law professor that wrote the U.S. domestic implementation legislation of the Biological Weapons Convention, called the Biological Weapons and Antiterrorism Act of 1989. Dr. Boyle publicly stated the COVID 19 injections were bioweapons in late 2020, before they were even deployed.

The declaration and ORDER include quotes from and or cites affidavits from Dr. Francis Boyle, J.D, PhD; Dr. Ana Mihalcea, M.D., PhD; Dr. Andrew Zywiec, M.D.,; Dr. Paul Alexander, PhD; and Dr. Rima Laibow, M.D. It also cites the work of Dr. James Thorp, M.D.; Dr. David J. Speicher; Dr. Jessica Rose; and Dr. Kevin McKernan; and cites a recent paper by Dr. Andrew Zywiec, et. al., stating that the ‘vaccine’ violated the Biological Weapons Convention.

This extraordinary declaration and ORDER comes in the wake of the World Council for Health Florida chapter declaring the MRNA nanoparticle injections to be biological and technological weapons of mass destruction. Previously, county Republican Parties across the U.S. as well as the Idaho and Arizona GOPs declared MRNA nanoparticle injections to be biological and technological weapons of mass destruction.

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Scientists Getting Closer to "Smart Dust" Brain Implants That Communicate Via Wireless Network

Nicholas West
Activist Post

Neural Dust – “Smart Dust” – previously entered mainstream discussion via the 2016 Independentarticle: “Tiny implant could connect humans and machines like never before.” It was implied to be a new technology that can wirelessly link a human brain to a computer via the implantation of a device the size of a grain of sand. This invention, however, is much older and was officially supported by the National Nanotechnology Initiative 2011 Strategic Plan.

In 2013, I covered how researchers at Berkeley Engineering discussed moving nanotechnology from environmental sensor applications toward human applications such as brain-computer interfaces. Their paper stated:

A network of tiny implantable sensors could function like an MRI inside the brain, recording data on nearby neurons and transmitting it back out. The smart dust particles would all contain an extremely small CMOS sensor capable of measuring electrical activity in nearby neurons. The researchers envision a piezoelectric material backing the CMOS capable of generating electrical signals from ultrasound waves. The process would also work in reverse, allowing the dust to beam data back via high-frequency sound waves. The neural dust would also be coated with polymer. (Source)

Now scientists believe that they have crossed a new threshold toward making the concept of smart dust a reality that would offer a far wider scope than originally envisioned.  At the recent IEEE Conference, researchers from Brown University, Qualcomm and the University of California San Diego announced that they are the first to have achieved a wireless transfer of information from an implanted neural device to an external computer that interpreted the data received.

It allows bidirectional communication between the implants and an external device with an uplink rate of 10 megabits per second and a downlink rate of 1 Mb/s.
“We believe that we are the first group to realize wireless power transfer and megabits per second communications” in a neural implant, says Wing Ching (Vincent) Leung, technical director at the Qualcomm Institute Circuits Lab at UC San Diego.
Nurmikko calls the 0.25-square-millimeter implants “neurograins.” They each consist of a chip capable of harvesting RF energy; that chip powers an electrode that senses spikes of voltage from individual neurons, as well as the wireless communications. An antenna set outside of the skull provides the RF power, transmits to the implants, and receives data from them.
Source: IEEE Spectrum

Researchers believe that the introduction of thousands of “neurograins” will enable far more complex data collection and transference than a single implant.

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New Lifelike Biomaterial Self-Reproduces and Has a Metabolism

Singularity Hub

Life demands flux.

Every living organism is constantly changing: cells divide and die, proteins build and disintegrate, DNA breaks and heals. Life demands metabolism—the simultaneous builder and destroyer of living materials—to continuously upgrade our bodies. That’s how we heal and grow, how we propagate and survive.

What if we could endow cold, static, lifeless robots with the gift of metabolism?

In a study published this month in Science Robotics, an international team developed a DNA-based method that gives raw biomaterials an artificial metabolism. Dubbed DASH—DNA-based assembly and synthesis of hierarchical materials—the method automatically generates “slime”-like nanobots that dynamically move and navigate their environments.

 

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Weaponized nanotech - These "Insects" Are NOT What You Think

secureteam10

Science Is Starting to Catch Up to the Sci-Fi Film Gattaca

Truthstream Media

Researchers develop smart micro-robots that can adapt to their surroundings

phys.org

A group of scientists led by Selman Sakar at EPFL and Bradley Nelson at ETH Zurich drew inspiration from bacteria to design smart, highly flexible biocompatible micro-robots. Because these devices are able to swim through fluids and modify their shape when needed, they can pass through narrow blood vessels and intricate systems without compromising on speed or maneuverability. They are made of hydrogel nanocomposites that contain magnetic nanoparticles, allowing them to be controlled via an electromagnetic field.

In an article appearing in Science Advances, the scientists describe a method for programming the robot's shape so that it can easily travel through fluids that are dense, viscous or moving at rapid speeds

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Resurgence Talks: Jeremy Leggett – The Solar Civilisation, Renaissance, and the New Despotism

Resurgence Talks: Jeremy Leggett – The Solar Civilisation, Renaissance, and the New Despotism  from The Resurgence Trust on Vimeo.

See also:Global civilisation to descend into ‘hell on earth’ unless we choose a new paradigm

Police raid scientists who discovered new vaccine dangers

John Rappoport

—Two scientists discover that vaccines are contaminated, in the manufacturing process, with many small particles of metals that are toxic to humans when injected. Alarming.

The published research is ignored. Then the scientists are raided by police. 

James Grundvig, at GreenMedInfo.com and the World Mercury Project, reports (3/17/18):
“Last week, the Italian police raided the home and science laboratory of Drs. Antonietta Gatti and Stefano Montanari. The police snatched all of the digital assets owned by the husband and wife team of nanopathologists, grabbing laptops, computers, and flash-drives—and with it, years of work and research.”

“Because Gatti and Montanari had taken their research of nanodust and nanoparticles…to what unseen contamination might reside in vaccines in 2016, they came under the microscope of the United States, European, and Italian authorities. They had touched the third rail of medicine. They had crossed the no-go zone with the purported crime being scientific research and discovery. By finding nano-contamination in random vaccines, Gatti and Montanari revealed, for the first time, what no one knew: Vaccines had more than aluminum salts adjuvants, Polysorbate-80, and other inorganic chemicals in them, they also harbored stainless steel, tungsten, copper, and other metals and rare elements that don’t belong in shots given to fetuses, pregnant women, newborns, babies and toddlers developing their lungs, immune and nervous systems.”

“When the scientists published their findings in January 2017, ‘New Quality‐Control Investigations on Vaccines: Micro‐ and Nanocontamination,’ the logical next step for the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) should have been to open an investigation into their claims, hire independent scientists to run their own lab tests to confirm or refute the findings. If confirmed, then the healthcare agencies would enact new policies on safety of the vaccine supply chain, and enforce strict quality control and quality assurance programs.”

“But none of that happened. A year went by. It was cheaper for the authorities to attack the Italian scientists than upset the vaccine gravy train that supports the politicians.”

This is an official form of research: censorship by raiding the researchers. 

Note that the two Italian scientists weren’t simply testing a batch of one vaccine from one manufacturer. There were looking at random vaccines.

Suppose this chilling disaster turns out to be endemic to all vaccine manufacturing? 

For the ubiquitous “all vaccines are safe” pronouncement, substitute: “dangerous across the board.”

Army Wants Soldiers to 3D Print A.I. Robot Squid in Future Missions

Nicholas West
Activist Post

While most of the news over the last several years has been about the ramp-up of drone use across the planet in everything from the standard form of military planes down to mosquito-sized nanodrones, the U.S. military has also been increasingly focused on robots that can patrol the world’s bodies of water.

In order to provide the flexibility that is often required for the challenging environments and terrain that the military encounters, military robotics researchers continue to look at nature for inspiration. So far, in the air we have been treated with an array that includes the following forms deployed in unison, or potentially swarms:

• Robobee
• Robo Raven
• Bat Bot
• Dragonfly
• Bug Bot

On the ground we’ve got Cheetah, WildCat, BigDog and SpotMini – and even a few based on spiders and snakes.

Beneath the surface, however, only rudimentary attempts have been made such as Project Silent Nemo’s fish drone, or the clunky looking Robocod.  Apparently, the U.S. military is preparing to make huge leaps in underwater spybots according to a report by former Marine veteran Todd South writing for ArmyTimes.

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1,600-Year-Old Goblet Shows Romans Used Nanotechnology

Epoch Times


The universe is full of mysteries that challenge our current knowledge. In "Beyond Science" Epoch Times collects stories about these strange phenomena to stimulate the imagination and open up previously undreamed of possibilities. Are they true? You decide.

The Lycurgus Cup, as it is known due to its depiction of a scene involving King Lycurgus of Thrace, is a 1,600-year-old jade green Roman chalice that changes colour depending on the direction of the light upon it. It baffled scientists ever since the glass chalice was acquired by the British Museum in the 1950s. They could not work out why the cup appeared jade green when lit from the front but blood red when lit from behind.

The mystery was solved in 1990, when researchers in England scrutinized broken fragments under a microscope and discovered that the Roman artisans were nanotechnology pioneers: They had impregnated the glass with particles of silver and gold, ground down until they were as small as 50 nanometres in diameter, less than one-thousandth the size of a grain of table salt.

The work was so precise that there is no way that the resulting effect was an accident. In fact, the exact mixture of the previous metals suggests that the Romans had perfected the use of nanoparticles – “an amazing feat,” according to archaeologist Ian Freestone of University College London. When hit with light, electrons belonging to the metal flecks vibrate in ways that alter the colour depending on the observer’s position.

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The Big Risk Of Nano-Materials In Your Food

RINF

The problem with nano-packages is that their powerful payloads may cause harm to those who eat them in their food.

With the arrival of globalization and due to monopolistic practices and technological advances, our food supply became dependent on a global system of production, distribution and manufacturing. Today, food is not anymore what we plant and harvest, but what others create in a lab, often times without the proper supervision and almost always without adequate testing.

If in the four previous articles of the Chemical Reality Series the point was to warn people about chemicals that reach our food supply, this one is a wake up call for anyone who is concerned with their health, even if health is minimally important.

As we have learned, unwanted ingredients are not only contaminating our food, but they are actually being used to test how humans react to their ingestion on what can be called a worldwide, open air experiment.

Recently, the organization Friends of Earth (FoE) published a report titled Small Ingredients, Big Risks, which details how the food industry uses technology to secretly add unlabeled metals such as silver to well-known products like cheese, chocolate, milk, soda, candy, soy, almond, and rice beverages, mints, gum, popcorn, salad dressing and oils, yogurt, cereal, crackers, pasta, and sports drinks.
 

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How Nanotechnology Could Reengineer Us

Keithley

Nanotechnology is an important new area of research that promises significant advances in electronics, materials, biotechnology, alternative energy sources, and dozens of other applications. The graphic below illustrates, at a personal level, the potential impact on each of us. And where electrical measurement is required, Keithley instrumentation is being used in an expanding list of nanotechnology research and development settings.

Wireless Microchip Implant Set For Human Trials

Nicholas West
Activist Post

Once again, it seems that yesterday's conspiracy theory is today's news. 

However, the signposts have been there all along. Microchip implants to track pets and livestock and the elderly are now widely available, while microchipping kids is not far off. Extensive animal testing has been conducted on monkeys to enable them to control devices via brain-computer interface. Edible "smart pill" microchips have been embraced as a way to correctly monitor patient dosages and vital signs.

In the name of health and security - always the dynamic duo for introducing the next level of science fiction into everyday reality - a new wirelessly powered implant a fraction the size of a penny, as seen above, promises to offer a whole new ease of medical monitoring and drug delivery.

Futurist and a director of engineering, Ray Kurzweil, has discussed at length the imminent Human Body 2.0, which will incorporate medical nanobots that that can deliver drugs to specific cells and also identify certain genetic markers by using fluorescent labeling. Once these nanobots have entered the body, Kurzweil indicates that they could then connect our brains directly to Cloud computing systems. Most significantly, Kurzweil states:

It will be an incremental process, one already well under way. Although version 2.0 is a grand project, ultimately resulting in the radical upgrading of all our physical and mental systems, we will implement it one benign step at a time. Based on our current knowledge, we can already touch and feel the means for accomplishing each aspect of this vision. (emphasis added) [Source]

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Cloaked DNA nanodevices

WChild Blog via KurzweilAI

Scientists at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering have built the first DNA nanodevices that survive the body’s immune defenses.

The results pave the way for smart DNA nanorobots that could use logic to diagnose cancer earlier and more accurately than doctors can today, target drugs to tumors, or even manufacture drugs on the spot to cripple cancer, the researchers report in the April 22 online issue of ACS Nano.

“We’re mimicking virus functionality to eventually build therapeutics that specifically target cells,” said Wyss Institute Core Faculty member William Shih, Ph.D., the paper’s senior author. Shih is also an Associate Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School and Associate Professor of Cancer Biology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

The same cloaking strategy could also be used to make artificial microscopic containers called protocells that could act as biosensors to detect pathogens in food or toxic chemicals in drinking water.

DNA is well known for carrying genetic information, but Shih and other bioengineers are using it instead as a building material. To do this, they use DNA origami — a method Shih helped extend from 2D to 3D. In this method, scientists take a long strand of DNA and program it to fold into specific shapes, much as a single sheet of paper is folded to create various shapes in the traditional Japanese art.

Shih’s team assembles these shapes to build DNA nanoscale devices that might one day be as complex as the molecular machinery found in cells. For example, they are developing methods to build DNA into tiny robots that sense their environment, calculate how to respond, then carry out a useful task, such as performing a chemical reaction or generating mechanical force or movement.

In 2012 Wyss Institute researchers reported in Science that they had built a nanorobot that uses logic to detect a target cell, then reveals an antibody that activates a “suicide switch” in leukemia or lymphoma cells.

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Contact Lenses with Infrared Vision? Ultra-thin Graphene Opens Up The Possibilities

Singularity Hub

Seeing the infrared spectrum has a number of applications that go beyond the nighttime war games glamorized in adventure flicks. Doctors can use the wavelengths to monitor blood flow, and civil engineers can use them to identify heat or chemical leaks. And they may be able to do so without the clunky goggles seen on film.
 
Researchers at the University of Michigan, led by electrical engineer Zhaohui Zhong, have devised a way to capture the infrared spectrum without requiring the cooling that makes infrared goggles so cumbersome. The method uses the trendy nanomaterial graphene and works on a device smaller than a pinky nail.

It was already known that graphene, a single atom-thick carbon lattice, could sense the infrared spectrum at room temperature. The trouble is it isn’t sensitive enough to produce an electrical signal that would feed into goggles or whatever other device.

“The challenge for the current generation of graphene-based detectors is that their sensitivity is typically very poor. It’s a hundred to a thousand times lower than what a commercial device would require,” Zhong said.

Zhong and his colleagues therefore turned away from the conventional method of using electrons freed when infrared light hits graphene to drive an electrical current.

Instead, in a paper just published in Nature Nanotechnology, they measured how the light-induced electrical charges on a top layer of graphene affected a current running through a bottom layer of the material separated from the first by an insulating barrier. (When electrons were loosed by contact with the light, they left behind positively charged holes in the top layer, producing an electrical field that affected the flow of electricity through the bottom layer.)

The researchers say the ultra-thin graphene sandwich detects the troublesome mid-infrared spectrum nearly as well as existing viewers, but without the bulky coolers.

And it’s so thin that it could be integrated in cell phones, eyeglass-mounted computers and even contact lenses to provide an infrared-vision mode. Commando units wouldn’t be the only ones to wear souped up POV computers or contact lenses; doctors and emergency first responders could, too.

“If we integrate it with a contact lens or other wearable electronics, it expands your vision. It provides you another way of interacting with your environment,” said Zhong.

Graphene, whose discovery earned the 2010 Nobel Prize, has also been credited with being superconductive, super-capacitating, and super strong and ultra-flexible. And because it’s made entirely of carbon, proponents say it’s environmentally friendly to boot.

Images: Juergen Faelchle and Aaron Amat via Shutterstock.com

MIT Scientists Attempt to Create Nano-Bionic Plants

Kevin Samson Activist Post

Following is a press release from researchers primarily funded by the Department of Energy. It is an interesting study in the nature of dual-use technology. But first a bit of background.
Nanotech has been receiving official funding for more than 10 years when it first was raised to the status of a federal initiative in 2001. By 2003, the newly opened Department of Homeland Security showed immediate interest in SensorNet, a program spearheaded by Oak Ridge National Laboratory and their strategic partners to research ways to fully integrate nano and micro sensors into one overall Internet-like matrix of real-time detection and surveillance. By 2006, Oak Ridge announced that they planned to turn Fort Bragg military base into a prototype for America's future cities.  According to Department of Energy researcher, Bryan Gorman, "Any sensor can talk to any application. Just like with the Internet or with telephone systems..."

February 4, 2011 brought the release of the National Nanotechnology Initiative 2011 Strategic Plan.  This document offers a framework of investment "to understand and control matter" in the areas of environment, health and safety. 25 Federal agencies are participating. As a consequence we are beginning to see nano sensors for use in agriculture that can measure crops and environmental conditions. And we now have bomb-sniffing plants using rewired DNA to detect explosives and biological agents. So, we technically already have bionic plants, but what you'll read below offers additional details about where the top researchers in the field are focusing their attention. It is clear that there is a merger between the environment and security which portends an interesting range of applications.

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The Internet of Bodies Is Coming, and You Could Get Hacked

Motherboard/Vice

The 25th anniversary of the World Wide Web came and went yesterday, along with the requisite retrospectives and predictions for the next quarter-century of innovation. But few reports forecasting the future of the web pointed out that in the future, there may not be a web. At least not as we know it now, as place you “go” or “visit,” because the next generation of the internet could be people themselves.

The "Internet of X" is a buzzphrase we're starting to hear a lot: Beyond the much-discussed Internet of Things, there's now the Internet of Pets, the Internet of Plants, and, most interestingly, the nascent Internet of Bodies.

In other words, 25 years from now gadgets like smartphones, smartwatches, augmented glasses, virtual reality headgear, and the myriad other devices merging humans and the internet may be laughably antiquated. Computers will become so tiny they can be embedded under the skin, implanted inside the body, or integrated into a contact lens and stuck on top of your eyeball.

Naturally, those machines will be wifi-enabled, so it’s feasible that anything you can do with your phone now you could do with your gaze or gestures in a few decades. And maybe even more, as augmented reality and virtual reality come out of infancy and proliferate beyond awkward and cumbersome devices like Google Glass or the Oculus Rift.

Imagine an implantable sensor in your arm that can display a person's contact information when you shake their hand, or an augmented contact lens that projects a map in front of your eyes as you walk around. It's not that crazy; smart and augmented contacts are already in development, people are getting digital tattoos, biohackers are sticking computer chips under their skin, and there are several startups selling technology to annotate the world.

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Nanomotors controlled inside living human cells for the first time

The Verge 

Scientists at Penn State University have successfully controlled tiny nanomotors inside living human cells. Consisting of tiny, rocket-shaped bits of metal, the nanomotors were propelled by ultrasonic waves and steered with magnets. Researcher Tom Mallouk wasn't afraid to talk up potential future applications, saying that the technology could one day be used "to treat cancer and other diseases by mechanically manipulating cells from the inside." Once inside a living cell, the nanomotors could pulverize the cell's contents like an "egg beater" or just break the cell's membrane, Penn State's note about the research says, which could allow for targeted attacks on specific cells. More importantly, Mallouk says that the nanomotors were able to move independently of one another, instead of the "whole mass of them going in one direction."

Though it's a long way off from Mallouk's self-stated dream of "Fantastic Voyage-style medicine, where nanomotors would cruise around inside the body, communicating with each other and performing various kinds of diagnoses and therapy," it is the first time that nanomotors have worked inside living cells. Previously, nanomotors required toxic fuels to operate, which obviously wouldn't work on living tissue. Working inside actual living animals is still a ways off, Mallouk tells CNN that it would be a decade or more before research hit that stage.

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Nanoparticle That Mimics Red Blood Cell Shows Promise as Vaccine for Bacterial Infections

Comment: Suuuuure. Just what we need...toxic vaccinations and now nano-particles to boot...

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 Vaccine vehicle: A transmission electron microscope image shows nanoparticles (lighter color) with material from red blood cell membranes (darker outside color) wrapped around them. New research shows that such particles, loaded with bacterial toxins, could be used as vaccines.

MIT

A nanoparticle wrapped in material taken from the membranes of red blood cells could become the basis for vaccines against a range of infectious bacteria, including MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), an infection that kills tens of thousands of people every year.

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, have shown that the nanoparticles, loaded with a common bacterial toxin and injected into mice, can induce an immune response that protects the animals against a subsequent lethal dose of the toxin. The toxins, which are proteins the bacteria secrete, are “pore-forming,” meaning they target cell membranes in the host and poke severely damaging holes in them. The proteins are secreted by many bacteria in addition to Staphylococcus aureus, including clostridium, listeria, strep, E. coli, and a range of other infectious bugs.

Liangfang Zhang, a professor of nanoengineering at the University of California, San Diego, had previously injected nanoparticles wrapped in membranes taken from red blood cells into mice that had been given large doses of toxin. The toxins targeted the decoy red blood cells; instead of forming deadly pores in real cells, they got themselves trapped and neutralized by Zhang’s “nanosponges,” which were then cleared from the body. (See “Nanoparticle Disguised as Red Blood Cell Fights Bacterial Infection.”)

The nanosponges are so small that the membrane of a single red blood cell can supply enough material for 3,000 of them. According to Zhang, they can vastly outnumber the real red blood cells and divert toxins away from their natural targets, soaking up toxins from blood. Removing the toxin makes the bacteria more vulnerable to the immune system.

Now, Zhang has demonstrated that this same technology could be used to build vaccines similar to the “toxoid” vaccines used to inoculate people against diphtheria and tetanus. Whereas some bacterial vaccines work by inducing an immune response against the microbe itself (or parts of it), toxoid vaccines target bacterial toxins.

In experiments, Zhang and colleagues loaded alpha toxin, a type of pore-forming toxin produced by MRSA, into their nanosponges and injected them into mice. The “nanotoxoid” proved nontoxic and induced the production of antibodies that gave the animals protective immunity against the toxin. It also significantly outperformed an experimental vaccine made from a heat-treated form of the same toxin. The research is described in a recent paper in Nature Nanotechnology.

Whether a toxoid vaccine will work depends on the bacteria. Many bugs have other disease-causing factors in addition to their toxins. Staphylococcus aureus, for example, secretes the pore-forming toxin Zhang’s group used in its vaccine, but it also has proteins on its surface that bind to and disable crucial immune cells. After decades of research and many failed clinical trials, it’s still not clear which targets, or combination of targets, a vaccine must attack to be successful. Currently, some large pharmaceutical companies are pursuing multitarget MRSA vaccines.

Making a new vaccine is a complicated process that can take over 10 years. Victor Nizet, a professor of pediatrics and pharmacy at UCSD, is now collaborating with Zhang to test the nanotoxoid vaccines in mice infected with various forms MRSA. Since Staphylococcus aureus secretes several different pore-forming toxins, it should be possible to load several toxins at once into the nanoparticle, says Nizet, and “potentially have more robust protection against multiple strains.”

Zhang’s nanotoxoid also has the potential to lead to vaccines for multiple other bacterial species that rely on pore-forming toxins to harm their hosts.