Tag: NCInnovation

Lithium Discovery Could Spark Major Economic Growth in North Carolina

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GREENSBORO, N.C. (November 12, 2025) — As Toyota expands its footprint in our state, another breakthrough right here in the Triad is putting our area on the national map for battery innovation. A new discovery by UNCG researchers could change the way lithium batteries are made.

Lithium batteries power almost everything these days such as phones, laptops, and electric cars. But getting lithium out of the ground is a long, expensive process that requires large-scale mining. A team at UNCG believes they’ve found a cleaner, faster, and much cheaper solution: filtering lithium directly out of water.

Inside a Greensboro research lab located at Gateway Research Park’s North Campus location in Browns Summit,  Minerva Lithium LLC scientists are running groundwater through a new type of filter they developed. As the water flows through, the filter captures lithium. That becomes one of the key building blocks of modern batteries.

Dr. Hemali Rathnayake, who leads the project, says this technology could be a game changer for the state.

“This is a huge breakthrough for North Carolina.”

And the timing couldn’t be better. The U.S. Department of Energy projects our need for lithium will grow up to 1,000 percent over the next decade. North Carolina already sits on valuable pockets of the mineral, but mining remains costly and environmentally challenging.

That’s where UNCG’s new process stands out. Instead of digging into the earth, researchers say they can extract lithium from lakes and groundwater in a fraction of the time.

“Currently it takes up to 18 months to get that lithium concentrated,” said PhD student Shawn Adams. “But in less than 48 hours, we can get 99 percent purity.”

UNCG estimates their method is also more than 60 percent cheaper than traditional mining.

“If we use this technology to extract lithium, then we can have a huge economic impact and job growth,” Rathnayake said.

To help the project reach major manufacturers, NCInnovation is investing in the research and promoting it to global companies that are already eyeing North Carolina.

“As global companies look to North Carolina and look specifically to this region, they are looking for workforce, but they are also looking for all the ripple effects of having really strong clusters of innovative technology,” said Michelle Bolas with NCInnovation.

From cutting-edge filtration to future battery demand, UNCG’s breakthrough could help drive the next wave of economic growth in our state.

Source:  WFMY News 2, Ben Briscoe, author.

NC Researchers Fighting Honey Bee Extinction with New Technology

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RALEIGH, N.C. (September 5, 2025) — A pesky parasite is impacting bees, threatening colonies all over the world.

Bees keep our crops pollinated and now their keepers are looking for a way to stop this killer. Honey bees are a key contributor in the state’s largest industry.

“Part of our goal really is shoring up food security, crop production in North Carolina,” said Kaira Wagoner, a research scientist at UNC Greensboro works in the UNCG Plant & Pollinator Lab located at Gateway Research Park in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Wagoner and her team are keeping the buzz about bees going from the honeycomb to the fume hoods.  Wagoner’s passion is protecting one of the planet’s most prolific pollinators.

Researchers have pinpointed the parasite responsible for decimating bee colonies across the country.

The Varroa destructor, a small mite that’s living up to its name, is feeding on honey bees and amplifying deadly viruses, Wagoner said.  “That’s really the No. 1 threat to honey bee health in the United States, and really globally, is this mite and the damage that it causes through spreading of those diseases,” she said.  These sly creatures bury themselves in brood cells, the small hexagonal openings in the hive, where bee pupa are developing.

“She hides under that food and has a snorkel to breathe,” Wagoner said. “They cap over that cell so she can’t be detected as easily. Then the baby bee will eat up that food, releasing her from that brood food. She’ll come out and start feeding on the baby.”

Wagoner said some bees have a way of stopping the spread.

“The honey bees that can smell very well, that are very sensitive, can then detect these Varroa mites, these problems, and throw them out of the colony, preventing the colony from dying,” Wagoner said.

Wagoner developed a method to find these overly hygienic bees so they can be used for future breeding.

Her technology is called unhealthy brood odor or UBeeO. The pheromone-based spray mimics the scent of a Varroa mite. Once it’s on the frame, it’s placed back in the beehive. Two hours later the same frame is removed, examined and photographed to document the progress.  The tests we saw had mixed results.

The first frames were mostly untouched, and this hive didn’t uncap any cells.  A second set of bees removed a few, even pulling out some of the pupa to prevent potential spread and look for mites.  The final test we watched had near perfect results.  The bees checked every sprayed cell.

Wagoner says colonies that can identify at least 60% of the sprayed cells have fewer mites, less bacteria and lower fungal loads.

High-scoring colonies are also found to have fewer viruses, all qualities that make them good candidates for selective breeding, a process intended to strengthen bees.

Wagoner is exploring another discovery using NCInnovation funding from the state.

She found hygienic honey bees have a different microbiota from less-hygienic bees.  Her team of researchers is now exploring that link. “We have potential to develop a product out of this, finding that could actually improve honey bee health,” Wagoner said. “We’re starting to get into that in the last few years and we have a lot of exciting research ahead of us, thanks to NCInnovation.”

Wagoner said beekeepers from all over the world are interested in her research and starting to use UBeeO for themselves to identify hygienic bees.  She hopes her technology can promote more intentional breeding that can help bees be more resistant to parasites and save farmers money by eliminating the need for expensive miticides.

Source:  Spectrum News, article written by Marshall Keely, Central NC.

N.C. A&T Researchers: Extracellular Vesicles May Change How We Treat Cancer, Neurological Disease

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GREENSBORO, N.C. (March 14, 2025) — Small, membrane-bound structures that cells in the human body release to transport a variety of proteins, nucleic acids and metabolites may also be used to carry specialized treatments for a wide array of diseases across a critical layer of cells meant to protect the brain against pathogens: the blood-brain barrier.

Writing in the peer-reviewed journal Advanced Biology, a team of nanoengineers from the Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering, located at Gateway Research Park, Inc., explored four categories of chronic illnesses and how the small structures, known as extracellular vesicles (EVs), can be utilized for both diagnosis and treatment: cancer, cardiovascular disease, orthopedic disease and neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.

Principal investigator Kristen Dellinger, Ph.D., an assistant professor of nanoengineering and founder of the Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering’s NanoBio Innovation Lab describes EVs as “tiny lipid packages” that can be used for intercellular communication and transportation. Because of their cellular characteristics, EVs are capable of carrying various therapies across biological barriers.

Dellinger and her team focused on EV’s potential to cross the blood-brain barrier and synthesized findings from nearly 250 reference sources for their comprehensive review. Doctoral students Farbod Ebrahimi, Anjali Kumari, Samaneh Ghadami and Saqer Al Abdullah contributed to “The Potential for Extracellular Vesicles in Nanomedicine: A Review of Recent Advancements and Challenges Ahead.”

A Subcategory of EVs: Exosomes

Exosomes are a subcategory of EVs that measure between 30 and 150 nanometers. A nanometer is 10-9 meters, making exosomes incredibly small — about 1,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair. Exosomes play a significant role in physiological and pathological processes.

Exosomes’ numerous benefits include their superior tissue penetration, efficient and consistent cellular internalization and more predictable biodistribution of whatever they are carrying. They are generally considered better alternatives to synthetic nanoparticles because they are naturally released from cells and so potentially less toxic to the body.

Exosomes have been considered a novel potential alternative to radiation therapy, chemotherapy and other cancer interventions because “the tissue selectivity, safety, crossing biological barriers and stability of exosomes make them advantageous as drug delivery systems” among other potential benefits, the research team wrote.

With regard to cardiovascular disease or CVD, toxicity and other challenges diminish synthetic nanocarriers’ efficacy as nanocarriers for drug carriers. Exosomes can “function as carriers of CVD-related active agents to target cells for their cardiac regenerative and protective potential,” the researchers explain in the article.

The team referenced previous research of a triple hybrid cellular nanovesicle design that showed promise in addressing cardiac injury, though there are still challenges to mitigate, which the NanoBio Innovation Lab is working on at North Carolina A&T State University.

The team encouraged further research on those challenges, including a lack of standardized procedures in using exosomes and lack of established quality control, as well as studies that measure therapeutic effects and long-term safety of exosome-mediated treatment.

Dellinger’s team has secured substantial funding, including a two-year $369,024 NCInnovation grant for drug delivery research in 2024.

 

By Jamie Crockett, NC A&T State University
Research, Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering