Seasons Greetings HC's! For everyone's holiday enjoyment -...

Seasons Greetings HC's!
For everyone's holiday enjoyment - thought this would be a distraction from other current issues.... I'll buy a glass of red to someone that can give me a simple grade 12 answer to behind the science behind this research and why its important to either company.

I know SPION have been used in Medical/MRI imaging in the past.

Monodispersed polymer encapsulated superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles for cell labeling

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.polymer.2016.08.064

Duc Nguyen a, Binh T.T. Pham a, Vien Huynh a, Byung J. Kim a, Nguyen T.H. Pham a, Stephanie A. Bickley c, Stephen K. Jones c, Algirdas Serelis b, Tim Davey b, Chris Such b, Brian S. Hawkett a, *
a Key Centre for Polymers and Colloids, School of Chemistry, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
b DuluxGroup (Australia), 1970 Princess Highway, Clayton, Victoria 3168, Australia
c Sirtex Medical Ltd., 101 Miller Street, North Sydney, NSW 2060, Australia

Polymer encapsulation of raw ferrofluids was carried out by free radical emulsion polymerization using macro-RAFT copolymers as stabilizers. The iron oxide cores with positively charged surface at the pH of encapsulation were dispersed in a solution of negatively charged random macro-RAFT copolymer by ultrasonication. Uniform polymer encapsulated super paramagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) were produced by feeding the mixture of methyl methacrylate (MMA) and n-butyl acrylate (BA) monomers into the dispersion containing water soluble initiator 4,4’-azobis (4-cyanopentanoic acid) (V501). Shell thickness could be controlled by adjusting the amount of coating monomer added. Polymer encapsulation of SPIONs aligned in a magnetic field produced polymer encapsulated SPION rods. Mon- odispersed sterically stabilized crosslinked polymer encapsulated SPIONs were synthesized using diblock and random macro-RAFT copolymers as stabilizers. Rhodamine labeled SPIONs were found to be non- cytotoxic and suitable for cell labeling.

I have the full article if anyone wants a copy.