MedComm – Biomaterials and Applications最新文献

Diabetic wounds characterized by impaired healing and amputation risks, pose clinical challenge worldwide. Hydrogel dressings have emerged as a promising therapeutic strategy due to their ability to absorb exudate, prevent infections, and control therapeutic agents delivery, with over a dozen products clinically approved or in trials. However, these hydrogels rely on passive drug release mechanisms, which do not dynamically respond to the pathological microenvironment of diabetic wounds, such as high glucose, elevated ROS, acidic pH, and increased enzyme activity, resulting in mismatched release kinetics and suboptimal therapeutic outcomes. To address these challenges, researchers have developed smart responsive hydrogels that utilize the wound's endogenous pathological cues as triggers for on-demand, spatiotemporal drug delivery. This approach enables personalized therapy by precisely modulating drug release in response to real-time wound changes, offering a transformative solution for enhancing healing efficacy. Herein, we review the pathological features of diabetic wounds, and then explores the design principles and therapeutic strategies of smart responsive hydrogels. Importantly, the review evaluates the challenges associated with these technologies and outlines future engineering directions to optimize their clinical adoption. This review aims to contribute to the rational design and practical clinical application of smart hydrogels for chronic wound care.

As the global incidence of cancer continues to rise, the need for innovative and precisive alternatives to conventional diagnostic and therapeutic methods has become increasingly urgent. Microneedles (MNs), comprising arrays of micron-scale projections, have emerged as a platform that provides a painless and minimally invasive system for interstitial fluid analysis and transdermal drug delivery. This technology demonstrates potential in cancer diagnostics through continuous biomarker monitoring using integrated biosensors, while enabling controlled release of chemotherapeutics, photothermal/photodynamic, and immunotherapeutic agents. Over the past decades, significant advancements in technology, materials, and medical applications have been achieved in the MN field, which have attracted increasing attention of reseachers. Currently, several MN-based strategies registered on ClinicalTrials.gov are actively investigating their applications in medince, positioning them as a promising new tool for cancer treatment and diagnosis. This review offers a comprehensive summary of the classification, design, fabrication materials, and techniques of MNs, along with their medical applications in cancer diagnosis, therapy, and the management of cancer-associated pain and hair loss. Furthermore, this review summarized ongoing clinical trials in investigating MN-based therapies for cancer patients. And challenges, future perspectives of applying MNs in cancer theranostics are also presented.

Hydrogels, as three-dimensional hydrophilic polymer networks, have been widely utilized in biomedical applications due to their excellent biocompatibility, high water content, and tunable physicochemical properties. However, traditional bulk hydrogels often suffer from limitations such as inadequate mechanical strength, slow response to external stimuli, and restricted diffusion efficiency, which hinder their performance in dynamic biological environments. To overcome these challenges, hydrogel microspheres (HMs) have emerged as a promising alternative, which offers advantages such as injectability, high surface-area-to-volume ratio, and tunable functionality. By integrating natural and synthetic materials with advanced fabrication techniques, including microfluidics and emulsification, researchers have achieved precise control over the morphology, size, and bioactivity of HMs. In recent years, stimuli-responsive HMs have attracted significant attention for their ability to respond intelligently to environmental cues such as pH, reactive oxygen species (ROS), enzymes, and temperature. This enables controlled drug release, enhanced therapeutic precision, and spatiotemporal regulation in biomedical applications. This review systematically summarizes the materials, fabrication strategies, and functional mechanisms of stimuli-responsive HMs, highlighting their applications in drug delivery, disease treatment, and tissue engineering. Furthermore, key challenges and future perspectives are discussed, which provides insights into how these intelligent HMs can advance personalized medicine and clinical translation.

Orthopedic degenerative diseases, particularly osteoarthritis (OA) and intervertebral disc degeneration (IDD), represent a growing global health crisis. Current clinical management relying on analgesics and anti-inflammatory drugs provides only symptomatic relief, while surgical interventions, though temporarily effective for advanced cases, carry inherent risks of adjacent segment degeneration and surgical complications. Synthetic nanozymes, which possess intrinsic anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties, demonstrate significant therapeutic advantages in the treatment of orthopedic degenerative diseases. This review summarizes recent advances in nanonzyme-based therapeutics, with a focus on their regulatory roles in mitigating orthopedic degenerative diseases, particularly IDD and OA. Key mechanisms include anti-inflammatory effects, extracellular matrix remodeling, attenuation of cellular senescence and death, and antioxidative stress activities. We systematically analyze nanonzymes categorized by their diverse enzymatic activities and chemical compositions. Furthermore, we explore emerging combinatorial strategies employing nanonzyme delivery systems to achieve synergistic therapeutic outcomes and enhanced efficacy. The comprehensive discussion highlights the transformative potential of nanonzymes in advancing IDD and OA treatment paradigms, offering novel perspectives for future research and clinical applications.

Diabetes mellitus is a prevalent metabolic disorder characterized by a prolonged hyperglycemic state, which can result in complications affecting multiple organ systems. Among these complications, impaired wound healing in diabetic patients poses a significant challenge, leading to considerable suffering and economic burden. This issue has emerged as one of the major challenges in global healthcare, where oxidative stress, bacterial infections and chronic inflammation are critical contributing factors. Antioxidant compounds derived from natural plants are increasingly being explored in diabetic wound healing research due to their beneficial biological properties. These botanical components effectively scavenge excessive reactive oxygen species and mitigate cellular damage associated with oxidative stress. By controlling bacterial infections, inhibiting pro-inflammatory cytokines, and enhancing the activity of antioxidant enzymes, these compounds not only improve the wound microenvironment but also directly promote the proliferation and migration of fibroblasts and keratinocytes, thereby facilitating tissue regeneration. This paper examines the modulation of oxidative stress, control of bacterial infections, the impact on inflammatory responses, and the promotion of wound repair, with a focus on the application of specific antioxidant plant components in diabetic wound healing, delivery systems, and clinical applications, as well as challenges and future directions.

A recent study published in Nature by Wang et al. [1] presents an innovative approach utilizing a focused ultrasound (FUS)-programmable hydrogen-bonded organic frameworks (HOFs) system, which facilitates noninvasive, spatiotemporal drug release deep within tissues, holding significant potential for advancing neuromodulation in deep brain regions. The HOFs self-assemble into highly ordered porous structures through hydrogen bonding and π-π stacking interactions, which undergo controlled dissociation upon FUS stimulation, enabling on-demand drug release (Figure 1A). The weak noncovalent interactions within HOFs permit mechanochemical activation under FUS, allowing for precise spatiotemporal control over therapeutic interventions.

Traditional drug delivery systems (DDS) primarily rely on passive diffusion for targeting diseased areas. However, this passive approach often results in undesirable systemic distribution, limiting the therapeutic efficacy and increasing the off-target risk [2]. Consequently, stimuli-responsive DDS have been developed, including light-triggered and pH-responsive systems, aimed at enhancing drug targeting and controlling release kinetics. Despite these advancements, light-based activation is restricted by the penetration depth of light in biological tissues, which impedes its ability to reach deep-seated lesions. Implantable optical fibers can transmit light signals, but their invasive nature introduces the risk of tissue damage. Additionally, pH-responsive DDS are sensitive to the biochemical microenvironment of diseased tissues, and interpatient variability often leads to inconsistent therapeutic results, preventing clinical translation [3]. Therefore, the development of a highly efficient, noninvasive, and remotely controllable DDS remains a critical goal in precision medicine.

Ultrasound, with its noninvasive nature, deep tissue penetration, and precise spatiotemporal control, has emerged as a promising candidate for next-generation intelligent DDS. FUS, in particular, enables the modulation of deep tissues with millimeter-scale spatial precision, offering significant safety advantages. Ultrasound-induced mechano-responsive cleavage of labile covalent or noncovalent bonds introduces new possibilities for highly controlled drug release [4, 5]. However, the strong valence bond interactions within polymer frameworks often necessitate high power densities for effective ultrasonic dissociation, leading to prolonged response times of several hours. Moreover, the complex topological structures of these frameworks lack established theoretical models to explain the relationships between dissociation efficiency, molecular architecture, and ultrasound power. Therefore, the development of ultrasound-programmable systems with tunable structural stability and ultrasound sensitivity remains a critical challenge in the field.

Porous frameworks such as coval

Bacterial outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) are nanoscale vesicular structures naturally produced by Gram-negative bacteria during growth. These vesicles encapsulate a diverse array of bioactive molecules, including proteins, nucleic acids, and lipopolysaccharide, contributing to a range of bacterial processes such as toxin delivery, horizontal gene transfer, and biofilm formation. OMVs play crucial roles in bacterial pathogenesis and host immune modulation, and their presence is implicated in a variety of clinical conditions affecting the respiratory, gastrointestinal, immune, cardiovascular, and urinary systems. The unique properties of OMVs offer promising avenues for clinical translation, including their use as vaccines (against bacterial, viral, parasitic, and tumor-associated), diagnostic tools (for bioimaging and molecular diagnostics), drug delivery vehicles (for antibiotics, anti-cancer therapeutics, and nucleic acids) and regenerative medicine. However, several challenges hinder the widespread clinical adoption of OMVs, including heterogeneity in composition depending on growth conditions, incompletely understood mechanisms of cargo loading and release, inherent immunogenicity and potential toxicity, and limitations in scalable production. This review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of OMVs biogenesis, composition, function, and association with human disease, while also exploring current challenges and future development directions for clinical application.

Breast cancer (BCa) remains a significant health challenge worldwide, with a high propensity for early metastasis and poor prognosis. While surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy are fundamental for managing BCa, severe side effects, such as low patient adherence and suboptimal survival outcomes, cause concern. Therefore, there is a critical need to innovate new approaches that facilitate early detection, accurate diagnosis, and more effective treatment strategies for BCa. Nanotechnological approaches have been introduced for the diagnosis and treatment of various cancers, especially BCa. The current review aims to emphasize and highlight possible applications of nanomedicine in early detection, accurate diagnosis and efficient treatment strategies for BCa. Nanocarriers can deliver chemotherapeutic agents, enhancing cytotoxicity against BCa cells and preventing the development of drug resistance. Nanoparticles also boost the efficacy of gene therapy which promotes their potential for regulating gene expression. The co-delivery of drugs and genes by nanoparticles can have a synergistic effect on BCa and remodel the tumor microenvironment. In this review, we discussed the latest advances in the application of nanomedicines for diagnosing and treating BCa. Current research highlights the potential benefits of nanomedicine over traditional approaches and further efforts to translate these research findings into clinical practice for BCa.

Microneedles have gained considerable attention as an emerging technology in tissue regeneration, drug delivery, and biosensing due to their minimally invasive nature and efficient therapeutic potential. Carbon, with its superior properties compared to polymers, ceramics, and metals, is an excellent candidate for microneedle fabrication. However, conventional carbon material fabrication methods often lead to defects such as structural deformation, cracking, and foaming, which hinder the development of high-performance carbon microneedle arrays. To address these challenges, this study presents a precise, efficient, and cost-effective manufacturing strategy that integrates 3D printing with pyrolysis. By designing a polymer precursor with a uniform mesh structure, we successfully developed structurally intact microneedles with significantly improved overall performance. The fabricated carbon microneedles demonstrated reliable mechanical strength, high electrical conductivity, favorable photothermal properties, and excellent biocompatibility. These characteristics suggest broad potential applications in various fields. Furthermore, this study provides valuable insights into the development of carbon microneedle fabrication, offering a viable pathway for large-scale production and clinical translation. This work lays the foundation for advancing the technology and product development of carbon microneedle arrays while expanding their practical applications across the biomedical and healthcare sectors.

Platelets play a pivotal role in cancer detection and metastasis, serving both as novel liquid biopsy biomarkers and as versatile carriers in nanomedicine. Tumor-educated platelets (TEPs) undergo molecular alterations influenced by the tumor microenvironment, with their RNA profiles—including mRNA, circular RNA, and long noncoding RNA—offering potential for early cancer detection, prognosis, and treatment monitoring. Additionally, platelet-derived extracellular vesicles (PEVs) and activation markers (e.g., P-selectin, CD40L) further enhance their diagnostic utility. However, standardization of platelet biomarker analysis remains a challenge for clinical implementation. Concurrently, nanotechnology is leveraging the natural biocompatibility and targeting properties of platelets to develop platelet-based drug delivery systems and bioinspired nanomaterials, improving therapeutic precision and efficacy. Moreover, artificial intelligence (AI)-driven biomarker analysis is refining TEP and PEV profiling, accelerating advances in precision oncology. Future research should focus on establishing standardized protocols, optimizing platelet-based nanomedicine, and integrating AI to enhance diagnostic accuracy and therapeutic efficacy. By bridging biological insights with clinical applications, platelets hold significant promise as transformative tools in precision oncology.