Smart medicine最新文献

Stimuli-responsive "smart" hydrogel biomaterials have attracted great attention in the biomedical field, especially in designing novel on-demand drug delivery systems. As a handful natural biomaterial approved by US Food and Drug Administration, silk fibroin (SF) has unique high temperature resistance as well as tunable structural composition. These properties make it one of the most ideal candidates for on-demand drug delivery. Meanwhile, recent advances in polymer modification and nanomaterials have fostered the development of various stimuli-responsive delivery systems. Here, we first review the recent advance in designing responsive SF-based delivery systems in different stimulus sources. These systems are able to release mediators in a desired manner in response to specific stimuli in active or passive manners. We then describe applications of these specially designed responsive delivery systems in wound healing, tumor therapy, as well as immunomodulation. We also discuss the future challenges and prospects of stimuli-responsive SF-based delivery systems.

Heart diseases, especially cardiovascular diseases, have brought heavy burden on society for their high morbidity and mortality. In clinical, heart transplantation is recognized as an effective strategy to rescue the lives of patients, while it may suffer from lack of donors and possible immune responses. In view of this, tremendous efforts have been devoted to developing alternative strategies to recover the function and promote the regeneration of cardiac tissues. As an emerging field blending cell biology and material science, tissue engineering technique allows the construction of biomimetic living complexes as organ substitutes for heart repair. In this review, we will present the recent progress in cardiac tissue engineering and artificial hearts. After introducing the critical elements in cardiac tissue engineering, we will present advanced fabrication methods to achieve scaffolds with desired micro/nanostructure design as well as the applications of these bioinspired scaffolds. We will also discuss the current dilemma and possible development direction from a biomedical perspective.

High throughput biological analysis has become an important topic in modern biomedical research and clinical diagnosis. The flow encoding scheme based on the encoding microcarriers provides a feasible strategy for the multiplexed biological analysis. Different encoding characteristics invest the microcarriers with different encoding mechanisms. Biosensor analysis, drug screening, cell culture, and the construction and evaluation of bionic organ chips can be realized by decoding the microcarriers and quantifying the detection signal intensity. In this review, the encoding strategy of microcarriers was divided into the optical and non-optical encoding approaches according to their encoding elements, and the research progress of the microcarrier encoding strategy was elaborated. Finally, we summarized the biomedical applications and predicted their future prospects.

Mesenchymal stem cell (MSC)-based therapy has provided a promising strategy for the treatment of ischemic stroke, which is still restricted by the lack of long-term cell tracking strategy as well as the poor survival rate of stem cells in ischemic region. Herein, a dual-functional nanoprobe, cobalt protoporphyrin-induced nano-self-assembly (CPSP), has been developed through a cobalt protoporphyrin IX (CoPP) aggregation-induced self-assembly strategy, which combines CoPP and superparamagnetic iron oxide (SPION) via a simple solvent evaporation-driven method. Without any additional carrier materials, the obtained CPSP is featured with good biocompatibility and high proportions of active ingredients. The SPIONs in CPSPs form a cluster-like structure, endowing this nano-self-assembly with excellent T₂-weighted magnetic resonance (MR) imaging performance. Furthermore, the CoPP released from CPSPs could effectively protect MSCs by upregulating heme oxygenase 1 (HO-1) expression. The in vivo cell tracing capacity of CPSPs is confirmed by monitoring the migration of labeled MSCs with MR imaging in a middle cerebral artery occlusion mouse model. More importantly, the sustained release of CoPP from CPSPs improves the survival of transplanted MSCs and promotes neural repair and neurobehavioral recovery of ischemic mice. Overall, this work presents a novel dual-functional nanoagent with an ingenious design for advancing MSC-based therapy.

Prostate cancer remains the second-most common cancer diagnosed in men, despite the increasingly widespread use of serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening. The controversial clinical implications and cost benefits of PSA screening have been highlighted due to its poor specificity, resulting in a high rate of overdiagnosis and underdiagnosis. Thus, the development of novel biomarkers for prostate cancer detection remains an intriguing challenge. Urine is emerging as a source for prostate cancer biomarker discovery. Currently, new urine biomarkers already outperform serum PSA in clinical diagnosis. Meanwhile, the advances in nanotechnology have provided a suite of diagnostic tools to study prostate cancer in more detail, sparking a new era of biomarker discoveries. In this review, we envision that future prostate cancer diagnosis will probably integrate multiplex nano-diagnostic approaches to detect novel urinary biomarkers. However, challenges remain in differentiating indolent from aggressive cancers to better inform treatment decisions, and clinical translation still needs to be overcome.

Optical biosensors are platforms that translate biological information into detectable optical signals, and have extensive applications in various fields due to their characteristics of high sensitivity, high specificity, dynamic sensing, etc. The development of optical sensing materials is an important part of optical sensors. In this review, we emphasize the role of microfluidic technology in the preparation of optical sensing materials and the application of the derived optical sensors in the biomedical field. We first present some common optical sensing mechanisms and the functional responsive materials involved. Then, we describe the preparation of these sensing materials by microfluidics. Afterward, we enumerate the biomedical applications of these optical materials as biosensors in disease diagnosis, drug evaluation, and organ-on-a-chip. Finally, we discuss the challenges and prospects in this field.

Tissue adhesives have raised much attention from scientists in recent years. They have been extensively utilized in various medical fields, such as wound closure, due to the advantages of being simple, time-saving, and avoiding the problems and complications associated with surgical sutures. Besides, the tissue adhesives can absorb wound exudates and promote tissue repair. The rapid evolution in the field of tissue adhesives has resulted in the development of various adhesives with excellent mechanical properties and superior functions. However, many challenges still restrict their use in numerous clinical applications. In this paper, we present an up-to-date review of tissue adhesives for wound closure. We mainly discussed the fundamental design requirements for the adhesives, the fabrication of tissue adhesives, and the application of tissue adhesives on skin healing, corneal patch, and gastrointestinal tissues. We then highlighted the current challenges and unmet needs and delineated potential new clinical development directions for future adhesives. The progress in tissue adhesives will provide novel approaches for wound management and has the potential to supply effective treatments for a variety of medical applications.

With an ideal comfort level, sensitivity, reliability, and user-friendliness, wearable sensors are making great contributions to daily health care, nursing care, early disease discovery, and body monitoring. Some wearable sensors are imparted with hierarchical and uneven microstructures, such as microneedle structures, which not only facilitate the access to multiple bio-analysts in the human body but also improve the abilities to detect feeble body signals. In this paper, we present the promising applications and latest progress of functional microneedles in wearable sensors. We begin by discussing the roles of microneedles as sensing units, including how the signals are captured, converted, and transmitted. We also introduce the microneedle-like structures as power units, which depend on triboelectric or piezoelectric effects, etc. Finally, we summarize the cutting-edge applications of microneedle-based wearable sensors in biophysical signal monitoring and biochemical analyte detection, and provide critical thinking on their future perspectives.

The liver is a multifunctional organ and the metabolic center of the human body. Most drugs and toxins are metabolized in the liver, resulting in varying degrees of hepatotoxicity. The damage of liver will seriously affect human health, so it is very important to study the prevention and treatment of liver diseases. At present, there are many research studies in this field. However, most of them are based on animal models, which are limited by the time-consuming processes and species difference between human and animals. In recent years, liver-on-chips have emerged and developed rapidly and are expected to replace animal models. Liver-on-chips refer to the use of a small number of liver cells on the chips to simulate the liver microenvironment and ultrastructure in vivo. They hold extensive applications in multiple fields by reproducing the unique physiological functions of the liver in vitro. In this review, we first introduced the physiology and pathology of liver and then described the cell system of liver-on-chips, the chip-based liver models, and the applications of liver-on-chips in liver transplantation, drug screening, and metabolic evaluation. Finally, we discussed the currently encountered challenges and future trends in liver-on-chips.

Ionic skins are developed to mimic the mechanical properties and functions of natural skins. They have demonstrated substantial advantages to serve as the crucial interface to bridge the gap between humans and machines. The first-generation ionic skin is a stretchable capacitor comprising hydrogels as the ionic conductors and elastomers as the dielectrics, and realizes pressure and strain sensing through the measurement of the capacitance. Subsequent advances have been made to improve the mechanical properties of ionic skins and import diverse functions. For example, ultrahigh stretchability, strong interfacial adhesion, self-healing, moisturizing ability, and various sensing capabilities have been achieved separately or simultaneously. Most ionic skins are attached to natural skins to monitor bio-electrical signals continuously. Ionic skins have also been found with significant potential to serve as a smart drug-containing reservoir, which can release drugs spatially, temporally, and in a controllable way. Herein, this review focuses on the design and fabrication of ionic skins, and their applications related to smart medicine. Moreover, challenges and opportunities are also discussed. It is hoped that the development of bio-inspired ionic skins will provide a paradigm shift for self-diagnosis and healthcare.