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Topic Review
Surface-Functionalized Selenium Nanoparticles in Brain Diseases Therapy
Selenium (Se) and its organic and inorganic compounds in dietary supplements have been found to possess excellent pharmacodynamics and biological responses.
  • 627
  • 27 Jun 2023
Topic Review
Mechanochemical Transformations of Polysaccharides
The ability to avoid toxic solvents, initiators, or catalysts during processes is an important characteristic of the considered approach and is in line with current trends in the world. The mechanisms of chemical transformations in solid reactive systems during mechanical activation, the structure and physicochemical properties of the obtained products, their ability to dissolve and swell in different media, to form films and fibers, to self-organize in solution and stabilize nanodispersed inorganic particles and biologically active substances are considered using a number of polysaccharides and their derivatives as examples.
  • 626
  • 16 Sep 2022
Topic Review
Application of Hemostatic Nanomaterials
Effective control of blood loss is able to save time and improve the survival rate of patients. When bleeding occurs, hemostasis is the body’s spontaneous response. The mechanism of hemostasis in vivo involves two processes: primary hemostasis, when endothelium gets injured, and collagen and other subendothelial matrix components are exposed, and von Willebrand factor is released to allow platelets to adhere to the wound site; secondary hemostasis, tissue factor stimulates the conversion of prothrombin to thrombin, and soluble fibrinogen acts to limit the formation of insoluble fibrin clots. Nanotechnology can transform and utilize the microstructure on the nanoscale, which gives nanomaterials unique advantages such as improved diffusivity and solubility, easy-to-penetrate physiological barriers, large specific surface area, slow control, and targeted release of drugs.
  • 626
  • 24 Jul 2023
Topic Review
Electrospinning Nanofibers Based Artificial Skins
Artificial skin, also known as bioinspired electronic skin (e-skin), refers to intelligent wearable electronics that imitate the tactile sensory function of human skin and identify the detected changes in external information through different electrical signals. Flexible e-skin can achieve a wide range of functions such as accurate detection and identification of pressure, strain, and temperature, which has greatly extended their application potential in the field of healthcare monitoring and human-machine interaction (HMI). Compared with other traditional electronic sensors, artificial electronic skin can meet the demand of human health monitoring and HMI when it is used in seamless and stable contact with human skin and obtains low impedance physiological signals. Therefore, it has higher requirements on material permeability, tensile resistance, and biocompatibility. Due to its high porosity, high toughness, and small mass, electrospun nanofiber-based bioinspired artificial skins with high flexibility and a three-dimensional porous mesh structure are often considered as the first choice.
  • 624
  • 06 Jun 2023
Topic Review
Anomalous Properties of Cyclodextrins
Cyclodextrins (CDs) are cyclic oligosaccharides that emerged as industrial excipients in the early 1970s and are currently found in at least 130 marketed pharmaceutical products, in addition to numerous other consumer products. Although CDs have been the subject of close to 100,000 publications since their discovery, and although their structure and properties appear to be trivial, CDs are constantly surprising investigators by their unique physicochemical properties. In aqueous solutions, CDs are solubilizing complexing agents of poorly soluble drugs while they can also act as organic cosolvents like ethanol. CDs and their complexes self-assemble in aqueous solutions to form both nano- and microparticles. The nanoparticles have diameters that are well below the wavelength of visible light; thus, the solutions appear to be clear. However, the nanoparticles can result in erroneous conclusions and misinterpretations of experimental results. CDs can act as penetration enhancers, increasing drug permeation through lipophilic membranes, but they do so without affecting the membrane barrier.
  • 619
  • 27 Mar 2023
Topic Review
Magnesium Bioabsorbable Materials Based on Reinforced Polymeric Matrices
Improvements in Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine (TERM)–type technologies have allowed the development of specific materials that, together with a better understanding of bone tissue structure, have provided new pathways to obtain biomaterials for bone tissue regeneration.
  • 613
  • 27 Dec 2023
Topic Review
CaP Containing Biopolymer Composites in Bone Tissue Engineering
Biocompatible ceramics are extremely important in bioengineering, and very useful in many biomedical or orthopedic applications because of their positive interactions with human tissues. There have been enormous efforts to develop bioceramic particles that cost-effectively meet high standards of quality. Among the numerous bioceramics, calcium phosphates are the most suitable since the main inorganic compound in human bones is hydroxyapatite, a specific phase of the calcium phosphates (CaPs). The CaPs can be applied as bone substitutes, types of cement, drug carriers, implants, or coatings. 
  • 606
  • 18 May 2023
Topic Review
Intracellular Enzyme-Instructed Self-Assembly of Peptides
Despite the remarkable significance and encouraging breakthroughs of intracellular enzyme-instructed self-assembly of peptides (IEISAP) in disease diagnosis and treatment, a comprehensive review that focuses on this topic is still desirable.
  • 604
  • 18 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Main Properties Impacting Bioactivity of Calcium Phosphate Coatings
The bioceramic coating properties are used to create a strong bonding between the bone implants and the surrounding bone tissue. They provide a fast response after implantation and increase the lifespan of the implant in the body environment. Key physicochemical properties of calcium phosphate coatings and their impact on the bioactivity and performance of bone implants in a physiological environment are presented herein.
  • 602
  • 03 Jul 2023
Topic Review
Reactive Species-Activatable AIEgens for Biomedical Applications
Precision medicine requires highly sensitive and specific diagnostic strategies with high spatiotemporal resolution. Accurate detection and monitoring of endogenously generated biomarkers at the very early disease stage is of extensive importance for precise diagnosis and treatment. Aggregation-induced emission luminogens (AIEgens) have emerged as a new type of excellent optical agents, which show great promise for numerous biomedical applications. Advances of AIE-based probes for detecting reactive species (including reactive oxygen species (ROS), reactive nitrogen species (RNS), reactive sulfur species (RSS), and reactive carbonyl species (RCS)) and related biomedical applications are introduced. The molecular design strategies for increasing the sensitivity, tuning the response wavelength, and realizing afterglow imaging are summarized, and theranostic applications in reactive species-related major diseases such as cancer, inflammation, and vascular diseases are reviewed.
  • 600
  • 11 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Electrochemically Synthesized Molecularly Imprinted Polymers Sensors
Early-stage detection and diagnosis of diseases is essential to the prompt commencement of treatment regimens, curbing the spread of the disease, and improving human health. Thus, the accurate detection of disease biomarkers through the development of robust, sensitive, and selective diagnostic tools has remained cutting-edge scientific research. Due to their merits of being selective, stable, simple, and having a low preparation cost, molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) are increasingly becoming artificial substitutes for natural receptors in the design of state-of-the-art sensing devices.
  • 595
  • 26 Feb 2024
Topic Review
Properties of Pectic Polysaccharides
Pectin consists of many active functional groups of polysaccharides, enabling them to have much more excellent modification properties than other biopolymers. Pectin is a hydrophilic natural polymer that can absorb or retain much water and exhibit swelling properties. Hydrogels and composite materials can be formed by crosslinking and other techniques, and the matrix structure can be incorporated with various bioactive compounds. Pectin-based smart composites with physical-sensitive (light, temperature, electricity), chemical-sensitive (pH, redox, glucose), and biological-sensitive (enzymes) properties are suitable in the delivery system of bioactive compounds in addition to their suitable biodegradable and biocompatible properties. Due to its broad availability, pectin has become a prominent branch of the research and development of nature-based biomedical and healthcare areas.
  • 594
  • 19 Dec 2023
Topic Review
Additive Manufacturing Applications in Biosensors Technologies
Three-dimensional (3D) printing technology, also known as additive manufacturing (AM), has emerged as an attractive state-of-the-art tool for precisely fabricating functional materials with complex geometries, championing several advancements in tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and therapeutics.
  • 594
  • 02 Feb 2024
Topic Review
Scaffold-Based 3D Cell Culture for Spermatogonial Stem Cells
Male germline stem cells (mGSCs), also known as spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs), are the fundamental seed cells of male animal reproductive physiology. However, environmental influences, drugs, and harmful substances often pose challenges to SSCs, such as population reduction and quality decline. With advancements in bioengineering technology and biomaterial technology, an increasing number of novel cell culture methods and techniques have been employed for studying the proliferation and differentiation of SSCs in vitro.
  • 591
  • 23 Feb 2024
Topic Review
The Application of Dissolving Microneedles in Biomedicine
Microneedle technology has been widely used for the transdermal delivery of substances, showing improvements in drug delivery effects with the advantages of minimally invasive, painless, and convenient operation. With the development of nano- and electrochemical technology, different types of microneedles are increasingly being used in other biomedical fields. Dissolving microneedles have achieved remarkable results in the fields of dermatological treatment, disease diagnosis and monitoring, and vaccine delivery, and they have a wide range of application prospects in various biomedical fields, showing their great potential as a form of clinical treatment. 
  • 590
  • 25 Oct 2023
Topic Review
Stimuli-Responsive Hydrogels for Protein Delivery
Proteins and peptides are potential therapeutic agents, but their physiochemical properties make their use as drug substances challenging. Hydrogels are hydrophilic polymeric networks that can swell and retain high amounts of water or biological fluids without being dissolved. Due to their biocompatibility, their porous structure, which enables the transport of various peptides and proteins, and their protective effect against degradation, hydrogels have gained prominence as ideal carriers for these molecules’ delivery. Particularly, stimuli-responsive hydrogels exhibit physicochemical transitions in response to subtle modifications in the surrounding environment, leading to the controlled release of entrapped proteins or peptides. 
  • 590
  • 18 Dec 2023
Topic Review
Displacement-Based Approaches for Protein-Bound Uremic Toxins Removal
End-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients rely on renal replacement therapies to survive. Hemodialysis (HD), the most widely applied treatment, is responsible for the removal of excess fluid and uremic toxins (UTs) from blood, particularly those with low molecular weight (MW < 500 Da). The development of high-flux membranes and more efficient treatment modes, such as hemodiafiltration, have resulted in improved removal rates of UTs in the middle molecular weight range. However, the concentrations of protein-bound uremic toxins (PBUTs) remain essentially untouched. Due to the high binding affinity to large proteins, such as albumin, PBUTs form large complexes (MW > 66 kDa) which are not removed during HD and their accumulation has been strongly associated with the increased morbidity and mortality of patients with ESRD. 
  • 584
  • 22 May 2023
Topic Review
Nanocomposite Preparation Methods
Synthetic plastics are commonly used because they exhibit sufficient characteristics for packaging requirements, but their end lives result in environmental pollution, the depletion of landfill space, rising sea pollution, and more. These exist because of their poor biodegradability, limited recyclability, etc. There has been an increasing demand for replacing these polymers with bio-based biodegradable materials for a sustainable environment. Cellulosic nanomaterials have been proposed as a potential substitute in the preparation of packaging films. Cellulose can be extracted from different sources, such as wood, agricultural by-products, annual plants, and marine algae. There are two forms of nanocellulose extracted from plant fibers: cellulose nanofibers (CNFs) and cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs).
  • 583
  • 29 Dec 2023
Topic Review
Stimuli-Responsive Nucleic Acids Delivery System in Gene Therapy
Compared with traditional drugs, gene therapy can directly correct the disease-related genes at the genetic level, which guarantees a sustained effect. However, nucleic acids are unstable in circulation and have short half-lives. They cannot pass through biological membranes due to their high molecular weight and massive negative charges. To facilitate the delivery of nucleic acids, it is crucial to develop a suitable delivery strategy. The emergence of stimuli-responsive delivery systems has made it possible to control the release of nucleic acids in an intelligent manner and to precisely guide the therapeutic nucleic acids to the target site. Considering the unique properties of stimuli-responsive delivery systems, various stimuli-responsive nanocarriers have been developed. 
  • 582
  • 19 May 2023
Topic Review
Natural Polymers in Heart Valve Tissue Engineering
The new generation of heart valves developed by tissue engineering has the ability to repair, reshape and regenerate cardiac tissue. Achieving a sustainable and functional tissue-engineered heart valve (TEHV) requires deep understanding of the complex interactions that occur among valve cells, the extracellular matrix (ECM) and the mechanical environment.
  • 581
  • 21 Jul 2023
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