Hydrogels, a class of materials with a 3D network structure, are widely used in various fields especially in biomedicine. Injectable hydrogels could facilitate the encapsulation and controlled ...release of small molecular drugs, macromolecular therapeutics, and even cells. With the rapid development of cancer immunotherapy, such injectable hydrogels have attracted wide attention for local immunomodulation to boost systemic anticancer immune responses, realizing more effective immunotherapy at lower doses. The latest progresses in the development of various smart injectable hydrogels for cancer immunotherapy are summarized here. Although applied locally, such injectable hydrogels can activate systemic antitumor immune responses, safely and effectively inhibiting the tumor metastasis and recurrence. Moreover, it is discussed how injectable hydrogel‐based cancer immunotherapy would contribute to the development of next generation of cancer treatment together with their potential for clinical translation.
The recently developed injectable smart hydrogels for enhanced cancer immunotherapy are highlighted here. The emerging trends and challenges in this field together with their potential for clinical translation are comprehensively discussed.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Radiation therapy (RT) including external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) and internal radioisotope therapy (RIT) has been widely used for clinical cancer treatment. However, owing to the low radiation ...absorption of tumors, high doses of ionizing radiations are often needed during RT, leading to severe damages to normal tissues adjacent to tumors. Meanwhile, the RT efficacies are limited by different mechanisms, among which the tumor hypoxia‐associated radiation resistance is a well‐known one, as there exists hypoxia inside most solid tumors while oxygen is essential to enhance radiation‐induced DNA damages. With the development in nanotechnology, there have been great interests in using nanomedicine strategies to enhance radiation responses of tumors. Nanomaterials containing high‐Z elements to absorb radiation rays (e.g. X‐ray) can act as radio‐sensitizers to deposit radiation energy within tumors and promote treatment efficacy. Nanoscale carriers are able to deliver therapeutic radioisotopes into tumors for internal RIT, or chemotherapeutic drugs for synergistically combined chemo‐radiotherapy. As uncovered in recent studies, the tumor microenvironment could be modulated by various nanomedicine approaches to overcome hypoxia‐associated radiation resistance. Herein, the authors will summarize the applications of nanomedicine for RT cancer treatment, and pay particular attention to the latest development of ‘advanced materials' for enhanced cancer RT.
Radiation therapy has been widely used for clinical cancer treatment, while its therapeutic outcomes are limited due to different mechanisms. Recently, there have been great interests in exploring nanomedicine approaches to enhance radiation responses of tumors. Herein, various strategies of applying nanotechnology in radio‐oncology and the latest development of ‘advanced materials' for enhanced cancer radiation therapy are summarized.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Lead‐free perovskite infrared light‐emitting diodes are achieved by using a halide perovskite CsSnI3 as an emissive layer. The film shows compact micrometer‐sized grains with only a few pinholes and ...cracks at the grain boundaries. The device exhibits maximum radiance of 40 W sr−1 m−2 at a current density of 364.3 mA cm−2 and maximum external quantum efficiency of 3.8% at 4.5 V.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
As a subfield of machine learning,
reinforcement learning
(RL) aims at optimizing decision making by using interaction samples of an agent with its environment and the potentially delayed feedbacks. ...In contrast to traditional supervised learning that typically relies on one-shot, exhaustive, and supervised reward signals, RL tackles sequential decision-making problems with sampled, evaluative, and delayed feedbacks simultaneously. Such a distinctive feature makes RL techniques a suitable candidate for developing powerful solutions in various healthcare domains, where diagnosing decisions or treatment regimes are usually characterized by a prolonged period with delayed feedbacks. By first briefly examining theoretical foundations and key methods in RL research, this survey provides an extensive overview of RL applications in a variety of healthcare domains, ranging from dynamic treatment regimes in chronic diseases and critical care, automated medical diagnosis, and many other control or scheduling problems that have infiltrated every aspect of the healthcare system. In addition, we discuss the challenges and open issues in the current research and highlight some potential solutions and directions for future research.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Solid/liquid interfaces are ubiquitous in nature and knowledge of their atomic-level structure is essential in elucidating many phenomena in chemistry, physics, materials science and Earth science
. ...In electrochemistry, in particular, the detailed structure of interfacial water, such as the orientation and hydrogen-bonding network in electric double layers under bias potentials, has a significant impact on the electrochemical performances of electrode materials
. To elucidate the structures of electric double layers at electrochemical interfaces, we combine in situ Raman spectroscopy and ab initio molecular dynamics and distinguish two structural transitions of interfacial water at electrified Au single-crystal electrode surfaces. Towards negative potentials, the interfacial water molecules evolve from structurally 'parallel' to 'one-H-down' and then to 'two-H-down'. Concurrently, the number of hydrogen bonds in the interfacial water also undergoes two transitions. Our findings shed light on the fundamental understanding of electric double layers and electrochemical processes at the interfaces.
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EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
Fluorescence spectroscopy with strong emitters is a remarkable tool with ultra-high sensitivity for detection and imaging down to the single-molecule level. Plasmon-enhanced fluorescence (PEF) not ...only offers enhanced emissions and decreased lifetimes, but also allows an expansion of the field of fluorescence by incorporating weak quantum emitters, avoiding photobleaching and providing the opportunity of imaging with resolutions significantly better than the diffraction limit. It also opens the window to a new class of photostable probes by combining metal nanostructures and quantum emitters. In particular, the shell-isolated nanostructure-enhanced fluorescence, an innovative new mode for plasmon-enhanced surface analysis, is included. These new developments are based on the coupling of the fluorophores in their excited states with localized surface plasmons in nanoparticles, where local field enhancement leads to improved brightness of molecular emission and higher detection sensitivity. Here, we review the recent progress in PEF with an emphasis on the mechanism of plasmon enhancement, substrate preparation, and some advanced applications, including an outlook on PEF with high time- and spatially resolved properties.
Fluorescence spectroscopy with strong emitters is a remarkable tool with ultra-high sensitivity for detection and imaging down to the single-molecule level.
Abstract
Herein, an intelligent biodegradable hollow manganese dioxide (H-MnO
2
) nano-platform is developed for not only tumor microenvironment (TME)-specific imaging and on-demand drug release, but ...also modulation of hypoxic TME to enhance cancer therapy, resulting in comprehensive effects favoring anti-tumor immune responses. With hollow structures, H-MnO
2
nanoshells post modification with polyethylene glycol (PEG) could be co-loaded with a photodynamic agent chlorine e6 (Ce6), and a chemotherapy drug doxorubicin (DOX). The obtained H-MnO
2
-PEG/C&D would be dissociated under reduced pH within TME to release loaded therapeutic molecules, and in the meantime induce decomposition of tumor endogenous H
2
O
2
to relieve tumor hypoxia. As a result, a remarkable in vivo synergistic therapeutic effect is achieved through the combined chemo-photodynamic therapy, which simultaneously triggers a series of anti-tumor immune responses. Its further combination with checkpoint-blockade therapy would lead to inhibition of tumors at distant sites, promising for tumor metastasis treatment.
Golay complementary sequences and complementary sets have been proposed to deal with the high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) problem in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system. ...The existing constructions of complementary sets based on generalized Boolean functions are limited to lengths, which are powers of two. In this paper, we propose novel constructions of binary and nonbinary complementary sets of non-power-of-two length. Regardless of whether or not the length of the complementary set is a power of two, its PAPR is still upper bounded by the size of the complementary set. Therefore, the constructed complementary sets can be applied in practical OFDM systems where the number of used subcarriers is not a power of two. In addition, while the binary Golay complementary pairs exist only for limited lengths, the constructed binary complementary sets of size 4 exist for more lengths with PAPR at most 4.
Binary Golay complementary pairs exist for quite limited lengths whereas the binary Z-complementary pairs (ZCPs) are available for more lengths. Therefore, the ZCPs can potentially find more ...engineering applications. In this letter, we propose a novel construction of binary and nonbinary (q-ary for even q) ZCPs based on generalized Boolean functions. Both even- and odd-length ZCPs can be obtained by the proposed construction. Moreover, the sequence length, the width of zero correlation zone (ZCZ), and the constellation size are all very flexible. A family of ZCPs with large ZCZ widths is presented based on our construction where the width of ZCZ is larger than half of the sequence length. This proposed family includes some previous results on binary ZCPs as special cases.
A nickel‐catalyzed three‐component reaction for the synthesis of difluoroalkylated compounds through tandem difluoroalkylation‐arylation of enamides has been developed. The reaction tolerates a ...variety of arylboronic acids and widely available difluoroalkyl bromides, and even the relatively inert substrate chlorodifluoroacetate. The significant advantages of this protocol are the low‐cost nickel catalyst, synthetic convenience, excellent functional‐group compatibility and high reaction efficiency.
All about efficiency: The title reaction tolerates a variety of arylboronic acids and widely available difluoroalkyl bromides, and even the relatively inert substrate chlorodifluoroacetate. The protocol provides a highly efficient method for the catalytic synthesis of difluoroalkylated compounds.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK