Flexible polymeric patch based nanotherapeutics against non-cancer therapy.

Flexible polymeric patches find widespread applications in biomedicine because of their biological and tunable features including excellent patient compliance, superior biocompatibility and biodegradation, as well as high loading capability and permeability of drug. Such polymeric patches are classified into microneedles (MNs), hydrogel, microcapsule, microsphere and fiber depending on the formed morphology. The combination of nanomaterials with polymeric patches allows for improved advantages of increased curative efficacy and lowered systemic toxicity, promoting on-demand and regulated drug administration, thus providing the great potential to their clinic translation.

Effective matching in a nonlinear directional coupler with waveguide mismatching and nonuniform nonlinearity.

A variable-coupling-coefficient nonlinear directional coupler with mismatching and nonuniformity is studied by means of coupled mode equations with effective mismatching. It is pointed out that the effective mismatching can be cancelled out for any given input power by properly adjusting the magnitudes of the mismatching and nonuniformity. Numerical examples are given to show that complete power transfer between two waveguides can be achieved for a mismatched and nonuniform nonlinear directional coupler and for a Gaussian as well as an exponential variable-coupling-coefficient nonlinear directional coupler.

Inhalation of nitric oxide in the treatment of severe acute respiratory syndrome: a rescue trial in Beijing.

Inhalation of nitric oxide (NO) improved arterial oxygenation and enabled the reduction of inspired oxygen therapy and airway pressure support in patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). In addition, chest radiography showed decreased spread or density of lung infiltrates, and the physiological effects remained after termination of inhaled NO therapy. These findings suggest not only a pulmonary vasodilator effect of inhaled NO, but also an effect on SARS.

A real-time PCR for SARS-coronavirus incorporating target gene pre-amplification.

An enhanced polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay to detect the coronavirus associated with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV) was developed in which a target gene pre-amplification step preceded TaqMan real-time fluorescent PCR. Clinical samples were collected from 120 patients diagnosed as suspected or probable SARS cases and analyzed by conventional PCR followed by agarose gel electrophoresis, conventional TaqMan real-time PCR, and our enhanced TaqMan real-time PCR assays. An amplicon of the size expected from SARS-CoV was obtained from 28/120 samples using the enhanced real-time PCR method.