Making Healthcare Accessible: A Rapid Clean-Room-Free Fabrication Strategy for Microfluidics-Driven Biosensors Based on Coupling Stereolithography and Hot Embossing.

Microfluidics offers transformative potential in healthcare by enabling miniaturized, user-friendly, and cost-effective devices for disease diagnostics among other biomedical applications; however, their meaningful adoption is severely hindered, especially in developing countries and resource-limited settings, by the cost, time, and complexity of their fabrication. To overcome this barrier of access, this work develops a novel approach for highly efficient (<4 h), cost-effective, and clean-room-free fabrication of functional polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-based microfluidic devices based on coupling stereolithography three-dimensional (3D) printing with hot embossing. The strategy exhibits high fidelity between the digital design and final device, remarkable transfer accuracy between the 3D print and poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) mold, in addition to highly smooth surfaces ( < 1 μm).

Peptide nucleic acid-clicked TiCT MXene for ultrasensitive enzyme-free electrochemical detection of microRNA biomarkers.

We report the engineering and synthesis of peptide nucleic acid-functionalized TiCT MXene nanosheets as a novel transducing material for amplification-free, nanoparticle-free, and isothermal electrochemical detection of microRNA biomarkers. Through bio-orthogonal copper-free click chemistry, azido-modified MXene nanosheets are covalently functionalized with clickable peptide nucleic acid probes targeting prostate cancer biomarker hsa-miR-141. The platform demonstrates a wide dynamic range, single-nucleotide specificity, and 40 aM detection limit outperforming more complex, amplification-based methods.

Assessing Public Awareness, Utilization and Satisfaction with Community Pharmacy Services.

Background: The Saudi Community pharmacy sector has been changing towards patient-centred care rather than depending solely on dispensing medications. Accordingly, pharmacies can now provide many services that they previously could not offer. The aims of this study were to identify all pharmacy services provided in a community setting and to assess public awareness and utilization of and satisfaction with these services.

Programmable all-DNA hydrogels based on rolling circle and multiprimed chain amplification products.

Soft, biocompatible, and tunable materials offer biomedical engineers and material scientists programmable matrices for a variety of biomedical applications. In this regard, DNA hydrogels have emerged as highly promising biomaterials that offer programmable self-assembly, superior biocompatibility, and the presence of specific molecular identifiable structures. Many types of DNA hydrogels have been developed, yet the programmability of the DNA building blocks has not been fully exploited, and further efforts must be directed toward understanding how to finely tune their properties in a predictable manner.

Comparison of Oral Health-Related Quality of Life scores in children treated for early childhood caries under general and local anesthesia: a quasi-experimental study.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare the changes in oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) scores in children treated for Early Childhood Caries (ECC) under general (GA) and local anesthesia (LA).

Methods: A quasi-experimental study was carried out on 73 children, with 37 in the GA group and 36 in the LA group. The early childhood oral health impact scale (ECOHIS) was used to measure OHRQoL, with the type of anesthesia (LA or GA) serving as the explanatory variable.