Gelatin-lecithin-F127 gel mediated self-assembly of curcumin vesicles for enhanced wound healing.

Curcumin, a principal component of Curcuma longa, has a long history of being used topically for wound healing. However, poor aqueous solubility of curcumin leads to poor topical absorption. Recently, gelatin based gel has been reported to overcome this issue.

Antibiotic-Induced Gut Microbiota Depletion Accelerates the Recovery of Radiation-Induced Oral Mucositis in Rats.

Purpose: Due to its pivotal role in the modulation of immune and inflammatory responses, the gut microbiota has emerged as a key modulator of cancer treatment-induced gastrointestinal mucositis. However, it is not clear yet how it affects radiation therapy-induced oral mucositis (OM). As such, this study aimed to explore the gut microbiota's role in the pathogenesis of radiation-induced OM in rats.

Design strategies and evolving role of biomaterial assisted treatment of osteosarcoma.

Osteosarcoma is the most commonly diagnosed form of bone cancer. It is characterized by a high risk of developing lung metastasis as the disease progresses. Standard treatment includes combination of surgical intervention, chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

Development of surface functionalized hydroxyapatite nanoparticles for enhanced specificity towards tumor cells.

Nanoparticles coupled with targeting moieties have attracted a great deal of attention for cancer therapy since they can facilitate site-specific delivery of drug and significantly limit the side effects of systemic chemotherapy. In this study, our aim is to develop surface functionalized hydroxyapatite nanoparticles, which could provide binding sites for a cancer cell targeting ligand, folic acid (FA) as well as an anticancer drug, doxorubicin hydrochloride (DOX). In order to attain dual functionalities, hydroxyapatite nanoparticles were functionalized with gelatin molecules.

A simple atomic beam oven with a metal thermal break.

We report the design and construction of a simple, easy to machine high temperature oven for generating an atomic beam in laser cooling experiments. This design eliminates the problem of thermal isolation of the oven region from the rest of the vacuum system without using a glass or ceramic thermal break. This design simplifies the construction and operation of high temperature ovens for elements having low vapor pressure.

Bioadhesive polymeric film-based integrative platform for the unidirectional carbamazepine release from a volatile microemulsion.

Carbamazepine (CBZ) shows inconsistent absorption primarily due to its poor dissolution rate. In this study, we describe a bioadhesive polymeric film, embedded with microemulsion (ME), as a tool to enable improved CBZ dissolution and achieve sustained release. The ME was formulated using pseudo-ternary components; water, oil (n-butyl acetate), surfactant (tocopheryl polyethylene glycol 1000 succinate, TPGS) and cosurfactant (1,4-butanediol).

Trauma-induced Focal Nodular Mucinoses: A Rare Entity.

Cutaneous mucinoses refer to disorders with abnormal accumulation of mucin in the skin. Mucin is an amorphous material that is a part of the extracellular matrix in dermis. Cutaneous mucinoses could be primary or secondary.

Mutilating Keratoderma with Concomitant Alopecia and Keratoses Follicularis Spinulosa Decalvans: X-Linked Olmsted Syndrome and its Response to Isotretinoin.

We report a case of mutilating keratoderma with alopecia and keratoses follicularis spinulosa decalvans (KFSD), which was initially diagnosed as ectodermal dysplasia and Olmsted syndrome but was revisited as a case of X-linked Olmsted (XLO) syndrome. We focus on this uncommon entity (XLO) to highlight the differentials of alopecia with palmoplantar keratoderma.

PEG coated vesicles from mixtures of Pluronic P123 and l-α-phosphatidylcholine: structure, rheology and curcumin encapsulation.

PEG coated vesicles are important vehicles for the passive targeting of anticancer drugs. With a view to prepare PEG decorated vesicles using co-assembly of block copolymers and lipids, here we investigated the microstructure of aggregates formed in mixtures comprising lipids (l-α-phosphatidylcholine) and block copolymers (Pluronic P123), in the polymer rich regime. DLS and SANS studies show that the structure of the aggregates can be tuned from micelles to rod-like micelles or vesicles by changing the lipid to polymer composition.

and the Th1/Th17 Axis, Implications in Acne Pathogenesis and Treatment.

Acne vulgaris is one of the most commonly seen conditions and the immunological link is a topic of active research. Recently, the Th17 pathway has been found to play a pivotal role in acne. The adaptive immune response toward leads to activation of Th17 axis.

Nonexponential Decoherence and Subdiffusion in Atom-Optics Kicked Rotor.

Quantum systems lose coherence upon interaction with the environment and tend towards classical states. Quantum coherence is known to exponentially decay in time so that macroscopic quantum superpositions are generally unsustainable. In this work, slower than exponential decay of coherences is experimentally realized in an atom-optics kicked rotor system subjected to nonstationary Lévy noise in the applied kick sequence.

Inhomogeneous Poisson process rate function inference from dead-time limited observations.

The estimation of an inhomogeneous Poisson process (IHPP) rate function from a set of process observations is an important problem arising in optical communications and a variety of other applications. However, because of practical limitations of detector technology, one is often only able to observe a corrupted version of the original process. In this paper, we consider how inference of the rate function is affected by dead time, a period of time after the detection of an event during which a sensor is insensitive to subsequent IHPP events.

A compact atomic beam based system for Doppler-free laser spectroscopy of strontium atoms.

We report the construction of a simple, light weight, and compact atomic beam spectroscopy cell for strontium atoms. The cell is built using glass blowing technique and includes a simple titanium sublimation pump for the active pumping of residual and background gases to maintain ultra-high vacuum. A commercially available and electrically heated dispenser source is used to generate the beam of Sr atoms.

Zealotry promotes coexistence in the rock-paper-scissors model of cyclic dominance.

Cyclic dominance models, such as the classic rock-paper-scissors (RPS) game, have found real-world applications in biology, ecology, and sociology. A key quantity of interest in such models is the coexistence time, i.e.

Effect of zealotry in high-dimensional opinion dynamics models.

Most of the work on opinion dynamics models focuses on the case of two or three opinion types. We consider the case of an arbitrary number of opinions in the mean field case of the naming game model in which it is assumed the population is infinite and all individuals are neighbors. A particular challenge of the naming game model is that the number of variables, which corresponds to the number of possible sets of opinions, grows exponentially with the number of possible opinions.

Making sense of Brownian motion: colloid characterization by dynamic light scattering.

Dynamic light scattering (DLS) has evolved as a fast, convenient tool for particle size analysis of noninteracting spherical colloids. In this historical review, we discuss the basic principle, data analysis, and important precautions to be taken while analyzing colloids using DLS. The effect of particle interaction, polydispersity, anisotropy, light absorption, and so forth, on measured diffusion coefficient is discussed.

Self assembled materials: design strategies and drug delivery perspectives.

Self assembly of small molecules in complex supramolecular structures provides a new avenue in the development of materials for drug delivery applications. Owing to the low aqueous solubility of various drugs, an effective delivery system is often required to reach sufficient drug bioavailability and/or to facilitate clinical use. Micelles, amphiphilic gels, vesicles (liposomes), nanodisks, cubosomes, colloidosomes, tubules, microemulsions, lipid particles, polyelectrolyte capsules etc.

Dilution induced thickening in hydrotrope-rich rod-like micelles.

Dilution induced changes in the microstructure and rheological behavior of micelles formed by a cationic surfactant-anionic hydrotrope mixture has been investigated in the hydrotrope-rich region. The surfactant used is cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) and the hydrotropic salt is sodium 3-hydroxy naphthalene 2-carboxylate (SHNC). The concentration of the mixture is varied from 0.

Tween 80-sodium deoxycholate mixed micelles: structural characterization and application in doxorubicin delivery.

The objective of the present investigation is to develop and characterize anionic mixed micelles of two biocompatible surfactants, Tween 80 (T-80) and sodium deoxycholate (NaDC), and evaluate their potential in the delivery of doxorubicin hydrochloride (DOX), a cationic anticancer drug. The mixed micelles were characterized for their microstructure, intermicellar interactions, and doxorubicin binding ability by dynamic light scattering, small angle neutron scattering (SANS), viscosity, and optical absorption measurements. Salt-induced growth of the mixed micelles at different compositions suggests that both electrostatic interaction of the anionic bile salts and steric repulsion of the ethylene oxide groups in nonionic components are affected by the presence of electrolytes.

Viscoelastic fluids originated from enhanced solubility of sodium laurate in cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide micelles through cooperative self-assembly.

Sodium laurate (SL), which is otherwise sparingly soluble in water at room temperature, forms viscoelastic fluids when mixed with cationic cetyl trimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) micelles. This originates from a cooperative assembly of CTAB and SL through electrostatic interaction and the ability of the tetralkyl ammonium headgroup in decreasing the Kraft point of SL. Addition of SL to CTAB induces the formation of rod-like micelles, the length of which can be controlled by the composition of the mixture.