A taurine-based hydrogel with the neuroprotective effect and the ability to promote neural stem cell proliferation.

Ischemic stroke, a cerebrovascular disease caused by arterial occlusion in the brain, can lead to brain impairment and even death. Stem cell therapies have shown positive advantages to treat ischemic stroke because of their extended time window, but the cell viability is poor when transplanted into the brain directly. Therefore, a new hydrogel GelMA-T was developed by introducing taurine on GelMA to transplant neural stem cells.

Optimizing the Production of Hydrogel Microspheres Using Microfluidic Chips: The Influence of Surface Treatment on Droplet Formation Mechanism.

Microfluidic chips have been widely applied in biology and medical research for stably generating uniform droplets that can be solidified into hydrogel microspheres. However, issues such as low microsphere yield, lengthy experimental processes, and susceptibility to environmental interference need to be addressed. In this work, a simple and effective method was developed to modify microfluidic chips at room temperature to improve the production performance of hydrogel microspheres.

Two-step method fabricating a 3D nerve cell model with brain-like mechanical properties and tunable porosity vascular structures via coaxial printing.

Three-dimensional (3D) nerve cell models have been widely developed to understand the mechanisms and discover treatment methods of ischemic stroke and neurodegenerative disease. However, there is a contradiction in the production of 3D models that they should possess high modulus to ensure mechanical stability while low modulus to provide mechanical stimuli for nerve cells. In addition, it is challenging to maintain the long-term viability of 3D models when lacking vascular structures.

Ferroferric oxide loaded near-infrared triggered photothermal microneedle patch for controlled drug release.

Hypothesis: The drug release efficiency of microneedle is usually slower than that of oral delivery or hypodermic injection, which severely restricts its widespread use. Herein, a FeO-loaded photothermal microneedle (FeO@MN) patch is developed for controlled drug delivery. Under near infrared (NIR) irradiation, the drug loaded on FeO@MN can be quickly released, achieving an enhanced drug release efficiency.

Probing the Self-Assembly and Nonlinear Friction Behavior of Confined Gold Nano-Particles.

For the wide application of nanoparticles (NPs) (e.g., in nanotribology), it is of fundamental and practical importance to understand the self-assembly and lubrication behavior of confined NPs.