Ultraviolet light screen using cholesteric liquid crystal capsules on the basis of selective reflection.

Sunscreen can protect human skin from sunlight by decreasing exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light, specifically UV-B and UV-A. In this study, a new type of UV screen system is proposed using cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) capable of selectively reflecting UV-A within the human skin temperature range of 32-36 °C. Polycaprolactone (PCL) capsules with CLC mixture which had a helical chiral pitch corresponding to the wavelength of UV light were made by a solvent evaporation method.

Enhancement of osseointegration of artificial ligament by nano-hydroxyapatite and bone morphogenic protein-2 into the rabbit femur.

The MTT assay showed that the cell proliferation on hydroxyapatite (HAp) and HAp/bone morphogenic protein (BMP) coated group was better than the control and BMP coated groups at 5 days. And after 7 days of culture, the mRNA expression levels of type I collagen, osteonectin, osteopontin, bonesialoprotein, BMP-2, alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and Runx-2 in the HAp/BMP coated group were significantly higher than the other groups. Also, in this group showed the most significant induction of osteogenic gene expression compared to mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) grown on the other groups.

Immiscible oil-water interface: dual function of electrokinetic concentration of charged molecules and optical detection with interfacially trapped gold nanorods.

In this paper, we report that an immiscible oil-water interface can achieve the dual function of electrokinetic molecular concentration without external electric fields and sensitive optical detection without a microscope. As a proof-of-concept, we have shown that the concentration of positively charged molecules at the oleic acid-water interface can be increased significantly simply by controlling the pH. Three-dimensional phase field simulation suggests that the concentration of positively charged rhodamine 6G can be increased by about 10-fold at the interface.

Increase of BM-MSC proliferation using L-DOPA on titanium surface in vitro.

In order to increase biocompatibility, many dental implants have been studied by immobilization of biomolecules on biomaterials. We used l-3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine (L-DOPA) as a biomolecule for surface-modified titanium. Water contact angles of nontreated titanium discs (negative control), etched titanium discs (positive control), and titanium discs treated with L-DOPA following the etching process (experimental group) were 82.

Structure and dynamics of dark-state bovine rhodopsin revealed by chemical cross-linking and high-resolution mass spectrometry.

Recent work using chemical cross-linking to define interresidue distance constraints in proteins has shown that these constraints are useful for testing tertiary structural models. We applied this approach to the G-protein-coupled receptor bovine rhodopsin in its native membrane using lysine- and cysteine-targeted bifunctional cross-linking reagents. Cross-linked proteolytic peptides of rhodopsin were identified by combined liquid chromatography and FT-ICR mass spectrometry with automated data-reduction and assignment software.