Predicting the influence of extreme temperatures on grain production in the Middle-Lower Yangtze Plains using a spatially-aware deep learning model.

Grain crops are vulnerable to anthropogenic climate change and extreme temperature events. Despite this, previous studies have often neglected the impact of the spatio-temporal distribution of extreme temperature events on regional grain outputs. This research focuses on the Middle-Lower Yangtze Plains and aims to address this gap as well as to provide a renewed projection of climate-induced grain production variability for the rest of the century.

Smart sensing flexible sutures for glucose monitoring in house sparrows.

There is a need for flexible chemical sensors for the ecological and physiological research of avian species such as house sparrows (). Current methods in this field are invasive and require multiple physical interactions with the birds. Emerging research in flexible bioelectronics can enable realization of implantable devices that are mechanically compliant with the underlying tissues for continuous real-time sensing .

Advances in cost-effective integrated spectrometers.

The proliferation of Internet-of-Things has promoted a wide variety of emerging applications that require compact, lightweight, and low-cost optical spectrometers. While substantial progresses have been made in the miniaturization of spectrometers, most of them are with a major focus on the technical side but tend to feature a lower technology readiness level for manufacturability. More importantly, in spite of the advancement in miniaturized spectrometers, their performance and the metrics of real-life applications have seldomly been connected but are highly important.

Flexible thread-based electrochemical sensors for oxygen monitoring.

Oxygen plays a key role in human physiology and is abnormally modulated in various disease pathologies making its in situ monitoring quite important. Most oxygen sensors are not able to measure oxygen levels deep inside the tissue or have mismatched electrode-tissue interfaces. In this study we developed a flexible thread-based oxygen sensor that combines the unique advantages of minimal invasiveness and superior flexibility offering the possibility for tissue integration.

Imaging in vivo acetylcholine release in the peripheral nervous system with a fluorescent nanosensor.

The ability to monitor the release of neurotransmitters during synaptic transmission would significantly impact the diagnosis and treatment of neurological diseases. Here, we present a DNA-based enzymatic nanosensor for quantitative detection of acetylcholine (ACh) in the peripheral nervous system of living mice. ACh nanosensors consist of DNA as a scaffold, acetylcholinesterase as a recognition component, pH-sensitive fluorophores as signal generators, and α-bungarotoxin as a targeting moiety.

A novel method to evaluate chemical concentrations in muddy and sandy coastal regions before and after oil exposures.

Oil spills can result in changes in chemical concentrations along coastlines. In prior work, these concentration changes were used to evaluate the date sediment was impacted by oil (i.e.

Controlled Fabrication of DNA Molecular Templates for Formation and Measurement of Ultrathin Metal Nanostructures.

Fabrication of ultrathin metal nanostructures usually requires some combination of high-vacuum deposition and postgrowth processing, which precludes access to nanostructures of ultrasmall cross sections for most materials. DNA nanowires (NWs) are versatile insulating templates with intrinsic sub-10 nm line width. Here, we demonstrate a method of DNA template fabrication with precise control over the location and orientation of the DNA NWs.

Tumor Microenvironment-triggered Nanosystems as dual-relief Tumor Hypoxia Immunomodulators for enhanced Phototherapy.

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a promising strategy in cancer treatment that utilizes photosensitizers (PSs) to produce reactive oxygen species (ROS) and eliminate cancer cells under specific wavelength light irradiation. However, special tumor environments, such as those with overexpression of glutathione (GSH), which will consume PDT-mediated ROS, as well as hypoxia in the tumor microenvironment (TME) could lead to ineffective treatment. Moreover, PDT is highly light-dependent and therefore can be hindered in deep tumor cells where light cannot easily penetrate.

Use of chemical concentration changes in coastal sediments to compute oil exposure dates.

Oil spills can result in changes in chemical contaminant concentrations along coastlines. When concentrations are measured along the Gulf of Mexico over time, this information can be used to evaluate oil spill shoreline exposure dates. The objective of this research was to identify more accurate oil exposure dates based on oil spill chemical concentrations changes (CCC) within sediments in coastal zones after oil spills.

Iodinated Cyanine Dyes for Fast Near-Infrared-Guided Deep Tissue Synergistic Phototherapy.

Phototheranostics, which combines deep tissue imaging and phototherapy [photodynamic therapy (PDT) and/or photothermal therapy (PTT)] via light irradiation, is a promising strategy to treat tumors. Near-infrared (NIR) cyanine dyes are researched as potential phototheranostics reagents for their excellent photophysical properties. However, the low singlet oxygen generation efficiency of cyanine dyes often leads to inadequate therapeutic efficacy for tumors.

Development of a microdevice-based human mesenchymal stem cell-mediated drug delivery system.

Cell-mediated drug delivery systems utilize living cells as vehicles to achieve controlled delivery of drugs. One of the systems features integrating cells with disk-shaped microparticles termed microdevices into cell-microdevice complexes that possess some unique advantages over their counterparts. Human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) have been extensively studied as therapeutic cells and used as carrier cells for drug-loaded nanoparticles or other functional nanoparticles.

Cell population balance of cardiovascular spheroids derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells.

Stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes and vascular cells can be used for a variety of applications such as studying human heart development and modelling human disease in culture. In particular, protocols based on modulation of Wnt signaling were able to produce high quality of cardiomyocytes or vascular cells from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs). However, the mechanism behind the development of 3D cardiovascular spheroids into either vascular or cardiac cells has not been well explored.

A triple modality BSA-coated dendritic nanoplatform for NIR imaging, enhanced tumor penetration and anticancer therapy.

Functional theranostic systems for drug delivery capable of concurrent near-infrared (NIR) fluorescence imaging, active tumor targeting and anticancer therapies are desired for concise cancer diagnosis and treatment. Dendrimers with controllable size and surface functionalities are good candidates for such platforms. However, integration of active targeting ligands and imaging agents separately on the surface or encapsulation of the imaging agents in the inner core of the dendrimers will result in a more complex composition or reduced drug loading efficiency.

Generation of Well-Defined Micro/Nanoparticles via Advanced Manufacturing Techniques for Therapeutic Delivery.

Micro/nanoparticles have great potentials in biomedical applications, especially for drug delivery. Existing studies identified that major micro/nanoparticle features including size, shape, surface property and component materials play vital roles in their in vitro and in vivo applications. However, a demanding challenge is that most conventional particle synthesis techniques such as emulsion can only generate micro/nanoparticles with a very limited number of shapes (i.

Nanocellulose templated growth of ultra-small bismuth nanoparticles for enhanced radiation therapy.

An unmet need in nanomedicine is to prepare biocompatible and renal clearable nanoparticles by controlling the diameter, composition and surface properties of the nanoparticles. This paper reports cellulose nanofiber templated synthesis of ultra-small bismuth nanoparticles, and their uses in enhanced X-ray radiation therapy. The interstitial spaces between adjacent fibers are the adsorption sites of bismuth ions and also stabilize nanoparticles generated by chemical reduction.

Single cell patterning for high throughput sub-cellular toxicity assay.

Cell population based toxicity assays cannot distinguish responses of single cells and sub-cellular organelles; while single cell assays are limited by low statistical power due to small number of cells examined. This article reports a new single cell array based toxicity assay, in which cell responses at population level, single cell level and sub-cellular level can be obtained simultaneously at high throughput. The single cell array was produced by microcontact printing and selected area cell attachment, and exposed to damaging X-ray radiation, which was followed by fluorescence imaging after staining.

Catalase-Laden Microdevices for Cell-Mediated Enzyme Delivery.

Enzymes have been used to treat various human diseases and traumas. However, the therapeutic utility of free enzymes is impeded by their short circulation time, lack of targeting ability, immunogenicity, and inability to cross biological barriers. Cell-mediated drug delivery approach offers the unique capability to overcome these limitations, but the traditional cell-mediated enzyme delivery techniques suffer from drawbacks such as risk of intracellular degradation of and low loading capacity for the payload enzyme.

Neural patterning of human induced pluripotent stem cells in 3-D cultures for studying biomolecule-directed differential cellular responses.

Introduction: Appropriate neural patterning of human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) is critical to generate specific neural cells/tissues and even mini-brains that are physiologically relevant to model neurological diseases. However, the capacity of signaling factors that regulate 3-D neural tissue patterning in vitro and differential responses of the resulting neural populations to various biomolecules have not yet been fully understood.

Methods: By tuning neural patterning of hiPSCs with small molecules targeting sonic hedgehog (SHH) signaling, this study generated different 3-D neuronal cultures that were mainly comprised of either cortical glutamatergic neurons or motor neurons.

Asymmetric biodegradable microdevices for cell-borne drug delivery.

Use of live cells as carriers for drug-laden particulate structures possesses unique advantages for drug delivery. In this work, we report on the development of a novel type of particulate structures called microdevices for cell-borne drug delivery. The microdevices were fabricated by soft lithography with a disklike shape.

Enhanced radiation therapy with multilayer microdisks containing radiosensitizing gold nanoparticles.

A challenge of X-ray radiation therapy is that high dose X-rays at therapeutic conditions damage normal cells. This paper describes the use of gold nanoparticle-loaded multilayer microdisks to enhance X-ray radiation therapy, where each microdisk contains over 10(5) radiosensitizing nanoparticles. The microdisks are attached on cell membranes through electrostatic interaction.

Versatile surface micropatterning and functionalization enabled by microcontact printing of poly(4-aminostyrene).

Microcontact printing (μCP) of polyelectrolytes is a facile and powerful method for surface micro/nanopatterning and functionalization. Poly(4-aminostyrene) (PAS) is a polyelectrolyte that can be converted to aryldiazonium salt and exhibits pH-dependent hydrophobicity. Here we demonstrate μCP of PAS and the expansion of this technique in various directions.

Facile functionalization and assembly of live cells with microcontact-printed polymeric biomaterials.

The functionalization and assembly of live cells with microfabricated polymeric biomaterials have attracted considerable interest in recent years, but the conventional methods suffer from high cost, high complexity, long processing time or inadequate capability. The present study reports on the development of a novel method for functionalizing and assembling live cells by integrating microcontact printing of polymeric biomaterials with a temperature-sensitive sacrificial layer prepared by spin-coating. This method has been used not only to functionalize live cells with microscopic polyelectrolyte and thermoplastic structures of various sizes and shapes, but also to assemble the cells into macroscopic stripes and sheets.

Gold nanoparticle-packed microdisks for multiplex Raman labelling of cells.

Micro/nanoparticles containing densely packed gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) possess unique properties potentially useful for various biomedical applications. The micro/nanoparticles are conventionally produced by the bottom-up methods, which have limited capability for controlling the particle size, shape and structure. This article reports development of a top-down method that integrates layer-by-layer assembly and microcontact printing to fabricate disk-shaped microparticles named microdisks composed of densely packed AuNPs.

A paper indicator for triple-modality sensing of nitrite based on colorimetric assay, Raman spectroscopy, and electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy.

Paper indicators based on colorimetric assays are widely used for nitrite detection, but their application to liquids with strong colours is restricted. We report a novel paper indicator that allows for sensing nitrite by colorimetric assay, Raman spectroscopy, and electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy with non-overlapping signal wavelength ranges through non-contact means. The paper indicator was prepared by impregnating poly(4-aminostyrene), 2-naphthol and single-walled carbon nanotubes in a regular filter paper.