Clinical and pre-clinical advances in the PDT/PTT strategy for diagnosis and treatment of cancer.

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) and photothermal therapy (PTT) have demonstrated great potential to diagnose and combat localized cancers. As a matter of fact, these techniques are less invasive and have fewer side effects than traditional cancer treatments like surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy. This review summarizes the clinical progress in the theranostics (diagnosis and treatment) of various types of regional cancers using these two light stimuli techniques, PDT and PTT.

Carbon dots: Types, preparation, and their boosted antibacterial activity by photoactivation. Current status and future perspectives.

Carbon dots (CDs) correspond to carbon-based materials (CBM) with sizes usually below 10 nm. These nanomaterials exhibit attractive properties such us low toxicity, good stability, and high conductivity, which have promoted their thorough study over the past two decades. The current review describes four types of CDs: carbon quantum dots (CQDs), graphene quantum dots (GQDs), carbon nanodots (CNDs), and carbonized polymers dots (CPDs), together with the state of the art of the main routes for their preparation, either by "top-down" or "bottom-up" approaches.

Bioinspired Synthesis of Magnetic Nanoparticles Based on Iron Oxides Using Orange Waste and Their Application as Photo-Activated Antibacterial Agents.

Magnetic nanoparticles based on iron oxides (MNPs-Fe) have been proposed as photothermal agents (PTAs) within antibacterial photothermal therapy (PTT), aiming to counteract the vast health problem of multidrug-resistant bacterial infections. We present a quick and easy green synthesis (GS) to prepare MNPs-Fe harnessing waste. Orange peel extract (organic compounds) was used as a reducing, capping, and stabilizing agent in the GS, which employed microwave (MW) irradiation to reduce the synthesis time.

Carbon-Based Materials in Photodynamic and Photothermal Therapies Applied to Tumor Destruction.

Within phototherapy, a grand challenge in clinical cancer treatments is to develop a simple, cost-effective, and biocompatible approach to treat this disease using ultra-low doses of light. Carbon-based materials (CBM), such as graphene oxide (GO), reduced GO (r-GO), graphene quantum dots (GQDs), and carbon dots (C-DOTs), are rapidly emerging as a new class of therapeutic materials against cancer. This review summarizes the progress made in recent years regarding the applications of CBM in photodynamic (PDT) and photothermal (PTT) therapies for tumor destruction.

Data on phase and chemical compositions of black sands from "El Ostional" beach situated in Mompiche, Ecuador.

Data revealing the phase and chemical compositions of natural black sands from "El Ostional" beach, located in the northern Ecuadorian Pacific coast have been presented. The samples were collected from six points over the shore area of approximately 500 × 40 m. The data on crystalline phases (iron titanium oxide, orthoclase feldspar and zircon) were determined by X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD), while semi-quantitative chemical analyses of major (Fe and Ti) and trace elements were obtained by X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF).