Less is More: Asymmetric D-A Type Agent to Achieve Dynamic Self-Assembled Nanoaggregates for Long-Acting Photodynamic Therapy.

To enhance the phototheranostic performance, agents with high reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, good tumor-targeting ability, and prolonged retention are urgently needed. However, symmetric donor-acceptor (D-A) type agents usually produce spherical nanoaggregates, leading to good tumor targeting but inferior retention. Rod-like nanoaggregates are desired to extend their retention in tumors; however, this remains a challenge.

One Stone, Two Birds: High-Brightness Aggregation-Induced Emission Photosensitizers for Super-Resolution Imaging and Photodynamic Therapy.

Most aggregation-induced emission (AIE) luminogens exhibit high brightness, excellent photostability, and good biocompatibility, but these AIE-active agents, which kill two birds with one stone to result in applications in both stimulated emission depletion (STED) super-resolution imaging and photodynamic therapy (PDT), have not been reported yet but are urgently needed. To meet the requirements of STED nanoscopy and PDT, D-A-π-A-D type DTPABT-HP is designed by tuning conjugated π spacers. It exhibits red-shifted emission, high PLQY of 32.

Design and build a green tent environment for growing and charactering mycelium growth in lab.

Mycelium-based materials have seen a surge in popularity in the manufacturing industry in recent years. This study aims to build a lab-scale experimental facility to investigate mycelium growth under a well-controlled temperature and humidity environment and explore how substrates of very different chemical and mechanical properties can affect the microscopic morphology of the mycelium fibers during growth. Here, we design and build a customized green tent with good thermal and humidity insulation for controlling the temperature and humidity and monitor the environmental data with an Arduino chip.

All-in-One Theranostic Platforms: Deep-Red AIE Nanocrystals to Target Dual-Organelles for Efficient Photodynamic Therapy.

Aggregation-induced emission (AIE) nanoparticles have been widely applied in photodynamic therapy (PDT) over the past few years. However, amorphous nanoaggregates usually occur in their preparation, resulting in loose packing with disordered molecular structures. This still allows free intramolecular motions, thus leading to limited brightness and PDT efficiency.

Design, manufacture, and testing of customized sterilizable respirator.

The respirator as one of the personal protective equipment is essential for industrial activities (e.g., mining, painting, woodcutting, manufacturing) for protection from contaminants in the air and during the Covid-19 pandemic to protect the wearer from infection.

Aggregation-Induced Emission (AIE) in Super-resolution Imaging: Cationic AIE Luminogens (AIEgens) for Tunable Organelle-Specific Imaging and Dynamic Tracking in Nanometer Scale.

Organelle-specific imaging and dynamic tracking in ultrahigh resolution is essential for understanding their functions in biological research, but this remains a challenge. Therefore, a facile strategy by utilizing anion-π interactions is proposed here to construct an aggregation-induced emission luminogen (AIEgen) of DTPAP-P, not only restricting the intramolecular motions but also blocking their strong π-π interactions. DTPAP-P exhibits a high photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) of 35.

Facilely prepared aggregation-induced emission (AIE) nanocrystals with deep-red emission for super-resolution imaging.

Organic nanocrystals (NCs) with high brightness are highly desirable for biological imaging. However, the preparation of NCs by a facile and fast method is still challenging. Herein, an aggregation-induced emission (AIE) luminogen of 4,4'-(5,6-difluorobenzo[][1,2,5]thiadiazole-4,7-diyl)bis(,-bis(4-methoxyphenyl)aniline) (DTPA-BT-F) in the deep-red region is designed with intensive crystalline features to obtain NCs by kinetically controlled nanoprecipitation.

Tuning molecular aggregation to achieve highly bright AIE dots for NIR-II fluorescence imaging and NIR-I photoacoustic imaging.

Currently, bright aggregation-induced emission luminogens (AIEgens) with high photoluminescence quantum yields (PLQYs) in the NIR-II region are still limited, and thus an efficient strategy to enhance NIR-II fluorescence performance through tuning molecular aggregation is proposed here. The synthesized donor-acceptor tailored AIEgen (DTPA-TBZ) not only exhibits an excellent absorptivity in the NIR-I region, but also good fluorescence signals in the NIR-II region with an emission extending to 1200 nm. Benefiting from such improved intramolecular restriction and aggregation, a significant absolute PLQY value of 8.

Recent advances in luminescent materials for super-resolution imaging via stimulated emission depletion nanoscopy.

Stimulated emission depletion (STED) nanoscopy is a promising fluorescence microscopy to detect unresolvable structures at the nanoscale level and then achieve a superior imaging resolution in materials science and biological research. However, in addition to the optimization of the microscope, luminescent materials in STED nanoscopy are also of great significance to obtain imaging, visualization and even long-term tracking at an ultra-high resolution (less than 100 nm), but this is seldom summarized. Based on this consideration, recent progress on STED fluorophores for super-resolution imaging is outlined here, including inorganic fluorophores, fluorescent proteins, organic luminescent materials, aggregation-induced emission (AIE) luminogens, and fluorescent nanoparticles.

Recent Advances on Organic Fluorescent Probes for Stimulated Emission Depletion (STED) Microscopy.

Stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy has become a useful tool for visualization and dynamic monitoring at an ultra-high resolution in biological research and material science. For STED technology, fluorescent probes are irreplaceable in the imaging process. Among these probes, organic fluorescent probes have superior photo-stability, high brightness, large Stokes' shifts and excellent biocompatibility, thus are widely applied in STED microscopy.

A Facilely Synthesized Dual-State Emission Platform for Picric Acid Detection and Latent Fingerprint Visualization.

To achieve a highly efficient, dual-state emission platform for picric acid (PA) detection and latent fingerprint (LFP) visualization, flexible alkyl chains have been facilely attached to the commercial organic dye 3,4,9,10-perylenetetracarboxylic dianhydride to provide the target perylenetetracarboxylate molecules PTCA-C4, PTCA-C6, and PTCA-C12. Interestingly, all these molecules exhibited impressive fluorescence characteristics with high photoluminescence quantum yields (PLQYs) of around 93.0 % in dilute solution.

Super-Resolution Visualization of Self-Assembling Helical Fibers Using Aggregation-Induced Emission Luminogens in Stimulated Emission Depletion Nanoscopy.

Organic fluorophores for stimulated emission depletion (STED) nanoscopy usually suffer from quenched emission in the aggregate state and inferior photostability, which largely limit their application in real-time, , and long-term imaging at an ultrahigh resolution. Herein, an aggregation-induced emission (AIE) luminogen of DP-TBT with bright emission in solid state (photoluminescence quantum yields = 25%) and excellent photostability was designed to meet the requirements in STED nanoscopy. In addition to its excellent fluorescence properties, DP-TBT could also easily form self-assembling helixes and finally be well-visualized by super-resolution STED nanoscopy.