State of the Art in Carbon Nanomaterials for Photoacoustic Imaging.

Photoacoustic imaging using energy conversion from light to ultrasound waves has been developed as a powerful tool to investigate in vivo phenomena due to their complex characteristics. In photoacoustic imaging, endogenous chromophores such as oxygenated hemoglobin, deoxygenated hemoglobin, melanin, and lipid provide useful biomedical information at the molecular level. However, these intrinsic absorbers show strong absorbance only in visible or infrared optical windows and have limited light transmission, making them difficult to apply for clinical translation.

Potential of Carbon-Based Nanocomposites for Dental Tissue Engineering and Regeneration.

While conventional dental implants focus on mechanical properties, recent advances in functional carbon nanomaterials (CNMs) accelerated the facilitation of functionalities including osteoinduction, osteoconduction, and osseointegration. The surface functionalization with CNMs in dental implants has emerged as a novel strategy for reinforcement and as a bioactive cue due to their potential for mechanical reinforcing, osseointegration, and antimicrobial properties. Numerous developments in the fabrication and biological studies of CNMs have provided various opportunities to expand their application to dental regeneration and restoration.

Reduced graphene oxide coating enhances osteogenic differentiation of human mesenchymal stem cells on Ti surfaces.

Background: Titanium (Ti) has been utilized as hard tissue replacement owing to its superior mechanical and bioinert property, however, lack in tissue compatibility and biofunctionality has limited its clinical use. Reduced graphene oxide (rGO) is one of the graphene derivatives that possess extraordinary biofunctionality and are known to induce osseointegration in vitro and in vivo. In this study, rGO was uniformly coated by meniscus-dragging deposition (MDD) technique to fabricate rGO-Ti substrate for orthopedic and dental implant application.

Toxicity of Zero- and One-Dimensional Carbon Nanomaterials.

The zero (0-D) and one-dimensional (1-D) carbon nanomaterials have gained attention among researchers because they exhibit a larger surface area to volume ratio, and a smaller size. Furthermore, carbon is ubiquitously present in all living organisms. However, toxicity is a major concern while utilizing carbon nanomaterials for biomedical applications such as drug delivery, biosensing, and tissue regeneration.

Graphene-Based Nanocomposites as Promising Options for Hard Tissue Regeneration.

Tissues are often damaged by physical trauma, infection or tumors. A slight injury heals naturally through the normal healing process, while severe injury causes serious health implications. Therefore, many efforts have been devoted to treat and repair various tissue defects.

Multifaceted Biomedical Applications of Functional Graphene Nanomaterials to Coated Substrates, Patterned Arrays and Hybrid Scaffolds.

Because of recent research advances in nanoscience and nanotechnology, there has been a growing interest in functional nanomaterials for biomedical applications, such as tissue engineering scaffolds, biosensors, bioimaging agents and drug delivery carriers. Among a great number of promising candidates, graphene and its derivatives-including graphene oxide and reduced graphene oxide-have particularly attracted plenty of attention from researchers as novel nanobiomaterials. Graphene and its derivatives, two-dimensional nanomaterials, have been found to have outstanding biocompatibility and biofunctionality as well as exceptional mechanical strength, electrical conductivity and thermal stability.