Ionic Diode-Based Drug Delivery System.

Drug delivery systems hold promise for delivering cytotoxic drugs by controlling the timing and location of the drug release. However, conventional delivery mechanisms often fall short of achieving spatiotemporally controlled yet sustained release, which is crucial for ensuring drug efficacy and minimizing impact on surrounding tissues. Here, an ionic diode-based drug delivery system is reported that is controlled by an electric potential and capable of releasing drugs at scales ranging from nanogram to microgram.

G-Quadruplex-Filtered Selective Ion-to-Ion Current Amplification for Non-Invasive Ion Monitoring in Real Time.

Living cells efflux intracellular ions for maintaining cellular life, so intravital measurements of specific ion signals are of significant importance for studying cellular functions and pharmacokinetics. In this work, de novo synthesis of artificial K -selective membrane and its integration with polyelectrolyte hydrogel-based open-junction ionic diode (OJID) is demonstrated, achieving a real-time K -selective ion-to-ion current amplification in complex bioenvironments. By mimicking biological K channels and nerve impulse transmitters, in-line K -binding G-quartets are introduced across freestanding lipid bilayers by G-specific hexylation of monolithic G-quadruplex, and the pre-filtered K flow is directly converted to amplified ionic currents by the OJID with a fast response time at 100 ms intervals.

Reversible Crosslinking of Polymer/Metal-Ion Complexes for a Microfluidic Switch.

The importance of chitosan has been strongly emphasized in literature because this natural polymer could not only remove heavy metal ions in water but also have the potential for recyclability. However, reversible phase transition and its dynamics, which are highlighting areas of a recycle process, have not been studied sufficiently. Here, we present dynamic studies of the dissolution as well as the gelation of a physically crosslinked chitosan hydrogel.