Hair loss (alopecia) has become a condition that plagues billions of people worldwide, which can occur at any age. Alopecia severely reduces the life quality and affects the self-esteem of patients, especially in adolescents. Due to the deficiency of current therapeutic formulations, such as frequent dosing, low bioavailability, significant side effects and high cost, it is urgent to develop a safe and effective strategy for the treatment of hair loss.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder with a very long duration, posing a serious threat to people's life and health. To date, no medicine that can cure or reverse the disease has been developed or reported, so early diagnosis and timely intervention are essential. The concentration of Phosphorylated tau181 (P-tau181) in blood has been approved by FDA as a standard for assisting clinical diagnosis of AD.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlzheimer's disease (AD) is an irreversible neurodegenerative disorder that poses a significant risk to human health and well-being. The high cost and invasiveness of neuroimaging and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) analysis underscores the necessity for accessible early screening via blood samples. In this study, we developed an ultrasound-based strategy for emergent macroscopic that enhances the acoustic response enrichment of specific proteins by introducing functionalized microspheres.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBilirubin (BR), with diverse physiological functions and health implications, is a vital biomarker related to liver diseases such as jaundice and hepatitis. It is generally tested by blood. Sweat wearable devices provide a noninvasive way to monitor BR but face challenges in stability and selectivity, and acquiring sufficient sweat is difficult for sedentary individuals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe exhaled HS gas is considered a promising noninvasive, rapid biomarker for diagnosing oral health and respiratory diseases. However, there is an urgent need in the healthcare industry for a sensitive, accurate, low-cost, and comfortable wearable breath sensor for HS detection. Herein, a Janus wettable mask was developed by integrating the ratiometric fluorescent probes and asymmetric wettable fabric into the interior of the mask, for the comfortable and visual detection of HS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe colloidal gold nanoparticle (AuNP)-based colorimetric lateral flow assay (LFA) is one of the most promising analytical tools for point-of-care disease diagnosis. However, the low sensitivity and insufficient accuracy still limit its clinical application. In this work, a machine learning (ML)-optimized colorimetric LFA with ultrasound enrichment is developed to achieve the sensitive and accurate detection of tau proteins for early screening of Alzheimer's disease (AD).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe constrained resources on wearable devices pose a challenge in meeting the demands for comprehensive sensing information, and current wearable non-enzymatic sensors face difficulties in achieving specific detection in biofluids. To address this issue, we have developed a highly selective non-enzymatic sweat sensor that seamlessly integrates with machine learning, ensuring reliable sensing and physiological monitoring of sweat biomarkers during exercise. The sensor consists of two electrodes supported by a microsystem that incorporates signal processing and wireless communication.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFitness monitoring has become increasingly important in modern lifestyles; the current fitness monitoring always relies on physical sensors, making it challenging to detect pertinent issues at a deeper level when exercising. Here, we report a fully integrated wearable microneedle sensor that simultaneously measures fitness related biomarkers (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCancer treatment is a continuous process, that the current therapy cannot meet the requirement well, including radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Wearable ultrasound device has the potential for continuous sonodynamic therapy due to its portability. However, the miniaturization of ultrasonic probe, system integration of device, and the strategy of continuous treatment are still urgent issues to be addressed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFResearch (Wash D C)
July 2024
Cell culture as the cornerstone of biotechnology remains a labor-intensive process requiring continuous manual oversight and substantial time investment. In this work, we propose an integrated mini-pillar platform for in situ monitoring of multiple cellular metabolism processes, which achieves media anchoring and cell culture through an arrayed mini-pillar chip. The assembly of polyaniline (PANI)/dendritic gold-modified microelectrode biosensors exhibits high sensitivity (63.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Several respiratory infections outbreaks have been observed in mainland China after reduction of non-pharmaceutical interventions. Other countries have seen increases in respiratory infections outside typical seasons post-COVID-19, warranting investigation into underlying causes.
Methods: We established monitoring networks for suspected respiratory infection in 14 tertiary hospitals nationwide.
Methods Mol Biol
June 2024
The rapid and accurate analysis of micro-samples is a crucial foundation for precision medicine, particularly for early screening and monitoring of cancer, where it holds significant importance. Ultrasound-based multifunctional biocompatible manipulation techniques have been extensively applied in a variety of biomedical fields, providing insights for the development of rapid, cost-effective, and accurate biomarker detection strategies. In this chapter, we combine ultrasound-based gradient pressure fields with functionalized microsphere enrichment to develop a biosensing method for ultra-trace miRNA enrichment in nanoliter samples without PCR.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFKetogenic diets have attracted substantial interest in the treatment of chronic diseases, but there are health risks with long-term regimes. Despite the advancements in diagnostic and therapeutic methods in modern medicine, there is a huge gap in personalized health management of this dietary strategy. Hence, we present a wearable microneedle biosensor for real-time ketone and glucose monitoring.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Timely diagnosis and prevention of diseases require rapid and sensitive detection of biomarkers from blood samples without external interference. Abnormal electrolyte ion levels in the blood are closely linked to various physiological disorders, including hypertension. Therefore, accurate, interference-free, and precise measurement of electrolyte ion concentrations in the blood is particularly important.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJanus textiles with asymmetric wettability have shown great potential in wearable applications due to their ability to manage biofluids efficiently. This review summarizes recent advances in smart Janus textiles for biofluid control and monitoring, focusing on wearable technologies. We first introduce the design configurations and fabrication approaches of Janus textiles, including asymmetric generation and asymmetric decoration strategies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMechanical compliance and electrical enhancement are crucial for pressure sensors to promote performances when perceiving external stimuli. Here we propose a bioinspired multiscale heterogeneity-based interface to adaptively regulate its structure layout and switch to desirable piezoresistive behaviors with ultralow detection limitation. In such a multiscale heterogeneities system, the micro-/nanoscale spiny Ag-MnO heterostructure contributes to an ultralow detection limitation of 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUltratrace-enriching biomarker analysis is an effective method for achieving highly accurate and enhanced sensitive detection. In this study, we have developed an enrichment detection platform by combining a minipillar array with an aqueous two-phase system (ATPS) for ultratrace enriching biomarker analysis. After optimizing the enrichment conditions of ATPS, target miRNAs at ultratrace levels specifically accumulate in the DEX-rich phase, which significantly increases the target miRNA concentration-related fluorescence intensity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMetal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are novel inorganic-organic hybridized crystals with a wide range of applications. In the last twenty years, fluorescence sensing based on MOFs has attracted much attention. MOFs can exhibit luminescence from metal nodes, ligands or introduced guests, which provides an excellent fluorescence response in sensing.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDue to their highly exposed active sites and high aspect ratio caused by their substantial lateral dimension and thin thickness, two-dimensional (2D) metal-organic framework (MOF) nanosheets are currently considered a potential hybrid material for electrochemical sensing. Herein, we present a nickel-based porphyrinic MOF nanosheet as a versatile and robust platform with an enhanced electrochemical detection performance. It is important to note that the nickel porphyrin ligand reacted with Cu(NO)·3HO in a solvothermal process, with polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) acting as the surfactant to control the anisotropic development of creating a 2D Cu-TCPP(Ni) MOF nanosheet structure.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChronic wounds have imposed a severe physical and economic burden on the global healthcare system, which are usually treated by the delivery of drugs or bioactive molecules to the wound bed through wound dressings. In this work, we have demonstrated a hydrogel-functionalized bandage with Janus wettability in a bilayer structure to achieve unidirectional drug delivery and multifunctional wound care. The Janus patterned bandage with porous gradient wetting channels on the upper layer is responsible for the unidirectional transport of the drug from the outside to the wound bed (up to 90% drug transport efficiency) while preventing drug diffusion in unwanted directions (<8%).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArtificial olfactory systems have been widely used in medical fields such as in the analysis of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in human exhaled breath. However, there is still an urgent demand for a portable, accurate breath VOC analysis system for the healthcare industry. In this work, we proposed a Janus colorimetric face mask (JCFM) for the comfortable evaluation of breath ammonia levels by combining the machine learning -nearest neighbor (-NN) algorithm.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe point-of-care (POC) testing of cancer biomarkers in saliva with both high sensitivity and accuracy remains a serious challenge in modern clinical medicine. Herein, we develop a new fully integrated ratiometric fluorescence enrichment platform that utilizes acoustic radiation forces to enrich dual-emission sandwich immune complexes for a POC visual assay. As a result, the color signals from red and green fluorescence (capture probe and report probe, respectively) are enhanced by nearly 10 times, and colorimetric sensitivity is effectively improved.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOpen-channel droplet arrays have attracted much attention in the fields of biochemical analysis, biofluid monitoring, biomarker recognition and cell interactions, as they have advantages with regard to miniaturization, parallelization, high-throughput, simplicity and accessibility. Such droplet arrays not only improve the sensitivity and accuracy of a biosensor, but also do not require sophisticated equipment or tedious processes, showing great potential in next-generation miniaturized sensing platforms. This review summarizes typical examples of open-channel microdroplet arrays and focuses on diversified biosensing integrated with multiple signal-output approaches (fluorescence, colorimetric, surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), electrochemical, etc.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMicro/nanomotors (MNMs) that accomplish autonomous movement by transforming external energy into mechanical work are attractive cargo delivery vehicles. Among various propulsion mechanisms of MNMs, photothermal propulsion has gained considerable attention because of their unique advantages, such as remote, flexible, accurate, biocompatible, short response time, etc. Moreover, besides as a propulsion source, the light has been extensively investigated as an excitation source in bioimaging, photothermal therapy (PTT), photodynamic therapy (PDT) and so on.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCatalytic hairpin assembly (CHA) is a promising enzyme-free, isothermal signal amplification strategy, but the relatively time-consuming strand replacement limits its application scenarios. Here, we developed an ultrasound-enhanced catalytic hairpin assembly (UECHA) biosensing platform for early screening of Alzheimer's disease by introducing a portable acoustic-drive platform with functionalized microspheres for effective biomarkers enrichment and fluorescence enhancement. By constructing a gradient ultrasonic field in a microcavity, the platform concentrates the functionalized microspheres in a central position, accompanied by an enhanced fluorescence signal with a specific release.
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