Noninvasive bioimaging techniques are critical for assessing the biodistribution of cellular therapies longitudinally. Among them, photoacoustic imaging (PAI) can generate high-resolution images with a tissue penetration depth of ∼4 cm. However, it is essential and still highly challenging to develop stable and efficient near-infrared (NIR) probes with low toxicity for PAI.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHydrophobic drug nanoparticles have been prepared by ambient solvent evaporation from ethanol at room temperature. Poly(ethylene glycol)-b-(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PEG-b-PNIPAm) branched diblock copolymers are employed to prevent drug crystallization during solvent evaporation and to stabilize the drug nanoparticles once suspended in aqueous media. After the initial solvent evaporation the dry materials obtained exhibit excellent stability during storage and can be readily dissolved in water to produce aqueous drug nanoparticles suspensions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSpherical unimolecular amphiphilic branched A-B block copolymer nanoparticles in methanol are fabricated via thermal annealing using the methanolic upper critical solution temperature (UCST) of the hydrophobic block segment. These polymer nanoparticles are then used to produce an aqueous poorly water-soluble drug nanoparticle suspension with a mass : drug ratio of 1 : 1 and 100% nanoparticle yield. The drug nanoparticles in the suspension are stabilized by multiple polymer nanoparticles.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNanocarbons show great promise for establishing the next generation of Joule heating systems, but suffer from the limited maximum temperature due to precociously convective heat dissipation from electrothermal system to surrounding environment. Here we introduce a strategy to eliminate such convective heat transfer by inserting highly stable and conductive microcapsules into the electrothermal structures. The microcapsule is composed of encapsulated long-chain alkanes and graphene oxide/carbon nanotube hybrids as core and shell material, respectively.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDuring the last few decades the nanomedicine sector has emerged as a feasible and effective solution to the problems faced by the high percentage of poorly water-soluble drugs. Decreasing the size of such drug compounds to the nanoscale can significantly change their physical properties, which lays the foundation for the use of nanomedicine for pharmaceutical applications. Various techniques have been developed to produce poorly water-soluble drug nanoparticles, mainly to address the poor water-soluble issues but also for the efficient and targeted delivery of such drugs.
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