3D printed drug-eluting stents: Toward personalized therapy for airway stenosis.

Airway stents are life-saving medical devices used to treat malignant or benign central airway stenoses. Unfortunately, these devices, typically manufactured from silicone alone and/or nitinol, can result in serious complications, such as stent migration, bacterial colonization, and tissue granulation, eventually forcing stent removal. Customized airway stents exhibit reduced migration and they can be tailored to address other complications by releasing drugs, such as the antibiotic levofloxacin and the antifibrotic drug nintedanib.

Coumarin-Based Photodegradable Hydrogels Enable Two-Photon Subtractive Biofabrication at 300 mm s.

Spatiotemporally controlled two-photon photodegradation of hydrogels has gained increasing attention for high-precision subtractive tissue engineering. However, conventional photolabile hydrogels often have poor efficiency upon two-photon excitation in the near-infrared (NIR) region and thus require high laser dosage that may compromise cell activity. As a result, high-speed two-photon hydrogel erosion in the presence of cells remains challenging.

Inhibition of urease-mediated ammonia production by 2-octynohydroxamic acid in hepatic encephalopathy.

Hepatic encephalopathy is a neuropsychiatric complication of liver disease which is partly associated with elevated ammonemia. Urea hydrolysis by urease-producing bacteria in the colon is often mentioned as one of the main routes of ammonia production in the body, yet research on treatments targeting bacterial ureases in hepatic encephalopathy is limited. Herein we report a hydroxamate-based urease inhibitor, 2-octynohydroxamic acid, exhibiting improved in vitro potency compared to hydroxamic acids that were previously investigated for hepatic encephalopathy.

Polymerization-Mediated Through-Space Charge Transfer: An Emerging Strategy for Light-Emitting Materials.

Through-space charge transfer (TSCT) has attracted increasing attention owing to its great potential in designing efficient light-emitting molecules and polymers. Complementary to through-bond charge transfer and Förster resonance energy transfer, TSCT offers an alternative approach for the manipulation of molecular fluorescence. Recently, the synergy between TSCT and polymer systems through polymerization-mediated charge transfer has fostered the advancements of innovative light-emitting functional materials featuring thermally activated delayed fluorescence and/or aggregation-induced emission.

Adhesive, Flexible, and Fast Degradable 3D-Printed Wound Dressings with a Simple Composition.

3D printing technology has revolutionized the field of wound dressings, offering tailored solutions with mechanical support to facilitate wound closure. In addition to personalization, the intricate nature of the wound healing process requires wound dressing materials with diverse properties, such as moisturization, flexibility, adhesion, anti-oxidation and degradability. Unfortunately, current materials used in digital light processing (DLP) 3D printing have been inadequate in meeting these crucial criteria.

Digital Light 3D Printed Bioresorbable and NIR-Responsive Devices with Photothermal and Shape-Memory Functions.

Digital light processing (DLP) 3D printing is a promising technique for the rapid manufacturing of customized medical devices with high precision. To be successfully translated to a clinical setting, challenges in the development of suitable photopolymerizable materials have yet to be overcome. Besides biocompatibility, it is often desirable for the printed devices to be biodegradable, elastic, and with a therapeutic function.

Light-Based Printing of Leachable Salt Molds for Facile Shaping of Complex Structures.

3D printing is a powerful manufacturing technology for shaping materials into complex structures. While the palette of printable materials continues to expand, the rheological and chemical requisites for printing are not always easy to fulfill. Here, a universal manufacturing platform is reported for shaping materials into intricate geometries without the need for their printability, but instead using light-based printed salt structures as leachable molds.

3D printed elastomers with Sylgard-184-like mechanical properties and tuneable degradability.

The 3D printing of biodegradable elastomers with high mechanical strength is of great interest for personalized medicine, but rather challenging. In this study, we propose a dual-polymer resin formulation for digital light processing of biodegradable elastomers with tailorable mechanical properties comparable to those of Sylgard-184.

Recent Trends in Advanced Photoinitiators for Vat Photopolymerization 3D Printing.

3D printing has revolutionized the way of manufacturing with a huge impact on various fields, in particular biomedicine. Vat photopolymerization-based 3D printing techniques such as stereolithography (SLA) and digital light processing (DLP) attract considerable attention owing to their superior print resolution, relatively high speed, low cost, and flexibility in resin material design. As one key element of the SLA/DLP resin, photoinitiators or photoinitiating systems have experienced significant development in recent years, in parallel with the exploration of 3D printing (macro)monomers.

Controlling Molecular Aggregation-Induced Emission by Controlled Polymerization.

In last twenty years, the significant development of AIE materials has been witnessed. A number of small molecules, polymers and composites with AIE activity have been synthesized, with some of these exhibiting great potential in optoelectronics and biomedical applications. Compared to AIE small molecules, macromolecular systems-especially well-defined AIE polymers-have been studied relatively less.

Continuous color tuning of single-fluorophore emission via polymerization-mediated through-space charge transfer.

Tuning emission color of molecular fluorophores is of fundamental interest as it directly reflects the manipulation of excited states at the quantum mechanical level. Despite recent progress in molecular design and engineering on single fluorophores, a systematic methodology to obtain multicolor emission in aggregated or solid states, which gives rise to practical implications, remains scarce. In this study, we present a general strategy to continuously tune the emission color of a single-fluorophore aggregate by polymerization-mediated through-space charge transfer (TSCT).

Coordination-induced polymerization of P═C bonds leads to regular (P─C) polycarbophosphanes.

The replacement of carbon in (C─C) chains of polyolefins by phosphorus leads to polycarbophosphanes (P─C) , which may possess unique chemical and physical properties. However, macromolecules with a regular (P─C) chain have never been unambiguously identified. Here, we demonstrate that addition polymerization, a general concept to polymerize olefins, can be extended to P═C double bonds.

Digital light 3D printing of customized bioresorbable airway stents with elastomeric properties.

Central airway obstruction is a life-threatening disorder causing a high physical and psychological burden to patients. Standard-of-care airway stents are silicone tubes, which provide immediate relief but are prone to migration. Thus, they require additional surgeries to be removed, which may cause tissue damage.

Engineered Polymersomes for the Treatment of Fish Odor Syndrome: A First Randomized Double Blind Olfactory Study.

Trimethylamine (TMA) is a metabolite overtly present in patients suffering from trimethylaminuria (TMAU), a rare genetic disorder characterized by a strong "fishy" body odor. To date, no approved pharmacological treatment to sequester excess TMA on the skin of patients exists. Here, transmembrane pH gradient poly(isoprene)--poly(ethylene glycol) (PI--PEG) polymersomes are investigated for the topical removal of TMA.

Ammonia uptake by transmembrane pH gradient poly(isoprene)-block-poly(ethylene glycol) polymersomes.

Transmembrane pH gradient poly(isoprene)-block-poly(ethylene glycol) (PI-b-PEG) polymersomes were investigated for their potential use in the detoxification of ammonia, a metabolite that is excessively present in patients suffering from urea cycle disorders and advanced liver diseases, and which causes neurotoxic effects (e.g., hepatic encephalopathy).

An Investigation of PS-b-PEO Polymersomes for the Oral Treatment and Diagnosis of Hyperammonemia.

Ammonia-scavenging transmembrane pH-gradient poly(styrene)-b-poly(ethylene oxide) polymersomes are investigated for the oral treatment and diagnosis of hyperammonemia, a condition associated with serious neurologic complications in patients with liver disease as well as in infants with urea cycle disorders. While these polymersomes are highly stable in simulated intestinal fluids at extreme bile salt and osmolality conditions, they unexpectedly do not reduce plasmatic ammonia levels in cirrhotic rats after oral dosing. Incubation in dietary fiber hydrogels mimicking the colonic environment suggests that the vesicles are probably destabilized during the dehydration of the intestinal chyme.

Fluorescent polymer prodrug nanoparticles with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) properties from nitroxide-mediated polymerization.

Aggregation-induced emission (AIE)-active polymer prodrug nanoparticles were readily prepared by growing short, well-defined polymer chains from an AIE dye by nitroxide-mediated polymerization, followed by co-nanoprecipitation of the resulting conjugates with similarly constructed anticancer polymer prodrugs. The nanoparticles had sharp fluorescence signal offering excellent imaging ability in living cells and their intra cellular localization to be accurately monitored.

Enterococcus faecalis Glycolipids Modulate Lipoprotein-Content of the Bacterial Cell Membrane and Host Immune Response.

In this study, we investigated the impact of the cell membrane composition of E. faecalis on its recognition by the host immune system. To this end, we employed an E.