Synthetic polymers are often utilized in the creation of vascular devices, and need to possess specific qualities to prevent thrombosis. Traditional strategies for this include surface modification of vascular devices through covalent attachment of substrates such as heparin, antiplatelet agents, thrombolytic agents, or hydrophilic polymers. One promising prosthetic material is polyether ether ketone (PEEK), which is utilized in various FDA-approved medical devices, including vascular and endovascular prostheses. We hypothesized that surface modification of biologically inert PEEK can help improve its endothelial cell affinity and reduce its thrombogenic potential. To evaluate this, we developed an effective surface-modification approach with unique cyclic peptides, such as CCHGGVRLYC and CCREDVC. We treated the PEEK surface with ammonia plasma, which introduced amine groups onto the PEEK surface. Subsequently, we were able to conjugate these peptides to the plasma-modified PEEKs. We observed that cyclic CCHGGVRLYC conjugated on prosthetic PEEK not only supported endothelialization, but minimized platelet adhesion and activation. This technology can be potentially applied for vascular and endovascular protheses to enhance their utility and patency.

Biomimetic scaffolds provide the essential biophysical (e.g., surface topography, stiffness) and biochemical cues (e.g., composition) to guide cell morphology, proliferation, and differentiation. Although the effects of biomaterial-directed cues on cell response have been widely reported, few studies have sought to decouple these effects to better understand the interplay between the different physicochemical factors on tissue-specific cell function. Herein, beta-tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP) was incorporated into electrochemically aligned collagen (ELAC) and random collagen threads, and the individual and interactive effects of collagen alignment (i.e., biophysical) and bioceramic incorporation (i.e., biochemical) on osteoblast cell morphology, proliferation, differentiation, and mineralization were investigated. Results showed that collagen alignment in ELAC threads was retained upon β-TCP incorporation. Collagen alignment significantly improved (p < 0.05) the swelling capacity and stability of collagen threads, while β-TCP incorporation showed no such effects. Tensile tests revealed that β-TCP incorporation significantly decreased (p < 0.05) the strength and stiffness of ELAC threads. Significant increase (p < 0.05) in Saos-2 cell orientation and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity was observed on ELAC compared to random collagen threads indicating that aligned collagen serves as a key driving factor for osteogenesis. β-TCP incorporation into random collagen threads had no effect on Saos-2 cell function. On the other hand, presence of β-TCP significantly augmented (p < 0.05) Saos-2 cell metabolic activity, differentiation, and mineralization on ELAC threads. Together, these findings suggest that combining collagen alignment and β-TCP incorporation can create robust tissue-mimicking scaffolds for bone regeneration applications.

Each year in the United States approximately 10,000 babies are born with a complex congenital heart defect (CHD) requiring surgery in the first year of after birth. Several of these operations require the implantation of a full-thickness heart patch; however, the current patch materials available to pediatric heart surgeons are exclusively non-living and non-degradable, which do not grow with the patient and are prone to fail due to an inability to integrate with the heart. In this work, the goal was to develop a full-thickness, tissue engineered myocardial patch (TEMP) that is made from biodegradable components, strong enough to withstand the mechanical forces of the heart wall, and able to integrate with the heart and drive neotissue formation. Here, a thick and porous electrospun PCL scaffold filled with high-salt PEGylated fibrin was developed. The scaffold was found to be mechanically sufficient for heart wall repair. Vascular cells were able to infiltrate more than halfway through the scaffold in static culture within three weeks. The scaffold maintained pluripotent stem cells for at least four days, supports viable iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes, and fostered tissue thickening . The TEMP developed here and tested is promising for the repair of structural CHD and will next be assessed .

Keeping surfaces clean can reduce the spread of infections. In particular, to decrease the potential for SARS CoV-2 contamination, performing disinfection of high-touching surfaces. Several ceramic tiles and porcelain stoneware tiles with antimicrobial properties are already available on the market. However, the widespread use of antimicrobial glazed stoneware tiles may require to replace the ceramic surfaces already present in many buildings. The unfeasibility of such replacement can be due to both product durability (lifetime of a tile is usually long) and/or monetary restrictions. Furthermore, as porcelain stoneware does not have antimicrobial activity, these materials are fabricated by adding chemical agents able to provide antimicrobial properties. This approach requires a compatibility between the antimicrobial agents and the glaze formulation, as well as a careful control of the firing cycle and the final properties of the ceramic products. It follows that the final cost of antimicrobial tiles is not competitive with that of conventional tiles. In the latter, the persistence of potential pathogens on the surfaces is a crucial problem to face: the longer a pathogen survives on a surface, the longer it may be a source of transmission and thus endanger susceptible subjects. In this work, bacteria's capacity to adhere and to be effectively removed from two conventional glazed porcelain stoneware tiles (under dirty and clean conditions) was investigated. Two different glazes were tested, one mainly glassy (glossy) and the other mainly crystalline (matt). The sanitization procedures were carried out by chemical and chemo-mechanical procedures. The results showed that chemo-mechanical sanitization was the most effective, and the best results could be obtained on the stoneware tiles coated with the mainly glassy glaze, with the lowest porosity and the lower roughness values and water contact angles, especially under clean conditions.

We carried out theoretical and experimental analyses of ZnO and ZnS nanoparticles as smart semiconductor materials in light-activated antimicrobial coating for application in masks. We used low-cost hydrothermally processable precursors to direct the growth of the coatings on cotton fabric. Both ZnO and ZnS coatings had high reactivities as disinfection agents in photocatalysis reactions for the degradation of a methylene blue dye solution. Also, these coatings showed excellent UV protection properties. For understanding at the molecular level, the broad-spectrum biological activities of the ZnO and ZnS coatings against Fusarium Oxysporum fungi, Escherichia coli bacteria, and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus and their variants, were investigated computationally. Hexagonal ZnO and ZnS clusters were used as models for the simulations through excited- and ground-state calculations. The theoretical findings show that changes in the local chemical environment in these excited systems have a profound impact on their physical and chemical properties and thus, can provide a better understanding to engineer new functional materials in light-activated antimicrobial coatings for the mitigation of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

The current pandemic of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) raised several concerns about using conventional textiles for manufacturing personal protective equipment without self-disinfecting properties since the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is transmitted mainly by aerosols that can transpose cotton masks. Therefore, developing new cotton fibers with high self-disinfecting ability is essential to avoid a new pandemic due to new SARS-CoV-2 variants. Herein, we developed cotton wipes (CFs) with fibers coated by Ag, TiO, and Ag/TiO hybrid nanoparticles like Brazilian heavy-fruited by a sonochemical approach. Moreover, the coated CFs present high antimicrobial performance against () and (), being able to inactivate infectious SARS-CoV-2 (Delta variant) by the destruction of the spike, membrane, and nucleocapsid proteins while the viral RNA is not significantly affected, according to the molecular biological findings.

Electrospinning is a fiber manufacturing technique with the possibility of encapsulating high levels of small molecule drugs while providing controlled release rates. In this study, electrospun blend fibers were produced from polyethylene oxide (PEO) and ethyl cellulose (EC) at various compositions to encapsulate a poorly water-soluble drug of ibuprofen (IBP) at 30% loading. Microscopic evaluation showed smooth and defect-free fiber morphologies for blank and IBP-loaded PEO/EC fibers. The average fiber diameters and fiber yields suggested a potential optimization on the blend fiber composition for the electrospun drug-eluting PEO/EC fibers, where the highest average fiber diameter and fiber yield occurred at 50PEO/50EC fiber composition. Surface wettability studies demonstrated the effects on surface hydrophobicity from blend fibers of water-soluble PEO and hydrophobic EC as well as the incorporation of IBP. In addition, blend fibers containing more PEO promoted the water absorption rates through dissolution of the polymer matrix. Furthermore, results from mechanical testing of the blend fibers showed the highest fiber elastic modulus and tensile strength at fiber compositions in between 75PEO/25EC and 50PEO/50EC, corresponding to the average fiber diameter measurements. The in vitro IBP release rates demonstrated a dependence on the EC compositions supported by the surface wettability and water absorption rate studies. In general, our work demonstrated the ability to electrospin blank and IBP-loaded PEO/EC fibers with the scientific understandings of EC compositions on modulations of fiber physicomechanical properties and in vitro drug release rates. The findings from the work indicated the potential engineering and pharmaceutical applications of electrospun drug-eluting fibers for topical drug delivery.

Disruption of the reparative process, often found in diabetic patients, results in chronic, non-healing wounds that significantly impact a patient's quality of life. This highlights the need of new therapeutic options to improve the healing of diabetic wounds. In this study, we focused on developing a cell-free hydrogel dressing loaded with mesenchymal stem cell (MSC)-conditioned media (CM) to potentially improve the healing of hard-to-heal wounds. We simulated a hyperglycemic environment by incubating human dermal fibroblasts in a high glucose environment (30 mM) and validated that MSC-CM rescued the impaired functions (proliferation and migration) of hyperglycemic fibroblasts. Further, we investigated the effect of loading MSC-CM in gelatin methacrylate (GelMA)-poly (ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEGDA) hybrid hydrogels in improving the proliferative activity of glucose-treated fibroblasts. The controlled release of bioactive factors from MSC-CM loaded GelMA-PEGDA hydrogels promoted the metabolic activity of hyperglycemic fibroblasts. In addition, the growth rate of hyperglycemic fibroblasts was found to be similar to that of normal fibroblasts. Our observations, thus, suggest the potential application of cell-free, MSC-secretome-loaded hydrogel in the healing of diabetic or chronic wounds.

Polycrystalline spinel ferrite powders of Zn Mg FeO, ( = 0.0, 0.4, 0.8, and 1.0) have been synthesized by solid-state reaction. An antiferromagnetic Néel temperature ( = 25 K) point is observed in ZnFeO while MgFeO shows a strong ferromagnetism. The magnetization value of Zn Mg FeO increases first and then decreases with the increase of . When = 0.8 (ZnMgFeO), the value of the saturation magnetization ( ) reaches a maximum as 85.566 emu/g. The magnetization of Zn Mg FeO shows a very sensitive response to the Mg concentration at the tetrahedral sites (-sites) or the octahedral sites (-sites). I suggest that the super-exchange interaction is enhanced after Mg ions substituting Zn ions.

In the present work, we have investigated the formation of nanostructures on AZ31 magnesium alloy using electrochemical anodization technique. The formed nanostructures were efficiently showed bone-like apatite formation followed by its gradual increase, when immersed in simulated body fluid (SBF) and it exhibited controlled degradation in 7 days. Cell viability study was performed using MG-63 cells (human osteosarcoma cell lines) and revealed that the nanostructured surface has excellent biocompatibility by enhancing both cell adhesion and cell growth. The detailed characterization of this anodized surface was evaluated by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). Furthermore, surface-corrosion before and after anodization was examined by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and potentiodynamic polarization studies in SBF. The in-depth studies bring out the fact that native oxide in the sample is converted to a biocompatible nanostructure, which is created due to anodization in a particular electrolyte solution containing ethylene glycol and hybrid hydrofluoric acid mixture.

The low cost lipase derived from was chosen to conjugate with FeO nanoparitcles as a magnetic responsive lipase (MRL) biocatalyst. The structure of MRL was observed by atomic force microscopy (AFM). The Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy analysis confirmed the lipase conjugated to FeO nanoparticles. Optimized conditions for the process of biodiesel production by MRL were investigated by the response surface methodology (RSM) and the Box-Behnken design (BBD). The optimized conditions for biodiesel production by MRL were as follows. The molar ratio of methanol to oil was 4.0, water content was 1.5 % as oil weight, the dosage of MRL to oil was 9.0 % (W/W) under 41 °C for 28 h. Under the optimized conditions, the yield of FAMEs by MRL reached 82.20 %. Further experiments showed that the MRL could be used 10 cycles and the yield of FAMEs decreased slightly by 10.97 %. These results indicated that FeO nanoparticle carrier could efficiently improve the FAMEs synthesis and enhance the MRL stabilization and reusability in the biodiesel production.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is the most common complex multifactorial joint related autoimmune inflammatory disease with unknown etiology accomplished with increased cardiovascular risks. RA is characterized by the clinical findings of synovial inflammation, autoantibody production, and cartilage/bone destruction, cardiovascular, pulmonary and skeletal disorders. Pro-inflammatory cytokines such as IL-1, IL-6, IL-8, and IL-10 were responsible for the induction of inflammation in RA patients. Drawbacks such as poor efficacy, higher doses, frequent administration, low responsiveness, and higher cost and serious side effects were associated with the conventional dosage forms for RA treatment. Nanomedicines were recently gaining more interest towards the treatment of RA, and researchers were also focusing towards the development of various anti-inflammatory drug loaded nanoformulations with an aid to both actively/passively targeting the inflamed site to afford an effective treatment regimen for RA. Alterations in the surface area and nanoscale size of the nanoformulations elicit beneficial physical and chemical properties for better pharmacological activities. These drug loaded nanoformulations may enhances the solubility of poorly water soluble drugs, improves the bioavailability, affords targetability and may improve the therapeutic activity. In this regimen, the present review focus towards the novel nanoparticulate formulations (nanoparticles, nanoemulsions, solid lipid nanoparticles, nanomicelles, and nanocapsules) utilized for the treatment of RA. The recent advancements such as siRNA, peptide and targeted based nanoparticulate systems for RA treatment were also discussed. Special emphasis was provided regarding the pathophysiology, prevalence and symptoms towards the development of RA.

Two series of thermosensitive hydrogels were synthesized by copolymerizing N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAAm) with various contents of novel hydrophobic crosslinkers, curcumin multiacrylate (CMA) and quercetin multiacrylate (QMA). The compositions of the resulting hydrogels were characterized using solid state-NMR (ss-NMR), and the temperature dependent swelling behavior and lower critical solution temperature (LCST) were characterized using swelling studies and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Increasing the crosslinker content resulted in a significant decrease in the LCST and swelling ratio of hydrogels, which could be attributed to the increased hydrophobicity introduced by CMA or QMA. All of the hydrogels demonstrated temperature responsive swelling with the extent of swelling decreasing with increasing crosslinker content. The lower crosslinker content gels displayed sharper phase transitions, while the high crosslinker content gels had broader phase transitions.