Ferroptosis, an emerging type of cell death found in the past decades, features specifically lipid peroxidation during the cell death process commonly by iron accumulation. Unfortunately, however, the direct delivery of iron species may trigger undesired detrimental effects such as anaphylactic reactions in normal tissues. Up to date, reports on the cellular ferroptosis by using nonferrous metal elements can be rarely found. In this work, we propose a nonferrous ferroptosis-like strategy based on hybrid CoMoO 4 -phosphomolybdic acid nanosheet (CPMNS)-enabled lipid peroxide (LOOH) accumulation via accelerated Mo(V)-Mo(VI) transition, elevated GSH depletion for GPX4 enzyme deactivation, and ROS burst, for efficient ferroptosis and chemotherapy. Both in vitro and in vivo outcomes demonstrate the notable anticancer ferroptosis efficacy, suggesting the high feasibility of this CPMNS-enabled ferroptosis-like therapeutic concept. It is highly expected that such ferroptosis-like design in nanocatalytic medicine would be beneficial to future advances in the field of cancer-therapeutic regimens.

Magnetic-based theranostics feature a high efficiency, excellent tissue penetration, and minimal damage to normal tissues, are noninvasive, and are widely used in the diagnosis and therapy of clinical diseases. Herein, a conceptually novel magnetostrictive-piezoelectric nanocatalytic medicine (MPE-NCM) for tumor therapy is proposed by initiating an intratumoral magneto-driven and piezoelectric-catalyzed reaction using core–shell structured CoFe2O4–BiFeO3 magnetostrictive-piezoelectric nanoparticles (CFO-BFO NPs) under an alternating magnetic field. The CFO-BFO NPs catalyze the generation of cytotoxic reactive oxygen species (ROS): superoxide radicals (•O2 –) and hydroxyl radicals (•OH). The simulation calculation demonstrates the highly controllable electric polarization, facilitating the above catalytic reactions under the magnetic stimulation. Both a detailed cell-level assessment and the tumor xenograft evaluation evidence the significant tumor eradication efficacy of MPE-NCM. This study proposes an original and novel magneto-responsive nanocatalytic modality for cancer therapy, which displays promising prospects for the future clinic translation owing to its excellent catalytic dynamic responsiveness, high therapeutic efficacy, and biosafety in vivo.

Emerging piezocatalysts have demonstrated their remarkable application potential in diverse medical fields. In addition to their ultrahigh catalytic activities, their inherent and unique charge-carrier-releasing properties can be used to initiate various redox catalytic reactions, displaying bright prospects for future medical applications. Triggered by mechanical energy, piezocatalytic materials can release electrons/holes, catalyze redox reactions of substrates, or intervene in biological processes to promote the production of effector molecules for medical purposes, such as decontamination, sterilization, and therapy. Such a medical application of piezocatalysis is termed as piezocatalytic medicine (PCM) herein. To pioneer novel medical technologies, especially therapeutic modalities, this review provides an overview of the state-of-the-art research progress in piezocatalytic medicine. First, the principle of piezocatalysis and the preparation methodologies of piezoelectric materials are introduced. Then, a comprehensive summary of the medical applications of piezocatalytic materials in tumor treatment, antisepsis, organic degradation, tissue repair and regeneration, and biosensing is provided. Finally, the main challenges and future perspectives in piezocatalytic medicine are discussed and proposed, expecting to fuel the development of this emerging scientific discipline.

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As an emerging therapeutic gas, hydrogen (H2) is gifted with excellent biosafety, high tissue permeability, and radical-trapping capacity and is extensively considered as a highly promising antioxidant in clinics. However, a facile and effective strategy of H2 production for major inflammatory disease treatments is still lacking. In this study, by a facile wet-chemical exfoliation synthesis, a hydrogen-terminated silicon nanosheet (H-silicene) has been synthesized, which can favorably react with environmental water to generate H2 rapidly and continuously without any external energy input. Furthermore, theoretical calculations were employed to reveal the mechanism of enhanced H2 generation efficacy of H-silicene nanosheets. The as-synthesized H-silicene has been explored as a flexible hydrogen gas generator for efficient antioxidative stress application for the first time, which highlights a promising prospect of this two-dimensional H-silicene nanomaterial for acute inflammatory treatments by on-demand H2 production-enabled reactive oxygen species scavenging. This study provides a novel and efficient modality for nanomaterial-mediated H2 therapy.

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Nanocatalysts with enzyme-like catalytic activities, such as oxidase mimics, are extensively used in biomedicine and environmental treatment. Searching for enzyme-like nanomaterials, clarifying the origins of the catalytic activity and developing activity assessment methodologies are therefore of great significance. Here, we report that oxidase catalysis and oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) electrocatalysis can be well bridged based on their identical activity origins, which makes facile electrocatalytic ORR activity measurements intrinsically applicable to oxidase-like activity evaluations. Inspired by natural heme-copper oxidases, Cu/Fe-doped single-atom catalysts (SACs) were first synthesized and used as model catalysts. Chromogenic reactions, electrochemical voltammetric measurements and density functional theory calculations further verify the linear relationship between the oxidase-like and ORR catalytic activities of the catalysts; thus, an effective descriptor ($| {\overline {{j_{\rm{n}}}} } |$) is proposed for rapid enzymatic catalyst evaluation. The enhanced tumour therapeutic efficacy of SACs has been evidenced to result from their oxidase-like/ORR activities, which proves that numerous ORR electrocatalysts are promising candidates for oxidase mimics and tumour therapy. The synergistic catalytic effect of the biomimetic heterobinuclear Cu-Fe centres has also been thoroughly probed.