In this paper, CeO 2 nanocubes with the (200)terminated surface/graphene sheet composites have been prepared successfully by a simple hydrothermal method. It is found that the CeO 2 nanocubes with high crystallinity and specific exposed surface are well dispersed on well-exfoliated graphene surface. The (200)-terminated surface/graphene sheet composites modified electrode showed much higher sensitivity and excellent selectivity in its catalytic performance compared to a CeO 2 nanoparticle-modified electrode. The photoluminescence intensity of the CeO 2 anchored on graphene is about 30 times higher than that of pristine CeO 2 crystals in air. The higher oxygen vacancy concentration in CeO 2 is supposed to be an important cause for the higher photoluminescence and better electrochemical catalytic performance observed in the (200)-terminated surface/graphene sheet composites. Such ingenious design of supported well-dispersed catalysts in nanostructured ceria catalysts, synthesized in one step with an exposed high-activity surface, is important for technical applications and theoretical investigations.

This work demonstrates a design strategy to optimize antimicrobial peptides with an ideal balance of minimal cytotoxicity, enhanced stability, potent cell penetration and effective antimicrobial activity, which hold great promise for the treatment of intracellular microbial infections and potentially systemic anti-infective therapy.

Hydrogels are an important class of biomaterials that have been widely utilized for a variety of biomedical/medical applications. The biological performance of hydrogels, particularly those used as wound dressing could be greatly advanced if imbued with inherent antimicrobial activity capable of staving off colonization of the wound site by opportunistic bacterial pathogens. Possessing such antimicrobial properties would also protect the hydrogel itself from being adversely affected by microbial attachment to its surface. We have previously demonstrated the broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity of supramolecular assemblies of cationic multi-domain peptides (MDPs) in solution. Here, we extend the 1-D soluble supramolecular assembly to 3-D hydrogels to investigate the effect of the supramolecular nanostructure and its rheological properties on the antimicrobial activity of self-assembled hydrogels. Among designed MDPs, the bactericidal activity of peptide hydrogels was found to follow an opposite trend to that in solution. Improved antimicrobial activity of self-assembled peptide hydrogels is dictated by the combined effect of supramolecular surface chemistry and storage modulus of the bulk materials, rather than the ability of individual peptides/peptide assemblies to penetrate bacterial cell membrane as observed in solution. The structure–property–activity relationship developed through this study will provide important guidelines for designing biocompatible peptide hydrogels with built-in antimicrobial activity for various biomedical applications.

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A family of hydrophobic borohydride-rich ionic liquids was developed, which exhibited the shortest ignition delay times of 1.7 milliseconds and the lowest viscosity (10 mPa s) of hypergolic ionic fluids, demonstrating their great potential as faster-igniting rocket fuels to replace toxic hydrazine derivatives in liquid bipropellant formulations.

A significant challenge associated with systemic delivery of cationic antimicrobial peptides and polymers lies in their limited hemocompatibility toward vast numbers of circulating red blood cells (RBCs). Supramolecular assembly of cationic peptides and polymers can be an effective strategy to develop an array of antimicrobial nanomaterials with tunable material structures, stability and thus optimized bioactivity to overcome some of the existing challenges associated with conventional antimicrobials. In this work, we will demonstrate the supramolecular design of self-assembling antimicrobial nanofibers (SAANs) which have tunable supramolecular nanostructures, stability, internal molecular packing and surface chemistry through self-assembly of de novo designed cationic peptides and peptide-PEG conjuguates. The interaction of the SAANs with human RBCs was evaluated in a stringent biological assay (beyond a traditional hemolysis assay) where both hemolytic and eryptotic activity were examined to establish a fundamental understanding on the correlation between material structure and hemocompatibility. It was found that although the SAANs showed moderate hemolytic activities, their abilities to induce eryptosis vary significantly and are much more sensitive to the internal molecular packing, supramolecular nanostructure and stability of the nanofiber. Improved hemocompatibility requires PEGylation on stable supramolecular nanofibers composed of highly organized β-sheet structure while PEG conjugation on weakly packed nanofibers composed of partially denatured β-sheets did not show improvement. The current study reveals the fundamental mechanism involved in the selective hemocompatibility improvement of the SAANs upon PEG conjugation. The structure-activity relationship developed in this study will provide important guidance for the future design of a broader family of peptide and polymer-based assemblies with optimized antimicrobial activity and hemocompatibility.

We report here a facile approach to prepare filamentous supramolecular peptide-drug conjugates with precise drug/carrier stoichiometry, nearly 100% loading efficiency and exceptional anti-cancer drug efficacy for chemotherapy.

In this work, we will demonstrate a simple yet powerful strategy to assemble single-chain cationic peptides into macromolecular filamentous nanostructures with dramatically improved membrane activity, stability and transfection efficiency.