Metastases and cancer recurrence are the main causes of cancer death. Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs) and disseminated tumor cells are the drivers of cancer cell dissemination. The assessment of CTCs’ clinical role in early metastasis prediction, diagnosis, and treatment requires more information about their biology, their roles in cancer dormancy, and immune evasion as well as in therapy resistance. Indeed, CTC functional and biochemical phenotypes have been only partially characterized using murine metastasis models and liquid biopsy in human patients. CTC detection, characterization, and enumeration represent a promising tool for tailoring the management of each patient with cancer. The comprehensive understanding of CTCs will provide more opportunities to determine their clinical utility. This review provides much-needed insights into this dynamic field of translational cancer research.

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Novel advanced hydrogels can provide a versatile platform for controlled delivery and release of various cargos, with a myriad of biomedical applications. These gel-based nanostructures possess good biocompatibility, biodegradability, flexibility, multifunctionality, can respond to internal or external stimuli, and can adapt to their surrounding environment. This new generation of hydrogels is not only capable of serving as targeted drug delivery vehicles, but they can also perform a variety of tasks within living cells and organisms. In this review, advanced hydrogels are classified as static, dynamic, multistage, or bioinspired. They can be used as cell-free gene expression platforms for gene therapy. Administration of nanogel-based sprays can act as an immunovaccine priming macrophages toward the M1 phenotype to avoid cancer recurrence following surgery. Nanogels can also serve as a dual biosensing and capture platform for liquid biopsies, and can recognize and remove circulating cancer cells from the blood of cancer patients.

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In the present study, the effect of graphene/water nanofluid on the thermal performance of a two-phase closed thermosiphon (TPCT) has been considered. For the synthesis of the mentioned nanofluids, graphene with a thickness of 4–20 nm and length of 5–10 μm has been employed. Due to the natural instability of graphene in polar solvents such as water, gum arabic (GA) has been utilized as a surfactant. Then, various nanofluids at weight concentrations of 0.02–1% were prepared and thermal properties were investigated at the input power of 30–150 W. In agreement with the results, as the weight concentration increased, the overall heat transfer coefficient and thermal efficiency of the TPCT were enhanced. On the other hand, increasing the nanofluid weight concentration and input power led to lower thermal resistance of the TPCT. Interestingly, the rate of change of the temperature in the evaporator has been studied as one of the key parameters affecting the thermal resistance and overall heat transfer coefficient of the TPCT. Increasing the concentration has compounded the reduction of the average temperature of evaporation, which has confirmed the reduction in thermal resistance. Meanwhile, the overall heat transfer coefficient increased with rising concentration at the permanent input power. Also, the vacuum pressure results showed that increasing the concentration of nanofluid led to the vacuum pressure drop being intensified.

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Exploration of tumor immunity leads to the development of immune checkpoint inhibitors and cell-based immunotherapies which improve the clinical outcomes in several tumor types. However, the poor clinical efficacy of these treatments observed for other tumors could be attributed to the inherent complex tumor microenvironment (TME), cellular heterogeneity, and stemness driven by cancer stem cells (CSCs). CSC-specific characteristics provide the bulk tumor surveillance and resistance to entire eradication upon conventional therapies. CSCs-immune cells crosstalk creates an immunosuppressive TME that reshapes the stemness in tumor cells, resulting in tumor formation and progression. Thus, identifying the immunological features of CSCs could introduce the therapeutic targets with powerful antitumor responses. In this review, we summarized the role of immune cells providing CSCs to evade tumor immunity, and then discussed the intrinsic mechanisms represented by CSCs to promote tumors’ resistance to immunotherapies. Then, we outlined potent immunotherapeutic interventions followed by a perspective outlook on the use of nanomedicine-based drug delivery systems for controlled modulation of the immune system.

Advanced forms of hydrogels have many inherently desirable properties and can be designed with different structures and functions. In particular, bioresponsive multifunctional hydrogels can carry out sophisticated biological functions. These include in situ single-cell approaches, capturing, analysis, and release of living cells, biomimetics of cell, tissue, and tumor-specific niches. They can allow in vivo cell manipulation and act as novel drug delivery systems, allowing diagnostic, therapeutic, vaccination, and immunotherapy methods. In the present review of multitasking hydrogels, new approaches and devices classified into point-of-care testing (POCT), microarrays, single-cell/rare cell approaches, artificial membranes, biomimetic modeling systems, nanodoctors, and microneedle patches are summarized. The potentials and application of each format are critically discussed, and some limitations are highlighted. Finally, how hydrogels can enable an "all-in-one platform" to play a key role in cancer therapy, regenerative medicine, and the treatment of inflammatory, degenerative, genetic, and metabolic diseases is being looked forward to.