Healthcare data are a valuable source of healthcare intelligence. Sharing of healthcare data is one essential step to make healthcare system smarter and improve the quality of healthcare service. Healthcare data, one personal asset of patient, should be owned and controlled by patient, instead of being scattered in different healthcare systems, which prevents data sharing and puts patient privacy at risks. Blockchain is demonstrated in the financial field that trusted, auditable computing is possible using a decentralized network of peers accompanied by a public ledger. In this paper, we proposed an App (called Healthcare Data Gateway (HGD)) architecture based on blockchain to enable patient to own, control and share their own data easily and securely without violating privacy, which provides a new potential way to improve the intelligence of healthcare systems while keeping patient data private. Our proposed purpose-centric access model ensures patient own and control their healthcare data; simple unified Indicator-Centric Schema (ICS) makes it possible to organize all kinds of personal healthcare data practically and easily. We also point out that MPC (Secure Multi-Party Computing) is one promising solution to enable untrusted third-party to conduct computation over patient data without violating privacy.
Genome editing offers promising solutions to genetic disorders by editing DNA sequences or modulating gene expression. The clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/associated protein 9 (CRISPR/Cas9) technology can be used to edit single or multiple genes in a wide variety of cell types and organisms in vitro and in vivo. Herein, we review the rapidly developing CRISPR/Cas9-based technologies for disease modeling and gene correction and recent progress toward Cas9/guide RNA (gRNA) delivery based on viral and nonviral vectors. We discuss the relative merits of delivering the genome editing elements in the form of DNA, mRNA, or protein, and the opportunities of combining viral delivery of a transgene encoding Cas9 with nonviral delivery of gRNA. We highlight the lessons learned from nonviral gene delivery in the past three decades and consider their applicability for CRISPR/Cas9 delivery. We also include a discussion of bioinformatics tools for gRNA design and chemical modifications of gRNA. Finally, we consider the extracellular and intracellular barriers to nonviral CRISPR/Cas9 delivery and propose strategies that may overcome these barriers to realize the clinical potential of CRISPR/Cas9-based genome editing.
A foundation of the modern technology that uses single-crystal silicon has been the growth of high-quality single-crystal Si ingots with diameters up to 12 inches or larger. For many applications of graphene, large-area high-quality (ideally of single-crystal) material will be enabling. Since the first growth on copper foil a decade ago, inch-sized single-crystal graphene has been achieved. We present here the growth, in 20 minutes, of a graphene film of 5 50 cm 2 dimension with > 99% ultra-highly oriented grains. This growth was achieved by: (i) synthesis of sub-metre-sized single-crystal Cu (111) foil as substrate; (ii) epitaxial growth of graphene islands on the Cu(111) surface; (iii) seamless merging of such graphene islands into a graphene film with high single crystallinity and (iv) the ultrafast growth of graphene film. These achievements were realized by a temperature-driven annealing technique to produce single-crystal Cu(111) from industrial polycrystalline Cu foil and the marvellous effects of a continuous oxygen supply from an adjacent oxide. The as-synthesized graphene film, with very few misoriented grains (if any), has a mobility up to ~ 23,000 cm 2 V -1 s -1 at 4 K and room temperature sheet resistance of ~ 230 □ ⁄ . It is very likely that this approach can be scaled up to achieve exceptionally large and highquality graphene films with single crystallinity, and thus realize various industrial-level applications at a low cost.
Metal nanoclusters, composed of several to a few hundred metal atoms, have received worldwide attention due to their extraordinary physical and chemical characteristics. Recently, great efforts have been devoted to the exploration of the potential diagnostic and therapeutic applications of metal nanoclusters. Here we focus on the recent advances and new horizons in this area, and introduce the rising progress on the use of metal nanoclusters for biological analysis, biological imaging, therapeutic applications, DNA assembly and logic gate construction, enzyme mimic catalysis, as well as thermometers and pH meters. Furthermore, the future challenges in the construction of biofunctional metal nanoclusters for diagnostic and therapeutic applications are also discussed. We expect that the rapidly growing interest in metal nanocluster-based theranostic applications will certainly not only fuel the excitement and stimulate research in this highly active field, but also inspire broader concerns across various disciplines.
Selectively exposing active surfaces and judiciously tuning the near-surface composition of electrode materials represent two prominent means of promoting electrocatalytic performance. Here, a new class of Pt Fe zigzag-like nanowires (Pt-skin Pt Fe z-NWs) with stable high-index facets (HIFs) and nanosegregated Pt-skin structure is reported, which are capable of substantially boosting electrocatalysis in fuel cells. These unique structural features endow the Pt-skin Pt Fe z-NWs with a mass activity of 2.11 A mg and a specifc activity of 4.34 mA cm for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) at 0.9 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode, which are the highest in all reported PtFe-based ORR catalysts. Density function theory calculations reveal a combination of exposed HIFs and formation of Pt-skin structure, leading to an optimal oxygen adsorption energy due to the ligand and strain effects, which is responsible for the much enhanced ORR activities. In contrast to previously reported HIFs-based catalysts, the Pt-skin Pt Fe z-NWs maintain ultrahigh durability with little activity decay and negligible structure transformation after 50 000 potential cycles. Overcoming a key technical barrier in electrocatalysis, this work successfully extends the nanosegregated Pt-skin structure to nanocatalysts with HIFs, heralding the exciting prospects of high-effcient Pt-based catalysts in fuel cells.
Controlled delivery of protein therapeutics remains a challenge. Here, the inclusion of diselenide-bond-containing organosilica moieties into the framework of silica to fabricate biodegradable mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) with oxidative and redox dual-responsiveness is reported. These diselenide-bridged MSNs can encapsulate cytotoxic RNase A into the 8-10 nm internal pores via electrostatic interaction and release the payload via a matrix-degradation controlled mechanism upon exposure to oxidative or redox conditions. After surface cloaking with cancer-cell-derived membrane fragments, these bioinspired RNase A-loaded MSNs exhibit homologous targeting and immune-invasion characteristics inherited from the source cancer cells. The efficient in vitro and in vivo anti-cancer performance, which includes increased blood circulation time and enhanced tumor accumulation along with low toxicity, suggests that these cell-membrane-coated, dual-responsive degradable MSNs represent a promising platform for the delivery of bio-macromolecules such as protein and nucleic acid therapeutics.
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