The viable use of photodynamic therapy (PDT) in cancer therapy has never been fully realized because of its undesirable effects on healthy tissues. Herein we summarize some physicochemical factors that can make PDT a more viable and effective option to provide future oncological patients with better‐quality treatment options. These physicochemical factors include light sources, photosensitizer (PS) carriers, microwaves, electric fields, magnetic fields, and ultrasound. This Review is meant to provide current information pertaining to PDT use, including a discussion of in vitro and in vivo studies. Emphasis is placed on the physicochemical factors and their potential benefits in overcoming the difficulty in transitioning PDT into the medical field. Many advanced techniques, such as employing X‐rays as a light source, using nanoparticle‐loaded stem cells and bacteriophage bio‐nanowires as a photosensitizer carrier, as well as integration with immunotherapy, are among the future directions.

We generalize the quantal density functional theory (QDFT) of electrons in the presence of an external electrostatic field E (r) = −∇v(r) to include an external magnetostatic field B(r) = ∇ × A(r), where {v(r), A(r)} are the respective scalar and vector potentials. The generalized QDFT, valid for nondegenerate ground and excited states, is the mapping from the interacting system of electrons to a model of noninteracting fermions with the same density ρ(r) and physical current density j(r), and from which the total energy can be obtained. The properties {ρ(r), j(r)} constitute the basic quantum mechanical variables because, as proved previously, for a nondegenerate ground state they uniquely determine the potentials {v(r), A(r)}. The mapping to the noninteracting system is arbitrary in that the model fermions may be either in their ground or excited state. The theory is explicated by application to a ground state of the exactly solvable (2-dimensional) Hooke's atom in a magnetic field, with the mapping being to a model system also in its ground state. The majority of properties of the model are obtained in closed analytical or semi-analytical form. A comparison with the corresponding mapping from a ground state of the (3-dimensional) Hooke's atom in the absence of a magnetic field is also made.

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Bacteriophage, also called phage, is a human-safe bacteria-specific virus. It is a monodisperse biological nanostructure made of proteins (forming the outside surface) and nucleic acids (encased in the protein capsid). Among different types of phages, filamentous phages have received great attention in tissue regeneration research due to their unique nanofiber-like morphology. They can be produced in an error-free format, self-assemble into ordered scaffolds, display multiple signaling peptides site-specifically, and serve as a platform for identifying novel signaling or homing peptides. They can direct stem cell differentiation into specific cell types when they are organized into proper patterns or display suitable peptides. These unusual features have allowed scientists to employ them to regenerate a variety of tissues, including bone, nerves, cartilage, skin, and heart. This review will summarize the progress in the field of phage-based tissue regeneration and the future directions in this field.

Antiangiogenesis is a promising approach to cancer therapy but is limited by the lack of tumor‐homing capability of the current antiangiogenic agents. Angiogenin, a protein overexpressed and secreted by tumors to trigger angiogenesis for their growth, has never been explored as an antiangiogenic target in cancer therapy. Here it is shown that filamentous fd phage, as a biomolecular biocompatible nanofiber, can be engineered to become capable of first homing to orthotopic breast tumors and then capturing angiogenin to prevent tumor angiogenesis, resulting in targeted cancer therapy without side effects. The phage is genetically engineered to display many copies of an identified angiogenin‐binding peptide on its side wall and multiple copies of a breast‐tumor‐homing peptide at its tip. Since the tumor‐homing peptide can be discovered and customized virtually toward any specific cancer by phage display, the angiogenin‐binding phages are thus universal “plug‐and‐play” tumor‐homing cancer therapeutics.

Local effective potential theory, both stationary-state and time-dependent, constitutes the mapping from a system of electrons in an external field to one of the noninteracting fermions possessing the same basic variable such as the density, thereby enabling the determination of the energy and other properties of the electronic system. This paper is a description via Quantal Density Functional Theory (QDFT) of the electron correlations that must be accounted for in such a mapping. It is proved through QDFT that independent of the form of external field, (a) it is possible to map to a model system possessing all the basic variables; and that (b) with the requirement that the model fermions are subject to the same external fields, the only correlations that must be considered are those due to the Pauli exclusion principle, Coulomb repulsion, and Correlation-Kinetic effects. The cases of both a static and time-dependent electromagnetic field, for which the basic variables are the density and physical current density, are considered. The examples of solely an external electrostatic or time-dependent electric field constitute special cases. An efficacious unification in terms of electron correlations, independent of the type of external field, is thereby achieved. The mapping is explicated for the example of a quantum dot in a magnetostatic field, and for a quantum dot in a magnetostatic and time-dependent electric field.

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