Activated microglial cells play an important role in immune and inflammatory responses in central nervous system and neurodegenerative diseases. Many pro-apoptotic pathways are mediated by signaling molecules that are produced during neuroinflammation. In glial cells, NF-κB, a transcription factor, initiates and regulates the expression of several inflammatory processes during inflammation which are attributed to the pathology of the several neurodegenerative diseases. In this review, we discuss the most important neuroinflammatory mediators with their pathways. Attenuating cytokines production and controlling microglial inflammatory response, which are the result of understanding neuroinflammation pathways, are considered therapeutic strategies for treating neurodegenerative diseases with an inflammatory component.

Swietenia macrophylla King (Meliaceae) is an endangered and medicinally important plant indigenous to tropical and subtropical regions of the World. S. macrophylla has been widely used in folk medicine to treat various diseases. The review reveals that limonoids and its derivatives are the major constituents of S. macrophylla. There are several data in the literature indicating a great variety of pharmacological activities of S. macrophylla, which exhibits antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant effects, antimutagenic, anticancer, antitumor and antidiabetic activities. Various other activities like anti-nociceptive, hypolipidemic, antidiarrhoeal, anti-infective, antiviral, antimalarial, acaricidal, antifeedant and heavy metal phytoremediation activity have also been reported. In view of the immense medicinal importance of S. macrophylla, this review aimed at compiling all currently available information on its ethnomedicinal uses, phytochemistry and biological activities of S. macrophylla, showing its importance.

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Tissue engineering macroporous scaffolds are important for regeneration of large volume defects resulting from diseases such as breast or bone cancers. Another important part of the treatment of these conditions is adjuvant drug therapy to prevent disease recurrence or surgical site infection. In this study, we developed a new type of macroporous scaffolds that have drug loading and release functionality to use in these scenarios. 3D printing allows for building macroporous scaffolds with deterministically designed complex architectures for tissue engineering yet they often have low surface areas thus limiting their drug loading capability. In this proof-of-concept study, we aimed to introduce microscale porosity into macroporous scaffolds to allow for efficient yet simple soak-loading of various clinical drugs and control their release. Manufacturing of scaffolds having both macroporosity and microscale porosity remains a difficult task. Here, we combined porogen leaching and 3D printing to achieve this goal. Porogen microparticles were mixed with medical grade polycaprolactone and extruded into scaffolds having macropores of 0.7 mm in size. After leaching, intra-strut microscale pores were realized with pore size of 20–70 μm and a total microscale porosity of nearly 40%. Doxorubicin (DOX), paclitaxel (PTX) and cefazolin (CEF) were chosen as model drugs of different charges and solubilities to soak-load the scaffolds and achieved loading efficiency of over 80%. The microscale porosity was found to significantly reduce the burst release allowing the microporous scaffolds to release drugs up to 200, 500 and 150 h for DOX, PTX and CEF, respectively. Finally, cell assays were used and confirmed the bioactivities and dose response of the drug-loaded scaffolds. Together, the findings from this proof-of-concept study demonstrate a new type of scaffolds with dual micro-, macro-porosity for tissue engineering applications with intrinsic capability for efficient loading and sustained release of drugs to prevent post-surgery complications.

Biodegradable coronary artery stents are soughtafter alternatives to permanent stents. These devices are designed to degrade after the blood vessel heals, leaving behind a regenerated artery. The original generation of clinically available biodegradable stents required significantly thicker struts (∼150 μm) than nondegradable ones to ensure sufficient mechanical strength. However, these thicker struts proved to be a key contributor to the clinical failure of the stents. A current challenge lies in the fabrication of stents that possess both thin struts and adequate mechanical strength. In this contribution, we describe a method for the bottom-up, additive manufacturing of biodegradable composite stents with ultrathin fibers and superior mechanical properties compared to the base polymer. Specifically, we illustrate that melt electrowriting (MEW) can be used to 3D print composite structures with thin struts (60−80 μm) and a high degree of geometric complexity required for stenting applications. Additionally, this technology allows additive manufacture of personalized stents that are customized to a patient's unique anatomy and disease state. Furthermore, we illustrate that polycaprolactone-reduced graphene oxide nanocomposites have superior mechanical properties compared to original polycaprolactone without detriment to the material's cytocompatibility and that customizable stent-like structures can be fabricated from these materials with struts as thin as 60 μm, well below the target value for clinical use of 80 μm.

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The quest for an advanced soft robotic actuator technology that is fast and can execute a wide range of application-specific tasks at multiple length scales is still ongoing. Here, we demonstrate a new design and manufacturing strategy that leads to high-speed inflatable actuators exhibiting diverse movements. Our approach leverages the concept of miniaturisation to reduce the required volume of fluid for actuation as well as fibre-reinforcement to improve the efficiency of actuators in converting delivered fluids into fast and predictable movement.To fabricate the designs, we employ a class of additive manufacturing technology called melt electrowriting. We demonstrate 3D printing of microfibre architectures on soft elastomers with precision at unprecedently small length scales, leading to miniaturised composite actuators with highly controlled deformation characteristics. We show that owing to their small dimensions and deterministically designed fibrous networks, our actuators require extremely low amounts of fluid to inflate. We demonstrate that actuators with a length of 10 to 15mm and an inner diameter 1mm can reach their full range of motion within ~20ms without exploiting snapping instabilities or material non-linearities. We display the speed of our actuators by building an ultrafast, soft flycatcher. We also show that our actuators outperform their counterparts with respect to achievable movement diversity and complexity.

The quest for an advanced soft robotic actuator technology that is fast and can execute a wide range of application-specific tasks at multiple length scales is still ongoing. Here, we demonstrate a new design strategy leveraging the concepts of miniaturisation and fibre-reinforcement to realize high-speed inflatable actuators exhibiting diverse movements. To fabricate the designs, we employ a class of additive manufacturing technology called melt electrowriting. We demonstrate 3D printing of microfibre architectures on soft elastomers with precision at unprecedently small length scales, leading to miniaturised composite actuators with highly controlled deformation characteristics. We show that owing to their small dimensions and deterministically designed fibrous networks, our actuators require extremely low amounts of fluid to inflate. We demonstrate that actuators with a length of 10 to 15mm and an inner diameter 1mm can reach their full range of motion within ~ 20ms without exploiting snapping instabilities or material non-linearities. We display the speed of our actuators by building an ultrafast, soft flycatcher.