Tissue engineered conduits have great promise for bridging peripheral nerve defects by providing physical guiding and biological cues. A flexible method for integrating support cells into a conduit with desired architectures is wanted. Here, a 3D-printing technology is adopted to prepare a bio-conduit with designer structures for peripheral nerve regeneration. This bio-conduit is consisted of a cryopolymerized gelatin methacryloyl (cryoGelMA) gel cellularized with adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs). By modeling using 3D-printed “lock and key” moulds, the cryoGelMA gel is structured into conduits with different geometries, such as the designed multichannel or bifurcating and the personalized structures. The cryoGelMA conduit is degradable and could be completely degraded in 2-4 months in vivo. The cryoGelMA scaffold supports the attachment, proliferation and survival of the seeded ASCs, and up-regulates the expression of their neurotrophic factors mRNA in vitro. After implanted in a rat model, the bio-conduit is capable of supporting the re-innervation across a 10 mm sciatic nerve gap, with results close to that of the autografts in terms of functional and histological assessments. The study describes an indirect 3D-printing technology for fabricating cellularized designer conduits for peripheral nerve regeneration, and could lead to the development of future nerve bio-conduits for clinical use.

It remains highly challenging to identify small molecule‐based photothermal agents with a high photothermal conversion efficiency (PTCE). Herein, we adopt a double bond‐based molecular motor concept to develop a new class of small photothermal agents to break the current design bottleneck. As the double‐bond is twisted by strong twisted intramolecular charge transfer (TICT) upon irradiation, the excited agents can deactivate non‐radiatively through the conical intersection (CI) of internal conversion, which is called photoinduced nonadiabatic decay. Such agents possess a high PTCE of 90.0 %, facilitating low‐temperature photothermal therapy in the presence of a heat shock protein 70 inhibitor. In addition, the behavior and mechanism of NIR laser‐triggered molecular motions for generating heat through the CI pathway have been further understood through theoretical and experimental evidence, providing a design principle for highly efficient photothermal and photoacoustic agents.

A robust platform is developed to assemble sub-10 nm organic aggregation-induced emission (AIE) particles using four different AIE luminogens (AIEgens) with emissions from green to the second near-infrared window (NIR-II). They are called AIE quantum dots (QDs) to distinguish from typical AIE dots which are larger than 25 nm. Compared with AIE dots that are larger than 25 nm, AIE QDs allow more efficient cellular uptake and imaging without surface modification of any membrane-penetrating peptides or other targeting molecules. NIR-II AIEgens, which have nearly no background fluorescence from organisms, are used to demonstrate that AIE QDs can achieve high contrast at the tumor as small as 80 mm 3 and evade the liver more efficiently than AIE dots. AIE QDs hold a good promise for sensitive and precise diagnosis of the latent solid tumor in clinical medicine with much lower offtargeting to the liver than AIE dots.

We report that carbonate esters could turn hydrophobic camptothecin (CPT)-unsaturated fatty acid prodrugs into nanoaggregates in aqueous solution. The active CPT could be rapidly released once triggered by a reductive stimulus when a carbonate ester was combined with a disulfide bond, resulting in a potent in vivo antitumor activity.

Some pathogens can be naturally recognized and internalized by antigen presentation cells (APCs) in vivo, providing a platform for efficient vaccine delivery. However, the biosafety concerns discourage the clinical applications of live pathogens. Here, yeast-derived microparticles were prepared for cancer vaccine delivery. By chemical treatment of bread yeast, capsular yeast shell (YS) microparticles were obtained. Ovalbumin (OVA), as a model antigen, was conjugated to the surface of YS. Results indicated that these YS microparticles with a uniform size of ~3.4 μm can be recognized and internalized by dendritic cells (DCs). The YS-mediated antigen delivery can enhance the cellular uptake of antigen by DCs, promote the maturation of DCs, and trigger DCs to release immune co-stimulatory molecules. Immunization with YS-mediated antigen can induce an effective immune response against tumor cells in vivo, with contributions from both humoral and cellular immunity. This work suggests that yeast shell microparticles as efficient vaccine delivery system has promising applications in cancer immunotherapy.

Gene therapy has great promise for glioblastoma treatment; however, it remains a great challenge to efficiently deliver genes to the brain. The incomplete resection of glioblastoma always leads to poor prognosis. Here, a 3D‐engineered conformal implant for eradicating the postsurgery residual glioblastoma is designed. This implant is constructed by 3D‐printing technology to match the tumor cavity and release an oncolytic virus‐inspired DNA nanocomplex to kill glioblastoma cells through apoptosis induction. Meanwhile, a 3D‐engineered subcutaneous glioblastoma xenograft is built to mimic the resection tumor cavity in mice. Insertion of the implant into the glioblastoma resection cavity efficiently delays tumor recurrence and significantly prolongs overall survival. This study provides a proof‐of‐concept of glioblastoma therapy using a conformal implant that releases oncolytic DNA nanocomplexs. This strategy can lead to the development of future precision therapy for eradicating postsurgery residual tumors.

Clearance of bacteria-secreted toxins can be a benefit to treating bacterial infections. In this study, we show a polydiacetylene (PDA) nanoparticle-functionalized microgel for managing topical bacterial infections. These functional microgels with designed shapes and size are precisely fabricated via a digital light processing (DLP)-based 3D bioprinting process. The PDA nanoparticles that can bind and neutralize pore-forming toxins (PFTs) are installed in the microgels by readily mixing within the monomer solution followed by 3D printing. PFTs can diffuse into the microgels and subsequently are captured and neutralized by the PDA nanoparticles. In the mouse model, the local injection of the microgels promotes tissue recovery after bacterial infections. This work presents a PDA nanoparticle-functionalized microgel for topical bacterial infection treatments by removing PFTs, which could inspire future infection treatments.

Oxygen therapy remains the main component of the ventilation strategy for treatment of patients with acute lung injury. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBO(2)) is the intermittent administration of 100% oxygen at pressure greater than sea level and has been applied widely to alleviate a variety of hypoxia-related tissue injuries. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of hyperbaric oxygen on acute lung injury induced by intratracheal spraying of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in rats. Male Sprague-Dawley rats underwent implantation of a carotid artery catheter under general anesthesia. Aerosolized LPS was delivered twice into the lungs via intratracheal puncture. Animals were either breathing room air (n = 27) or subjected to hyperbaric oxygen (HBO(2)) exposure (n = 27) 1 h after LPS spraying. Acute lung injury was evaluated 5 h and 24 h later. Compared with the control group, intratracheal spraying of LPS caused profound hypoxemia, greater wet/dry weight ratio (W/D) of the lung (5.67 +/- 0.22 vs. 4.98 +/- 0.19), and higher protein concentration (1706 +/- 168 vs. 200 +/- 90 mg/L) and LDH activity (129 +/- 30 vs. 46 +/- 15, mAbs/min) in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid. Intratracheal spraying of LPS also caused significant WBC sequestration in the lung tissue. HBO2 treatment significantly reverted hypoxemia, reduced lung injury measures evaluated at 5 and 24 h, and enhanced 24-h animal survival rate (chi = 5.08, P = 0.024). The malondialdehyde (MDA) concentrations in lung tissue and serum were both increased after LPS spraying. Neither single HBO(2) therapy nor five sequential daily treatments enhanced MDA production in lung tissue or serum. Our results suggested that hyperbaric oxygen might reduce acute lung injury caused by intratracheal spraying of LPS in rats. This treatment modality is not associated with enhancement of oxidative stress to the lung.