Enzyme-instructed self-assembly (EISA) offers a facile approach to explore the supramolecular assemblies of small molecules in cellular milieu for a variety of biomedical applications. One of the commonly used enzymes is phosphatase, but the study of the substrates of phosphatases mainly focuses on the phosphotyrosine containing peptides. In this work, we examine the EISA of phosphoserine containing small peptides for the first time by designing and synthesizing a series of precursors containing only phosphoserine or both phosphoserine and phosphotyrosine. Conjugating a phosphoserine to the C-terminal of a well-established self-assembling peptide backbone, (naphthalene-2-ly)-acetyl-diphenylalanine (NapFF), affords a novel hydrogelation precursor for EISA. The incorporation of phosphotyrosine, another substrate of phosphatase, into the resulting precursor, provides one more enzymatic trigger on a single molecule, and meanwhile increases the precursors’ propensity to aggregate after being fully dephosphorylated. Exchanging the positions of phosphorylated serine and tyrosine in the peptide backbone provides insights on how the specific molecular structures influence self-assembling behaviors of small peptides and the subsequent cellular responses. Moreover, the utilization of D-amino acids largely enhances the biostability of the peptides, thus providing a unique soft material for potential biomedical applications.

The patient receives a pharmaceutical product, not a drug. The pharmaceutical products are formulated with a drug, an active ingredient to produce the maximum therapeutic effect after oral absorption. Therefore, it is the product we must optimize for the patients. In order to assure the safety and efficacy of pharmaceutical products, we need an in vivo predictive tool for oral product performance in patients. Currently, we are a surprisingly long way from accomplishing that objective. If the 20th century was the ‘age of the drug’, i.e., the ‘magic bullet’, the 21st century must become the ‘age of the guided missile’, i.e., the delivery system, including the form of the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) (‘drug’). The physical form of the drug and the delivery system must be optimized to maximize the therapeutic benefits of pharmaceutical products for humans. Oral immediate release (IR) dosage forms cannot be optimal for all drugs or likely even any drugs (APIs). Still, the formulation of pharmaceutical products has to be optimized for patients. But how do we optimize oral delivery of drugs? It is usually through ‘trial and error’, in humans! We need a better way to optimize the oral dosage forms. We have suggested to select different dissolution methodologies for this optimization based on BCS Subclasses. In this article, we present the predicted in vivo drug dissolution profile of ketoconazole as a model drug from our laboratory utilizing a gastrointestinal simulator (GIS), which is an adaptation of the ASD system. GIS consists of three chambers representing stomach, duodenum, and jejunum, to create the human gastrointestinal tract-like environment and enable the control the gastric emptying rate. This dissolution system allows the monitoring of the drug dissolution phenomena and the observation of the supersaturation and the precipitation of pharmaceutical products, which is useful information to predict in vivo dissolution of pharmaceutical products. This system can provide the actual input needed to accurately predict the input into the systemic circulation required by many of the absorption prediction packages available today.

The application of gene delivery materials has been mainly focused on mammalian cells while rarely extended to plant engineering. Cationic polymers and lipids have been widely utilized to efficiently deliver DNA and siRNA into mammalian cells. However, their application in plant cells is limited due to the different membrane structures and the presence of plant cell walls. In this study, we developed the cationic, α-helical polypeptide that can effectively deliver DNA into both isolated Arabidopsis thaliana protoplasts and intact leaves. The PPABLG was able to condense DNA to form nanocomplexes, and they exhibited significantly improved transfection efficiencies compared with commercial transfection reagent Lipofectamine 2000 and classical cell penetrating peptides such as poly(L-lysine), HIV-TAT, arginine9, and poly(L-arginine). This study therefore widens the utilities of helical polypeptide as a unique category of gene delivery materials, and may find their promising applications toward plant gene delivery.

An anticancer drug delivery system consisting of DNA nanoparticles synthesized by rolling circle amplification (RCA) was developed for prostate cancer membrane antigen (PSMA) targeted cancer therapy. The template of RCA was a DNA oligodeoxynucleotide coded with PSMA-targeted aptamer, drug-loading domain, primer binding site and pH-sensitive spacer. Anticancer drug doxorubicin, as the model drug, was loaded into the drug-loading domain (multiple GC-pair sequences) of the DNA nanoparticles by intercalation. Due to the integrated pH-sensitive spacers in the nanoparticles, in an acidic environment, the cumulative release of doxorubicin was far more than the cumulative release of the drug in the normal physiological environment. In cell uptake experiments, treated with doxorubicin loaded DNA nanoparticles, PSMA-positive C4-2 cells could take up more doxorubicin than PSMA-null PC-3 cells. The prepared DNA nanoparticles showed the potential as drug delivery system for PSMA targeting prostate cancer therapy.

In this study, we developed a three-stage catalyst-adsorbent reactor for the catalytic hydrolysis of CF₄. Each stage is composed of a catalyst bed followed by an adsorbent bed using Ca(OH)₂ to remove HF. The three stages are connected in series to enhance the hydrolysis of CF₄ and eliminate a scrubber to dissolve HF in water at the same time. With a 10 wt-% Ce/Al₂O₃ catalyst prepared by the incipient wetness method using boehmite and a granular calcium hydroxide as an adsorbent, the CF₄ conversion in our proposed reactor was 7%–23% higher than that in a conventional single-bed catalytic reactor in the temperature range of 923–1023 K. In addition, experimental and numerical simulation (Aspen HYSYS^®) results showed a reasonable trend of increased CF₄ conversion with the adsorbent added and these results can be used as a useful design guideline for our newly proposed multistage reactor system.

The effects of Na⁺, Mg²⁺, Al³⁺ and Fe³⁺ ion concentrations on the crystal morphology of calcium sulfate hemihydrate whiskers formed via a hydrothermal method have been studied. In the presence of Al³⁺ concentrations higher than 1×10⁻³ mol/L the whiskers were significantly shorter and thicker and the presence of Mg²⁺ and Fe³⁺ resulted in shorter whiskers. The presence of Na⁺ did not affect the morphology of the whiskers. Through elemental analysis, it was determined that Mg²⁺ and Al³⁺ were selectively adsorbed on the surfaces of the crystals, whereas Fe³⁺ underwent a hydrolysis reaction to form a brown precipitate which decreased the ion concentration in the solution. These results indicate that in raw materials used for the industrial preparation of calcium sulfate whiskers, Al³⁺ and Fe³⁺ should be removed and the Mg²⁺ concentration should be less than 8 × 10⁻³ mol/L in order to obtain pure whiskers with high aspect ratios.

Bleached bamboo kraft pulp was pretreated by 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine-1-oxy radical (TEMPO)-mediated oxidation using a TEMPO/NaBr/NaClO system at pH= 10 in water to facilitate mechanical disintegration into TEMPO-oxidized cellulose nanofibrils (TO-CNs). A series of TO-CNs with different carboxylate contents were obtained by varying amounts of added NaClO. An increase in carboxylate contents results in aqueous TO-CN dispersions with higher yield, zeta potential values, and optical transparency. When carboxylate groups are introduced, the DP_v value of the TO-CNs remarkably decreases and then levels off. And the presence of hemicellulose in the pulp is favorable to TEMPO oxidization. After the oxidization, the native cellulose I crystalline structure and crystal size of bamboo pulp are almost maintained. TEM micrographs revealed that the degree of nanofibrillation is directly proportional to the carboxylate contents. With increasing carboxylate contents, the free-standing TO-CN films becomes more transparent and mechanically stronger. The oxygen permeability of PLA films drastically decreases from 355 for neat PLA to 8.4 mL·m⁻²·d⁻¹ after coating a thin layer of TO-CN with a carboxylate content of 1.8 mmol·g⁻¹. Therefore, inexpensive and abundant bamboo pulp would be a promising starting material to isolate cellulose nanfibrils for oxygen-barrier applications.

In the transformation of methanol to gasoline (MTG), the selectivity to gasoline and the aromatic content in the produced gasoline are important factors. The catalytic activities of steam-treated and non-steam-treated nano-scale H-ZSM-5 (NHZ5) catalysts impregnated with Ag(I), Zn(II) or P(V) have been investigated in a continuous flow fixed bed reactor. The NH₃-TPD results showed that after impregnation, the Ag/NHZ5, Zn/NHZ5 and P/NHZ5 catalysts contained comparatively more strong, medium-strong and weak acid sites, respectively. Treatment with steam decreased the number of acid sites in all the catalysts, but the pore volumes in the catalysts were larger which improved carbon deposition resistance resulting in prolonged lifetimes. After 6 h of MTG reaction, the selectivity to gasoline for the steam-treated catalysts, {{\displaystyle \mathrm{A}\mathrm{g}}}_{{\mathrm{H}}_{\mathrm{2}}\mathrm{O}}/\mathrm{N}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{Z}\mathrm{5}, {\mathrm{Z}\mathrm{n}}_{{\mathrm{H}}_{\mathrm{2}}\mathrm{O}}/\mathrm{N}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{Z}\mathrm{5} and {{\displaystyle \mathrm{P}}}_{{\mathrm{H}}_{\mathrm{2}}\mathrm{O}}/\mathrm{N}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{Z}\mathrm{5} were 70.5, 68.4 and 68.7 wt-%, respectively, whereas their respective aromatic contents in the produced gasoline were 61.9, 55.4 and 39.0 wt-%. Thus {{\displaystyle \mathrm{P}}}_{{\mathrm{H}}_{\mathrm{2}}\mathrm{O}}/\mathrm{N}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{Z}\mathrm{5} is the most promising catalyst for MTG applications which can meet the China IV gasoline standard that the amount of aromatics in gasoline should be less than 48 wt-%.

Novel modified activated carbons (ACs) with enhanced adsorptive properties were obtained coating by chitosan (CS), polyethylene glycol (PEG) and blends of the two polymers (0:1, 1:0, 1:1, 1:2 and 2:1 wt/wt) on ACs by an impregnation technique. The adsorption performances of the pristine, acidified and polymer-impregnated ACs were studied using methylene blue as a model adsorbate. The adsorbents were characterized using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy and abrasion hardness tests. The average coating thicknesses were between 10 to 23 microns. The pore sizes, pore densities and pore capacities of the activated carbons increased as the wt-% PEG in the coating increased. The highest adsorption capacity (424.7 mg/g) was obtained for the chitosan-coated ACs and this adsorption was well described by the Langmuir isotherm model. The kinetic results were best described by the pseudo-second-order kinetic model. The highest rate constant was obtained with the ACs modified with the CS:PEG (2:1) coating and this result was almost 2.6 times greater than that of the unmodified ACs. The CS/PEG impregnated ACs also displayed superior hardness (~90%), compared to unmodified ACs (~85%). Overall the chitosan had a greater effect on improving adsorption capacity whereas the polyethylene glycol enhanced the adsorption rate.

Hexagonal CePO₄ nanorods were prepared by a precipitation method and hexagonal CePO₄ nanowires were prepared by hydrothermal synthesis at 150 °C. Rh(NO₃)₃ was then used as a precursor for the impregnation of Rh₂O₃ onto these CePO₄ materials. The Rh₂O₃ supported on the CePO₄ nanowires was much more active for the catalytic decomposition of N₂O than the Rh₂O₃ supported on CePO₄ nanorods. The stability of both catalysts as a function of time on stream was studied and the influence of the co-feed (CO₂, O₂, H₂O or O₂/H₂O) on the N₂O decomposition was also investigated. The samples were characterized by N₂ adsorption-desorption, inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron microscopy, hydrogen temperature-programmed reduction, oxygen temperature-programmed desorption, and CO₂ temperature-programmed desorption in order to correlate the physicochemical and catalytic properties.

A mild in-situdeposition method was used to fabricate Mn-based catalysts on a UiO-66 carrier for the selective catalytic reduction of NO by NH₃ (NH₃-SCR). The catalyst with 8.5 wt-% MnO_x loading had the highest catalytic activity for NH₃-SCR with a wide temperature window (100–290 °C) for 90% NO conversion. Characterization of the prepared MnO_x/UiO-66 catalysts showed that the catalysts had the crystal structure and porosity of the UiO-66 carrier and that the manganese particles were well-distributed on the surface of the catalyst. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis showed that there are strong interactions between the MnO_x and the Zr oxide secondary building units of the UiO-66 which has a positive effect on the catalytic activity. The 8.5 wt-% MnO_x catalyst maintained excellent activity during a 24-h stability test and exhibited good resistance to SO₂ poisoning.

CO oxidation has been investigated on three CuO/CeO₂ catalysts prepared by impregnation, co-precipitation and mechanical mixing. The origin of active sites was explored by the multiple techniques. The catalyst prepared by impregnation has more highly dispersed CuO and stronger interactions between CuO and CeO₂ to promote the reduction of CuO to Cu⁺ species at the Cu-Ce interface, leading to its highest catalytic activity. For the catalyst prepared by co-precipitation, solid solution structures observed in Raman spectra suppress the formation of the Cu-Ce interface, where the adsorbed CO will react with active lattice oxygen to form CO₂, and thus it displays a lower catalytic performance. No Cu-Ce interface exists in the catalyst prepared by the mechanical mixing method due to the separate phases of CuO and CeO₂, resulting in its lowest activity among the three catalysts.

Carbon deposition and sintering of active components such as nano particles are great challenges for Ni-based catalysts for CO methanation to generate synthetic natural gas from syngas. Facing the challenges, bimetallic catalysts with different Fe content derived from layered double hydroxide containing Ni, Fe, Mg, Al elements were prepared by co-precipitation method. Nanoparticles of Ni-Fe alloy were supported on mixed oxides of aluminium and magnesium after calcination and reduction. The catalysts were characterized by Brunner-Emmett-Teller (BET), X-ray diffraction, hydrogen temperature programmed reduction, inductively coupled plasma, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy and thermogravimetric techniques, and their catalytic activity for CO methanation was investigated. The results show that the Ni-Fe alloy catalysts exhibit better catalytic performance than monometallic catalysts except for the Ni4Fe-red catalyst. The Ni2Fe-red catalyst shows the highest CO conversion (100% at 260–350 °C), as well as the highest CH₄ selectivity (over 95% at 280–350 °C), owing to the formation of Ni-Fe alloy. In stability test, the Ni2Fe-red catalyst exhibits great improvement in both anti-sintering and resistance to carbon formation compared with the Ni0Fe-red catalyst. The strong interaction between Ni and Fe element in alloy and surface distribution of Fe element not only inhibits the sintering of nanoparticles but restrains the formation of Ni clusters.

Platelets dynamically participate in various physiological processes, including wound repair, bacterial clearance, immune response, and tumor metastasis. Recreating the specific biological features of platelets by mimicking the structure of the platelet or translocating the platelet membrane to synthetic particles holds great promise in disease treatment. This review highlights recent advancements made in the platelet-mimicking strategies. The future opportunities and translational challenges are also discussed.

Ferritin, a major iron storage protein with a hollow interior cavity, has been reported recently to play many important roles in biomedical and bioengineering applications. Owing to the unique architecture and surface properties, ferritin nanoparticles offer favorable characteristics and can be either genetically or chemically modified to impart functionalities to their surfaces, and therapeutics or probes can be encapsulated in their interiors by controlled and reversible assembly/disassembly. There has been an outburst of interest regarding the employment of functional ferritin nanoparticles in nanomedicine. This review will highlight the recent advances in ferritin nanoparticles for drug delivery, bioassay, and molecular imaging with a particular focus on their biomedical applications.

Membrane distillation crystallization (MDC) is a promising hybrid separation process that has been applied to seawater desalination, brine treatment and wastewater recovery. In recent years, great progress has been made in MDC technologies including the promotion of nucleation and better control of crystallization and crystal size distribution. These advances are useful for the accurate control of the degree of supersaturation and for the control of the nucleation kinetic processes. This review focuses on the development of MDC process models and on crystallization control strategies. In addition, the most important innovative applications of MDC in the last five years in crystal engineering and pharmaceutical manufacturing are summarized.

Small interfering RNA (siRNA) therapeutics hold great promise to treat a variety of diseases, as long as they can be delivered safely and effectively into cells. Dendrimers are appealing vectors for siRNA delivery by virtue of their well-defined molecular architecture and multivalent cooperativity. However, the clinical translation of RNA therapeutics mediated by dendrimer delivery is hampered by the lack of dendrimers that are of high quality to meet good manufacturing practice standard. In this context, we have developed small amphiphilic dendrimers that self-assemble into supramolecular structures, which mimic high-generation dendrimers synthesized with covalent construction, yet are easy to produce in large amount and superior quality. Indeed, the concept of supramolecular dendrimers has proved to be very promising, and has opened up a new avenue for dendrimer-mediated siRNA delivery. A series of self-assembling supramolecular dendrimers have consequently been established, some of them out-performing the currently available nonviral vectors in delivering siRNA to various cell types in vitro and in vivo, including human primary cells and stem cells. This short review presents a brief introduction to RNAi therapeutics, the obstacles to their delivery and the advantages of dendrimer delivery vectors as well as our bio-inspired structurally flexible dendrimers for siRNA delivery. We then highlight our efforts in creating self-assembling amphiphilic dendrimers to construct supramolecular dendrimer nanosystems for effective siRNA delivery as well as the related structural alterations to enhance delivery efficiency. The advent of self-assembling supramolecular dendrimer nanovectors holds great promise and heralds a new era of dendrimer-mediated delivery of RNA therapeutics in biomedical applications.

Despite limited successes in clinical development, therapeutic cancer vaccines have experienced resurgence in recent years due to an enhanced emphasis upon co-mitigating factors underlying immune response. Specifically, reversing the immune-suppressive effects of the tumor microenvironment, mediated by a variety of cellular and molecular signaling mechanisms, has become fundamental toward enhancing therapeutic efficacy. Therein, our lab has implemented various nano-vaccines based on the lipid-coated calcium phosphate platform for combined immunotherapy, in which antigenic, epitope-associated peptides as well as immune-suppression inhibitors can be co-delivered, often functioning through the same formulation. In probing the mechanism of action of such systems in vitro andin vivo, an improved effect synergy can be elucidated, inspiring future preclinical efforts and hope for clinical success.