Precise nanomedicine for intelligent therapy of cancer

Precise nanomedicine has been extensively explored for efficient cancer imaging and targeted cancer therapy, as evidenced by a few breakthroughs in their preclinical and clinical explorations. Here, we demonstrate the recent advances of intelligent cancer nanomedicine, and discuss the comprehensive understanding of their structure-function relationship for smart and efficient cancer nanomedicine including various imaging and therapeutic applications, as well as nanotoxicity. In particular, a few emerging strategies that have advanced cancer nanomedicine are also highlighted as the emerging focus such as tumor imprisonment, supramolecular chemotherapy, and DNA nanorobot. The challenge and outlook of some scientific and engineering issues are also discussed in future development. We wish to highlight these new progress of precise nanomedicine with the ultimate goal to inspire more successful explorations of intelligent nanoparticles for future clinical translations.

Environmentally responsive dual-targeting nanotheranostics for overcoming cancer multidrug resistance

The development of multiple drug resistance(MDR) to chemotherapy and subsequent treatment failures are major obstacles in cancer therapy. An attractive option for combating MDR is inhibiting the expression of P-glycoprotein(P-gp) in tumor cells. Here, we report a novel chemosensitizing agent, XMD8-92,which can down-regulate P-gp. To enhance the specificity of MDR chemotherapy, a promising nanotheranostic micelle system based on poly(ethylene glycol)-blocked-poly(L-leucine)(PEG-b-Leu) was developed to simultaneously carry the anticancer drug doxorubicin, chemosensitizing agent XMD8-92, and superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles(SPIOs). Featured with MDR environmentally responsive dual-targeting capability, controllable drug delivery, and efficient magnetic resonance(MR) imaging characteristics, the prepared nanotheranostics(DXS@NPs) showed outstanding in vitro cytotoxicity on MDR cells(SCG 7901/VCR) with only 53% of cells surviving compared to 90% of DOX-treated cells.Furthermore, efficient tumor inhibition and highly reduced systemic toxicity were exhibited by MDR tumor-bearing mice treated with DXS@NPs. Overall, the environmentally responsive dual-targeting nanotheranostics represent a promising approach for overcoming cancer MDR.

Design,Simulation and Kinematic Validation of a Hip Prosthetic Mechanism with a Multimotor Function

We previously developed a powered hip prosthetic mechanism with kinematic functions of hip flexion-extension and abduction-adduction,and its theoretical and simulation-based kinematics were verified.Because internal-external hip rotation has a positive effect on the movements of human lower limbs according to medical research,we developed a novel hip prosthetic mechanism based on a previous hip prosthesis that possesses motion characteristics similar to those of a human bionic hip,and the motion characteristics of multiple Degrees-of-Freedom(DoFs)were analyzed after kinematic modeling.Then,a walking model of the human‒machine model was established,and the walking stability of an amputee,which reflects the rehabilitation effect,was explored while the hip prosthetic mechanism considered the internal-external rotation of the hip.Finally,a prototype and its verification platform were built,and kinematic validation of the hip prosthetic mechanism was carried out.The results showed that the designed Parallel Mechanism(PM)possesses human-like motion characteristics similar to those of a human bionic hip and can be used as a hip prosthesis.Moreover,the existing motion characteristic of internal-external hip rotation can enhance the walking stability of an amputee via this hip prosthetic mechanism.