Spatiotemporal variations in moisture conditions across Monsoon Asia during the last 500 years

Spatial and temporal variations in moisture conditions across monsoon Asia were investigated using 347 Monsoon Asia Drought Atlas(MADA)grid points and 100 Chinese historical documents sites during the years 14702000.We applied Rotated Empirical Orthogonal Function(REOF)analysis to evaluate spatial moisture variability during the past 530 years.The first 13 principal components together explained 61.35%of the total variance,with the First Principal Component(PC1)accounting for 14.1%.After varimax rotation to the first 13 EOFs,we obtained new time series and spatial patterns.These patterns divided monsoon Asia into 13 regions with coherent moisture variability.Drought events were analyzed within these 13 regions.The results indicate that there has been a prominent drying trend in eastern and central Mongolia,Southeast Asia and east China during the last 50 years.Conversely,India and the Tibetan Plateau show a significant in crease in moisture around the late 20th century.We found four drought periods,A.D.16251644,A.D.17101729,A.D.1920s,and A.D.19751999 occurred widely across monsoon Asia during the past 530 years.On inter-annual time scales,moisture variations in the northwest region of monsoon Asia,the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia are influenced by the El Ni o-Southern Oscillation(ENSO).Thirty-year running correlation coefficient diagnostic analysis revealed that moisture variability in monsoon Asia is associated with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation(PDO).

Engineering cancer vaccines using stimuli-responsive biomaterials

Cancer vaccines aimed at expanding the pool or increasing the activity of tumor-specific T cells against malignancies is an important immunotherapy modality that has been extensively pursued in the past decades. However, the clinical efficacy of cancer vaccines remains modest in comparison to other immunotherapies, such as checkpoint blockade and adoptive T cell therapy. This unsatisfactory performance is likely due to the suboptimal selection of tumor antigens for vaccine and inefficient delivery platform. Recently, vaccines designed to target cancer neoantigens have shown marked promise in both preclinical and early clinical studies. However, enormous challenges need to be overcome to develop a highly efficient and safe delivery strategy for targeting cancer vaccines to professional antigen-presenting cells and eliciting optimized immune response against cancers. To meet these challenges, biomaterials, particularly biomaterials that are designed to respond to certain environmental stimuli, termed as stimuli-responsive biomaterials, are being actively developed to precisely manipulate the trafficking and release of cancer vaccines in vivo for enhanced therapeutic efficacy and safety. In this mini review, we provide a brief overview of the recent advances in applying stimuli-responsive biomaterials in enhancing non-cellular cancer vaccines while focusing on the chemistry and material design with varied responsiveness. We also discuss the present challenges and opportunities in the field and provide a perspective for future directions.