An Ultimate Approach to Retarding the Aging Process by Integrating Traditional Chinese Medicine and Western Medicine

Aging and death are unavoidable in life. While immortality may be impossible, many people dream of living a long and healthy life. Throughout history, humans have searched for ways to stay young, but have not found an effective way. This may be because the methods used do not target the causes of aging directly. To address this, we investigated how to delay aging using traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and Western medicine approaches. In this article, we will explain the causes of aging in the context of TCM and Western medicine and suggest methods to delay it. By integrating TCM and Western medicine, I hope to help everyone age healthily and enjoy a long life.

Intracellular aggregation of peptide-reprogrammed small molecule nanoassemblies enhances cancer chemotherapy and combinatorial immunotherapy

The intracellular retention of nanotherapeutics is essential for their therapeutic activity.The immobilization of nanotherapeutics inside target cell types can regulate various cell behaviors.However,strategies for the intracellular immobilization of nanoparticles are limited.Herein,a cisplatin prodrug was synthesized and utilized as a glutathione(GSH)-activated linker to induce aggregation of the cisplatin prodrug/IR820/docetaxel nanoassembly.The nanoassembly has been reprogrammed with peptidecontaining moieties for tumor-targeting and PD-1/PD-L1 blockade.The aggregation of the nanoassemblies is dependent on GSH concentration.Evaluations in vitro and in vivo revealed that GSH-induced intracellular aggregation of the nanoassemblies enhances therapeutic activity in primary tumors by enhancing the accumulation and prolonging the retention of the chemotherapeutics in the tumor site and inducing reactive oxygen species(ROS)generation and immunogenic cell death.Moreover,the nanoassemblies reinvigorate the immunocytes,especially the systemic immunocytes,and thereby alleviate pulmonary metastasis,even though the population of immunocytes in the primary tumor site is suppressed due to the enhanced accumulation of chemotherapeutics.This strategy provides a promising option for the intracellular immobilization of nanoparticles in vitro and in vivo.

A novel GSH responsive poly(alpha-lipoic acid)nanocarrier bonding with the honokiol-DMXAA conjugate for combination therapy

The key to improve the therapeutic efficacy for cancer treatment is to increase the delivery of drugs to tumors.For this purpose, tumor-microenvironment stimuliresponsive materials have great potential. Here, we prepared a new nanomedicine by bonding the conjugate of honokiol(HNK) and 5,6-dimethylxanthenone-4-acetic acid(DMXAA)to a glutathione(GSH)-responsive nanocarrier, poly(α-lipoic acid) polyethylene glycol. The nanomedicine would disintegrate due to the high level of GSH at the tumor sites,achieving the co-delivery of HNK and DMXAA, and realizing the combination therapy through close-range killing by HNK and long-range striking by DMXAA together. In a murine 4T1 breast tumor model, this strategy exhibited high tumor inhibition rate of 93%, and provided a valuable therapeutic choice for cancer therapy.