Conventional intravenous or oral administration of a combination of chemotherapeutics displays poor bioavailability and induces undesirable systemic toxicity. Therefore, localized delivery of such chemotherapeutic combinations using polymeric hydrogels is expected to help in enhancing drug efficacy and reducing systemic toxicity. In this manuscript, we have utilized a chitosan-catechol based hydrogel (CAT-Gel) assembled through catechol-Fe­(III) coordinative interactions for localized combination therapy in murine lung and breast cancer models. CAT-Gel offers a unique blend of material properties such as injectability and self-healing along with useful biological attributes like their noncytotoxic and nonhemolytic nature. The amphipathic nature of this hydrogel enabled us to incorporate a recipe of hydrophilic doxorubicin hydrochloride (DOX) and hydrophobic docetaxel (DTX) anticancer drugs. Rheology studies confirmed the self-healing nature of this chimeric hydrogel even after drug loading. CAT-Gel was retained for more than 40 days in mice upon subcutaneous injection. The sequential and sustained release of the entrapped DOX and DTX from the hydrogel resulted in synergistic therapeutic effect with increased median survival against murine lung and breast cancer models. Therefore, CAT-Gel provides a new coordinatively assembled biocompatible scaffold for localized delivery of chemotherapeutic drugs.

A summary of positive biomedical attributes of biodegradable polyelectrolytes (PELs) prepared from aspartic acid is provided. The utility of these PELs in emerging applications such as biomineralization modulators, antimycobacterials, biocompatible cell encapsulants and tissue adhesives is highlighted.

Oral delivery of nanogels reduces gut inflammation.

Liposomal formulation of polydopamine provides physically stable formulations that form superior antifouling coatings on a variety of surfaces.

Polydopamine (PDA) is a synthetic polymeric material with immense potential in biomedical and surface functionalization applications. Herein, we have screened self‐assemblies formed by Phenylalanine‐based amphiphiles (Phe‐AMPs) as soft templates for preparing chiral PDA nanostructures. Our study revealed that the amphiphile 2 endowed with a primary amine residue afforded chirally‐twisted ultrathin nanoribbons of PDA under optimized conditions. The chirality at the Phe residue of 2 modulated the twist‐chirality of the PDA nanoribbons; the l‐2 resulted in nanoribbons with right‐handed twist, whereas the d‐2 induced a left‐handed twist to the ribbons. The racemic mixture of these two amphiphiles produced flat, achiral tapes. The PDA ribbon thickness was ≈5.86±0.40 nm, whereas its width and length were ≈133.5±3.2 nm and >5000 nm, respectively. Upon dialysis, hollow PDA nanotubes were obtained due to curling of the PDA nanoribbons. These PDA‐nanoarchitectures were employed to spontaneously form and assemble Ag‐nanoparticles along the edges of the PDA nanoribbons. In this work we are reporting chirality controlled synthesis of PDA nanostructures for the first time.