Though emerging evidence indicates that the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease is strongly correlated to the accumulation and transmission of α-synuclein (α-syn) aggregates in the midbrain, no anti-aggregation agents have been successful at treating the disease in the clinic. Here, we show that graphene quantum dots (GQDs) inhibit fibrillization of α-syn and interact directly with mature fibrils, triggering their disaggregation. Moreover, GQDs can rescue neuronal death and synaptic loss, reduce Lewy body and Lewy neurite formation, ameliorate mitochondrial dysfunctions, and prevent neuron-to-neuron transmission of α-syn pathology provoked by α-syn preformed fibrils. We observe, in vivo, that GQDs penetrate the blood-brain barrier and protect against dopamine neuron loss induced by α-syn preformed fibrils, Lewy body/Lewy neurite pathology and behavioural deficits.

Over the last decade, interest in graphene has surged because of its unprecedented physical, chemical, electrical, and mechanical properties. In recent years, researchers' interests have gradually shifted to other notable properties of graphene - its environmentally-friendly nature with outstanding optical properties. Thus, graphene is considered to be a promising and attractive candidate for various biomedical applications such as NIR-responsive cancer therapy and fluorescence bio-imaging. To that end, appropriate preparation and novel approaches to utilize graphene-based materials such as graphene oxides (GOs), reduced graphene oxides (rGOs), and graphene quantum dots (GQDs) in biology and medical science are gaining growing interest. In this review, we highlight recent applications of graphene-based materials as novel prospects for versatile imaging studies with a brief perspective on their future applications.

We report an ultraclean, cost-effective, and easily scalable method of transferring and patterning large-area graphene using pressure sensitive adhesive films (PSAFs) at room temperature. This simple transfer is enabled by the difference in wettability and adhesion energy of graphene with respect to PSAF and a target substrate. The PSAF-transferred graphene is found to be free from residues and shows excellent charge carrier mobility as high as ∼17,700 cm(2)/V·s with less doping compared to the graphene transferred by thermal release tape (TRT) or poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) as well as good uniformity over large areas. In addition, the sheet resistance of graphene transferred by recycled PSAF does not change considerably up to 4 times, which would be advantageous for more cost-effective and environmentally friendly production of large-area graphene films for practical applications.

Doping is an essential process to engineer the conductivity and work-function of graphene for higher performance optoelectronic devices, which includes substitutional atomic doping by reactive gases, electrical/electrochemical doping by gate bias, and chemical doping by acids or reducing/oxidizing agents. Among these, the chemical doping has been widely used due to its simple process and high doping strength. However, it also has an instability problem in that the molecular dopants tend to gradually evaporate from the surface of graphene, leading to substantial decrease in doping effect with time. In particular, the instability problem is more serious for n-doped graphene because of undesirable reaction between dopants and oxygen or water in air. Here we report a simple method to tune the electrical properties of CVD graphene through n-doping by vaporized molecules at 70 °C, where the dopants in vapor phase are mildly adsorbed on graphene surface without direct contact with solution. To investigate the dependence on functional groups and molecular weights, we selected a series of ethylene amines as a model system, including ethylene diamine (EDA), diethylene triamine (DETA), and triethylene tetramine (TETA) with increasing number of amine groups showing different vapor pressures. We confirmed that the vapor-phase doping provides not only very high carrier concentration but also good long-term stability in air, which is particularly important for practical applications.