A major goal in cancer research is to develop carriers that can deliver drugs effectively and without side effects. Liposomal and particulate carriers with diameters of ∼100 nm have been widely used to improve the distribution and tumour accumulation of cancer drugs, but so far they have only been effective for treating highly permeable tumours. Here, we compare the accumulation and effectiveness of different sizes of long-circulating, drug-loaded polymeric micelles (with diameters of 30, 50, 70 and 100 nm) in both highly and poorly permeable tumours. All the polymer micelles penetrated highly permeable tumours in mice, but only the 30 nm micelles could penetrate poorly permeable pancreatic tumours to achieve an antitumour effect. We also showed that the penetration and efficacy of the larger micelles could be enhanced by using a transforming growth factor-β inhibitor to increase the permeability of the tumours.

The radiation-induced reactions of onium salts in some kinds of solutions and model compound solutions of chemically amplified electron beam (EB) and X-ray resists have been studied by means of picosecond and nanosecond pulse radiolysis. The following reaction mechanisms of the chemically amplified EB and X-ray resists have been elucidated. The radiation-induced reaction mechanisms are complicated due to the presence of several proton donors. The onium salts directly produce small amounts of Brønsted acids by EB and X-ray exposure and most of the Brønsted acids are formed from proton adducts of the base polymer. The onium salts are strong electron scavengers and promote the generation of the proton adducts in the chemically amplified resists.

A strong effect of radiation damping on the interaction of an ultraintense laser pulse with an overdense plasma slab is found and studied via a relativistic particle-in-cell simulation including ionization. Hot electrons generated by the irradiation of a laser pulse with a radiance of I lambda(2)>10(22) W microm(2)/cm(2) and duration of 20 fs can convert more than 35% of the laser energy to radiation. This incoherent x-ray emission lasts for only the pulse duration and can be intense. The radiation efficiency is shown to increase nonlinearly with laser intensity. Similar to cyclotron radiation, the radiation damping may restrain the maximal energy of relativistic electrons in ultraintense-laser-produced plasmas.

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