Photothermal therapy is a promising treatment modality in the realm of cancer therapy. Photothermal nanomaterials that absorb and emit in the near-infrared range (750−900 nm) have drawn a lot of attention recently because of the deep penetration of NIR light in biological tissue. Most nanomaterials, however, are produced by encapsulating or altering the surface of a nanoplatform, which has limited loading capacity and long-term storage. Herein, we developed a stable polymer conjugated with aza-BODIPY that self-assembled to form nanoparticles (aza-BODIPY-mPEG) with better hydrophilicity and biocompatibility while retaining the dye's photothermal conversion characteristics. Aza-BODIPY-mPEG with a hydrodynamic size of around 170 nm exhibited great photostability and excellent photothermal therapy in vitro and in ovo. Aza-BODIPY-mPEG exhibits approximately 30% better anti-angiogenesis and antitumor activity against implanted xenograft human HCT116 tumor in the chick embryo compared to parent aza-BODIPY-A, altogether suggesting that aza-BODIPY-mPEG is a promising material for cancer photothermal therapy.

Typically, nanomedicine was prepared using a nanocarrier to load cargo for specific purposes. In this work, a carrier-free nanosystem for imaging and photodynamic (PDT)/chemo combination therapy was developed using simple self-assembly of a dye and a chemotherapeutic agent. The resulting nanoparticles (I 2 -IR783/MTX@NPs) exhibited a spherical morphology with a size of 240.6 ± 2.5 nm. I 2 -IR783/MTX@NPs had substantial internalization in 4T1 murine breast cancer cells and showed a synergistic anticancer effect after NIR light irradiation. Additionally, the 3D tumor model exhibits the same phototoxicity of nanoparticles as a 2D cell culture. The PDT efficiency of the nanosystem in the physiological environment was confirmed by the detection of intracellular reactive oxygen species as well as the live/dead viability/cytotoxicity assay following NIR light exposure. In addition, optical coherence tomography (OCT) was used as an alternative tool to monitor the response after treatment. Therefore, I 2 -IR783/MTX@NPs show great potential use in theranostic application for breast cancer PDT-chemotherapy.

Dedicated to Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schuhmann on the occasion his 65 th birthdayXanthine is a metabolite of interest as a medical and food freshness biomarker. We modified a screen-printed electrode to detect this analyte by co-entrapping xanthine oxidase (XOD) and an Os-complex redox polymer over carbon nanotubes. In nature, XOD transfers its electrons to oxygen in solution. We demonstrate that the introduction of the redox polymer allows routing the electrons efficiently to the electrode surface, even under air-saturated conditions, enabling superior catalytic current and sensing performance. The bioanode was optimized by adjusting the electrode materials and the ratio of enzyme to redox polymer. The impacts of pH and ionic strength of the electrolyte on the sensor performance were also studied. We found that these variables can affect the electrostatic interaction between the enzyme and the redox polymer, and therefore impact the catalytic current extracted from xanthine oxidation. The XOD-bioanode design was combined with a bienzymatic cathode operating on glucose to demonstrate a biofuel cell (BFC). The resulting device could generate a power output of 16.56 μW cm À 2 at 0.25 V and an open-circuit voltage (OCV) of 0.50 V using 500 μM xanthine as biofuel. The proposed xanthine/glucose BFC showed promising features for application as a self-powered xanthine biosensor.

In this study, we developed functional nanomaterials via a phenolic-enabled nanotechnology strategy for hypoxia detection employing quercetin (QCT), an abundant flavonoid, as a polyphenolic system. The nano form of QCT was stabilized by coating it with polyethylene glycol (PEG) before loading it with a flavylium dye (Flav) as a pH indicator. The nanosystem, Flav@QCT-PEG, collapsed when it was in an acidic environment, i.e., pH 5, leading to the release of Flav, which activated the fluorescent signal. Therefore, Flav@QCT-PEG was applied to detect hypoxic tumors, known to be acidic, and responded to hypoxic environments in a dose- and time-dependent manner.

The Cover Feature illustrates xanthine oxidase converts xanthine to uric acid, passing electrons to an osmium‐modified polymer, which routes them efficiently to the electrode surface. More information can be found in the Research Article by P. Pinyou, V. Blay et al.