The improper use of antibiotics results in the emergence of drug-resistant microbes which is a serious concern to public health. Here, an NIR-stimulated fluorescent antibacterial gel has been formulated by encapsulating papaya leaf-derived carbon dots (PCQDs) in a thermosensitive PVA-melamine hydrogel. This antibacterial gel can release anticancer drug 5-Fu in a spatiotemporal and dosage controlled manner under the exposure of a 980 nm NIR laser. PCQDs can precisely generate the photothermal effect and reactive oxygen species (ROS) under NIR which induce a significant antibacterial activity in both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria in a controlled manner. At the same time, a customized delivery of 5-Fu minimizes the side effect of the drug. Consequently, this innovatively designed fluorescent gel exhibited an antimicrobial effect and can act as a promising material for the NIR-responsive release of anticancer drug 5-Fu as demonstrated in B16F10 melanoma cells.

Use of nanomaterials blessed with both therapeutic and diagnostic properties is a proficient strategy in the treatment of cancer in its early stage. In this context, our paper reports the synthesis of uniform size N-rich mesoporous carbon nanospheres of size 65−70 nm from pyrrole and aniline precursors using Triton-X as a structure-directing agent. Transmission electron microscopy reveals that these carbons spheres contain void spaces in which ultrasmall nitrogen-doped quantum dots (NCQD) are captured within the matrix. These mesoporous hollow NCQD captured carbon spheres (NCQD-HCS) show fluorescence quantum yield up to 14.6% under λ ex = 340 nm. Interestingly, samples calcined at >800 °C clearly absorb in the wavelength range 700−1000 nm and shows light-to-heat conversion efficiency up to 52%. In vitro experiments in human oral cancer cells (FaDu) show that NCQD-HCS are internalized by the cells and induce a substantial thermal ablation effect in FaDu cells when exposed under a 980 nm near-infrared laser.

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A novel hybrid drug carrier has been designed taking N- doped mesoporous carbon (NMCS) as the core and PEG-PEI as outer shell. NMCS is functionalized with photocleavable nitrobenzyl based linker...

Herein, a carbon quantum dot-based highly selective luminescent probe has been designed for the detection of the pesticide flumioxazin via the alkyne azide click reaction.