Reactive oxygen species (ROS) play an essential role in regulating various physiological functions of living organisms. The intrinsic biochemical properties of ROS, which underlie the mechanisms necessary for the growth, fitness, or aging of living organisms, have been driving researchers to take full advantage of these active chemical species for contributing to medical advances. Thanks to the remarkable advances in nanotechnology, great varieties of nanomaterials with unique ROS-regulating properties have been explored to guide the temporospatial dynamic behaviors of ROS in biological milieu, which contributes to the emergence of a new-generation therapeutic methodology, i.e., nanomaterial-guided in vivo ROS evolution for therapy. The interdependent relationship between ROS and their corresponding chemistry, biology, and nanotherapy leads us to propose the concept of “ROS science”, which is believed to be an emerging scientific discipline that studies the chemical mechanisms, biological effects, and nanotherapeutic applications of ROS. In this review, state-of-art studies concerning recent progresses on ROS-based nanotherapies have been summarized in detail, with an emphasis on underlying material chemistry of nanomaterials by which ROS are generated or scavenged for improved therapeutic outcomes. Furthermore, key scientific issues in the evolution of ROS-based cross-disciplinary fields have also been discussed, aiming to unlock the innate powers of ROS for optimized therapeutic efficacies. We expect that our demonstration on this evolving field will be beneficial to the further development of ROS-based fundamental researches and clinical applications.

The p–n diodes represent the most fundamental device building blocks for diverse optoelectronic functions, but are difficult to achieve in atomically thin transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) due to the challenges in selectively doping them into p- or n-type semiconductors. Here, we demonstrate that an atomically thin and sharp heterojunction p–n diode can be created by vertically stacking p-type monolayer tungsten diselenide (WSe2) and n-type few-layer molybdenum disulfide (MoS2). Electrical measurements of the vertically staked WSe2/MoS2 heterojunctions reveal excellent current rectification behavior with an ideality factor of 1.2. Photocurrent mapping shows rapid photoresponse over the entire overlapping region with a highest external quantum efficiency up to 12%. Electroluminescence studies show prominent band edge excitonic emission and strikingly enhanced hot-electron luminescence. A systematic investigation shows distinct layer-number dependent emission characteristics and reveals important insight about the origin of hot-electron luminescence and the nature of electron–orbital interaction in TMDs. We believe that these atomically thin heterojunction p–n diodes represent an interesting system for probing the fundamental electro-optical properties in TMDs and can open up a new pathway to novel optoelectronic devices such as atomically thin photodetectors, photovoltaics, as well as spin- and valley-polarized light emitting diodes, on-chip lasers.

Tumor cells metabolize in distinct pathways compared with most normal tissue cells. The resulting tumor microenvironment would provide characteristic physiochemical conditions for selective tumor modalities. Here we introduce a concept of sequential catalytic nanomedicine for efficient tumor therapy by designing and delivering biocompatible nanocatalysts into tumor sites. Natural glucose oxidase (GOD, enzyme catalyst) and ultrasmall Fe3O4 nanoparticles (inorganic nanozyme, Fenton reaction catalyst) have been integrated into the large pore-sized and biodegradable dendritic silica nanoparticles to fabricate the sequential nanocatalyst. GOD in sequential nanocatalyst could effectively deplete glucose in tumor cells, and meanwhile produce a considerable amount of H2O2 for subsequent Fenton-like reaction catalyzed by Fe3O4 nanoparticles in response to mild acidic tumor microenvironment. Highly toxic hydroxyl radicals are generated through these sequential catalytic reactions to trigger the apoptosis and death of tumor cells. The current work manifests a proof of concept of catalytic nanomedicine by approaching selectivity and efficiency concurrently for tumor therapeutics.