A SiN-Si dual-layer optical phased array (OPA) chip is designed and fabricated. It combines the low loss of SiN with the excellent modulation performance of Si, which improves the performance of Si single-layer OPA. A novel optical antenna and an improved phase modulation method are also proposed, and a two-dimensional scanning range of 96 ° × 14 ° is achieved, which makes the OPA chip more practical.

Background:The influences of marital status on cardiovascular death risk in patients with breast cancer remained unclear. This study aimed to evaluate the associations of different marital status with cardiovascular death risk in patients with breast cancer.Methods: A total of 182,666 female breast cancer patients were enrolled in this study from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database from 2010 to 2014, and was divided into two groups: married (N=107,043) and unmarried (N=75,623). A 1:1 propensity score matching (PSM) was applied to reduce inter-group bias between the two groups. Competing-risks model was used to assess the associations between different marital status and cardiovascular death risk in patients with breast cancer.Results: After PSM, marital status was an independent predictor for cardiovascular death in patients with breast cancer. Unmarried condition was associated with increased cardiovascular death risk than married condition among breast cancer patients [unadjusted model: hazard ratio (HR) =2.012, 95% confidence

The driver genes regulating T-cell infiltration are important for understanding immune-escape mechanisms and developing more effective immunotherapy. However, researches in this field have rarely been reported in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In the present study, we identified cancer driver genes triggered by copy number alterations such as CDKN2B, MYC, TSC1, TP53, and GSK3B. The T-cell infiltration levels were significantly decreased in both HCC and recurrent HCC tissues compared with the adjacent normal liver tissues. Remarkably, we identified that copy number losses of MAX and TP53 were candidate driver genes that significantly suppress T-cell infiltration in HCC. Accordingly, their downstream oncogenic pathway, cell cycle, was significantly activated in the low T-cell infiltration HCC. Moreover, the chemokine-related target genes by TP53, which played key roles in T-cell recruitment, were also downregulated in HCC with TP53/MAX deletions, suggesting that copy number losses in MAX and TP53 might result in T-cell depletion in HCC via downregulating chemokines. Clinically, the T-cell infiltration levels and chemokines activity could accurately predict the response of sorafenib, and the prognostic outcomes in HCC. In conclusion, the systematic analysis not only facilitates identification of driver genes and signaling pathways involved in T-cell infiltration and immune escape, but also gains more insights into the functional roles of T cells in HCC.

Breast cancer appears to be one of the leading causes of cancer-related morbidity and mortality for women worldwide. The accurate and rapid diagnosis of breast cancer is hence critical for the treatment and prognosis of patients. With the vibrational fingerprint information and high detection sensitivity, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has been extensively applied in biomedicine. Here, an optimized bimetallic nanosphere (Au@Ag NS) 3D substrate was fabricated for the aim of the diagnosis of breast cancer based on the SERS analysis of the extracellular metabolites. The unique stacking mode of 3D Au@Ag NSs provided multiple plasmonic hot spots according to the theoretical calculations of the electromagnetic field distribution. The low relative standard deviation (RSD = 2.7%) and high enhancement factor (EF = 1.42 × 10 5 ) proved the uniformity and high sensitivity. More importantly, the normal breast cells and breast cancer cells could be readily distinguished from the corresponding SERS spectra based on the extracellular metabolites. Furthermore, the clear clusters of SERS spectra from MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 extracellular metabolites in the orthogonal partial least-squares discriminant analysis plot indicate the distinct metabolic fingerprint between breast cancer cells, which imply their potential clinical application in the diagnosis of breast cancer.