OBJECTIVE Chronic neck pain is a highly prevalent condition, and is often treated with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Limited clinical studies with short-term follow-up have shown promising efficacy of acupuncture as well as miniscalpel-needle (MSN) release. In this retrospective study, we examined whether MSN release could produce long-lasting relief in patients with chronic neck pain....

We report a gold nanoparticle (AuNP)-capped mesoporous silica nanoparticle (Au-MSN) platform for intracellular codelivery of an enzyme and a substrate with retention of bioactivity. As a proof-of-concept demonstration, Au-MSNs are shown to release luciferin from the interior pores of MSN upon AuNP uncapping in response to disulfide-reducing antioxidants and codeliver bioactive luciferase from t...

Natural supplements comprise good efficacy with less adverse effects as against diabetic therapy, but their advancement as anti-diabetic agents is unsatisfactory with regard to the delivery system. Dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP4)/CD26) can degrade glucagon-like pepetide-1 (GLP-1) which renders a decrease of blood glucose levels. 16-hydroxycleroda-3,13-dine-16,15-olide (HCD) extracted from Polyalt...

Tumor extracellular matrix (ECM) represents a major obstacle to the diffusion of therapeutics and drug delivery systems in cancer parenchyma. This biological barrier limits the efficacy of promising therapeutic approaches including the delivery of siRNA or agents intended for thermoablation. After extravasation due to the enhanced penetration and retention effect of tumor vasculature, typical n...

A gold nanoparticle (AuNP)-capped mesoporous silica nanosphere (MSN)-based intracellular drug delivery system (PR-AuNPs-MSN) for the photoinduced controlled release of an anticancer drug, paclitaxel, inside of human fibroblast and liver cells was synthesized and characterized. We found that the mesopores of MSN could be efficiently capped by the photoresponsive AuNPs without leaking the toxic d...

http://ccn.aacnjournals.org higher in men than in women. Increasing evidence indicates that the disease is accelerated by the same factors that affect coronary artery disease, including smoking, hypercholesterolemia, hyper tension, and diabetes. Until now, surgical valve replacement, pioneered in the 1960s with mechanical or tissue prostheses, was the only effective treatment available to allev...

A system's wiring constrains its dynamics, yet modelling of neural structures often overlooks the specific networks formed by their neurons. We developed an approach for constructing anatomically realistic networks and reconstructed the GABAergic microcircuit formed by the medium spiny neurons (MSNs) and fast-spiking interneurons (FSIs) of the adult rat striatum. We grew dendrite and axon model...

The hydroboration of aldehydes and ketones using a silica-supported zirconium catalyst is reported. Reaction of Zr(NMe2)4 and mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSN) provides the catalytic material Zr(NMe2)n@MSN. Exhaustive characterization of Zr(NMe2)n@MSN with solid-state (SS)NMR and infrared spectroscopy, as well as through reactivity studies, suggests its surface structure is primarily ≡SiOZr...

Optical packet switching over arbitrary physical topologies typically mandates complex routing schemes and the use of buffers to resolve the likely contentions. However, the relatively immature nature of optical logic devices and the limitations with optical buffering provide significant incentive to reduce the routing complexity and avoid optical domain contentions. This paper examines how the...