Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide. Blood-contacting medical devices provide critical support for patients with severe respiratory and/or cardiac failure. High shear stress zones and non-biocompatible circuit can increase risk thrombus formation in patients. These thrombi restrict blood flow through circuits travel to lungs brain, creating significant consequences. A...

Forty years after the first reports on stimuli-responsive phase transitions in synthetic hydrogels, the first medicines based on responsive components are approaching the market. Sensitiveness to internal or external signals of the body can be achieved by means of materials (mostly polymers, but also lipids and metals) that modify their properties as a function of the intensity of the signal an...

Many bioactive natural products are derived from traditional Chinese medicine. Some of them showed good treatment potential in tumor chemotherapy. However, limited by the poorly solubility and non-selective toxicity most products, their antitumor efficacy could not be further applied clinicals. Nano-drug delivery systems provided platforms for treatment, many microenvironment-responsive nano-de...

Specific delivery of therapeutic agents to solid tumors and their bioavailability at the target site are the most clinically important and challenging goals in cancer therapy. Liposomes are promising nanocarriers and have been well investigated for cancer therapy. In spite of preferred accumulation in tumors via the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect, inefficient drug release at t...