Smart materials for flexible electronics and devices: hydrogel.

In recent years, flexible conductive materials have attracted considerable attention for their potential use in flexible energy storage devices, touch panels, sensors, memristors, and other applications. The outstanding flexibility, electricity, and tunable mechanical properties of hydrogels make them ideal conductive materials for flexible electronic devices. Various synthetic strategies have been developed to produce conductive and environmentally friendly hydrogels for high-performance flexible electronics. In this review, we discuss the state-of-the-art applications of hydrogels in flexible electronics, such as energy storage, touch panels, memristor devices, and sensors like temperature, gas, humidity, chemical, strain, and textile sensors, and the latest synthesis methods of hydrogels. Describe the process of fabricating sensors as well. Finally, we discussed the challenges and future research avenues for flexible and portable electronic devices based on hydrogels.

Embedded Sensors with 3D Printing Technology: Review.

Embedded sensors (ESs) are used in smart materials to enable continuous and permanent measurements of their structural integrity, while sensing technology involves developing sensors, sensory systems, or smart materials that monitor a wide range of properties of materials. Incorporating 3D-printed sensors into hosting structures has grown in popularity because of improved assembly processes, reduced system complexity, and lower fabrication costs. 3D-printed sensors can be embedded into structures and attached to surfaces through two methods: attaching to surfaces or embedding in 3D-printed sensors. We discussed various additive manufacturing techniques for fabricating sensors in this review. We also discussed the many strategies for manufacturing sensors using additive manufacturing, as well as how sensors are integrated into the manufacturing process. The review also explained the fundamental mechanisms used in sensors and their applications. The study demonstrated that embedded 3D printing sensors facilitate the development of additive sensor materials for smart goods and the Internet of Things.

Bile Acid-conjugate as a Promising Anticancer Agent: Recent Progress.

Bile acids have outstanding chemistry due to their amphiphilic nature and have received a lot of interest in the last few decades in the fields of biomedicine, pharmacology, and supramolecular applications. Bile acids are highly sought after by scientists looking for diverse and effective biological activity due to their chirality, rigidity, and hydroxyl group. The hydroxyl group makes it simple to alter the structure in a way that improves bioactivity and bioavailability. Bile acid-bioactive molecule conjugates are compounds in which a bile acid is linked to a bioactive molecule by a linker in order to increase the bioactivity of the bioactive molecule against the target cancer cells. This method has been used to improve the therapeutic efficacy of cytotoxic drugs while reducing their adverse side effects. These new bile acid conjugates are gaining attention because they overcome bioavailability and stability issues. The design, synthesis, and anticancer effectiveness of various bile acid conjugates are discussed together with recent advances in understanding in this review.

Road Map of Semiconductor Metal-Oxide-Based Sensors: A Review.

Identifying disease biomarkers and detecting hazardous, explosive, flammable, and polluting gases and chemicals with extremely sensitive and selective sensor devices remains a challenging and time-consuming research challenge. Due to their exceptional characteristics, semiconducting metal oxides (SMOxs) have received a lot of attention in terms of the development of various types of sensors in recent years. The key performance indicators of SMOx-based sensors are their sensitivity, selectivity, recovery time, and steady response over time. SMOx-based sensors are discussed in this review based on their different properties. Surface properties of the functional material, such as its (nano)structure, morphology, and crystallinity, greatly influence sensor performance. A few examples of the complicated and poorly understood processes involved in SMOx sensing systems are adsorption and chemisorption, charge transfers, and oxygen migration. The future prospects of SMOx-based gas sensors, chemical sensors, and biological sensors are also discussed.

Synthesis of bile acid-thiadiazole conjugates as antibacterial and antioxidant agents.

The synthesis, characterization, and antibacterial and antioxidant activity of thiadiazole-deoxycholic/lithocholic acid conjugates are described in this communication. The structures of the synthesised bile acid-thiadiazole conjugates were studied using 1H NMR, 13C NMR and FTIR. Compounds 4c (IC50; 15.34 ± 0.07 µM) and 5c (IC50; 13.45 ± 0.25 µM) demonstrated greater antioxidant activity than the reference compound ascorbic acid (IC50; 20.72 ± 1.02 µM) in DPPH assay. The most effective conjugates against P. vulgarise were 4c (IC50; 24 ± 2.3 µM), 4 g (IC50; 29 ± 2.5 µM), and 5c (IC50; 93 ± 3.6 µM), whereas the most effective conjugates against E. coli were 4e (IC50; 55 ± 2.1 µM) and 4f (IC50; 52 ± 3.5 µM). Conjugates 4c and 5c were the most effective against B. megaterium of all the synthesised conjugates, with IC50 values of 15 ± 1.08 and 20 ± 1.1 µM, respectively. Thus, a large library of compounds derived from bile acid can be easily synthesised for extensive structure-activity relationship studies in order to identify the most appropriate antibacterial agents and antioxidant activity.

Long-Term Yogic Intervention Improves Symptomatic Scale and Quality of Life by Reducing Inflammatory Cytokines and Oxidative Stress in Breast Cancer Patients Undergoing Chemotherapy and/or Radiotherapy: A Randomized Control Study.

INTRODUCTION: Inflammation has been associated with tumor proliferation and metastasis in breast cancer. Yoga is an ancient therapy that helps in reducing inflammation and improves the patient's quality of life (QoL) and fatigue. In the current study, we investigated the effects of long-term yogic intervention at different time points on the level of inflammatory cytokines and oxidative stress, along with the symptomatic scale and QoL in stage II/III breast cancer patients. METHODS: Ninety-six stage II/III breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy were enrolled and divided into two groups, non-yoga (Group I) and yoga (Group II). Participants in Group II practiced yoga five days per week for 48 weeks. The European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer quality of life questionnaire (EORTC-QLQ30) was used to measure the QoL and symptomatic scale. Serum levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), interferon-γ (IFN-γ) and granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), and oxidative stress markers, superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), malondialdehyde (MDA), and nitric oxide (NO) were measured at baseline, 16, 32, and 48 weeks in both groups. RESULTS: Yoga significantly (p<0.05) reduced the level of IFN-γ, TNF-α, and MDA and improved QoL (p<0.001) and symptomatic scale (p<0.05) in Group II patients compared to Group I. NO was upregulated in Group I whereas in Group II, it was neither decreased nor increased. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that yoga may reduce levels of inflammatory cytokines and improve QoL and symptomatic scale in breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy. Yoga can be an important additional therapy during cancer treatments to cope with treatment side effects including fatigue, depression, and immunological profile, which directly affects the patient's quality of life.

Long-term yogic intervention decreases serum interleukins IL-10 and IL-1ß and improves cancer-related fatigue and functional scale during radiotherapy/chemotherapy in breast cancer patients: a randomized control study.

PURPOSE: Yoga improved fatigue and immunological profile in cancer survivors and has been a promising alternative therapy. Breast cancer treatments are rapidly improving, along with their side effects. This article investigated the effect of the yogic intervention at a different time interval during radiotherapy/chemotherapy on the pro- and anti-inflammatory interleukins along with the cancer-related fatigue and functional scale among patients with stage II/III breast cancer. METHODS: A total of 96 stage II/III breast cancer patients were enrolled in this study and randomly divided into two different groups. Group I (non-Yoga) received chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy and group II (Yoga) received an additional yogic intervention. Both groups were followed up for a period of 48 weeks and blood was collected at the time of enrollment, 16, 32, and 48 weeks, and serum was isolated to measure the pro- and anti-inflammatory interleukins, fatigue, and functional scale questionnaire obtained at each time point. RESULTS: Breast cancer patients in group II showed a significant improvement (p < 0.05) in the functional scale and fatigue from baseline to 48 weeks compared to group I. The yogic intervention significantly decreased (p < 0.05) the level of pro-inflammatory interleukin IL-1ß and pleiotropic interleukin IL-10 in group II compared to group I. CONCLUSION: These finding suggested that improved fatigue and functional scale is associated with a lower level of IL-1ß and IL-10. Yoga may be an important additional therapy along with the cancer treatment to help the patients with cancer-related fatigue and improve their overall immunological profile.

Recent Advances in Lossy Mode Resonance-Based Fiber Optic Sensors: A Review.

Fiber optic sensors (FOSs) based on the lossy mode resonance (LMR) technique have gained substantial attention from the scientific community. The LMR technique displays several important features over the conventional surface plasmon resonance (SPR) phenomenon, for planning extremely sensitive FOSs. Unlike SPR, which mainly utilizes the thin film of metals, a wide range of materials such as conducting metal oxides and polymers support LMR. The past several years have witnessed a remarkable development in the field of LMR-based fiber optic sensors; through this review, we have tried to summarize the overall development of LMR-based fiber optic sensors. This review article not only provides the fundamental understanding and detailed explanation of LMR generation but also sheds light on the setup/configuration required to excite the lossy modes. Several geometries explored in the literature so far have also been addressed. In addition, this review includes a survey of the different materials capable of supporting lossy modes and explores new possible LMR supporting materials and their potential applications in sensing.

An Interplay between Lossy Mode Resonance and Surface Plasmon Resonance and Their Sensing Applications.

Conducting metal oxide (CMO) supports lossy mode resonance (LMR) at the CMO-dielectric interface, whereas surface plasmon resonance (SPR) occurs at the typical plasmonic metal-dielectric interface. The present study investigates these resonances in the bi-layer (ITO + Ag) and tri-layer (ITO + Ag + ITO) geometries in the Kretschmann configuration of excitation. It has been found that depending upon the layer thicknesses one resonance dominates the other. In particular, in the tri-layer configuration of ITO + Ag + ITO, the effect of the thickness variation of the sandwiched Ag layer is explored and a resonance, insensitive to the change in the sensing medium refractive index (RI), has been reported. Further, the two kinds of RI sensing probes and the supported resonances have been characterized and compared in terms of sensitivity, detection accuracy and figure of merit. These studies will not only be helpful in gaining a better understanding of underlying physics but may also lead to the realization of biochemical sensing devices with a wider spectral range.

Metasurfaces for Sensing Applications: Gas, Bio and Chemical.

Performance of photonic devices critically depends upon their efficiency on controlling the flow of light therein. In the recent past, the implementation of plasmonics, two-dimensional (2D) materials and metamaterials for enhanced light-matter interaction (through concepts such as sub-wavelength light confinement and dynamic wavefront shape manipulation) led to diverse applications belonging to spectroscopy, imaging and optical sensing etc. While 2D materials such as graphene, MoS2 etc., are still being explored in optical sensing in last few years, the application of plasmonics and metamaterials is limited owing to the involvement of noble metals having a constant electron density. The capability of competently controlling the electron density of noble metals is very limited. Further, due to absorption characteristics of metals, the plasmonic and metamaterial devices suffer from large optical loss. Hence, the photonic devices (sensors, in particular) require that an efficient dynamic control of light at nanoscale through field (electric or optical) variation using substitute low-loss materials. One such option may be plasmonic metasurfaces. Metasurfaces are arrays of optical antenna-like anisotropic structures (sub-wavelength size), which are designated to control the amplitude and phase of reflected, scattered and transmitted components of incident light radiation. The present review put forth recent development on metamaterial and metastructure-based various sensors.

Design, synthesis, characterization and anticancer activity evaluation of deoxycholic acid-chalcone conjugates.

A series of deoxycholic acid-chalcone amides were synthesised and tested against the human lung cancer cell line, A549 and the cervical cancer cell line, SiHa. Among the synthesised deoxycholic acid-chalcone conjugates, some conjugates showed encouraging results as anticancer agents with good in vitro activity. More precisely, deoxycholic acid-chalcone conjugates 4b (IC50: 0.51 µM) and 4e (IC50: 0.84 µM) having 2­nitrophenyl and 3,4,5­trimethoxyphenyl groups exhibited a good activity against human cancer cell-line SiHa and while 4d (IC50: 0.25 µM) and 4b (IC50: 1.71 µM) showed better activity against A549 lung cancer cell line with respect to deoxycholic acid and chalcones. The anticancer activity of the bile acid conjugated chalcones was more than the activity of chalcone and deoxycholic acid alone. The results indicate that a bile acid conjugate strategy may be beneficial in improving the biological activity of chalcone derivatives. The enhanced activity of certain compounds may be due to their increased bioavailability.

Rapid and sensitive magnetic field sensor based on photonic crystal fiber with magnetic fluid infiltrated nanoholes.

A fast response time (0.1 s) magnetic field sensor has been demonstrated utilizing a photonic crystal fiber with nano-size air holes infiltrated with polyethylene glycol based magnetic fluid. The effect of magnetic nanoparticles concentration in the fluid on the magneto-optical sensor performance and its dependence under varying magnetic-field loads was investigated in detail. In particular, the sensor response was analytically modelled with a Langevin function with a good fit (R[Formula: see text]0.996). A threshold sensing point as low as 20 gauss was recorded and a detection range of 0-350 gauss was demonstrated by means of optical transmission measurements. The experimental results were validated by theory using a waveguide light transmission model fed by finite-element method simulations of the principal guided modes in the infiltrated fiber sensor. The simple interrogation scheme, high sensitivity and quick response time makes the proposed hybrid fiber-optic magneto-fluidic probe a promising platform for novel biochemical sensing applications.

Bile acid-based receptors and their applications in recognition.

Ion recognition has attracted great attention in the past decades because of its important role in biology, medicine, environment, and chemistry. The combination of rigidity, curved structure and amphiphilic nature makes bile acids a host system for ion recognition. In addition, the availability of hydroxyl groups in bile acids can be used for further derivatization to develop various ion recognition receptors. The detection of ions is revealed by the binding constant ka value, log approach, and UV-visible or 1H NMR titration, while visual detection is determined by gel-phase transition, colorimetric and fluorescent probes. In this review, we have discussed the bile acid-based receptors and their ion-recognition capability. These bile acid-based systems have the potential for the development of anion transport for biological activity.

C1 Inhibits Liquid-Liquid Phase Separation and Oligomerization of Tau and Protects Neuroblastoma Cells against Toxic Tau Oligomers.

The pathological aggregation of tau is one of the major contributing factors for several neurodegenerative tauopathies, including Alzheimer's disease. Here, we report that C1, a synthetic derivative of curcumin, strongly inhibited both the aggregation and filament formation of purified tau and protected neuroblastoma cells from the deleterious effects of the tau oligomers. Using confocal microscopy, C1 was found to reduce both the size and number of the tau droplets and increased the critical concentration of tau required for the droplet formation in vitro indicating that C1 suppressed the liquid-liquid phase separation of tau. C1 inhibited the aggregation of tau with a half-maximal inhibitory concentration of 1.5 ± 0.1 µM. An analysis of the aggregation kinetics data indicated that C1 strongly reduced the initial rate of the aggregation of tau. A dot blot analysis using tau-oligomer-specific antibody indicated that C1 inhibited the oligomerization of tau. Furthermore, dynamic light scattering experiments suggested that C1 strongly reduced the mean diameter of the tau oligomers. Atomic force microscopy experiments showed that C1 treatment reduced both the size and number of tau oligomers, suppressed the transition of tau oligomers into filaments, and also disintegrated preformed tau filaments. Also, the binding interaction of C1 with tau was monitored using absorbance and fluorescence spectroscopy. C1 bound to Y310W-tau with a dissociation constant of 2.0 ± 0.5 µM. The findings suggested that C1 is a potent inhibitor of tau aggregation and provided insights into the inhibitory mechanism of C1 on the oligomerization and fibril formation of tau.

A Sensitive and Fast Fiber Bragg Grating-Based Investigation of the Biomechanical Dynamics of In Vitro Spinal Cord Injuries.

To better understand the real-time biomechanics of soft tissues under sudden mechanical loads such as traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI), it is important to improve in vitro models. During a traumatic SCI, the spinal cord suffers high-velocity compression. The evaluation of spinal canal occlusion with a sensor is required in order to investigate the degree of spinal compression and the fast biomechanical processes involved. Unfortunately, available techniques suffer with drawbacks such as the inability to measure transverse compression and impractically large response times. In this work, an optical pressure sensing scheme based on a fiber Bragg grating and a narrow-band filter was designed to detect and demonstrate the transverse compression inside a spinal cord surrogate in real-time. The response time of the proposed scheme was 20 microseconds; a five orders of magnitude enhancement over comparable schemes that depend on costly and slower optical spectral analyzers. We further showed that this improvement in speed comes with a negligible loss in sensitivity. This study is another step towards better understanding the complex biomechanics involved during a traumatic SCI, using a method capable of probing the related internal strains with high-spatiotemporal resolution.

Targeted nanoformulation of C1 inhibits the growth of KB spheroids and cancer stem cell-enriched MCF-7 mammospheres.

C1, a synthetic analog of curcumin, has been reported to show potent antiproliferative effects against a variety of cancer cells. Here, we report a strong anticancer activity of the folate receptor-targeted lipid nanoparticle formulation of C1 against cancer cells and cancer stem cells both in 2D culture and 3D spheroids. The size of the C1 encapsulated folic acid functionalized nanoliposomes (Lipos-C1) was determined to be 83 ± 17 nm. Lipos-C1 nanoparticles displayed sustained C1 release kinetics at both pH 7.4 and 5.5. The folate receptor (FR) targeted nanoliposomes were internalized into FR-positive KB cells via the folate receptor-mediated endocytosis process. Lipos-C1 killed KB cells much more efficiently than C1. Lipos-C1 depolymerized microtubules, generated ROS, caused DNA damage, and induced apoptosis in KB cells. Importantly, Lipos-C1 strongly inhibited the growth of the 3D KB spheroids than C1. Interestingly, Lipos-C1 also suppressed cancer stem cells (CSCs) enriched MCF-7 mammosphere growth by impeding breast cancer stem cells (BCSCs) enrichment, growth, and proliferation. The results suggested that Lipos-C1 could be a promising nanoformulation for cancer chemotherapy.

Recent advances in the bile acid based conjugates/derivatives towards their gelation applications.

Bile acids have contributed immensely to hydrogel research due to their peculiar physicochemical properties and biocompatibility. The wide accessibility of bile acids and their straightforward derivatization methods make them attractive building blocks for the design of novel hydrogels systems to deliver biomolecules, drugs, and vaccines. This review conceptualizes recent developments in bile acid-based hydrogels and their applications. These bile-based hydrogels have the ability to absorb carbon dioxide efficiently and may potentially work as alternative materials for carbon dioxide capture and storage. The hydrogels hold great potential in medicine and biology applications as drug carriers and models for fundamental self-assembly in pathological conditions. Herein, we have summarized the efforts that have been made for the development of molecular hydrogels in terms of biocompatibility, therapeutic applications, and challenges associated with existing molecular hydrogels.

Tuberculosis among prisoners & health care workers.

TB in prisons and among HCW is a major public health concern in countries having high burden of disease. Prompt detection of TB is must in prisons by screening on entry, passive screening, mass screening and contact screening via clinical evaluation, smear microscopy and chest X-rays. The new rapid diagnostic methods - True-NAAT, CBNAAT and Line Probe Assay are important tools in the diagnosis. Implementation of effective preventive measures at every steps in various settings, along with airborne infection control and protective measures for staff must be ensured.

Carbohydrate-Binding Agents: Potential of Repurposing for COVID-19 Therapy.

With the emergence of the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), the whole world is suffering from atypical pneumonia, which resulted in more than 559,047 deaths worldwide. In this time of crisis and urgency, the only hope comes from new candidate vaccines and potential antivirals. However, formulating new vaccines and synthesizing new antivirals are a laborious task. Therefore, considering the high infection rate and mortality due to COVID-19, utilization of previous information, and repurposing of existing drugs against valid viral targets have emerged as a novel drug discovery approach in this challenging time. The transmembrane spike (S) glycoprotein of coronaviruses (CoVs), which facilitates the virus's entry into the host cells, exists in a homotrimeric form and is covered with N-linked glycans. S glycoprotein is known as the main target of antibodies having neutralizing potency and is also considered as an attractive target for therapeutic or vaccine development. Similarly, targeting of N-linked glycans of S glycoprotein envelope of CoV via carbohydrate-binding agents (CBAs) could serve as an attractive therapeutic approach for developing novel antivirals. CBAs from natural sources like lectins from plants, marine algae and prokaryotes and lectin mimics like Pradimicin-A (PRM-A) have shown antiviral activities against CoV and other enveloped viruses. However, the potential use of CBAs specifically lectins was limited due to unfavorable responses like immunogenicity, mitogenicity, hemagglutination, inflammatory activity, cellular toxicity, etc. Here, we reviewed the current scenario of CBAs as antivirals against CoVs, presented strategies to improve the efficacy of CBAs against CoVs; and studied the molecular interactions between CBAs (lectins and PRM-A) with Man9 by molecular docking for potential repurposing against CoVs in general, and SARSCoV- 2, in particular.

Qualitative and quantitative assay of glucose 6 phosphate dehydrogenase in patients attending tertiary care center.

OBJECTIVES: The study was carried out with the aim to find out the frequency of Glucose 6 phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency among the patients attending the hospital and to rationalize the qualitative methemoglobin reduction test in reference to the quantitative spectrophotometric assay. Timely screening of the patients for G6PD with appropriate screening method can play an important role in preventing hemolytic crisis that arises from therapeutic use of oxidative drugs like primaquine. RESULT: The frequency of G6PD deficient cases was 3% by both of the employed tests. The mean ± SD of G6PD activity in the patients under study was 15.34 ± 4.7 IU/g Hb in males and 16.01 ± 3.74 IU/g Hb in females. G6PD activity was positively associated with reticulocyte count (r = 0.289, p value = 0.004) and negatively with mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (r = -0.220, p-value = 0.028). The correlation of red blood corpuscular count and G6PD was statistically significant (p-value = 0.048).