Strategies for coupling photon-upconverting nanoparticles with photoactive protein therapeutics

Nanomedicine is a rapidly advancing field as capabilities in nanoscale materials, devices, and sensing grow. Biocompatible nanoparticles have made their way into the pharmaceutical and biomedical market in imaging, diagnosis, targeted drug delivery, and even repair. Similarly, protein therapeutics show promise for their unique combination of high biospecificity and diverse function. This brief perspective explores the merging of these two fields via light-controlled methods mediated by photon-upconverting nanoparticles. The framework of three photoactive protein therapeutic systems will be explored for their integration with upconverting nanoparticles.

Boron-rich, cytocompatible block copolymer nanoparticles by polymerization-induced self-assembly

A new methacrylic boronate ester is synthesized and exploited to produce biocompatible nanoparticles with a boron-rich core by PISA.

Determination of the Cavitation Pressure Threshold in Focused Ultrasound Wave Fields applied to Sonosensitive, Biocompatible Nanoparticles for Drug Delivery Applications

Employing sonosensitive nanoparticles as carriers of active pharmaceutical ingredients emerges in ultrasonic Drug Delivery. Drug release can be initiated by focused ultrasound via the effect of inertial cavitation in certain target areas of particle loaded tissue. For stimulating inertial cavitation, a specific peak rarefaction pressure threshold must be exceeded. This pressure threshold has to be determined in order to estimate the risk of tissue damage during the drug release procedure. Therefore, this study provides a method to reliably verify the cavitation pressure threshold of sonosensitive and biocompatible nanoparticles.