石墨烯健康风险研究现状及展望

石墨烯是一种新型的二维碳纳米材料,由于具有优异的电子、光学、机械等特性,已经被广泛应用于电子器件、复合材料、能源储存等领域.近年来,石墨烯在生物医药领域崭露头角,其在诸如生物传感器、细胞成像、药物输运、抗菌材料等方面的广泛应用,为生物医药技术带来了突破,也为人体健康带来了福音.然而,随着石墨烯以不同途径进入人们的生活,其对人体及其他生物体的安全构成潜在威胁,引发的健康风险正受到广泛关注.本文从石墨烯对生物体的影响及其同生物体的相互作用方面入手,综述了近年来石墨烯健康风险的研究进展,并且总结归纳了人体抵御石墨烯健康风险的途径及机制,最后指出了未来石墨烯健康风险方面的研究方向.     

Gene therapy in cancer

Gene therapy, recently frequently investigated, is an alternative treatment method that introduces therapeutic genes into a cancer cell or tissue to cause cell death or slow down the growth of the cancer. This treatment has various strategies such as therapeutic gene activation or silencing of unwanted or defective genes; therefore a wide variety of genes and viral or nonviral vectors are being used in studies. Gene therapy strategies in cancer can be classified as inhibition of oncogene activation, activation of tumor suppressor gene, immunotherapy, suicide gene therapy and antiangiogenic gene therapy. In this review, we explain gene therapy, gene therapy strategies in cancer, approved gene medicines for cancer treatment and future of gene therapy in cancer. Today gene therapy has not yet reached the level of replacing conventional therapies. However, with a better understanding of the mechanism of cancer to determine the right treatment and target, in the future gene therapy, used as monotherapy or in combination with another existing treatment options, is likely to be used as a new medical procedure that will make cancer a controllable disease.     

微小型生物反应器及其在生物医药领域的应用展望

微小型生物反应器体积微小但在线分析检测和过程控制功能媲美台式装备。其核心支撑技术包括一次性材料及微加工技术、非接触式光学传感器、自动化以及实验设计 (DOE)、数据分析软件与过程控制的整合。由于体积微小、湍流程度和单位能耗较低,微小型反应器内的混合、传质、剪切特性与工业规模设备有一定的区别。现阶段微小型生物反应器主要用于菌株和细胞系筛选和工艺优化,在实现高通量工艺的同时确保了数据的丰度,对缩短研发周期和加速产品上市,尤其是在应对突发性传染性疾病方面有着重要的意义。未来,精准医疗概念的落实也依赖功能柔性化的微小型生物反应器系统。     

Smart hydrogels based on semi-interpenetrating polymeric networks of collagen-polyurethane-alginate for soft/hard tissue healing,drug delivery devices,and anticancer therapies

In this work, hydrogels based on semi-interpenetrating polymeric networks (semi-IPN) based on collagen-polyurethane-alginate were studied physicochemically and from different approaches for biomedical application. It was determined that the matrices in the hydrogel state are crosslinked by the formation of urea and amide bonds between the biopolymer chains and the polyurethane crosslinker. The increment in alginate content (0–40 wt%) significantly increases the swelling capacity, generating semi-crystalline granular structures with improved storage modulus and resistance to thermal, hydrolytic, and proteolytic degradation. The in vitro bioactivity results indicated that the composition of these novel hydrogels stimulates the metabolic activity of monocytes and fibroblasts, benefiting their proliferation; while in cancer cell lines, it was determined that the composition of these biomaterials decreases the metabolic activity of breast cancer cells after 48 h of stimulation, and for colon cancer cells their metabolic activity decreases after 72 h of contact for the hydrogel with 40 wt% alginate. The matrices show a behavior of multidose release of ketorolac, and a higher concentration of analgesic is released in the semi-IPN matrix. The inhibition capacity of Escherichia coli is higher if the polysaccharide concentration is low (10 wt%). The in vitro wound closure test (scratch test) results indicate that the hydrogel with 20 wt% alginate shows an improvement in wound closure at 15 days of contact. Finally, the bioactivity of mineralization was evaluated to demonstrate that these hydrogels can induce the formation of carbonated apatite on their surface. The engineered hydrogels show biomedical multifunctionality and they could be applied in soft and hard tissue healing strategies, anticancer therapies, and drug release devices.     

High-throughput single-nucleotide polymorphism discovery and the search for candidate genes for long-term SIVmac nonprogression in Chinese rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta)

Background Genetic differences between Indian and Chinese rhesus macaques contribute to the phenotypic variance of clinical trials, including infection with SIVmac. The completion of the rhesus genome has facilitated the discovery of several thousand markers. Methods We developed a genome‐wide SNP map for rhesus macaques containing 3869 validated markers with an average distance of 0.88 Mb and used the program VarLD to identify genomic areas with significant differences in linkage disequilibrium (LD) between Indian‐derived and Chinese rhesus macaques. Results Forty‐one statistically significant differences in LD between Chinese and Indian‐origin rhesus were detected on chromosomes 1, 4, 5 and 11. The region of greatest LD difference was located on the proximal end of chromosome one, which also contained the genes ELAVL4, MAST2 and HIVEP3. Conclusion These genomic areas provide entry to more detailed studies of gene function. This method is also applicable to the study of differences in biomarkers between regional populations of other species.     

Use of cloud computing in biomedicine

Nowadays, biomedicine is characterised by a growing need for processing of large amounts of data in real time. This leads to new requirements for information and communication technologies (ICT). Cloud computing offers a solution to these requirements and provides many advantages, such as cost savings, elasticity and scalability of using ICT. The aim of this paper is to explore the concept of cloud computing and the related use of this concept in the area of biomedicine. Authors offer a comprehensive analysis of the implementation of the cloud computing approach in biomedical research, decomposed into infrastructure, platform and service layer, and a recommendation for processing large amounts of data in biomedicine. Firstly, the paper describes the appropriate forms and technological solutions of cloud computing. Secondly, the high-end computing paradigm of cloud computing aspects is analysed. Finally, the potential and current use of applications in scientific research of this technology in biomedicine is discussed.     

椭圆偏振术在生物医学研究中的应用

椭圆偏振术是一种新兴的用于研究生物分子固相表面吸附以及吸附分子间相互作用的表面分析技术。其最大优点在于测量过程不破坏被测体系;而且灵敏度高,可反映接近原子尺寸的变化;又能原位、实时跟踪检测表面膜的变化情况。就椭偏术在生物医学研究的若干重要应用进行综述。     

系统生物学的研究进展

21世纪是生命科学研究的新时代,是系统生物学的时代.系统生物学以系统的观点,运用工程和计算机技术和各种先进的生物学研究手段研究细胞中所有基因和蛋白质来解释生命的奥秘.系统生物学强调对生命现象要从系统和整体的层次加以研究和把握,不仅要了解系统的结构和功能,而且还要揭示出系统内部各组成成分的相互作用和运行规律,已成为当今生命科学最具活力的新兴前沿学科之一.