Volume 5 Issue 9, September 2013

Soft Material Helps Cancer-Cell Capture: Soft polystyrene (PS) polymer nanotube substrate has been developed to realize rapid and highly efficient breast cancer-cell capture from whole-blood samples with high cell viability, by integrating the soft nature of PS with specific capture agents and surface structures to mimic the cell microenvironment. It is anticipated that this soft material-based substrate will provide a potentially optimal candidate for high-quality breast cancer-cell capture and detection technologies, and open a new view to design cell-material interfaces for advanced cell-based diagnostic and therapeutic platforms.

Plasmonic photoelectric conversion from visible to near-infrared wavelengths has been successfully demonstrated using electrodes in which gold nanorods are elaborately arrayed on a titanium dioxide (TiO₂) single crystal. Importantly, water molecules serve as the electron donor in the plasmonic photoelectric conversion system. Therefore, the stoichiometric evolution of oxygen and hydrogen peroxide as a result of the four- or two-electron oxidation of water molecules was accomplished even at near-infrared wavelengths, enabling the application of this plasmonic photoelectric system in artificial photosynthesis processes responding to a wide range of solar wavelengths.

In the early-to-mid 1800s, Charles Goodyear¹ discovered that natural rubbers became more robust when heated in the presence of a small amount of sulfur. We now know that this ‘vulcanization’ process stems from sulfur’s ability to form chemical bridges that strengthen the polymer chains in the rubber and is routinely used to produce tires among other common goods. An international team from the University of Arizona, Seoul National University, the University of Hamburg, and the University of Delaware developed what they refer to as ‘inverse vulcanization’.² In this process, sulfur is used as the primary ingredient and reinforced with a stryenic additive. The method involves adding 1,3-diisopropenylbenzene (DIB), which effectively intercepted radicals formed at elevated temperatures and afforded useful copolymeric materials enriched with sulfur. The real trick, however, was timing: adding the DIB after the sulfur was liquefied and in its reactive form appeared to be critical. The ratio of DIB-to-sulfur was also an important factor as the physical, electronic and optical properties displayed by the composites were dependent on their elemental compositions.