Diseases articles within Nature Materials

Featured

  • Editorial |

    Within a few weeks of the novel coronavirus genome sequence being published, numerous therapies and vaccines have entered clinical trials with a few showing great promise in alleviating symptoms and accelerating recovery.

  • News & Views |

    Understanding the mechanics of acute kidney injury from toxins, ischemia and sepsis remains challenging. Molecular probes with high renal clearance have now been developed for real-time optical detection of early-stage biomarkers of drug-induced acute kidney injury, and for the understanding of the mechanisms of injury.

    • Stephen M. Hewitt
    •  & Robert A. Star
  • Feature |

    Camille M. Le Gall, Jorieke Weiden, Loek J. Eggermont and Carl G. Figdor provide an overview of immunotherapeutics for cancer treatment that harness dendritic cells, their challenges in clinical use, and approaches employed to enhance their recruitment and activation to promote effective anti-tumour immunity.

    • Camille M. Le Gall
    • , Jorieke Weiden
    •  & Carl G. Figdor
  • Feature |

    Darrell Irvine provides an overview of the recent advances in materials science that have enabled the use of innovative natural and synthetic compounds in vaccine development capable of regulating the potency and safety of new vaccines progressing towards the clinic.

    • Darrell Irvine
  • Editorial |

    As the interaction of the immune system with the tumour microenvironment becomes increasingly understood, more evidence indicates how immunotherapy can be employed to better eliminate cancers.

  • News & Views |

    Collective cell migration and jamming in the bronchial epithelium helps to understand the pathophysiology underlying asthma.

    • Melody A. Swartz
  • News & Views |

    The fabrication of a self-sustaining source of low-energy electrons in a single-atom layer could help unravel fundamental mechanisms of radiobiological damage and lead to improved cancer therapies.

    • Léon Sanche
  • Article |

    Analytical techniques reveal that spherical calcium phosphate particles are the first mineralized structures to be formed in the calcification process in cardiovascular tissues. Furthermore, the inner sections of calcified lesions in patients with various cardiovascular diseases are identified as highly crystalline, spherical hydroxyapatite particles that differ in structure from bone mineral.

    • Sergio Bertazzo
    • , Eileen Gentleman
    •  & Molly M. Stevens
  • Editorial |

    Highly engineered materials can play a pivotal role both in boosting the performance of athletes and in stimulating the innate repair of tissue damaged by sports injuries.

  • News & Views |

    Pliable gels of fibrin, a fibrous protein involved in blood clotting and linked to cancer, select cells with high in vivo aggressiveness and 'stemness' from a pool of cancer cells.

    • Jae-Won Shin
    •  & Dennis E. Discher
  • Commentary |

    The optimal stimulation of tissue regeneration in bone, cartilage and spinal cord injuries involves a judicious selection of biomaterials with tailored chemical compositions, micro- and nanostructures, porosities and kinetic release properties for the delivery of relevant biologically active molecules.

    • Paul Ducheyne
    • , Robert L. Mauck
    •  & Douglas H. Smith
  • Article |

    An electrochemical method that uses ion-selective membranes to electrically modulate ion concentrations in situ along a sciatic nerve in vitro allows for on-demand reversible inhibition of signal propagation as well as up to 40% reduction of the electrical threshold for stimulation. The method may be applicable in implantable neuroprosthetic devices.

    • Yong-Ak Song
    • , Rohat Melik
    •  & Samuel J. Lin
  • Letter |

    The in vivo optical detection of bacterial infections requires highly specific imaging probes with small affinity to mammalian tissue. It is now shown that fluorescent dyes that are conjugated to maltohexaose can be internalized rapidly via the bacteria-specific maltodextrin transport pathway, enabling the in vivo imaging of Escherichia coli down to 105 colony-forming units.

    • Xinghai Ning
    • , Seungjun Lee
    •  & Niren Murthy
  • Article |

    A nanocarrier—synthesized by the fusion of liposomes to spherical, nanoporous silica particles and subsequent modification of the lipid bilayer with targeting peptides and fusogenic peptides—shows the targeted delivery and controlled release of chemically diverse multicomponent cargos within the cytosol of certain cancer cells.

    • Carlee E. Ashley
    • , Eric C. Carnes
    •  & C. Jeffrey Brinker