Health sciences articles within Nature Materials

Featured

  • News & Views |

    In atherosclerotic plaques, patterns of calcification — which have profound implications for plaque stability and vulnerability to rupture — are determined by the collagen's content and patterning throughout the plaque.

    • Jordan D. Miller

  • News & Views |

    A spool-and-ribbon cell-culture approach provides quick and easy access to the interior of engineered tumours for the analysis of cell responses to molecular gradients.

    • Peter DelNero
    •  & Claudia Fischbach

  • News & Views |

    A supramolecular polymer that is stable in the acidic environment of the stomach but dissolves in the neutral-pH environment of the intestines prolongs the safe retention of gastric devices.

    • Vitaliy V. Khutoryanskiy

  • 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

  • News & Views |

    Implanted spheres with a diameter larger than 1.5 mm escape fibrotic responses, thereby extending the survival time of the encapsulated therapeutic cells.

    • Ruud A. Bank

  • Commentary |

    Many materials-based therapeutic systems have reached the clinic or are in clinical trials. Here we describe materials design principles and the construction of delivery vehicles, as well as their adaptation and evaluation for human use.

    • Jeffrey A. Hubbell
    •  & Robert Langer

  • 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

  • Article |

    Inflatable balloon catheters are widely used in many surgical and diagnostic procedures. Such catheters have now been used as a platform for a collection of components including semiconductor devices, sensors and actuators, and these multifunctional catheters probed for their use in cardiac-related applications.

    • Dae-Hyeong Kim
    • , Nanshu Lu
    •  & John A. Rogers

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