Volume 17 Issue 1, January 2022

Nanotube-mediated acquisition of immune cells’ mitochondria by tumour cells is a novel mechanism for immune evasion that can be pharmacologically targeted to potentiate cancer immunotherapies.

This Review discusses the progresses in label-free nanophotonic biosensors based on photonic or dielectric surfaces and metasurfaces and highlights the challenges and benefits of their applications in the fields of public health, well-being and biosafety.

So far, only conventional field emitters based on a bulk W needle have achieved atomic resolution in electron microscopy. Here, through the integration of a passive collimator structure and micromanipulation-based alignment of the support needle, a LaB₆ nanowire emitter yields stable emission under moderate vacuum conditions and allows for atomic-resolution images and high energy resolution.

A retina-inspired two-dimensional material based retinomorphic device exhibits all-in-one perception, memory and computing capabilities for motion detection and recognition.

A dual-coupling-guided growth mechanism enables the realization of wafer-scale single-crystal WS₂ on vicinal a-plane sapphire.

Diodes exhibit non-reciprocal current–voltage relations, that is, the resistivity depends on the direction of the current flow. Now an array of Josephson junctions with large spin–orbit interaction acts as the superconducting version of a diode, where dissipation-free supercurrent flows in one direction, but not the other.

Light-induced contraction in the out-of-plane direction in two-dimensional (2D) hybrid perovskites enables the realization of high-efficiency 2D perovskite solar cells.

A strategy based on molecular intermixing of two highly miscible components enables the demonstration of high efficiency multiple-component organic solar cells.

A scalable soft nanoengineering technique enables the realization of visible plasmons in corrugated graphene.

De novo designed peptide with β-hairpin structure assembles to form a β-barrelled nanopore that can detect not only polynucleotides but also polypeptide chains at a single-molecule level.

Steam disinfection of silicone-rubber baby teats can lead to steam etching and chemical modification of the teat surface. This can release micro- and nanoplastics and result in ingestion. The results suggested that by the age of one year, a baby could ingest more than 600,000 microplastics.

Neutrophils are the first responders in acute inflammatory events such as acute respiratory distress syndrome and tend to home to lung capillaries during acute inflammation, where they can cause tissue damage by diapedesis and secretion of specific molecules. Here the authors show that nanoparticles coated with agglutinated proteins selectively target activated neutrophils in inflamed lungs and can be used for imaging and therapeutic purposes.

Cancer cells adopt a series of strategies to evade the immune response mounted by the organism against them. Here we find that tumour cells can hijack mitochondria from immune cells by forming physical nanotubes, and suggest that inhibiting this process might represent a potential immunotherapy approach.