Enhancing vaccine stability in transdermal microneedle platforms.

Micron-scale needles, so-called microneedles (MNs) offer a minimally invasive, nearly painless, and user-friendly method for effective intradermal immunization. Maintaining the stability of antigens and therapeutics is the primary challenge in producing vaccine or drug-loaded MNs. The manufacturing of MNs patches involves processes at ambient or higher temperatures and various physio-mechanical stresses that can impact the therapeutic efficacy of sensitive biologics or vaccines.

Plasma-Enabled Graphene Quantum Dot Hydrogels as Smart Anticancer Drug Nanocarriers.

One of the major challenges on the way to low-cost, simple, and effective cancer treatments is the lack of smart anticancer drug delivery materials with the requisite of site-specific and microenvironment-responsive properties. This work reports the development of plasma-engineered smart drug nanocarriers (SDNCs) containing chitosan and nitrogen-doped graphene quantum dots (NGQDs) for drug delivery in a pH-responsive manner. Through a customized microplasma processing, a highly cross-linked SDNC with only 4.