Materials for central nervous system regeneration: bioactive cues. In this review Christiane Gumera, Britta Rauck and Yadong Wang report on how materials-based approaches offer a way to combine synthetic and biological components to help neural regeneration. The authors outline various biomaterials that are promising for central nerve applications and they discuss the array of bioactive cues that are valuable in promoting nerve repair. (J. Mater. Chem., 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C0JM04335D, Advance Article)
Organic–inorganic hybrid polysilsesquioxane nanospheres as UVA/UVB absorber and fragrance carrier. A material designed to protect you from the sun could also contain a scent say a team of scientists based in Thailand. The material is based on hybrid organic–silica particles with UVA/UVB absorptive chromophores. In addition to encapsulating fragrant molecules, these materials avoid the photocatalysis property of inorganic UV absorbers, such as TiO2 and ZnO nanoparticles, retain the minimal transdermal penetration and non-sticky nature of particulate silica particles, whilst at the same time harnessing the UV absorption characteristics of organic chromophores. (J. Mater. Chem., 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C0JM04271D, Advance Article)
Graphene oxide coated core–shell structured polystyrene microspheres and their electrorheological characteristics under applied electric field. In this Hot Article a team of Korean scientists fabricate and study core–shell structured polystyrene–graphene oxide microspheres. These particles were synthesized by adsorbing graphene oxide sheets onto a polystyrene surface through a strong π–π stacking interaction. Monodispersed polystyrene microspheres were prepared as the core material using a dispersion polymerization, while the shell part of grapheme oxide was synthesized by a modified Hummers method. (J. Mater. Chem., 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1JM10323G, Advance Article)
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