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Natural structural materials often possess unique combinations of strength and toughness resulting from their complex hierarchical assembly across multiple length scales. However, engineering such well-ordered structures in synthetic materials via a universal and scalable manner still poses a grand challenge. Herein, a simple yet versatile approach is proposed to design hierarchically structured hydrogels by flow-induced alignment of nanofibrils, without high time/energy consumption or cumbersome postprocessing. Highly aligned fibrous configuration and structural densification are successfully achieved in anisotropic hydrogels under ambient conditions, resulting in desired mechanical properties and damage-tolerant architectures, for example, strength of 14 ± 1 MPa, toughness of 154 ± 13 MJ m −3 , and fracture energy of 153 ± 8 kJ m −2 . Moreover, a hydrogel mesoporous framework can deliver ultra-fast and unidirectional water transport (maximum speed at 65.75 mm s −1 ), highlighting its potential for water purification. This scalable fabrication explores a promising strategy for developing bioinspired structural hydrogels, facilitating their practical applications in biomedical and engineering fields. Natural materials can combine strength and toughness, but achieving similar well-ordered structures for synthetic materials is challenging. Here, the authors report hydrogels prepared by flow-induced alignment of nanofibrils, with anisotropic structure and good mechanical properties.

Developing nanozymes with effective reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging ability is a promising approach for osteoarthritis (OA) treatment. Nonetheless, numerous nanozymes lie in their relatively low antioxidant activity. In certain circumstances, some of these nanozymes may even instigate ROS production to cause side effects. To address these challenges, a copper‐based metal–organic framework (Cu MOF) nanozyme is designed and applied for OA treatment. Cu MOF exhibits comprehensive and powerful activities (i.e., SOD‐like, CAT‐like, and •OH scavenging activities) while negligible pro‐oxidant activities (POD‐ and OXD‐like activities). Collectively, Cu MOF nanozyme is more effective at scavenging various types of ROS than other Cu‐based antioxidants, such as commercial CuO and Cu single‐atom nanozyme. Density functional theory calculations also confirm the origin of its outstanding enzyme‐like activities. In vitro and in vivo results demonstrate that Cu MOF nanozyme exhibits an excellent ability to decrease intracellular ROS levels and relieve hypoxic microenvironment of synovial macrophages. As a result, Cu MOF nanozyme can modulate the polarization of macrophages from pro‐inflammatory M1 to anti‐inflammatory M2 subtype, and inhibit the degradation of cartilage matrix for efficient OA treatment. The excellent biocompatibility and protective properties of Cu MOF nanozyme make it a valuable asset in treating ROS‐related ailments beyond OA. A Cu‐based metal–organic framework (Cu MOF) nanozyme fabricated through a simple self‐assembly strategy exhibits comprehensive and powerful antioxidant activities while minimal pro‐oxidant activities. The Cu MOF nanozyme shows excellent scavenging capabilities against various types of ROS and relieves the hypoxic microenvironment of synovial macrophages, resulting in efficient and safe treatment of osteoarthritis (OA).

HighlightsInspired by metalloenzymes with well-defined coordination structures, a series of Cu-X metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) nanozymes with tunable copper active centers were successfully constructed.Experimental and theoretical results strongly supported that precisely tuning the coordination of halogen atoms could directly regulate the enzyme-like activities of Cu-X MOFs by influencing their spatial configuration and electronic structure.The optimal Cu–Cl MOF with excellent enzyme-mimicking activities could effectively relieve ocular chemical burns by possible antioxidant and antiapoptotic mechanisms.Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) have attracted significant research interest in biomimetic catalysis. However, the modulation of the activity of MOFs by precisely tuning the coordination of metal nodes is still a significant challenge. Inspired by metalloenzymes with well-defined coordination structures, a series of MOFs containing halogen-coordinated copper nodes (Cu-X MOFs, X = Cl, Br, I) are employed to elucidate their structure–activity relationship. Intriguingly, experimental and theoretical results strongly support that precisely tuning the coordination of halogen atoms directly regulates the enzyme-like activities of Cu-X MOFs by influencing the spatial configuration and electronic structure of the Cu active center. The optimal Cu–Cl MOF exhibits excellent superoxide dismutase-like activity with a specific activity one order of magnitude higher than the reported Cu-based nanozymes. More importantly, by performing enzyme-mimicking catalysis, the Cu–Cl MOF nanozyme can significantly scavenge reactive oxygen species and alleviate oxidative stress, thus effectively relieving ocular chemical burns. Mechanistically, the antioxidant and antiapoptotic properties of Cu–Cl MOF are achieved by regulating the NRF2 and JNK or P38 MAPK pathways. Our work provides a novel way to refine MOF nanozymes by directly engineering the coordination microenvironment and, more significantly, demonstrating their potential therapeutic effect in ophthalmic disease.

The design and fabrication of biopolymer‐incorporated flexible electronics have attracted immense interest in healthcare systems, degradable implants, and electronic skin. However, the application of these soft bioelectronic devices is often hampered by their intrinsic drawbacks, such as poor stability, inferior scalability, and unsatisfactory durability. Herein, for the first time, using wool keratin (WK) as a structural biomaterial and natural mediator to fabricate soft bioelectronics is presented. Both theoretical and experimental studies reveal that the unique features of WK can endow carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with excellent water dispersibility, stability, and biocompatibility. Therefore, well‐dispersed and electroconductive bio‐inks can be prepared via a straightforward mixing process of WK and CNTs. The as‐obtained WK/CNTs inks can be directly exploited to design versatile and high‐performance bioelectronics, such as flexible circuits and electrocardiogram electrodes. More impressively, WK can also be a natural mediator to connect CNTs and polyacrylamide chains to fabricate a strain sensor with enhanced mechanical and electrical properties. With conformable and soft architectures, these WK‐derived sensing units can be further assembled into an integrated glove for real‐time gesture recognition and dexterous robot manipulations, suggesting the great potential of the WK/CNT composites for wearable artificial intelligence. Natural polymers show great potential in the research field of soft electronics. Wool keratin extracted from wool fibers can serve as a structural biomaterial and natural mediator for fabricating versatile, biocompatible, and robust bioelectronic platforms. The obtained platforms that can be applied in flexible circuits, gesture recognition, and robot manipulation are also being explored, providing a novel strategy to fabricate emerging soft electronics.

Recently, the design and development of nanozyme-based logic gates have received much attention. In this work, by engineering the stability of the nanozyme-catalyzed product, we demonstrated that the chromogenic system of 3, 3′, 5, 5′-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) can act as a visual output signal for constructing various Boolean logic operations. Specifically, cerium oxide or ferroferric oxide-based nanozymes can catalyze the oxidation of colorless TMB to a blue color product (oxTMB). The blue-colored solution of oxTMB could become colorless by some reductants, including the reduced transition state of glucose oxidase and xanthine oxidase. As a result, by combining biocatalytic reactions, the color change of oxTMB could be controlled logically. In our logic systems, glucose oxidase, β-galactosidase, and xanthine oxidase acted as inputs, and the state of oxTMB solution was used as an output. The logic operation produced a colored solution as the readout signal, which was easily distinguished with the naked eye. More importantly, the study of such a decolorization process allows the transformation of previously designed AND and OR logic gates into NAND and NOR gates. We propose that this work may push forward the design of novel nanozyme-based biological gates and help us further understand complex physiological pathways in living systems.

Background A Distal radius fracture (DRF) is a common upper extremity injury with a significant socioeconomic burden. While various treatments exist, comprehensive health economic evaluations comparing Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), Western medicine (WM), and integrated Chinese-Western medicine (ICWM) treatment for DRF using real-world data are lacking. This study aims to conduct a cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) of these three treatment strategies to guide clinical decisions and resource allocation. Methods A retrospective analysis was conducted using 2023 data from the Beijing Medical Price Platform. DRF inpatients were categorized into TCM, WM, and ICWM groups based on procedure codes. Propensity Score Matching (PSM) was employed to balance demographic and clinical confounders. The primary outcomes included the improvement rate of the Barthel Index (reflecting activities of daily living) and the average hospitalization cost. CEA was performed by calculating the cost-effectiveness ratio (CER) and the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER). Results After PSM, the improvement rates for the WM versus TCM groups were 23.74% and 24.93%, with average costs of CNY 39,022.99 and CNY 6,369.00, respectively. For WM versus ICWM, the rates were 19.53% and 18.63%, with costs of CNY 33,462.91 and CNY 26,130.69, respectively. There was no significant difference in improvement rates among the groups. The TCM group demonstrated a significantly lower CER (255.48 CNY per percentage point) compared to the WM (1,643.87 CNY per percentage point) and ICWM (1,402.62 CNY per percentage point) groups. The ICER indicated that TCM was dominant (lower cost, better effect) compared to WM (ICER: -27,426.06 CNY per percentage point). Probabilistic sensitivity analysis (PSA) via 1,000 Monte Carlo simulations confirmed the robustness of results, with TCM and ICWM showing 80% and 55% probabilities of being cost-effective, respectively, across varying willingness-to-pay (WTP) thresholds. Conclusion TCM conservative treatment for DRF offers a clear cost advantage over WM and ICWM treatment, with similar effectiveness, highlighting its potential for “simplicity, convenience, validity, and low cost.” Although ICWM is less expensive than WM alone, it shows suboptimal resource integration. It is advisable to adopt a tiered “TCM main, Western auxiliary” diagnosis and treatment model to effectively reduce the financial burden on patients and the healthcare system.

To address the challenges of ambient light interference and slow overload recovery in transimpedance amplifiers (TIAs) for automotive Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) systems, this paper proposes a high-performance TIA with integrated ambient light cancellation and fast recovery capabilities. The core design includes an adaptive ambient light cancellation (ALC) loop that eliminates background currents up to 3 mA without relying on AC coupling capacitors, achieving a low-frequency cutoff frequency of 321 kHz to ensure the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of weak target signals. A multi-stage clamping and current transfer mechanism is employed to realize rapid overload recovery: under 100 mA heavy overload conditions, the recovery time is controlled around 8.7 ns, and the pulse broadening is limited to 2.7 ns, avoiding measurement blind zones. Implemented in a 0.18-μm SiGe BiCMOS process, the proposed TIA occupies a compact area of 0.15 mm2, with a transimpedance gain of 80 dBΩ (10 kΩ) and a −3 dB bandwidth of 421 MHz. The input-referred noise current spectral density is 4.7 pA/Hz, and the integrated equivalent input noise current from 1 Hz to 250 MHz is 73.6 nArms. Operating over a temperature range of −40 ℃ to 125 ℃, the TIA meets the rigorous requirements of automotive-grade applications. Performance comparisons with commercial products and state-of-the-art designs demonstrate its competitive ambient light rejection and fast recovery capabilities, validating its potential for use in direct time-of-flight (dToF) LiDAR systems for autonomous driving.

HighlightsMaterials with contradictory performance were prepared using wool keratin (WK).WK used for in situ preparation of AuNPs and N-doped carbon precursor as well.Two- and three-electrode flexible strip sensors designed for pH and UA detection.Flexible biosensors with high accuracy and reliable operation in detecting pH and uric acid levels in body fluids are fabricated using well-engineered metal-doped porous carbon as electrode material. The gold nanoparticles@N-doped carbon in situ are prepared using wool keratin as both a novel carbon precursor and a stabilizer. The conducting electrode material is fabricated at 500 °C under customized parameters, which mimics A–B type (two different repeating units) polymeric material and displays excellent deprotonation performance (pH sensitivity). The obtained pH sensor exhibits high pH sensitivity of 57 mV/pH unit and insignificant relative standard deviation of 0.088%. Conversely, the composite carbon material with sp2 structure prepared at 700 °C is doped with nitrogen and gold nanoparticles, which exhibits good conductivity and electrocatalytic activity for uric acid oxidation. The uric acid sensor has linear response over a range of 1–150 µM and a limit of detection 0.1 µM. These results will provide new avenues where biological material will be the best start, which can be useful to target contradictory applications through molecular engineering at mesoscale.

Light-activated nanozymes can provide a wealth of new opportunities for the chemical industry and biotechnology. However, present remote-controlled catalytic systems are still far from satisfactory. Herein, we present an interesting example of applying ultrathin Pd nanosheets (Pd NSs) as a light-controllable peroxidase mimic. Since most of Pd atoms are exposed on their surface, Pd NSs with a thickness of 1.1 nm possess high peroxidase-like activity. More importantly, under light excitation, such intrinsic activity can be further activated by a nearly 2.4- to 3.2-fold. Such a phenomenon can be ascribed to the unique optical property of ultrathin Pd NSs, which can efficiently capture photons to generate hot electrons via surface plasmon resonance effect and thus promote the in situ decomposition of H2O2 into reactive oxygen species radicals (O*). This enhanced catalysis can also be used for real-time and highly sensitive colorimetric detection of H2O2. We expect our work can provide valuable insights into the rational design of artificial nanozymes with controllable and efficient activity in biomedical diagnostics, drug delivery, and environmental chemistry.

Conductive hydrogels have garnered significant attention as ideal materials for flexible wearable sensors due to their conductivity, flexibility, adaptability, and biocompatibility. However, traditional conductive hydrogels frequently exhibit poor moisture retention and suboptimal mechanical properties, which greatly limit their practical usability. Inspired by the anisotropic structure of biological tissues and the natural moisturizing factors in skin, a novel bioinspired directional hydrogel (BDH) system is presented, using polyvinyl alcohol as the matrix, incorporating polydopamine‐modified carbon nanotubes and PEDOT‐PSS as conductive materials, and sodium pyrrolidone carboxylic acid for moisture retention. The precursor solution containing disordered polymer chains undergoes flow‐induced alignment, followed by strong aggregation and crystallization driven by a kosmotropic salt solution. This dual‐stage process ultimately yields the BDH with pronounced structural anisotropy, characterized by tightly packed, aligned polymer domains. The obtained hydrogel exhibits excellent mechanical strength, damage tolerance, good conductivity, and moisture retention, making it suitable as a flexible sensor for high‐load stress conditions. When combined with machine learning algorithms, BDHs enable accurate motion tracking and intent recognition, showing promising applications in motor training and ability assessment. This efficient, energy‐saving fabrication method offers a promising strategy for developing bioinspired structural hydrogels, facilitating their practical use in human‐machine interactions. This study develops a bioinspired directional hydrogel (BDH) via flow‐induced alignment of polyvinyl alcohol and dispersed carbon nanotubes, enhanced by the immersion of natural moisturizing factors. The BDH exhibits superior mechanical strength, conductivity, and moisture retention, enabling high‐performance flexible sensors for precise motion tracking in athletic training when integrated with machine learning algorithms.