Nanoscience and nanotechnology have steered in the new era of medical innovation and offered a promising solution to the longstanding challenges in the healthcare due to size dependent physicochemical properties. The ability to engineer the specific nanostructures makes the nanomaterials more attractive and find potential applications in the field of biomedical sciences. Among various noble metal nanomaterials, copper and copper-based nanomaterials are considered as a unique nanomaterial for multitude of the biomedical applications. Plant biomolecules contain various terpenoids, alkaloids, flavonoids, flavones, proteins, polyphenols, saponins, tannins, steroids, as well as other nutritional compounds; which are capable of acting as reducing and capping agents for copper-based nanomaterials formation. Biosynthesis of copper-based nanomaterials has great advantages due to less-toxicity, biocompatible, antiviral or anti-bacterial properties for the development of bio-sensor or drug delivery application. In this mini-review, the biosensor and drug delivery potential of the copper-based functional nano-formulation are discussed.

A large amount of medical equipment is now extensively utilized in healthcare institutions to assist clinical practitioners in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. And the applications of such advanced and sophisticated medical equipment have greatly improved the quality of patient care, significantly alleviated the sufferings of patients, and facilitated their rehabilitation. Nevertheless, failures and malfunctions of medical equipment have compromised its reliability and effectiveness as well as jeopardizing the safety of patients and clinical staffs. And a majority of the failures can be attributed to the insufficient and inappropriate maintenance. Therefore, it is imperative to implement effective maintenance management to ensure that medical equipment is in its optimal function, and thereby mitigating the clinical risk resulted by adverse events. The presented review mainly discussed the maintenance strategies of medical equipment including corrective maintenance, preventive maintenance and predictive maintenance. In order to replace the fixed-interval of preventive maintenance, we systematically discussed methods to adjust the maintenance period. Additionally, two strategies to predicting future failures of medical equipment through processing and analyzing the maintenance data obtained from the historical maintenance logs and condition data collected by the embedded sensors are elaborated. Besides, the classification and life cycle of medical equipment are also summarized.

With the development of 3D printing technologies, cellulose has been explored to realize its sophisticated geometry fabrication in this field for a variety of applications. This review focuses specifically on the latest research progress of 3D printing cellulose by discussing the characteristics of cellulose materials, different 3D printing technologies, and their optimal performance for applications in various fields like biomedicine, food packaging, and tissue engineering. The challenges of preparing 3D printing "ink" of cellulose using dissolved cellulose or nanocellulose are introduced. Finally, the corresponding applications of cellulose using 3D printing are classified and the strategies to optimize production performance are provided.

Brain diseases, including psychosis, neurological disorders, strokes, etc., account for more than 15% of all global health damage, which is higher than that caused by cancer and cardiovascular diseases. Brain health and the treatment of brain diseases have become major challenges of the 21st century. The past few decades have witnessed a series of significant advances in human brain science research. The pathogenesis of brain diseases at the molecular and genetic level is being revealed, indicating promising outcomes. However, the existence of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) significantly impedes the delivery of drugs and genes to the brain, which seriously hinders the treatment of brain diseases. This review article provides a brief overview of the concept and history of the BBB. We focus on the critical obstacles and solutions of different kinds of therapeutics, including small molecule drugs, peptides, proteins, and genes, to break through the BBB. Delivery mechanisms, strategies, and vehicles are summarized. Recent advances and efforts in drug delivery studies that aim to overcome the BBB will greatly facilitate the development of brain disease treatment.

Peptic ulcer is a common disease with a high clinical incidence and frequent recurrences. The well-characterized galactomannan-type polysaccharide, extracted from Cassia grandis seeds, can accelerate the stages of wound healing and improve the remodeling of the extracellular matrix of injured tissues; this way, the gastroprotective potential of the galactomannan was proposed to be evaluated in the treatment of rat peptic ulcers induced by ethanol. Galactomannan was extracted by ethanol precipitation and prepared at 0.1, 1.0, and 10 mg/kg concentrations. Male Wistar rats were randomly divided into groups (n = 5) and orally treated with saline (negative control, NC), galactomannan at 0.1 mg/Kg (G0.1), galactomannan at 1.0 mg/Kg (G1), galactomannan at 10 mg/Kg (G10), and lansoprazole 30 mg/Kg (positive control, CP). Ethanol (1 mL/100g of body mass) was administered 1 h after the treatments and, after another hour, the animals were euthanized. The stomachs were removed, fixed between Petri dishes, and photographed to calculate the percentage of the injured regions by computerized software. Histological analysis and the quantification of lipid peroxidation and reduced glutathione (GSH) were also performed. G1 and G10 reduced the injured area (P < 0.001) by 40 and 36%, respectively, concerning NC. It was observed the preservation of the gastric mucosa in all of the animals treated with galactomannan, in addition to reduced (P < 0.001) lipid peroxidation and GSH levels higher (P < 0.05) than NC. The galactomannan extracted from C. grandis seeds showed gastroprotective activity at 1.0 and 10 mg/kg by reducing the area of ulceration and oxidative stress.

A large amount of medical equipment is now extensively utilized in healthcare institutions to assist clinical practitioners in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. And the applications of such advanced and sophisticated medical equipment have greatly improved the quality of patient care, significantly alleviated the sufferings of patients, and facilitated their rehabilitation. Nevertheless, failures and malfunctions of medical equipment have compromised its reliability and effectiveness as well as jeopardizing the safety of patients and clinical staffs. And a majority of the failures can be attributed to the insufficient and inappropriate maintenance. Therefore, it is imperative to implement effective maintenance management to ensure that medical equipment is in its optimal function, and thereby mitigating the clinical risk resulted by adverse events. The presented review mainly discussed the maintenance strategies of medical equipment including corrective maintenance, preventive maintenance and predictive maintenance. In order to replace the fixed-interval of preventive maintenance, we systematically discussed methods to adjust the maintenance period. Additionally, two strategies to predicting future failures of medical equipment through processing and analyzing the maintenance data obtained from the historical maintenance logs and condition data collected by the embedded sensors are elaborated. Besides, the classification and life cycle of medical equipment are also summarized.

Peptic ulcer is a common disease with a high clinical incidence and frequent recurrences. The well-characterized galactomannan-type polysaccharide, extracted from Cassia grandis seeds, can accelerate the stages of wound healing and improve the remodeling of the extracellular matrix of injured tissues; this way, the gastroprotective potential of the galactomannan was proposed to be evaluated in the treatment of rat peptic ulcers induced by ethanol. Galactomannan was extracted by ethanol precipitation and prepared at 0.1, 1.0, and 10 mg/kg concentrations. Male Wistar rats were randomly divided into groups (n = 5) and orally treated with saline (negative control, NC), galactomannan at 0.1 mg/Kg (G0.1), galactomannan at 1.0 mg/Kg (G1), galactomannan at 10 mg/Kg (G10), and lansoprazole 30 mg/Kg (positive control, CP). Ethanol (1 mL/100g of body mass) was administered 1 h after the treatments and, after another hour, the animals were euthanized. The stomachs were removed, fixed between Petri dishes, and photographed to calculate the percentage of the injured regions by computerized software. Histological analysis and the quantification of lipid peroxidation and reduced glutathione (GSH) were also performed. G1 and G10 reduced the injured area (P < 0.001) by 40 and 36%, respectively, concerning NC. It was observed the preservation of the gastric mucosa in all of the animals treated with galactomannan, in addition to reduced (P < 0.001) lipid peroxidation and GSH levels higher (P < 0.05) than NC. The galactomannan extracted from C. grandis seeds showed gastroprotective activity at 1.0 and 10 mg/kg by reducing the area of ulceration and oxidative stress.

Due to imaging sensors' constraints, it is difficult to acquire a medical image that subsequently incorporates functional metabolic data and anatomical tissue characteristics. An important tool to aid in diagnostic procedures and intra-operative management is multimodal medical image fusion, an efficient method to combine the supplemental information gathered from numerous modalities. This research proposes a unique fusion approach for multimodal medical images that makes use of mean filter and maximum symmetric surround saliency detection. First, the images to be fused are decomposed into base layer and a series of detail layers via mean filter. While the guided filtering based fusion rule is used to merge the detail layers, for the fusion of base layer, a linear summation is employed. The fused base and detail images are subsequently combined to construct the final fused image. The proposed medical image fusion method performed more effectively than existing cutting-edge approaches in the context of both visual appearance and quantitative assessment, according to careful evaluation on a widely used database. The proposed method overcomes the challenge of cutting-edge image fusion methods in maintaining substantial edges and energy information on multi-modal medical images.

Brain diseases, including psychosis, neurological disorders, strokes, etc., account for more than 15% of all global health damage, which is higher than that caused by cancer and cardiovascular diseases. Brain health and the treatment of brain diseases have become major challenges of the 21st century. The past few decades have witnessed a series of significant advances in human brain science research. The pathogenesis of brain diseases at the molecular and genetic level is being revealed, indicating promising outcomes. However, the existence of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) significantly impedes the delivery of drugs and genes to the brain, which seriously hinders the treatment of brain diseases. This review article provides a brief overview of the concept and history of the BBB. We focus on the critical obstacles and solutions of different kinds of therapeutics, including small molecule drugs, peptides, proteins, and genes, to break through the BBB. Delivery mechanisms, strategies, and vehicles are summarized. Recent advances and efforts in drug delivery studies that aim to overcome the BBB will greatly facilitate the development of brain disease treatment.

Nanoscience and nanotechnology have steered in the new era of medical innovation and offered a promising solution to the longstanding challenges in the healthcare due to size dependent physicochemical properties. The ability to engineer the specific nanostructures makes the nanomaterials more attractive and find potential applications in the field of biomedical sciences. Among various noble metal nanomaterials, copper and copper-based nanomaterials are considered as a unique nanomaterial for multitude of the biomedical applications. Plant biomolecules contain various terpenoids, alkaloids, flavonoids, flavones, proteins, polyphenols, saponins, tannins, steroids, as well as other nutritional compounds; which are capable of acting as reducing and capping agents for copper-based nanomaterials formation. Biosynthesis of copper-based nanomaterials has great advantages due to less-toxicity, biocompatible, antiviral or anti-bacterial properties for the development of bio-sensor or drug delivery application. In this mini-review, the biosensor and drug delivery potential of the copper-based functional nano-formulation are discussed.