Biohybrid and peptide-based polymer vesicles

This review covers the major processes and mechanisms involved in the production of biohybrid or peptide-based polymer vesicles by self-assembly. The formation of vesicles conventionally occurs based on geometric packing issues, and becomes predominant when the membrane-forming segment is stiffened due to hydrogen bonding and secondary structure interactions or supramolecular complexation. The vesicles are used for applications in life science, for the purpose of drug/gene delivery, cell surface recognition, and as bioreactors, and for the production of composite materials.

The production of composite materials is a high-tech process that has become widespread in many industries in recent decades. The share of products using composite components is steadily growing both in Russia and abroad. Many scientific and technical studies of scientists and engineers around the world are devoted to the development and creation of new composite materials. The scientific, technical and technological features of using the provisions of the theory of ordered arrangement of microdoses of heterogeneous media components for experimental confirmation of scientific research data and practical implementation to obtain new and modified composite materials for various purposes and uses, including those with metal fillers and modifying additives, are presented. The main lines of scientific and technical developments on this topic are: mathematical substantiation of the formation of ordered structures of composite mixtures and verification of the obtained scientific and practical results, the creation and experimental study of new pilot stands, devices and machines for production and use of composite materials with new properties from heterogeneous materials as key components, methodological support and development of technological complexes for production of new composite materials with unique properties. The aim of the research is to develop modern technological complexes, as well as schemes and modes of their operation for production of composite mixtures and materials in the required volume with a deterministic formation of their homogeneity and optimization of the formulation for functionally justified provision of the maximum effect of using these composites with the introduction of various modifying components, including metal, which are both solid and liquid media.

This paper deals with investigating the feasibility of using waste plum pits in the production of composite particleboard materials and the improvement of their mechanical and physical properties. Biodegradability, flammability and water absorption are the primary disadvantages of wood-based composites, which reduce their service life. In this experimental study, waste colemanite was used to decrease the known flammability of wood composites. Phenol formaldehyde (PF) was used to increase the water resistance and prevent biodegradability of the prepared materials, and hemp fiber was added to increase their mechanical strength. Thus, the objective was to avoid the disadvantages of wood-based materials. Based on the results of the flexural strength test, the optimum polymer composite material production parameters were determined to be as follows: 0.50 filler/binder ratio, 56 kg/cm2 moulding pressure and 0.75 hemp fiber ratio. According to the results of the experiments, the use of waste colemanite in the production of composite materials improves their non-flammability, while decreasing flexural and screw withdrawal strengths. It was determined that waste plum pits could be used to substitute for wood chips, as an alternative filler material in the production of composite materials. As a result, eco-friendly polymer composite materials were produced from waste plum pits, hemp fiber, and waste colemanite. The obtained composite materials are compliant with applicable standards and are suitable for application as building materials for use in both interior and exterior space.

The article presents the results of obtaining a composite material by sintering nickel-containing raw materials mixed with carbon-containing materials, namely using coke and semi-coke. The sintering process was performed at a charge layer height of 240 mm and the temperature of the lower layer was T = 1200 °C. The results of the sieve analysis showed (a fraction of 10 mm) that the yield of a suitable composite material using coke was 68.3% and with semi-coke 67.0%. The average nickel and chromium content in the composite materials was 1.42% and 3.07%, accordingly. As a result of determining the strength characteristics of the obtained composite materials with various reducing agents by dropping from a height of 2 m onto a steel pallet, it was found that the obtained composite materials have high mechanical properties in terms of strength of 81% and 89.2%. The results of the elemental composition at the studied points and the thermal analysis of the studied composite material are presented. The mineralogical composition of the composite material is presented in the form of serpentine and nontronite, and the empty rock is made of quartz and talc. The activation energy of thermal analysis by the method of non-isothermal kinetics were calculated. The results of experiments on the production of composite materials from nickel-containing raw materials will be recommended for obtaining the optimal composition of composite materials at the stage of pilot tests and industrial development of the developed technology for processing nickel ores of the Republic of Kazakhstan. For the processing of nickel-poor nickel ores, it is of great importance to obtain optimal technological and technical and economic indicators that ensure low cost of nickel in the resulting product.

BackgroundFilamentous fungi of the phylum Basidiomycota are considered as an attractive source for the biotechnological production of composite materials. The ability of many basidiomycetes to accept residual lignocellulosic plant biomass from agriculture and forestry such as straw, shives and sawdust as substrates and to bind and glue together these otherwise loose but reinforcing substrate particles into their mycelial network, makes them ideal candidates to produce biological composites to replace petroleum-based synthetic plastics and foams in the near future.ResultsHere, we describe for the first time the application potential of the tinder fungus Fomes fomentarius for lab-scale production of mycelium composites. We used fine, medium and coarse particle fractions of hemp shives and rapeseed straw to produce a set of diverse composite materials and show that the mechanical materials properties are dependent on the nature and particle size of the substrates. Compression tests and scanning electron microscopy were used to characterize composite material properties and to model their compression behaviour by numerical simulations. Their properties were compared amongst each other and with the benchmark expanded polystyrene (EPS), a petroleum-based foam used for thermal isolation in the construction industry. Our analyses uncovered that EPS shows an elastic modulus of 2.37 ± 0.17 MPa which is 4-times higher compared to the F. fomentarius composite materials whereas the compressive strength of 0.09 ± 0.003 MPa is in the range of the fungal composite material. However, when comparing the ability to take up compressive forces at higher strain values, the fungal composites performed better than EPS. Hemp-shive based composites were able to resist a compressive force of 0.2 MPa at 50% compression, rapeseed composites 0.3 MPa but EPS only 0.15 MPa.ConclusionThe data obtained in this study suggest that F. fomentarius constitutes a promising cell factory for the future production of fungal composite materials with similar mechanical behaviour as synthetic foams such as EPS. Future work will focus on designing materials characteristics through optimizing substrate properties, cultivation conditions and by modulating growth and cell wall composition of F. fomentarius, i.e. factors that contribute on the meso- and microscale level to the composite behaviour.

We present and discuss several modern optical methods based on elastic light scattering (ELS), along with their technical features and applications in biomedicine and life sciences. In particular, we review some ELS experiments at the single-cell level and explore new directions of applications. Due to recent developments in experimental systems (as shown in the literature), ELS lends itself to useful applications in the life sciences. Of the developed methods, we cover elastic scattering spectroscopy, optical tweezer-assisted measurement, goniometers, Fourier transform light scattering (FTLS), and microscopic methods. FTLS significantly extends the potential analysis of single cells by allowing monitoring of dynamical changes at the single-cell level. The main aim of our review is to demonstrate developments in the experimental investigation of ELS in single cells including issues related to theoretical “representations” and modeling of biological systems (cells, cellular systems, tissues, and so on). Goniometric measurements of ELS from optically trapped single cells are shown and the importance of the experimental verification of theoretical models of ELS in the context of biomedical applications is discussed.

The remainder of this article is organized to provide a comprehensive exploration of the proposed architecture and its applications in healthcare and life sciences. Section 2 provides background on digital therapeutics evolution and reviews related work in healthcare data integration architectures, establishing the context for the proposed framework. Section 3 presents the architecture framework in detail, including core components, data integration mechanisms, and scalability design principles. Section 4 examines the AI/ML analytics layer, discussing advanced analytics capabilities and observability frameworks essential for reliable clinical decision support. Section 5 explores applications in life sciences, covering clinical trial enhancement, drug development optimization, and regulatory compliance considerations, while Section 6 concludes with implications for future healthcare delivery models and identifies directions for continued research and development in this rapidly evolving field.The growth of digital therapeutics has grown from a more basic form of digital health into clinical evidence-based interventions that directly treat, manage, or even prevent medical conditions, and has now gone from a suite of aggregated behavioral intervention solutions or interventions based on physiological or sensor input to the ability to deliver the multi-layered therapeutic interventions, which not only can reflect and benefit from real-time data inputs, but also have distinct algorithms for intervention based on patient behaviors, and adapt over time (a.k.a. dynamic adapting). Moreover, the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning has taken to the next level the sophistication of monitoring and interventions utilizing both predictive behavior modeling and dynamic optimization. Digital therapeutics and digital health finally gained meaningful traction among healthcare providers who clinically delivered diabetes management programs, depression screeners, substance use disorder treatments, and chronic pain management tools, and consistently ensured a deeper understanding of their patient's response to "treatment" by leveraging mobile and web-based applications, wearables and sensors, virtual and augmented reality platforms, and an emerging connected medical devices ecosystem - all while clinically ensuring that credibility and clinical evidence was elicited through rigorous clinical trials similar to those present for pharmaceutical products. [3] Healthcare organizations have used a variety of strategies to solve data integration challenges, evolving from a model of traditional point-to-point connections that allowed for basic data exchange but created complicated networks of integration, and moving toward the adoption of hub-and-spoke architectures that used integration engines to centralize data routing and transformation logic. The development of health information exchanges (HIEs) was an important step forward to allow for seamless sharing of data between organizations in an organized way based on standard protocols and agreed upon governance, albeit one that was intended for use in non-real time data sharing and for formal data requests, and struggled with the integration of emerging new sources of data such as digital health applications. The most current approaches for integrating health data have used API-first architectures (often through cloud-based integration platforms) that have taken advantage of standards like FHIR in order to provide programmatic, hierarchy-free access to clinical data while still enforcing security and privacy controls. Cloud-based options have become powerful solutions due to scalability, flexibility, and the use of features supporting advanced analytics. While there are various cloud-based health data integration platforms available, there have also been advances with microservices and containerized deployments to deliver more flexibility in integration, and while there have been advancements to achieve open access, they do not describe or optimize the particularities of the data streams that will be combined from both a digital therapeutic and pharmaceutical context [4]. The convergence of digital therapeutics (DTx) with traditional pharmaceutical interventions represents a transformative shift in healthcare delivery, necessitating sophisticated data architectures that can manage multimodal clinical information. This article presents a comprehensive framework for integrating DTx platforms with enterprise healthcare systems through cloud-native infrastructure, Delta Lake-based data lakehouses, and FHIR/HL7-compliant APIs. The proposed architecture utilizes event-driven pipelines and domain-oriented data mesh principles to facilitate the scalable ingestion and governance of diverse data streams, including patient engagement metrics, sensor outputs, prescription records, and laboratory results. Advanced machine learning algorithms facilitate cross-modal insights such as behavioral response prediction, dynamic dosing recommendations, and early detection of non-adherence patterns. The framework incorporates AI observability mechanisms to ensure model reliability, auditability, and performance monitoring across deployed decision-support tools. Implementation of this architecture enhances clinical trial design through real-world behavior-linked endpoints, enables precision patient segmentation using digital biomarkers, and improves drug efficacy analysis by correlating pharmacologic and digital engagement data. The system supports regulatory-grade evidence generation for combination therapies while reducing development cycle times and enhancing post-market surveillance capabilities. By bridging clinical data silos with AI-ready architectures and continuous feedback loops, this integrated framework advances therapeutic outcomes and drives innovation in pharmacovigilance, commercial analytics, and real-world evidence generation for life sciences organizations.

Link for citation: Kopanitsa N.O., Demyanenko O.V., Kulikova A.A., Tkach E.V., Shestakov N.I., Stepina I.V. Secondary resources in production of composite building materials based on cement. Bulletin of the Tomsk Polytechnic University. Geo Аssets Engineering, 2023, vol. 334, no. 10, рр. 49-60. In Rus. The relevance of the research is caused by the importance of the problem of rational use of natural resources in production of composite building materials. The possibility of partial replacement of natural non-renewable raw materials used in the production of multi-ton concrete and mortar mixtures based on cement with secondary products from the production of various industries will solve the problems of: resource saving, energy consumption and ecology. The construction industry is the largest consumer of by-products of mining enterprises: overburden and waste from mining and processing enterprises, which is hundreds of millions of tons per year. The most studied are the issues related to their use as fine and coarse aggregates in concrete and mortar mixtures for various purposes. The expansion of the possibility of using secondary products of mining enterprises in the production of composite building materials is associated with the production of active mineral additives, fillers in concrete and mortar mixtures, as well as energetically active nanomodifiers. The use of by-products of different chemical composition and dispersion makes it possible to control the processes of structure formation and hardening of composite materials based on cement and to obtain composite materials with the required performance properties. The main goal of the research is to scientifically substantiate and investigate the possibility of using waste from mining enterprises as components in concrete and mortar mixtures based on cement. Objects: modifying additives based on secondary products; composite materials with enhanced performance properties. Methods: determination of the mobility of mixtures, normal density, hardening time, flexural and compressive strength according to SS; thermal analysis; electron microscopy, x-ray phase analysis, colorimetry. Results. The paper introduces the results of studies necessary for the scientific substantiation, development and implementation in the construction industry of the technology for production of building mortar mixtures obtained using secondary products of mining enterprises as well as the comparative results of studies on the effect of a complex additive of microcalcite and nano-SiO2 on the properties of cement systems. It is shown that the introduction of a complex additive increases the compressive strength of cement stone, reduces the consumption of cement without reducing its standard characteristics and improves the performance properties of concrete.

The geometric parameters and relative stability of γ- and β-loop conformers of oligomers based on alanine were determined by the Kohn-Sham method (the B3LYP/6–31+G** approximation). The three-dimensional architecture of the β-folded structure and protein α-helix was reproduced using Kohn-Sham calculations with periodic boundary conditions. The Bader quantum-topological molecular structure theory was used to reveal and quantitatively characterize noncovalent interatomic interactions in the secondary structures of model peptides under consideration. Earlier unnoticed additional noncovalent interactions stabilizing the structures under consideration were revealed. In β-loops, these are C-H⋯O and H⋯H interactions, and, in antiparallel β-folded structures, these are weak Cβ-H⋯H-Cβ interactions between side chains. Additional weak bonding interaction between C=O groups in position i and H-Cβ groups in position i + 3 was revealed for the protein α-helix; this interaction is usually ignored in amino acid folding simulations with the use of classic force fields.

Magnetic-plasmonic nanoparticles for the life sciences: calculated optical properties of hybrid structures

Processing of softwood biomass is a promising direction in the production of wood composite materials. Pre-treatment of waste debarking allows you to create chipboards with high thermal insulation and strength properties.

This paper deals with the processing of polymer wood composite material from pine cone and the binder of phenol formaldehyde/PVAc/molasses and improvement of its properties. The most essential disadvantages of wood based materials are water absorption, flammability, and insect attack. These disadvantages limit the areas of use of wood-based materials. The production of pine cone based polymer binding and molasses added composite material, and the development of the nonflammability, insect attack and water resistance properties of this material has been studied in the research. To this end, pine cone, polyvinyl acetate (PVAc), phenol formaldehyde (PF), sugar beet molasses, hemp fiber and waste colemanite have been used in the production of composite materials. Composite materials were added PF and hemp fiber for increasing their water absorption and mechanical strength, and waste colemanite as for improving their nonflammability feature, thus eliminating the disadvantages of wood based composite materials. Besides them, the use of molasses as a substitute binder material in certain proportions instead of PVAc in the production of composite materials was investigated. According to the results of the flexural strength test conducted in the laboratory, the most suitable composite material producing parameters were detected as 0.25 filler/binder (f/b) ratio, 35% molasses ratio, 100 °C molding pressure temperature, 49 kg/cm2 molding pressure, 240 µm mean particle size, 20 min for molding pressure time, 20% PF ratio and 0.5% hemp fiber ratio. It was determined that molasses could be used at a ratio of 35% for producing composite materials and, PF resin and hemp fiber samples provide the necessary water resistance. It was observed that the colemanite waste used in the mixture adds the nonflammability property to the composite material and decreases flexural strength and screw withdrawal strength. As a result of this research; polymer composite materials can be obtained from waste pine cone, molasses, hemp fiber and waste colemanite, environmental friendly. Therefore, it is possible to submit as commercial product in the technological and feasible applications.

This book chapter presents the basic facts about cellulose materials and comprehensive information about cellulose aerogels, silica–cellulose composite aerogels. Both the fabrication methods and properties of cellulose aerogels and silica–cellulose aerogels are discussed in detail. A combination of an aerogel structure and recycled cellulose fibres from paper waste can be used to form an advanced material, called a recycled cellulose aerogel, which is cost-effective and a promising material for oil absorption. This chapter also focuses on the thermal properties, such as thermal conductivity and thermal stability, of the recycled cellulose aerogels and their silica composites for the heat insulation applications. This is the first time that the benchmark data on the thermal properties of recycled cellulose-based aerogels have been summarized. Protein-based aerogels, novel biodegradable and biocompatible materials for lightweight food engineering and life science applications, are also briefly discussed.

Automation for Life Sciences - Institute for Automation, University Rostock

Ideas concerning the conceptual existence of macromolecular and colloidal systems found their inception at the beginning of the last century. The experimental technology developed to discover and characterize those systems can be associated with seminal pioneers laying the foundations for microscopic, hydrodynamic, and light scattering approaches. In this perspective, we focus our attention on the origins of the discovery and characterization of macromolecular and colloidal systems with selected examples from the beginnings to the present. This perspective attempts to directly interconnect the design of new macromolecular as well as colloidal systems and the simultaneous development of using advanced characterization techniques for design verification. While not claiming a complete coverage of the entire field of modern polymer science, our selected examples concern the field of life science and the recently and rapidly developing area of energy materials.