Search

Mechanical forces are crucial regulators of biological functions in health and disease, offering measurable biomarkers and therapeutic targets. This Review introduces the principles of mechanomedicine and highlights its translational potential across scales, from tissue diagnostics to molecular mechanotherapeutics.

The oxidative intermolecular amination of C-H bonds represents a straightforward method to construct aliphatic allylic amines. However, the utilization of widely available internal alkenes remains a synthetic challenge. Here, the authors present a regioselective Cu-catalyzed oxidative allylic C-H amination of internal olefins with azodiformates.

An on-eyelid soft sensor that tracks eye movements based on the magnetoelastic effect can be used to continuously monitor and quantitatively assess levels of fatigue.

This study presents a diagnostic pen with ferrofluid ink that converts handwriting into sensing signals for Parkinson’s disease (PD) diagnostics. In pilot studies, neural network-assisted analysis of collected handwriting signals accurately distinguished patients with PD, demonstrating the pen’s potential as a low-cost, scalable tool for accessible diagnostics.

An implantable ultrasound-induced wireless electrical stimulator and a machine learning-based pain classifier can generate programmable, closed-loop based self-adaptive electrical stimulation to the spinal cord to manage chronic pain.

Engineering magnetic nanoparticles at the single-particle level advances nanoreactor design, enabling enhanced active sensing, targeted therapy, and catalytic activity, with broad implications for nano energy and nanomedicine applications.

The mismatch between solid bioelectronics and biological tissue presents a grand challenge to current skin electronics. Here, we developed a reconfigurable liquid cardiac sensor capable of adapting to biological tissues, allowing ambulatory cardiac monitoring.

The magnetism-mediated assembly of non-Brownian magnetic colloidal particles into a three-dimensional oriented and ramified magnetic network yields permanent fluidic magnets that are used in a self-powered, liquid-based wireless cardiovascular sensor.

An acoustic sensor that is based on a network of magnetic nanoparticles suspended in a carrier fluid can be used—together with a machine learning algorithm—to create a wearable voice recognition system with an accuracy of 99% in a noisy environment.

The piezoelectricity of PVDF composites is mainly determined by the crystalline phases and spontaneous polarization. Here, the authors propose a Ti₃C₂T_x anchoring method to modulate the molecular interactions and conformation of polymer matrix.

Addressing challenges in voice disorders, the authors present a self-powered, wearable sensor-actuator system based on magnetoelasticity. This innovation enables assisted speaking by capturing laryngeal movements and translating them into voice signals, bypassing the vocal folds.

Treating acute disease like anaphylaxis is challenging due to the inability to administer therapeutics in a timely manner and regulate pharmacokinetics precisely within a short time window. Here the authors develop active acoustic metamaterials-driven transdermal drug delivery for rapid and on-demand acute disease management.

Soft, conductive fibres that can be used to make electronic textiles can be fabricated at ambient pressure and temperature using a supramolecular-network-structured solution via a spontaneous phase separation technique that mimics spider silk formation.

Micromagnets dispersed in a polymer matrix are used to realize a soft magnetoelastic generator with high magnetomechanical coupling factor, used for wearable and implantable power generation and sensing applications.

The authors invented a textile magnetoelastic generator, weaving 1D soft fibers with conductive yarns to couple the observed magnetoelastic effect with magnetic induction, which paves a new way for biomechanical-to-electrical energy conversion.

Li–O₂ batteries suffer from poor charge transport in the insulating discharge products. Here the authors tackle the issue by pre-depositing a K₂CO₃ layer and then using this to grow Li₂O₂ film on top, enabling enhanced electronic conduction properties and improved overall performance.

Wearable yarn-based stretchable sensor arrays, combined with machine learning, can be used to translate American Sign Language into speech in real time.

Conductive organic fibres can be tethered to biological surfaces without impeding biological features.

An AI-assisted smart textile can be used to record, model and understand human–environment interactions.

An integrated array of sensors can be seamlessly incorporated into a generic earphone, for the simultaneous monitoring of electrophysiological and electrochemical signals.

The reversible reduction and evolution of oxygen are the key processes to be mastered before high-energy rechargeable lithium–air batteries can be successfully created. Now an advance towards this goal has been achieved with the synthesis of a pyrochlore catalyst that benefits from a mesoporous structure and oxygen deficiencies.

Although the combustion and pyrolysis kinetics of nitromethane have been widely studied, its detonation kinetics and associated pollutant emission have not been fully explored. Here, the authors use molecular dynamics simulations to study the behaviour of nitromethane under detonation conditions, identifying reaction intermediates and establishing a kinetic model that allows them to predict the underlying mechanism and main detonation products.

This Review examines the development of smart textiles for application in personalized healthcare, examining the different platform technologies, fabrication strategies and clinical scenarios, as well as the current commercial and regulatory landscape.

Motion artefacts challenge the translational application of soft bioelectronics by distorting physiological monitoring. This Review introduces fundamental causes of motion artefacts and discusses various management strategies, including materials usage, bioelectronics design and algorithmic intervention.

After brain injuries, microglia and macrophages can aid or hinder tissue repair depending on polarization toward specific cell phenotypes. This Perspectives article describes the phenotypic dynamics and different functions of these cells after acute CNS injury and argues that therapeutic approaches should focus on subtle adjustment of the balance between their phenotypes.