Oxidized multiwalled carbon nanotubes as antigen delivery system to promote superior CD8(+) T cell response and protection against cancer.

Properties like high interfacial area with cellular membranes, unique ability to incorporate multiple functionalization, as well as compatibility and transport in biological fluids make carbon nanotubes (CNTs) useful for a variety of therapeutic and drug-delivery applications. Here we used a totally synthetic hybrid supramolecule as an anticancer vaccine formulation. This complex structure comprises CNTs as delivery system for the Cancer Testis Antigen named NY-ESO-1, allied to a synthetic Toll-Like Receptor agonist. The CNT constructs were rapidly internalized into dendritic cells, both in vitro and in vivo, and served as an intracellular antigen depot. This property favored the induction of strong CD4(+) T as well as CD8(+) T cell-mediated immune responses against the NY-ESO-1. Importantly, the vaccination significantly delayed the tumor development and prolonged the mice survival, highlighting the potential application of CNTs as a vaccine delivery system to provide superior immunogenicity and strong protection against cancer.

QR code micro-certified gemstones: femtosecond writing and Raman characterization in Diamond, Ruby and Sapphire.

This paper reports on a micro-certification procedure using femtosecond laser irradiation to microscopically mark a single-crystalline gemological and natural diamond, synthetic ruby and synthetic sapphire, inscribing a QR Code on them. The QR-code was composed of a set of 25 × 25 micropoints, and the irradiation energy was optimized at 1kHz repetition rate. The code was made at a 20 µm relative depth into the gemstone surfaces by controlling the incident laser energy, that was set to 3 µJ for all the samples. Characterization by optical and electron microscopy, as well as micro-Raman hyperspectral imaging showed that the microdots have a diameter of about 14 µm perpendicular to the irradiation direction, being laterally spaced by 14 µm-18 µm applied for each sample. This work corroborates the feasibility of using ultrafast laser inscription technology to fabricate microdots with great quality on gemstone surfaces, which offers a great potential for the jewelry industry to safely micro-encrypt gemological certifications. The compositional and morphological characterization of the modified surface was carried by micro-Raman spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy.