Flower-inspired bionic sodium alginate hydrogel evaporator enhancing solar desalination performance.

Improving the desalination performance of the solar evaporator is the core of promoting the application of sustainable solar desalination technology. In this study, a flower-inspired bionic evaporator was successfully prepared, the bundled of black hollow sodium alginate hydrogel tubes were fixed vertically to form a flower structure with branched hydrogel tubes at the top. The prepared black flower hydrogel evaporator showed the excellent evaporation rate of 3.2 kg m-2 h-1, and the salt crystallization phenomenon during solar desalination was effectively suppressed. Three-dimensional flower configuration of the hydrogel tube with the appropriate length could increase the effective evaporation area and accelerate the evaporation process. Moreover, the hollow hydrogel network structure exhibited the stable water supply capacity to promote salt ions exchange at the evaporation interface, thereby inhibiting salt crystallization phenomenon. This study proved that constructing a 3D-shaped evaporator is an effective way to subversively improve the solar desalination performance for application.

Integrated generation of induced pluripotent stem cells in a low-cost device.

Human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) have unlimited proliferation capability and potential to differentiate into all somatic cells. Their derivatives contain patients' genetic information and can model many diseases. Additionally, derivatives of patient-specific iPSCs induce minimal immune rejection in vivo. With this unique combination of properties, iPSCs open the avenue to personalized medicine including personalized drug screening, toxicity test, cell therapy and tissue engineering. However, the further advance of iPSC-based personalized medicine is currently limited by the difficulty to generate iPSCs for large populations and at affordable cost. We here report a low-cost device to address this challenge. The device allows the entire bioprocess for generating high quality and quantity of iPSCs for one patient to be done automatically within a closed conical tube without cell passaging. Additionally, iPSCs can be further differentiated into somatic cells in the device. Thus, the device also allows integrated iPSCs generation, expansion and differentiation to produce any somatic cell types. This device can be made in large quantities at low cost for manufacturing iPSCs (and their derivatives in necessary) for large populations at affordable cost. It will significantly advance the iPSCs-based personalized medicine.

Automated Expansion of Primary Human T Cells in Scalable and Cell-Friendly Hydrogel Microtubes for Adoptive Immunotherapy.

Adoptive immunotherapy is a highly effective strategy for treating many human cancers, such as melanoma, cervical cancer, lymphoma, and leukemia. Here, a novel cell culture technology is reported for expanding primary human T cells for adoptive immunotherapy. T cells are suspended and cultured in microscale alginate hydrogel tubes (AlgTubes) that are suspended in the cell culture medium in a culture vessel. The hydrogel tubes protect cells from hydrodynamic stresses and confine the cell mass less than 400 µm (in radial diameter) to ensure efficient mass transport, creating a cell-friendly microenvironment for growing T cells. This system is simple, scalable, highly efficient, defined, cost-effective, and compatible with current good manufacturing practices. Under optimized culture conditions, the AlgTubes enable culturing T cells with high cell viability, low DNA damage, high growth rate (≈320-fold expansion over 14 days), high purity (≈98% CD3+), and high yield (≈3.2 × 108 cells mL-1 hydrogel). All offer considerable advantages compared to current T cell culturing approaches. This new culture technology can significantly reduce the culture volume, time, and cost, while increasing the production.