Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a surge in demand for N95 or equivalent respirators that the global supply chain was unable to satisfy. This shortage in critical equipment has inspired research that addresses the immediate problems and has accelerated the development of the next-generation filtration media and respirators. This article provides a brief review of the most recent work with regard

Abstract Nucleic acid therapeutics offer a new paradigm to rapidly respond to global health problems. The versatility of nucleic acids, especially in RNA therapies, provides the ability to tune levels of specific protein expression, achieving downregulation through short interfering RNA (siRNA) or upregulation by messenger RNA (mRNA) administration. Recent advances in the development of delivery vehicles

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has brought to light multiple considerations when approaching infectious diseases on the global level. These range from diagnostic platforms, to therapeutics, and prevention agents. In this article, we focus on the engineering platforms and considerations when applying serologic assays to multiple geographic locations, climates with varying endemic virus repertoires, and different

Abstract At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the US faced nationwide shortages of nasopharyngeal swabs due to both overwhelmed supply chains and an increase in demand. To address this shortfall, multiple 3D printed swabs were ultimately produced and sold for COVID-19 testing. In this work, we present a framework for mechanical and functional bench-testing of nasopharyngeal swabs using standard and

The ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has emphasized the importance of technologies to rapidly detect emerging pathogens and understand their interactions with hosts. Platforms based on the combination of biological recognition and electrochemical signal transduction, generally termed bioelectrochemical platforms, offer unique opportunities to both sense and study pathogens. Improved bio-based materials

The field of nanomedicine is a rapidly evolving field driven by the need for safer and more efficient therapies as well as ultrasensitive and fast diagnostics. Although the advantages of nanoparticles for diagnostic and therapeutic applications are unambiguous, in vivo requirements, including low toxicity, long blood circulation time, proper clearance, sufficient stability, and reproducible synthesis

Claudia Lubrano, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, and Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Italy; Giovanni Maria Matrone, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Italy; Csaba Forro, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Italy, and Stanford University, USA; Zeinab Jahed, Stanford University, USA; Andreas Offenhaeusser, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Germany; Alberto Salleo, Bianxiao Cui, Stanford University

Currently, the coronavirus crisis is leading many parts of the world to look critically at how they organize their supply chains, especially where public safety or strategic sectors are concerned. In September, the European Commission (EC) released its "Action Plan on Critical Raw Materials," the "2020 List of Critical Raw Materials," and a foresight study on critical raw materials for strategic technologies

Shortages of masks, personal protective equipment (PPE), and ventilators characterized the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis in the United States. As supply deficiencies strained healthcare systems across the country, national attention focused on the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS), overseen by the US Department of Health & Human Services-specifically, its inability to significantly alleviate

Y. Shirley Meng, University of California, San Diego, has earned the 2020 Faraday Medal from the Royal Society of Chemistry. The Faraday Medal is awarded annually by the Electrochemistry Group of the Royal Society of Chemistry to an electrochemist working outside of the UK and Ireland in recognition of their outstanding original contributions and innovation as a mid-career researcher in any field of

During the current pandemic shutdown, everyone has had to make decisions-many of which haven't been easy. For the first time in my life, I experienced what were previously unthinkable-airplanes being grounded, cars being off the roads, all classes and meetings being held virtually. The surreal experience has propelled me to think more deeply about what I do and why it is so important to push forward

"I remember first hearing this term 'digital divide' in the mid-1990s. It was the concept of people from lower socioeconomic status not having access to computers and the Internet," says Tabbetha Dobbins, the Interim Vice President for Research and Dean of the Graduate School at Rowan University in New Jersey, in an interview with MRS Bulletin. "It has always been talked about in a scope of, well,

The world has been turned upside down with the novel Coronavirus pandemic. The most effective approaches to prevent the spread of the virus have been social distancing and wearing personal protective equipment (PPE), which has significantly changed our approach to life. Most of our daily activities have been altered, including medical appointments. My physicians have recommended that I cancel or postpone

The field of solidification has evolved from metallurgical alchemy to a predictive science over the past century. Our particular focus is on metals and their alloys, whose thermophysical properties tend to differ distinctively from that of organic systems. Rapid advances in modeling efforts and real-time experiments have yielded a wealth of new and quantitative information across relevant length- and

Solidification processing offers the first opportunity to control microstructure, properties, and performance in metallic alloy components. Until recently, microstructural evaluations were limited to post-solidification characterization by destructive methods. We review the development of time-resolved, in situ imaging techniques capable of capturing solid–liquid interfacial evolution in metallic alloys

Additive manufacturing (AM) comprises a group of transformative technologies that are likely to revolutionize manufacturing. In particular, laser-based metal AM techniques can not only fabricate parts with extreme complexity, but also provide innovative means for designing and processing new metallic systems. However, there are still several technical barriers that constrain metal AM. Overcoming these

Synchrotron x-rays are a powerful tool to probe real-time changes in the microstructure of materials as they respond to an external stimulus, such as phase transformations that take place in response to a change in temperature. X-ray imaging techniques include radiography and tomography, and have been steadily improved over the last decades so that they can now resolve micrometer-scale or even finer