Nano LIFE

Skin cancer is one of the most aggressive forms of cancer found in the world’s population. Due to the increase in exposure to UV rays, pollutants accompanied by environmental disturbances and chemicals present in cosmetics, the rate of skin cancer is increasing with the passing days as per the reports by WHO. The contemporary methods used for skin cancer treatment include chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiotherapy, surgical methods, etc. but, with the advancement in the field of nanoparticles, skin cancer is also managed with the help of some nanodrugs. Nanoparticles exhibit synergistic effects and encase a lot more properties as compared to contemporary treatments. The advantage of systemic and targeted drug delivery approach has been served well by the nanoparticles in case of skin cancer where the skin is a challenging barrier to cross. Nanoparticles have been successful in the bench to clinical trials for ex 5-FU and many other herbal nanoparticles have been patented and are in the clinical trials phase. Nanoformulations are composed of encapsulated drugs that have high stability, controlled drug release, minimal toxic effects and can easily pass through biological barriers. This paper gives a panoramic view of the recent developments in the field of nanoparticle drug delivery which has revolutionized the paradigm of topical drug delivery in patients with skin cancer.

Azadirachta indica (Neem) gum was effectively used in the combustion process as the sustainable fuel for the synthesis of ZnO nanoparticles using zinc nitrate as the metal precursor. Thermal degradation of gum intermediate, which contains uniformly distributed Zn ions in gum matrix, by means of exothermic combustion reaction results in the formation of ZnO nanoparticles at a relatively lower temperature of 220^∘C. Further, the phase stabilization of ZnO nanoparticles was performed at 700^∘C for 3 h in ambient condition, which also led to the complete removal of organic residues. FTIR, XRD, SEM-EDX and TEM characterization of the ZnO nanoparticles reveals its phase purity and organic-free nature with a size ranging between 40 and 60 nm. Its optical activities were studied by UV–Visible and photoluminescence studies and the UV–Visible analysis reveals its band gap energy as 3.17 eV. Further, the synthesized ZnO nanoparticles showed splendid germicidal activity against Staphylococcus aureus (gram-positive bacteria), Escherichia coli (gram-negative bacteria) and Candida albicans (fungal pathogen). In addition, the bio-synthesized ZnO nanoparticles showed excellent antioxidant behavior with the 81% of free radical quenching while employing 100$\mu$g/mL nanoparticle concentration.

Detection of formaldehyde is extremely important considering its detrimental health hazards. It is extensively used as a potent preservative in different consumables like mushrooms, fish, etc. Although there are several methods to detect formaldehyde, developing a robust and accurate technique is always challenging. Here in, a reliable and accurate quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) based formaldehyde detection technique is presented where polyethylene glycol (PEG-400) is used as the prime sensing material. The developed sensor has achieved a wide linear detection range of (5–600 parts per million) with a sensitivity of 0.112 Hz/ppm and a linear correlation coefficient ($R^2)$ of 0.946. The lowest detection limit of Formaldehyde was 3.95ppm. The performance of the developed sensor was assessed for different samples of mushrooms which yielded about 99.61% accuracy in the predicted concentrations of formaldehyde using PCR analysis.

The present investigation aims to lighten a quick electrochemical detection technique of malachite green (MG) content using an easy and affordable carbon paste electrode (CPE). MG finds a wide area of application for controlling external fungi plus parasites on the fish egg for its antifungal and antiparasitic features. However, MG is noticed to be dreadfully poisonous and unsafe. Hence, the determination of MG in aquaculture is very much necessary. In this current report, the electrochemical behavior of CPE has been studied using a three-electrode system containing a silver-silver chloride (Ag/AgCl) reference electrode and a platinum counter electrode to record the corresponding cyclic voltammetry (CV) and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) responses. CV plots in the applied potential range from 0.3 V to 1.5 V described a strong indication of MG existence, while DPV results successfully illustrated the quantification of several MG concentrations. The linear range of operation was from 10$\mu$M to 1000$\mu$M with the lowest limit of detection (LOD) as 0.78 $\mu$M. Various concentrations like 50, 300, 600, 800, and 1000$\mu$M were assessed via principal component analysis (PCA) with effective data clustering (separability index (SI) found as 131.08). The prediction estimations of MG content using PLSR (partial least square regression) along with PCR (principal component regression) algorithms were also carried out, resulting in 95.39% and 93.02% prediction accuracies, respectively. Moreover, applying this CPE over natural aqueous sample extracts exhibited a reasonable recovery rate of 94.85–97.3%.

In this overview, a significantly low-cost electrode for the quick determination of theophylline (THP) using graphite electrode ingrained with samarium oxide nanoparticles is fabricated. The electrochemical behavior of the fabricated electrode is studied in details using cyclic and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV). The electrode has shown a linear working range of 10–1000$\mu$M with a low detection limit of 5 5.69$\mu$M. The characteristics of the electrode are studied in terms of repeatability, reproducibility and stability with RSD values 1.59%, 2.04% and 5.33%. Two varieties of black tea were taken and successfully segregated using principal component analysis (PCA) tool with a separability index of 13.14. This study explicitly demonstrates a significant improvement in electrochemical detection of THP in tea samples using samarium oxide nanoparticles infused in the graphite paste. The novelty of this research work lies in the fact that these fabricated electrodes can be dipped into the tea samples directly with no pre-treatment, hence an easy estimation of the quality of tea sample is possible.