Pier Paolo Pompa

TL;DR: This review analyzes the experimental data on the bactericidal effects of AgNPs, discussing the complex scenario and presenting the potential drawbacks and limitations in the techniques and methods employed, and proposes some general guidelines for the design of antibacterial nanosystems and devices based on nanosilver.

TL;DR: A new strategy based on the highly reproducible fabrication of ordered arrays of gold nanostructures coupled to CdSe/ZnS nanocrystals dispersed in a polymer blend is developed, demonstrating the possibility of obtaining precise control and a high spatial selectivity of the fluorescence enhancement process.

TL;DR: The results show that, beyond an in-depth NPs characterization before cellular experiments, a detailed understanding of the effects elicited by cell culture media on NPs is crucial for standardized nanotoxicology tests.

TL;DR: A general mechanism for the toxicity induced by metal-containing NPs is demonstrated, named “lysosome-enhanced Trojan horse effect”, which provides design rules to engineer safer NPs.

TL;DR: The molecular design of DNA-AuNP probes, with the DNA strands immobilized on top of the PEG-based passivation layer, results in nearly unaltered enzymatic activity toward immobilized heteroduplexes compared to substrates free in solution, which may significantly advance the use of microRNAs as biomarkers in the clinical praxis.