Diabetes mellitus is one of the major health problems in the world, the incidence and associated mortality are increasing. Inadequate regulation of the blood sugar imposes serious consequences for health. Conventional antidiabetic drugs are effective, however, also with unavoidable side effects. On the other hand, medicinal plants may act as an alternative source of antidiabetic agents. Examples of medicinal plants with antidiabetic potential are described, with focuses on preclinical and clinical studies. The beneficial potential of each plant matrix is given by the combined and concerted action of their profile of biologically active compounds.

https://www.mdpi.com/2218-273X/9/10/551/pdf

Antidiabetic Potential of Medicinal Plants and Their Active Components.

Although several therapeutic approaches are available for wound and burn treatment and much progress has been made in this area, room for improvement still exists, driven by the urgent need of better strategies to accelerate wound healing and recovery, mostly for cases of severe burned patients. Bacterial cellulose (BC) is a biopolymer produced by bacteria with several advantages over vegetal cellulose, such as purity, high porosity, permeability to liquid and gases, elevated water uptake capacity and mechanical robustness. Besides its biocompatibility, BC can be modified in order to acquire antibacterial response and possible local drug delivery features. Due to its intrinsic versatility, BC is the perfect example of a biotechnological response to a clinical problem. In this review, we assess the BC main features and emphasis is given to a specific biomedical application: wound dressings. The production process and the physical-chemical properties that entitle this material to be used as wound dressing namely for burn healing are highlighted. An overview of the most common BC composites and their enhanced properties, in particular physical and biological, is provided, including the different production processes. A particular focus is given to the biochemistry and genetic manipulation of BC. A summary of the current marketed BC-based wound dressing products is presented, and finally, future perspectives for the usage of BC as wound dressing are foreseen.

/pdf/bacterial-cellulose-a-versatile-biopolymer-for-wound-322dikm799.pdf

Bacterial cellulose: a versatile biopolymer for wound dressing applications

Silane adhesion mechanism in dental applications and surface treatments: A review.

In this systematic review, we aimed to compare conical versus nonconical implant-abutment connection systems in terms of their in vitro and in vivo performances. An electronic search was performed using PubMed, Embase, and Medline databases with the logical operators: "dental implant" AND "dental abutment" AND ("conical" OR "taper" OR "cone"). Names of the most common conical implant-abutment connection systems were used as additional key words to detect further data. The search was limited to articles published up to November 2012. Recent publications were also searched manually in order to find any relevant studies that might have been missed using the search criteria noted above. Fifty-two studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in this systematic review. As the data and methods, as well as types of implants used was so heterogeneous, this mitigated against the performance of meta-analysis. In vitro studies indicated that conical and nonconical abutments showed sufficient resistance to maximal bending forces and fatigue loading. However, conical abutments showed superiority in terms of seal performance, microgap formation, torque maintenance, and abutment stability. In vivo studies (human and animal) indicated that conical and nonconical systems are comparable in terms of implant success and survival rates with less marginal bone loss around conical connection implants in most cases. This review indicates that implant systems using a conical implant-abutment connection, provides better results in terms of abutment fit, stability, and seal performance. These design features could lead to improvements over time versus nonconical connection systems.

Performance of conical abutment (Morse Taper) connection implants: a systematic review.

Wear at the titanium-titanium and the titanium-zirconia implant-abutment interface: a comparative in vitro study.

Immobilization of blood coagulant factor VII on polycaprolactone membrane through polydopamine grafting.

Blending of Moringa oleifera into Biodegradable Polycaprolactone/Silver Electrospun Membrane for Hemocompatibility Improvement

Ti3C2Tx MXene integrated hollow carbon nanofibers with polypyrrole layers for MOF-derived freestanding electrodes of flexible asymmetric supercapacitors

calcium element is crucial for bone health and bone remodeling process. its compound is often used as a material for bone scaffold. one of the common calcium compounds utilized in the development of bone scaffold is tricalcium phosphate (tcp) due to its bioactive and high degradation property. in this study, tcp is synthesized from the precursors of calcium oxide (cao) and diammonium hydrogen phosphate, (nh4)2hpo4. the synthesization was set at three different ph condition – ph 4, ph 7 and ph 10. both precursors were mixed at a stoichiometric ca/p ratio of 1.5, stirred under heat, left to cool, filtered and dried in an oven to solidify. it was then crushed to form powders and subjected to sem-edx and wettability analyses. the morphology images showed that the tcp4 was formed as thin-plate-flakes whereby, the tcp7 and the tcp10 were formed as feathery-thick-blocks materials. as the ph increased, the ca/p ratio and wettability were increased. these results indicated that the synthesization in an alkaline environment favored to the formation of tcp compared to the acidic environment.

Synthesis of Tricalcium Phosphate at Different pH Condition

Cardiac bleeding is one of the postoperative complications which gives a negative prognostic implication following a heart surgery. Safety measurements are being taken to resolve cardiac bleeding yet unexpected bleeding is unpredictable. Polymer membranes/scaffolds have been developed to overcome this issue. The utilization of poly (L-lactic acid) (PLLA) as a biodegradable and biocompatible polymer, representing a promising approach to serve as a cardiac membrane in covering cardiac bleeding. In the present work, PLLA membranes were fabricated through a solvent-evaporation casting technique at various concentration of 0.01, 0.03, 0.05 and 0.07 g/mL PLLA. The membranes were observed through an inverted microscope and the tensile properties were determined using a texture analyzer. All membranes were viewed in an approximately general similar structure. The 0.07 g/mL PLLA membrane exhibited Young’s modulus of 1480.89 ± 47.80 kPa, and stiffness of about 20.19 ± 0.65 kPa, which is suitable to be used as a cardiac membrane due to its approaching mechanical properties towards the cardiac membrane at its maximum contraction. In future, the PLLA membrane could be incorporated with other bioactive and therapeutic materials to improve its biological properties for cardiac application.

Syafiqah Saidin

Papers

Immobilization of blood coagulant factor VII on polycaprolactone membrane through polydopamine grafting.

Blending of Moringa oleifera into Biodegradable Polycaprolactone/Silver Electrospun Membrane for Hemocompatibility Improvement

Ti3C2Tx MXene integrated hollow carbon nanofibers with polypyrrole layers for MOF-derived freestanding electrodes of flexible asymmetric supercapacitors

Synthesis of Tricalcium Phosphate at Different pH Condition

Poly(L-Lactide) Membrane as an Elastic Membrane to Support Cardiac Bleeding Intervention