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    PH-Responsive Biohybrid Carrier Material for Phenol Decontamination in Wastewater
    (Columbus, Ohio : American Chemical Soc., 2018) Pretscher, Martin; Pineda-Contreras, Beatriz A.; Kaiser, Patrick; Reich, Steffen; Schöbel, Judith; Kuttner, Christian; Freitag, Ruth; Fery, Andreas; Schmalz, Holger; Agarwal, Seema
    Smart polymers are a valuable platform to protect and control the activity of biological agents over a wide range of conditions, such as low pH, by proper encapsulation. Such conditions are present in olive oil mill wastewater with phenol as one of the most problematic constituents. We show that elastic and pH-responsive diblock copolymer fibers are a suitable carrier for Corynebacterium glutamicum, i.e., bacteria which are known for their ability to degrade phenol. Free C. glutamicum does not survive low pH conditions and fails to degrade phenol at low pH conditions. Our tea-bag like biohybrid system, where the pH-responsive diblock copolymer acts as a protecting outer shell for the embedded bacteria, allows phenol degradation even at low pH. Utilizing a two-step encapsulation process, planktonic cells were first encapsulated in poly(vinyl alcohol) to protect the bacteria against the organic solvents used in the second step employing coaxial electrospinning.
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    3D-Printing of Structure-Controlled Antigen Nanoparticles for Vaccine Delivery
    (Columbus, Ohio : American Chemical Soc., 2020) Nishiguchi, Akihiro; Shima, Fumiaki; Singh, Smriti; Akashi, Mitsuru; Moeller, Martin
    Targeted delivery of antigens to immune cells using micro/nanocarriers may serve as a therapeutic application for vaccination. However, synthetic carriers have potential drawbacks including cytotoxicity, low encapsulation efficiency of antigen, and lack of a morphological design, which limit the translation of the delivery system to clinical use. Here, we report a carrier-free and three-dimensional (3D)-shape-designed antigen nanoparticle by multiphoton lithography-based 3D-printing. This simple, versatile 3D-printing approach provides freedom for the precise design of particle shapes with a nanoscale resolution. Importantly, shape-designed antigen nanoparticles with distinct aspect ratios show shape-dependent immune responses. The 3D-printing approach for the rational design of nanomaterials with increasing safety, complexity, and efficacy offers an emerging platform to develop vaccine delivery systems and mechanistic understanding.