Video-based Automatic and Objective Endoscopic Sinus Surgery Skill Assessment

We studied an automatic skill assessment system based on the surgical instrument tip trajectories extracted from cadaveric trans-nasal endoscopic sinus surgery videos. We proposed a tracking algorithm by combining a segmentation-based instrument tip detector and Kalman filter. For surgical skill assessment, we explored four new motion-related metrics. The proposed method has been tested with 10 surgery videos from 4 experts and 5 trainees and shown its potential for the automatic surgical skill assessment.

Biconcave Carbon Nanodisks for Enhanced Drug Accumulation and Chemo‐Photothermal Tumor Therapy.

We develop a safe, biconcave carbon nanodisk to address this challenge for treating breast cancer. The nanodisk demonstrates fluorescent imaging capability, an exceedingly high loading capacity (947.8 mg g⁻¹, 94.78 wt%) for doxorubicin (DOX), and pH‐responsive drug release. It exhibits a higher uptake rate by tumor cells and greater accumulation in tumors in a mouse model than its carbon nanosphere counterpart. In addition, the nanodisk absorbs and transforms near‐infrared (NIR) light to heat, which enables simultaneous NIR‐responsive drug release for chemotherapy and generation of thermal energy for tumor cell destruction. Notably, this NIR‐activated dual therapy demonstrates a near complete suppression of tumor growth in a mouse model of triple‐negative breast cancer when DOX‐loaded nanodisks are administered systemically.

Nitrogen and Boron Dual-doped Graphene Quantum Dots for Near-infrared Second Window Imaging and Photothermal Therapy

We present a new NIR-II fluorescent agent, graphene quantum dots dual-doped with both nitrogen and boron (N-B-GQDs). N-B-GQDs have an ultra-small size (~ 5 nm), are highly stable in serum, and demonstrate a peak fluorescent emission at 1000 nm and high photostability. In addition to the NIR-II imaging capability, N-B-GQDs efficiently absorb and convert NIR light into heat when irradiated by an external NIR source, demonstrating a photothermal therapeutic effect that kills cancer cells in vitro and completely suppresses tumor growth in a glioma xenograft mouse model. N-B-GQDs demonstrate a safe profile, prolonged blood half-life, and rapid excretion in mice, which are the characteristics favorable for in vivo biomedical applications.

NIR-responsive Carbon-based Nanocarriers for Switchable on/off Drug Release and Synergistic Cancer Therapy

We present a light-switchable drug delivery system based on chitosan-gated carbon-based nanocarriers (CGC NCs) that exhibit a loading capacity for doxorubicin as high as ∼89.65 wt% and controlled on/off release with/without NIR irradiation. In vitro and in vivo results show that the CGC NCs manifest high efficacy for cancer therapy through a synergistic effect of combined chemo-photothermal treatment.