Autologous nerve grafting remains the clinical benchmark for the repair of peripheral nerve injury (PNI), but its widespread application is limited by restricted donor availability, donor-site morbidity, and functional mismatch. Allogeneic nerve grafting introduces additional concerns, including immune rejection and potential disease transmission. Accordingly, tissue-engineered nerve guidance conduits (NGCs) have emerged as promising alternatives for peripheral nerve repair. This review systematically summarizes recent advances in the design and fabrication of high-performance NGCs. We first discuss material-selection principles related to biodegradability, mechanical performance, and cell-adhesive properties, with emphasis on synthetic polymers such as polycaprolactone and natural biomaterials such as silk fibroin and chitosan. We then compare major fabrication strategies, including mold casting, freeze-drying, 3D printing, and electrospinning, highlighting their respective capabilities and limitations in controlling conduit geometry, porosity, micro/nanotopography, and directional guidance. Finally, we summarize functionalization strategies for remodeling the local regenerative microenvironment, including electrical functionalization, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant modifications, and pro-vascularization approaches. Compared with conventional single-layer conduits, multistructured biomimetic NGCs offer greater potential to integrate mechanical support, topographical guidance, electrical regulation, immunomodulation, and vascular support within a single regenerative platform, thereby providing a promising framework for the development and clinical translation of next-generation multifunctional NGCs.

As the global population ages, the prevalence of age-related conditions such as osteoporosis continues to increase, leading to greater use of orthopedic implants. However, implant-associated infections can cause severe complications, including loss of implant function, limb sequelae, and increased mortality. Biofilm formation is a major contributor to persistent implant-associated infection. Although biofilm formation and treatment strategies are increasingly understood, conventional approaches remain limited by delayed action, drug resistance, and off-target effects. Intelligent stimuli-responsive materials that react to pathological microenvironments or externally applied stimuli therefore have considerable potential for implant-related applications. This review first outlines the mechanisms of biofilm formation and current treatment strategies, with emphasis on their advantages and limitations. We then summarize advances in stimuli-responsive antibiofilm materials in orthopedics and related fields. Finally, we discuss the remaining obstacles that must be addressed before implantable stimuli-responsive systems can effectively target the biofilm microenvironment and progress toward clinical translation.

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) induces immunogenic cell death (ICD) through reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, bridging localized tumor ablation with systemic antitumor immunity. However, the tumor microenvironment (TME) erects three barriers that intercept the PDT-immune cascade at distinct levels. The biochemical barrier, defined by chronic hypoxia and elevated antioxidant defenses, restricts ROS accumulation below the ICD threshold. The physical barrier, constructed by a dense extracellular matrix and activated cancer-associated fibroblasts, confines photosensitizers to the tumor periphery and excludes effector immune cells. The immunosuppressive barrier, mediated by tumor-associated macrophages, regulatory T cells, and myeloid-derived suppressor cells, neutralizes immune activation signals even after successful ICD induction. These barriers are deeply coupled: breaching any single layer yields limited benefit when the others remain intact. This review examines how barrier-oriented PDT-immunotherapy strategies, particularly nanoplatform-enabled approaches, can relieve these three barriers and restore the PDT-immune cascade.

Immune checkpoint inhibitors, like PD-1/PD-L1 blockers, have revolutionized cancer treatment in recent years. However, these therapies still face many problems, such as low objective response rates and drug resistance, making clinical treatment very difficult. Numerous studies have demonstrated that the heterogeneity of the tumor microenvironment (TME), including various subtypes such as “cold tumors”, “hot tumors”, and “immune-rejecting tumors”, as well as complex immunosuppressive mechanisms, is a major factor leading to resistance to immunotherapy. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy can aid in treatment by inducing immunogenic cell death, but they often lead to PD-L1 upregulation, which causes treatment effects to vary over time and space and reduces their efficacy. Given their excellent biocompatibility, drug delivery capacity, and responsiveness to environmental factors, nanomaterials offer a novel opportunity to address this challenge. This review explores sequential nanoregulation strategies based on different types of TME, describes how functionalized nanocarriers, such as stimulus-responsive polymers, liposomes, and biomimetic nanoparticles, can be used to detect changes in the microenvironment, like pH, enzymes, and reactive oxygen species, and to precisely deliver drugs when needed. This will allow researchers to target key points of immune activation, thereby blocking immune checkpoint signaling. These specific strategies, which include antigen release, immune system activation, and blocking interventions, not only offer new approaches for overcoming PD-L1 resistance but also shed light on the challenges and opportunities associated with applying these strategies in clinical practice.

Lanthanide-doped nanoparticles (LNPs) offer an emerging non-invasive theranostic platform for monitoring and treating neurodegenerative diseases (NDs) own to their high optical stability, deep tissue penetration, and excellent biocompatibility. Their key advantage lies in the ability to produce upconversion or downshifting luminescence under near-infrared excitation, enabling high-resolution deep-tissue imaging and in situ monitoring, particularly suitable for tracking pathological progression and studying molecular interactions in disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. By integrating functional components such as organic dyes, noble metal nanoparticles, or therapeutic agents, LNPs can be engineered into multifunctional theranostic nanoplatforms capable of simultaneous diagnosis and targeted therapy. Moreover, their precisely tunable emission properties open new avenues for deep-brain imaging and optical modulation. This review systematically summarizes the luminescence mechanisms of LNPs and recent advances in their applications for biosensing and diagnosis in NDs. It covers the detection of key biomarkers, including metal ions, nucleic acids, proteins, and reactive oxygen species. The discussion further extends to the therapeutic strategies targeting intracellular and microenvironmental factors, as well as synergistic approaches, with a particular emphasis on the role of LNPs in targeted drug delivery and combined theranostics. Finally, the review discusses future prospects for leveraging this platform to improve clinical outcomes in NDs.

Wearable electrocardiography (ECG) is shifting cardiovascular monitoring from episodic in-hospital testing to continuous out-of-hospital assessment. Artificial intelligence-enabled ECG (AI-ECG) provides a new pathway for extracting clinically useful information from out-of-hospital wearable recordings. This review is organized around the wearable AI-ECG monitoring pipeline, summarizing key advances in model development, clinical application, and real-world validation, while emphasizing the special requirements that wearable scenarios impose on algorithm design and clinical translation. At present, arrhythmia screening remains the most mature application of AI-ECG, with deep learning models achieving cardiologist-level or clinician-comparable performance in several well-defined tasks. With the growing availability of long-term continuous recordings, research is further extending from post-event recognition to pre-event warning, particularly for high-risk events such as acute atrial fibrillation and malignant ventricular arrhythmias. Related methods are evolving from traditional feature-based machine learning toward deep learning and foundation models that can exploit waveform morphology, rhythm dynamics, and long-range temporal information. Beyond rhythm disorders, AI-ECG is also being explored for structural cardiac abnormalities, metabolic disorders, and broader systemic risk prediction, suggesting a potential role for ECG as a digital biomarker platform. However, several barriers continue to limit clinical translation, including limited cross-device and cross-population generalizability, insufficient interpretability, and the lack of prospective real-world validation. Future progress will likely depend on standardized data systems, artifact-aware modeling, cross-device validation, foundation models, longitudinal risk modeling, and intelligent systems designed for clinical workflows. Overall, wearable AI-ECG is evolving from passive abnormality detection toward continuous, proactive, and personalized health risk assessment.