Hierarchical Micro‐/Nanostructures from Human Hair for Biomedical Applications

• Published in: Advanced materials (Weinheim) 2018-07, Vol.30 (27), p.e1800836-n/a
• Main Authors: Zheng, Di‐Wei, Hong, Sheng, Xu, Lu, Li, Chu‐Xin, Li, Ke, Cheng, Si‐Xue, Zhang, Xian‐Zheng
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animals; Antineoplastic Agents; Biocompatibility; bioinspired material; biomedical application; Biomedical engineering; Biomedical materials; Commercialization; Damage prevention; Electromagnetic absorption; Fluorescence; Free radicals; Hair; hierarchical structure; Humans; Liposomes; Materials science; Mice; Microparticles; nanomaterial; Nanoparticles; Nanostructure; Nanostructures; Photothermal conversion; Structural hierarchy; Thrombosis; Tumors; Warfarin; X-Ray Microtomography
• ISSN: 0935-9648; 1521-4095
• DOI: 10.1002/adma.201800836

With the prominent progress of biomedical engineering, materials with high biocompatibility and versatile functions are urgently needed. So far, hierarchical structures in nature have shed some light on the design of high performance materials both in concept and implementation. Inspired by these, the hierarchical micro‐/nanostructures of human hair are explored and human hair is further broken into hierarchical microparticles (HMP) and hierarchical nanoparticles (HNP) with top‐down procedures. Compared with commercialized carriers, such as liposomes or albumin nanoparticles, the obtained particles exhibit high hemocompatibility and negligible immunogenicity. Furthermore, these materials also display attentional abilities in the aspects of light absorption and free radical scavenging. It is found that HMP and HNP can prevent skin from UV‐induced damage and relieve symptoms of cataract in vitro. Besides, both HMP and HNP show satisfactory photothermal conversion ability. By using microcomputed tomography and intravital fluorescence microscopy, it is found that warfarin‐loaded HMP can rescue mice from vein thrombosis. In another aspect, HNP modified with tumor targeted aptamers exhibit dramatic antineoplastic effect, and suppress 96.8% of tumor growth in vivo. Thus, the multifaceted materials described here might provide a new tool for addressing biomedical challenges. Human hair is found to be composed of hierarchical micro‐/nanostructures. With a simple method, human hair is split into micro‐/nanomaterials, which is revealed in protecting cells from UV irradiation, delaying oxidative‐induced cataract formation, rescuing mice from vein thrombosis, and suppressing tumor growth. The vast majority of hierarchical structures existing in living organisms will provide an undiscovered field for materials research.