Professor Mikyung Shin of Sungkyunkwan University named 2026 Asian Young Scientist Fellow
Grant and Award Announcement
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 29-Oct-2026 16:16 ET (29-Oct-2026 20:16 GMT/UTC)
Recognized for pioneering work on adhesive and electroconductive hydrogels for biological tissue regeneration
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) responds poorly to immune checkpoint blockade, largely because of an immunologically cold tumor microenvironment (TME) characterized by deficient antigen presentation and impaired cytotoxic T cell responses. Analysis of numerous HCC clinical cohorts, including our institutional datasets, reveals that stimulator of interferon genes (STING) pathway activity is positively correlated with patient survival, enhanced antigen presentation capacity, and an immune-activated TME. However, achieving effective and controllable STING activation in immune-cold HCC tumors remains challenging. Here, we develop a biomimetic nanomedicine that integrates photothermal therapy (PTT), STING pathway activation, and immune checkpoint blockade to treat refractory HCC. A coordination nanomedicine MCI-NP is engineered by co-encapsulating the STING agonist MSA-2 and indocyanine green (ICG) via Cu2+-mediated chelation, enabling stabilized PTT-induced immunogenic cell death together with robust STING-driven innate immune activation. Further cloaked with PD-1-overexpressing cell membranes, MCI-NP@mPD-1 achieves an approximately fivefold increase in tumor accumulation compared with uncoated MCI-NP and enables localized PD-1/PD-L1 axis blockade. Following a single treatment, MCI-NP@mPD-1-based photothermal immunotherapy effectively suppresses primary tumor growth and significantly prolongs survival by remodeling the TME toward an immune-active state, while inducing durable systemic immune memory that effectively limited postoperative lung metastasis. Without introducing additional nanocarriers or excipients, MCI-NP@mPD-1 offers a promising therapeutic paradigm for photothermal immunotherapy of immune-cold HCC.
- Delivers stable electrical stimulation while reducing the influence of sweat or dead skin cells, and automatically detaches when the skin overheats to enhance safety
- Remotely controlled via smartphone and capable of automatic operation triggered by physiological signals, offering the potential for personalized pain management
Contrary to some predictions, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) agents could lead to more, not fewer, health care professionals working in the United States, according to a new article by a physician and health policy researcher at Weill Cornell Medicine who surveyed economic theory and the history of technology in health care.
An InceptionTime + PBAP deep time-series regression neural network is proposed to construct a nonlinear mapping relationship between electrochemical performance sequences and discharge termination time, providing a data-driven paradigm for catalyst evaluation and future engineering applications of seawater metal air batteries.