Hai Ming Fan

• PhD
• Professor at Northwest University

Large-scale synthesis of monodisperse ultrasmall metal ferrite nanoparticles as well as understanding the correlations between chemical composition and MR signal enhancement is critical for developing next-generation, ultrasensitive T1 magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) nanoprobes. Herein, taking ultrasmall MnFe2O4 nanoparticles (UMFNPs) as a model s...

Uniform wüstite Fe0.6 Mn0.4 O nanoflowers have been successfully developed as an innovative theranostic agent with T1 -T2 dual-mode magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), for diagnostic applications and therapeutic interventions via magnetic hyperthermia. Unlike their antiferromagnetic bulk counterpart, the obtained Fe0.6 Mn0.4 O nanoflowers show unique...

The unique magnetic vortex structure allows ferrimagnetic vortex-domain iron oxide nanorings to possess negligible remanence and large hysteresis loss, which not only promotes colloid stability but also maximizes the specific absorption rate. It overcomes the super-paramagnetic limitation and allows a new class of nanoparticle agent to be designed...

Superparamagnetic nanoparticles with superhigh T2 relaxivity and cellular uptake are strongly desired for ultrasensitive magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Towards this end, highly monodispersed manganese ferrite nanoparticles (MNPs, 6 nm) with mPEG-g-PEI and PEG coatings as model system are employed in this study to investigate the coating engineer...

Sorafenib, a first-line drug for advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), unfortunately encounters resistance in most patients, leading to disease progression. Traditional approaches to counteract this resistance, particularly those targeting the RAF-MEK-ERK pathway, often face clinical feasibility limitations. Magnetic hyperthermia (MH), unlike co...

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a crucial public health issue and a major cause of liver disease, such as cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. At present, orally administered small molecule drugs, such as nucleoside / nucleotide analogues, are recommended as the first‐line treatment for HBV. However, the therapeutic efficacy of these drugs...

The selective oxidation of alcohols has drawn significant attention in heterogeneous catalysis, with the increasing use of Pickering interfacial catalysis (PIC) for green transformations of alcohols. However, it is still...

Sepsis is defined as a life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by excessive formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and dysregulated inflammatory response. Previous studies have reported that shikonin (Shik) possess prominent anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects and holds promise as a potential therapeutic drug for sepsis. However, the po...

Our improved knowledge of tumor immunology laid a solid foundation for the clinical use of tumor immunotherapies such as immune checkpoint blockers, and the efficacy of these drugs increased our confidence that immunomodulation was a viable way of treating cancer. The basis of immunotherapy is to break the immune escape of the tumor and resolve the...

Magnetothermodynamic (MTD) therapy can activate antitumor immune responses by inducing potent immunogenic tumor cell death. However, tumor development is often accompanied by multifarious immunosuppressive mechanisms that can counter the efficacy of immunogenic MTD therapy. High-mobility group protein A1 (HMGA1) is overexpressed within hepatocellul...

Researchers have leveraged magnetic nanomaterials (MNMs) to explore neural circuits and treat neurological diseases via an approach known as MNMs‐mediated neuromodulation. Here, the magneto‐responsive effects of MNMs to an external magnetic field are manipulated to activate or inhibit neuronal cell activity. In this way, MNMs can serve as a nano‐me...

Cancer immunotherapy has shown promising therapeutic results in the clinic, albeit only in a limited number of cancer types, and its efficacy remains less than satisfactory. Nanoparticle-based approaches have been shown to increase the response to immunotherapies to address this limitation. In particular, magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) as a powerful...

Hepatobiliary magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can inform the diagnosis of liver tumours in patients with liver cirrhosis and hepatitis. However, its clinical utility has been hampered by the lack of sensitive and specific contrast agents, partly because hepatocyte-specific nanoparticles, regardless of their surface ligands, are readily sequestered...

Labeling stem cells with magnetic nanoparticles is a promising technique for in vivo tracking and magnetic targeting of transplanted stem cells, which is critical for improving the therapeutic efficacy of cell therapy. However, conventional endocytic labeling with relatively poor labeling efficiency and a short labeling lifetime has hindered the im...

Immunogenic cell death (ICD) can improve the therapeutic effects of cancer immunotherapy by initiating adaptive immune responses. Unlike the exogenous hyperthermia modality in clinics, magnetic hyperthermia (MH) is characterized by an iron oxide nano-agent acting as a heating source and the effects induced by heating acting at the intracellular reg...

Harsh photothermal temperatures (> 50 °C) caused heating damage to the normal tissues and induced thermal resistance in cancer cells, which significantly limited the safety and efficacy of photothermal therapy (PTT) in cancer treatment. Mild hyperthermia (< 42 °C) combined with chemotherapy might solve this issue. Herein, a novel transition metal d...

Mn2+ release is particularly important for biological application of manganese-based nanomaterials. However, the Mn2+ release profiles of the manganese ferrite nanoparticles are under clarification. Here, we synthesized 3, 10, and 18 nm manganese ferrite nanoparticles (MFNPs) as model systems to study the Mn2+ release behavior, size, and pH-depende...

Cancer is the top cause of death globally. Developing smart nanomedicines that are capable of diagnosis and therapy (theranostics) in one–nanoparticle systems are highly desirable for improving cancer treatment outcomes. The magnetic nanoplatforms are the ideal system for cancer theranostics, because of their diverse physiochemical properties and b...

Magnetic nanomaterials have been widely used in various biomedical applications, which have seen accelerating interest since the breakthrough in the chemical synthesis of monodispersed iron oxide nanoparticles. Magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (MIONs) possess excellent biocompatibility, and they can produce multiple physicochemical effects when ex...

Purpose Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) have exhibited preeminent diagnosis and treatment performances, but their low internalization severely limits predesigned functions. The low cell internalization is now an urgent bottleneck problem for almost all nanomaterials. To achieve more internalization of SPIONS, recombinant M13 pha...

Due to the relatively low photo-thermal conversion efficiency and poor tumor targeting capacity, phototheranostic nanoagents encounter some challenges in cancer photothermal therapy. To address this problem, in the current research we developed vacancy-rich MoSe2-x (0 ≤ x ≤ 1) nanoflowers (MNFs) with molecular 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG) as the activi...

Abstract Thermal decomposition in solution is the most effective approach for achieving highly monodisperse iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs). However, a simple, economical, and environment‐friendly iron precursor with high iron content remains in great demand. Although siderite (FeCO3) has been reported to produce iron oxide particles via calcinati...

Effective delivery of anticancer drugs into the nucleus for pharmacological action is impeded by a series of intratumoral transport barriers. Despite the significant potential of magnetic nanovehicles in electromagnetic field (EF)-activated drug delivery, modularizing a tandem magnetoresponsive activity in a one-nanoparticle system to meet differen...

Engineering the protein corona (PC) on nanodrugs is emerging as an effective approach to improve their pharmacokinetics and therapeutic efficacy, but conventional in vitro pre-programmed methods have shown great limitation for regulation of the PC in the complex and dynamic in vivo physiological environment. Here, we demonstrate an magnetothermal r...

The iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs) that combine the nanozyme activity and magnetothermal properties have attracted significant interest for various biomedical applications. However, the effect of magnetic stimulation in fine-tuning the nanozyme activities remains unclear. Here, we have constructed a series of IONPs with different magneto-thermal...

The toxicity mechanism of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) were examined multidimensionally to reduce the toxicity risks. A higher dosage and more suitable size of SPIONs enhanced the uptake amount into MCF7 cells, leading to a higher specific uptake rate of SPIONs with the formation of more reactive oxygen species (ROS). ROS was...

Magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) mediated magnetothermal therapy (MTT) has been proven as a promising modality for tumor treatment. However, the low therapeutic efficacy presents a major obstacle to its mass adoption. The Authors proposed to increase the therapeutic efficacy of MTT through the manipulation of magnetothermal‐related gene expression. ID...

The radioresistance of tumor cells is considered to be a major factor responsible for the clinical failure of radiotherapy. Instead of simply increasing the radiation dose, effective elevation the tumor radiosensitivity is an alternative strategy for successful cancer treatment. Here, we report a facile solvothermal protocol to synthesize the rod-s...

Owing to their unique physicochemical properties and comparable size to biomacromolecules, functional nanostructures have served as powerful supports to construct enzyme-nanostructure biocatalysts (nanobiocatalysts). Of particular importance, recent years have witnessed the development of novel nanobiocatalysts with remarkably increased enzyme acti...

The transition of amyloidogenic species into ordered structures (i.e., prefibrillar oligomers, protofibrils, mature fibrils, and amyloidogenic aggregates) is closely associated with many neurodegenerative disease pathologies. It is increasingly appreciated that the liquid–solid interface contributes to peptide aggregation under physiological condit...

In this study, a magnetothermodynamic (MTD) therapy is introduced as an efficient systemic cancer treatment, by combining the magnetothermal effect and the reactive oxygen species (ROS)-related immunologic effect, in order to overcome obstacle of limited therapeutic efficacy in current magnetothermal therapy (MTT). This approach was achieved by the...

Metastasis remains the major cause of death in cancer patients. Thus, there is a need to sensitively detect tumor metastasis, especially ultrasmall metastasis, for early diagnosis and precise treatment of cancer. Herein, an ultrasensitive T1 -weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agent, UMFNP-CREKA is reported. By conjugating the ultra...

The development of magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles with novel topological magnetic domain structure, such as vortex-domain structure, is a promising strategy to improve the application performance of conventional superparamagnetic iron oxides while maintaining their good biocompatibility. Here, we fabricated a new kind of magnetic-vortex nanopart...

Cancer metastasis is a serious concern and a major reason of treatment failure. Herein, we have reported the development of an effective and safe nanotherapeutic strategy which can eradicate primary tumors, inhibit metastasizing to lung, and control the metastasis/growth of distant tumors. Briefly, ferrimagnetic vortex-domain iron oxide nanorings (...

The ultrasonication-triggered interfacial assembly approach was developed to synthesize magnetic Janus amphiphilic nanoparticles (MJANPs) for cancer theranostic applications, where the biocompatible octadecylamine is used as a molecular linker to mediate the interactions between hydrophobic and hydrophilic nanoparticles across the oil-water interfa...

The development of a highly efficient, low-toxicity, ultrasmall ferrite nanoparticle-based T1 contrast agent for high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is highly desirable. However, the correlations between the chemical compositions, in vitro T1 relaxivities, in vivo nano-bio interactions and toxicities remain unclear, which has been a ch...

Supplementary figures and tables.

Magnetic mediated hyperthermia (MMT) is emerging as one of the promising techniques which could synergistically treat cancer along with current treatment techniques such as chemo- and radiotherapy, and trigger on demand release of therapeutic macromolecules. However, the low specific absorption rate (SAR) and potential in vivo toxicity of magnetic...

Evaluating enzyme activity intracellularly on natural substrates is a significant experimental challenge in biomedical research. We report a label‐free method for real‐time monitoring the catalytic behavior of class‐A, B and D carbapenemases in live bacteria based by measurement of heat change progression. By this means, novel “biphasic” kinetics f...

Evaluating enzyme activity intracellularly on natural substrates is a significant experimental challenge in biomedical research. We report a label‐free method for real‐time monitoring the catalytic behavior of class‐A, B and D carbapenemases in live bacteria based by measurement of heat change progression. By this means, novel “biphasic” kinetics f...

Introduction In vivo distribution of polyethylene glycol (PEG)ylated functional nanoparticles is vital for determining their imaging function and therapeutic efficacy in nanomedicine. However, contradictory results have been reported regarding the effect of core size and PEG surface of the nanoparticles on biodistribution. Methods To clarify this...

The laccase-Cu2O nanowire mesocrystal hybrid materials were developed with superior catalytic activity inspired by natural biocatalysis processes in living cells that highly resembles the metal ions activation and the well-organized spatial structure of the natural rough endoplasmic reticulum. The enzyme and nanobiocatalyst activities of the obtain...

Functional nanoparticles possess great potential for precise diagnosis and optimum therapy of serious diseases. However, their application is limited by structural heterogeneity and physical properties, low drug-loading efficiency, the absence of effective drug release, and some undetermined physiological and biochemical properties. Effective surfa...

MoS2 nanosheets were doped with vanadium (V) with a variety of concentrations using a hydrothermal method. Raman, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and electron paramagnetic resonance results indicate the effective substitutional doping in MoS2. Without V doping, oxides such as MoO2 and MoO3 have been observed, whereas, with 5 at% V doping, the oxid...

Nanotechnology holds a promising potential for developing biomedical nanoplatforms in cancer therapy. The magnetic nanoparticles, which integrate uniquely appealing features of magnetic manipulation, nanoscale heat generator, localized magnetic field and enzyme-mimics, prompt the development and application of magnetic nanoparticles-based cancer me...

DOX-loaded magnetic alginate-chitosan microspheres (DM-ACMSs) were developed as a model system to evaluate alternating magnetic field (AMF)-responsive, chemo-thermal synergistic therapy for multimodality postsurgical treatment of breast cancer. This multimodality function...

The New Delhi metallo-β-lactamase (NDM-1) is an important clinical target for antimicrobial research, but there are insufficient clinically useful inhibitors and the details of NDM-1 enzyme catalysis remain unclear. The aim of this work is to provide a thermodynamic profile of NDM-1 catalysed hydrolysis of β-lactams using an isothermal titration ca...

Molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), a typical transition-metal dichalcogenide, has attracted increasing attention in the field of nanomedicine because of its preeminent properties. In this study, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-guided chemo-photothermal therapy of human breast cancer xenograft in nude mice was demonstrated using a novel core/shell struct...

MoS2 nanosheets were doped with V with a variety of concentrations using a hydrothermal method. Raman, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and electron paramagnetic resonance results indicate the effective substitutional doping in MoS2. Without V doping, oxides such as MoO2 and MoO3 have been observed, whereas, with 5 at% V doping, the oxide disappear...

Co doped ZnO films have been deposited by a laser-molecular beam epitaxy system. X-ray diffraction and UV spectra analysis show that Co effectively substitutes the Zn site. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and secondary ion mass spectroscopy analysis indicate that there are no clusters. Co dopants are uniformly distributed in ZnO film. Ferrom...

Intercalation pseudocapacitance is emerging as a highly promising mechanism for high rate energy storage applications. However, it is still debatable how the alkali metal ion pre-intercalation in layered metal oxides affects the intercalation pseudocapacitance. Herein，the layered birnessite-MnO2 nanoflakes with K⁺ pre-intercalation were in- situ fa...

Enhancement of Fe3O4/Au nanoparticles (Fe3O4/Au NPs) catalyst was observed in the oxidative degradation of methyl orange by employing H2O2 as oxidant. To evaluate the catalytic activity of Fe3O4/Au nanoparticles, different degradation conditions were investigated such as the amounts of catalyst, H2O2 concentration and pH value. Based on our data, m...

Fe3O4 nanoparticles synthesized via thermal decomposition in the organic phase have attracted tremendous research interest because of their unique morphology, size dispersion, and crystallinity. However, their poor water dispersibility strongly limited their development in biomedical applications. Therefore, a phase-transfer strategy through which...

Fe3O4 nanoparticles synthesized via thermal decomposition in the organic phase have attracted tremendous research interest because of their unique morphology, size dispersion and crystallinity. However, their poor water dispersibility strongly limited their development in biomedical application. Therefore, phase transfer strategy through which hydr...

High quality porous ZnO nanoplates with a pure crystal phase of hexagonal wurtzite structure were fabricated by thermal decomposition route for the first time. Electron microscopy investigations show that each porous ZnO nanoplates has a single-crystalline nature, which is self-assembled by tiny nanocrystals. The size and pore density of the ZnO na...

Surfactant-free α-Fe2O3 nanorings (NRs) were directly converted into water-dispersible Fe3O4 NRs through a simple and straightforward approach. In this process, uniform α-Fe2O3 NRs obtained through hydrothermal synthesis method are firstly thermally reduced to hydrophobic Fe3O4 NRs in the presence of hydrophobic oleic acid surfactant and non-polar...

Synthesising gold nanoprobes in the near infrared (NIR) region is of particular interest in developing nanosensors due to the minimal light attenuation from biomolecules. Here, the controlled synthesis and tunability of gold nanostars' two distinct localised surface plasmon resonances (LSPRs) at around 700 and 1100 nm is reported. By using UV-Vis-N...

Cu2O nanowire mesocrystals (NWMCs), which possess well-defined octahedral morphology and high-porosity architecture with anisotropic interpenetrating nanowires, have attracted considerable attention owing to their superior physical and chemical properties. However, the current synthetic approach for Cu2O NWMCs using graphene oxide as modifier leads...

Magnetic hyperthermia is a promising technique for the minimally invasive elimination of solid tumors. In this study, uniform magnetite nanoparticles (MNPs) with different particle sizes were used as a model system to investigate the size and surface effects of human-like collagen protein-coated MNPs (HLC-MNPs) on specific absorption rate and bioco...

Hierarchical α-MnO2 tube-on-tube arrays (HMNTAs) are controllably synthesized by a facile hydrothermal route. HMNTAs are comprised of single-crystal [001]-oriented tetragonal nanotubes, where the branch nanotubes are assembled onto a backbone nanotube along a specific crystallographic direction, showing a unique edge-to-edge structure. Time-depende...

Human-like collagen (HLC)-coated monodispersed superparamagnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles have been successfully prepared to investigate its effect on heat induction property and cell toxicity. After coating of HLC, the sample shows a faster rate of temperature increase under an alternating magnetic field although it has a reduced saturation magnetizati...

Porous graphene, which features nanoscaled pores on the sheets, has shown great potential in many technologically important industries. However, the con-versional approaches for the synthesis of porous graphene including high-energy techniques and template etch-ing/growth methods are generally conducted on substrates with high cost and low throughp...

Recently helical nanostructures such as nanosprings and nanocoils have drawn great interests in nanotechnology, due to their unique morphologies and physical properties, and they may be potential building blocks in sorts of electromechanical, magnetic, photoelectronic and plasmonic devices at micro/nanoscales. In this report, multi-turns copper nan...

Recent discoveries in the synthesis and applications of magnetic vortex nanorings/nanodiscs in theranostic applications are reviewed. First, the principles of nanomagnetism and magnetic vortex are introduced. Second, methods for producing magnetic vortex nanorings/nanodiscs are presented. Finally, theranostic applications of magnetic vortex nanor-i...

Tetrapod gold nanocrystals, to be the core of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) nanoprobes, with tunable localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) from 650 nm to 785 nm in the Vis-NIR region have been successfully prepared by a facile seeded growth approach. The local electromagnetic field distribution and the huge extinction cross sectio...

Abstract A ternary composite, Co3O4 nanoparticles/N-doped graphene (NG)/carbon nanotubes (CNTs), has been synthesized by a simple hydrothermal method. N-doped graphene nanosheets were used as the substrate with excellent conductivity and a well conductive network is established through introducing CNTs. Due to the synergetic effects of Co3O4 nanopa...

Three-dimensional (3D) porous frameworks have great promise on the field of lithium-ion batteries (LIB). However, the size effects which 3D porous frameworks have on the structural and functional optimization are rarely reported. Herein, porous single-crystal α-Fe2O3 microrices synthesized through a facile one-pot hydrothermal method have been deve...

The application of magnetic nanoparticles on biomedicine has gained increased interest in recent years because of their unique magnetic properties such as superparamagnetism. However, magnetic nanoparticles possess these desirable features at the expense of particle size and magnetic properties such as reduced saturation magnetization and susceptib...

Temperature dependent Raman spectra and photoluminescence, as well the Raman mapping of different parts in an individual Sn-doped CdS comb-like nanostructure reveal that the stronger electron–phonon coupling exist at the trunk-branch junctions than other parts. The Huang–Rhys factor was calculated and further confirms that the strong electron–phono...

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) technology has been investigated for long time because of its tremendous potential in chemical and biomolecular detection. One of the challenging works in this field is to fabricate fantastic substrates with high sensitivity, stability, and reproducibility. This work reports a novel SERS substrate based on M...

CoFe2O4/graphene oxide hybrids have been successfully fabricated via a facile one-pot polyol route, followed by chemical conversion into FeCo/graphene hybrids under H2/NH3 atomosphere. These magnetic nanocrystals uniformly decorated on the entire graphene nanosheets without aggregation. The morphology, chemical composition and crystal structure hav...

α-MnO2 nanotubes were fabricated using a hydrothermal technique. Li, Na and K ions were introduced into MnO2 nanotubes to tailor their magnetic properties. It was found that with a doping concentration lower than 12 at%, the nanotubes showed ferromagnetic-like ordering at low temperature (<50 K), while antiferromagnetic coupling dominated their phy...

The potential of solution-processable reduced graphene oxide (rGO) films as wave impedance matching layers has been examined in a broad terahertz (THz) spectral bandwidth. The THz sheet conductivities of rGO films measured by THz time-domain spectroscopy were observed to be tunable and sensitive to the film thicknesses and reduction degrees, which...

We have demonstrated rare earths (REs) doped ZnO-based heterojunction light-emitting diodes (LEDs) on p-Si substrates by ultrasonic spray pyrolisis (USP). Room-temperature electroluminescence was clearly observed from reverse-biased n-ZnO:REs/p-Si diodes, which red and blue color emissions were realized from Eu and Tm ions, respectively. The narrow...

Growing number of studies report on the improved sensitivity of various imaging modalities in detecting abnormalitieswithin tumours. Surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) microscopy is a novel optical imaging technique whichis advantageous in terms of greater multiplexing capability, minimal or no photobleaching of the Raman reporters, better sp...

Multi-modal nanoprobes have attracted much attention because of their superior chemical and physical properties that have great potential for early diagnosis and treatment of cancer. We report herein a novel stepwise fabrication of a gold nanoparticle-Raman reporter-photosensitiser conjugate called a Gold Nanosensitiser (NS). The efficacy of gold N...