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It has been over 20 years since the introduction of evidence-based medicine (EBM) into the research of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). The development of evidence-based TCM research has profoundly influenced the process of clinical research and decision-making, impelling researchers to pay attention to raise evidence quality, accumulate data, and explore appropriate evaluation methods adaptive to TCM original theories and knowledge. In this paper, the authors aim to summarize and review the existing work and seek promising research interests in this field, expecting to inspire more thoughts leading to breakthroughs in the near future.

Two-dimensional nanomaterials are attracting attention for cancer therapy. However, high toxicity, insensitivity to external stimuli and single therapeutic modality are still key issues hindering their clinical application. Therefore, the construction of a safe, intelligent and versatile nanocomposite is needed to meet clinical expectations. Herein, we developed a nanocomposite of Bi@RP-PEG-DOX with 2D bismuthene loaded with 0D red phosphorus quantum dots and DOX. The nanocomposite with DOX loading capacity (ca. 250 %) and photothermal conversion efficiency (ca. 54 %) showed both photothermal and photodynamic effects and a sensitive response of drug release to the acidic tumor microenvironment or NIR II laser irradiation. The nanocomposite exhibits good biosafety. Through the X-ray attenuation properties of bismuth, the nanocomposite serves as an excellent CT contrast agent, providing potential to perform CT-guided therapy.

Summary Recent progress in single DNA manipulation with atomic force microscope has proved its potential in analysing genetic information at the molecular level instead of macro ensemble approach. However, current manipulation of DNA is mainly carried out by manual operations, which is labour-intensive and time-consuming, thus limits the further applications in other fields. In this paper, an optimized DNA manipulation method is successfully established. An image correlation technique is introduced to realize automatic thermal drift compensation. Combined with elaborately designed tip movement control for different manipulation purposes, accurate and efficient DNA manipulations such as dissection, folding and picking are realized. The efficiency has been improved for an order of magnitude compare to manual manipulations, whereas the performance is demonstrated to be the same. This newly developed method has shed light on high-efficiency nanomanipulation of small molecules with complex structures, and thus provides the possibility of deeply understanding the intrinsic properties of single biomolecules.