Two Major Research Breakthroughs: Nano 'Interception' Reverses Heart Failure, Brain Science Decodes Social Deficits in Autism

Shanghai Children's Medical Center has achieved important results in two frontier fields. First, working with Shanghai Sixth People's Hospital, it proposed a novel "nano interception" strategy. The team of He Xiaomin, chief physician of cardiothoracic surgery, and the team of researcher Cai Xiaojun of Shanghai Sixth People's Hospital found that fibroblasts in failing hearts secrete large amounts of the CCL2 signaling molecule, forming a vicious cycle.

They therefore developed Prussian blue nanoparticles whose surfaces are studded with "capture hands" that adsorb and intercept CCL2. In experiments, 24-week survival in a mouse model of heart failure rose from 50 percent to 76.7 percent in the treatment group, and cardiac function improved significantly in a Bama miniature pig model. Second, a brain science team led by researcher Wang Guanghai had children with autism watch empathy-evoking animated clips together with their mothers while their brain activity was monitored simultaneously, revealing the neural code behind the failure of autistic children's brains to "sync" with their mothers'.

The two studies were published in Advanced Materials and Human Brain Mapping respectively.