After low-frequency ultrasound acted on the breast cancer mice for 5 minutes, the "armor" covering the tumor began to start, forming a strong built-in electric field, which catalyzes the production of active oxygen that can clear the tumor in situ.

After 2 hours, tumor cells gradually died…

The experiment completed by the team from HEU College of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering revealed a precise and efficient "piezoelectric catalysis" new mechanism for anticancer treatment. Compared with the treatment method using highly toxic chemotherapy drugs, this catalytic tumor treatment method is efficient, specific, and safe. With more stable and efficient dynamic control of redox reaction results, it provides new ideas for the design of piezoelectric material targeted tumor treatment.

The innovative achievement achieved by Professor Gai Shili and Basic Research Team for the Application of Inorganic Functional Materials was recently published in the top journal in the field of materials, Advanced Materials, under the title of “Oxygen-Vacancy-Rich Piezoelectric BiO2−x Nanosheets for Augmented Piezocatalytic, Sonothermal, and Enzymatic Therapies”. In the past three years, piezoelectric catalytic therapy for malignant tumors has become a new research hotspot. The main mechanism of piezoelectric catalytic therapy is to respond to the specific internal field microenvironment of the tumor site or external laser and ultrasound fields and use non-toxic/low toxic nano materials to initiate in situ catalytic reaction in the tumor, which can efficiently achieve oxidative damage and cell death of tumor cells.