Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) hold great promise to address the challenges in multidrug resistance in bacteria. This review briefly summarizes the current understanding of antibacterial mechanisms of AgNPs and how surface chemistry, size, and shape, impact their potencies, which are expected to help further development of AgNP-based antibacterial agents.

This review highlights the strategies to enhance the reactive oxygen species generation through optimizing photoinduced electron transfer and energy transfer processes of photosensitizers (PSs). The approaches that combine photodynamic therapy with other therapeutics (e.g., chemotherapy, photothermal therapy, and radiotherapy) and the targeted delivery in cancer cells or tumor tissue are introduced. The main challenges for the clinical application of PSs are also discussed.

Antioxidant hydrogel dressings are proved to be effective in accelerating chronic wound healing. Meanwhile, antioxidant hydrogels for chronic wound healing include three main types: 1) antioxidant matrixes constructing hydrogels; 2) hydrogels containing antioxidation drugs; 3) hydrogels containing multifunctional antioxidants.

Over the past decades, the electrochemical glucose sensors for diabetes care have improved tremendously, which enable a convenient tracking of blood glucose levels continuously. Here, the basic principles and recent progress in enzyme-based electrochemical glucose sensors are reviewed, as well as their application to noninvasive blood glucose monitoring methods and to the conventional invasive methods.

Silk biopolymers represent pioneer materials for medical applications. In this progress report, some of the mysteries of silk are unraveled and the past, current, and emerging clinical uses of silk are critically examined. This progress report also covers the historical context as well as the structure–function relationships critical for silks' performance in medicine.