Garlic has been touted for its medicinal properties in almost all ancient cultures. It belongs to the Allium family all members of which contain sulfur. Garlic contains an abundance of sulfur amino acids and their derivatives. The processing of these compounds through various preparations is what causes the odor of garlic. These garlic constituents have been shown to influence both initiation and promotion phases of cancer in several animal and cell culture methods. It has been found that these components exert antiproliferative activity on normal and malignant cells. Furthermore garlic compounds have been shown to block the synthesis of N-nitroso compounds that function as potential carcinogens. In this review, several carcinomas have been examined with respect to garlic’s ability to produce prevention. These include colon, esophagus, lung, prostate, and breast. On a side note, selenium enriched food products have been shown to be effective in cancer prevention. Interestingly enough, garlic has a great capacity to concentrate selenium when grown in a selenium-fertilized condition, which makes it a great candidate for food fortification. There are many other benefits to regular garlic consumption, some of which are mentioned at the end of this review.

Traumatic injury is a leading cause of death worldwide whose treatment process is riddled with medical complications including hemorrhage and infection. Biomaterials that have recently been developed for wound treatment often neglect to take these hurdles into account or lack important characteristics, such as biocompatibility, biodegradability, and adhesion to bleeding tissue surfaces. In this work, we synthesized a multifunctional gelatin-based hydrogel for hemorrhage control that retained mechanical characteristics suitable for use on dynamic and elastic surfaces such as skin or motive internal organs such as lungs and heart. The designed multifunctional hydrogel also exhibited robust adhesion to wet tissue surfaces, strong antibacterial resistance to both gram-negative and gram-positive strains, and significant hemostatic ability. The mussel-inspired, catechol-based adhesion mechanism relied on conjugating chemically modified dopamine to a chemically modified gelatin that produced a photocrosslinkable hydrogel platform. Lastly, cationic polyelectrolyte poly-(diallyldimethylammonium chloride) was incorporated into the polymer matrix to provide a high charge density that exponentially induced antibacterial resistance and hemostatic properties to the resulting hydrogel network.

Ocular inflammations are commonly associated with eye diseases, injuries, and postoperative complications, which affect many patients worldwide. However, effective and sustained ocular delivery of therapeutics remains a challenge because of ocular structural barriers. Herein, we engineered a photocrosslinkable adhesive patch (GelPatch) incorporating micelles loaded with anti-inflammatory drugs. GelPatch hydrogels are composed of two polymers, gelatin methacryloyl (GelMA) and hyaluronic acid-glycidyl methacrylate (HAGM). Anti-inflammatory corticosteroids are loaded in micelles composed of poly(ethylene glycol)-b-poly[N-(2-hydroxypropyl) methacrylamide-oligolactates] (mPEG-b-p(HPMAm-Lacn)) diblock copolymers. The adequate adhesive strength of GelPatch with proper swelling and mechanical properties provides adhesion to the ocular surface and the incorporation of micelles provides a sustained release profile of drugs in 15 days. In vitro assays showed that micelle loaded GelPatch had good biocompatibility and cell adherence and growth. The subcutaneous implantation of the micelle loaded GelPatch in rats further confirmed its in vivo biocompatibility and appropriate stability within 28 days. This non-invasive, adhesive and biocompatible drug eluting patch provides site-targeted delivery with lower dosage requirements to ensure better patient compliance. Such ocular drug delivery platform can be used for treatment of different ocular anterior segment diseases and injuries such as conjunctivitis, blepharitis, and postoperative care.

The existing surgical adhesives and sealants lack strong adherence to the biological tissues in the wet environment. In addition, demonstrating both inherently high adhesion and hemostatic functionalities in one product, is a scarce characteristic of the developed biomaterials. Moreover, to eliminate the physical and mechanical mismatches with native tissues, high tuning ability is desirable but limited in the current products. As a result, the current solutions fail to either close the wound, or maintain a sufficient sealing ability during wound healing. In this work, a novel and efficient synthetic technique was successfully developed to chemically conjugate catechol motifs to the gelatin backbone. The resulting gelatin-catechol compound was then chemically functionalized with methacryloyl groups to form a highly adhesive and photocrosslinkable sealant, named gelatin methacryloyl-catechol (GelMAC). A two-step crosslinking approach was employed to form the double-networked, and highly tunable GelMAC hydrogel system. First, different concentrations of Fe3+ ions (0, 1, 2.5, 5 and 10 �M) were introduced to the 20 %(w/v) GelMAC prepolymer solution. This step was followed by a second crosslinking mechanism utilizing visible light photopolymerization. GelMAC hydrogel with 2.5 �M Fe3+ ion concentration (GelMAC-Fe) was found to have lower elastic and compressive moduli but demonstrated comparable extensibility to Gelatin-methacryloyl (GelMA) hydrogel incorporating the same Fe3+ ion concentration (GelMA-Fe). Moreover, the wound closure test with porcine skin showed a 1.5-fold higher adhesive strength for GelMAC-Fe compared to GelMA-Fe hydrogels. To study the hemostatic efficacy of GelMAC-Fe hydrogel, the time lapse of blood coagulation across experimental groups was studied in vitro. While the negative control group (untreated blood) formed a blood clot after 16 min, GelMAC hydrogels decreased the clotting time significantly to 9 min. These results were also in close agreement with those obtained for the commercially available hemostatic material, SURGICEL�. Finally, the results of the in vivo liver bleeding model showed that GelMAC-Fe hydrogel was able to rapidly crosslink the incision site and stop the bleeding faster compared to other hydrogels. GelMAC-Fe hydrogel exhibited superior adhesion strength while offering significant hemostatic ability owing to the presence of ferric ions (Fe3+) and the dopamine molecule. This novel, highly biocompatible, tunable, adhesive, and hemostatic sealant can therefore be utilized as an effective solution for controlling bleeding and sealing of soft internal organs such as the lung, heart and blood vessels.