On March 25, a research team of SCUT published an online article on tumo racidity-activatable nanomaterials in Nature Nanotechnology, a top academic journal in the field of nanotechnology. The research was conducted by the team led by Professor Wang Jun and Professor Xiong Menghua at the SCUT School of Biomedical Sciences and Engineering and the National Engineering Research Center for Tissue Restoration and Reconstruction, in cooperation with Associate Professor Bao Yan at Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University and Associate Professor Xiao Shiyan at the University of Science and Technology of China. The co-first authors of the article are postdoctoral researcher Liu Mingdong, master's student Huang Liangqi, and doctoral student Zhang Weinan.

The team report the design of ‘proton transistor’ nanodetergents that can convert the subtle pH perturbation signals of tumour tissues into sharp transition signals of membranolytic activity for selective cancer therapy. The design of pTNT achieves the precise control of its membranolytic activity within a 0.1 pH change, offering new strategies and opportunities for the treatment of tumors, and even drug-resistant tumors.