The current systematic review presents COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among parents for their children in Middle Eastern countries. Moreover, the vaccine acceptance rate of parents from the Middle East and the factors effecting the acceptance rate were reviewed and summarized. For this systematic review, basic electronic academic databases (Scopus, Science Direct, ProQuest, Web of Science and PubMed) were used for the search, along with a manual search on Google Scholar. This systematic review was conducted by following the “Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA)” guidelines. Moreover, utilizing the framework of the PECO-S (Population Exposure Comparison Outcome Study design), various observational studies were recruited for this review. Out of 2123 studies, 25 studies meeting the inclusion criteria were included in the current review. All of the included studies were about parental vaccine hesitancy for COVID-19 in Middle Eastern countries and published during 2020–2022. Overall, 25 research papers comprising 10 different Middle Eastern countries with 33,558 parents were included. The average age of parents was 39.13 (range: 18–70) years, while the mean age of children was 7.95 (range: 0–18) years. The overall hesitancy rate was 44.2% with a SD of ± 19.7. The included studies presented enhanced COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among parents in Middle Eastern countries. The lower vaccine acceptance rate among parents was mainly because of a fear of the potential side effects. Furthermore, the lack of information regarding vaccine safety and efficacy, the fear of unreported side effects and concerns about the authenticity of vaccine development and preparation were the predictors of parental COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among Middle Eastern countries.

Background and Objective: Irrational use and overuse of antibiotics is considered a major cause of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) among patients admitted to hospitals, especially in intensive care units (ICUs). ICUs are the most critical wards in healthcare settings, where the use of antibiotics is much higher compared to other wards. Therefore, the appropriate administration and monitoring of antibiotic usage in these units is a matter of concern. Materials and Methods: This retrospective study evaluated the types, utilization patterns, sensitivity, and resistance of various antibiotics used among patients admitted to the ICUs of different hospitals after the third wave of the coronavirus disease in 2019 (COVID-19) in Pakistan. Results: It was observed that more than 40% of the patients were given two antibiotics and 54.3% were given at least one antibiotic each day. A total of 768 antibiotics from different groups, based on the World Health Organization (WHO) Access, Watch, and Reserve (AWaRe) classification, were prescribed to 313 patients admitted to ICUs between April and August 2021. Among the types of antibiotics, amoxicillin/clavulanic acid was the most frequently used antibiotic (75 prescriptions). It was also observed that the majority of the bacterial isolates were more sensitive to carbapenems than the other antibiotics. The current study showed that antibiotic usage according to the AWaRe classifications was 31.8% in the Access category, 59.5% in the Watch category, and 8.7% in the Reserve category in ICUs of the studied hospitals after the third wave of COVID-19. Conclusions: The findings of the study also highlight the importance and continuous need for the implementation of antibiotic stewardship programs to optimize the appropriate utilization of antibiotics in the ICUs of the studied hospitals.

Momordica charantia L. is a medicinal plant rich in bioactive compounds, including steroidal glycosides, flavonoids, phenolics, triterpenoids, saponins, and polysaccharides, which exhibit antidiabetic, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, hepatoprotective, and anticancer activities. This review summarizes its nutritional and phytochemical composition, green extraction technologies, molecular mechanisms, and industrial applications based on literature from Google Scholar, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, and other scientific databases. Ultrasound-assisted extraction is an efficient and eco-friendly method that provides higher recovery of bioactive compounds from M. charantia and improved bioavailability compared with enzyme-assisted, microwave-assisted, and conventional methods. The phytochemicals of M. charantia regulate oxidative stress, inflammation, lipid peroxidation, and glucose homeostasis. Studies show that its antidiabetic effects involve improved insulin sensitivity, enhanced glucose uptake, and inhibition of carbohydrate-digesting enzymes. These compounds also exhibit antioxidant activity through free radical scavenging and anti-inflammatory effects via inhibition of the NF-κB and MAPK pathways. M. charantia further demonstrates anticancer activity by inducing apoptosis, causing cell-cycle arrest, and downregulating proliferation pathways in several cancer cell lines, including MCF-7, HCT-116, HepG2, A549, and PANC-1. Beyond medicinal uses, it is applied in the food industry as a functional ingredient in products such as yogurt, cookies, pickles, bread, juice, oil, and beverages. Overall, M. charantia shows strong potential for therapeutic applications, including functional foods and pharmaceutical formulations targeting diabetes, inflammation, liver diseases, and cancer; however, further studies are needed to confirm its clinical efficacy.

Demand for greener and safer chemistries has driven the innovation of bioinspired and enzyme-mimicking catalysts for selective and efficient oxidation and hydrogenation under mild conditions. Natural catalysts, including peroxidases, oxidases, hydrogenases, oxygenases and dehydrogenases, boast remarkable activity, specificity, stability, selectivity, low energy requirements and atom economy. Disadvantages of enzymes, such as poor thermal stability, a narrow operational range, low recovery yield and the expense of purification, are motivating the discovery and design of enzyme substitutes. Several artificial platforms have appeared recently: nanozymes, artificial metalloenzymes, biomimetic metal Complexes, MOFs, atomic catalysts, bioinorganic hybrid systems, among others. These systems aim to replicate key structural and mechanistic features of enzymes while providing greater operational stability, recyclability, and scalability. Recent work has demonstrated the benefit of enzyme mimics in increasing eco-sustainability in reactions such as alcohol oxidation, selective alkane oxidation, waste degradation, catalytic photooxygen activation and biomass waste conversion. Similarly, biomimetic hydrogenation catalysts have shown outstanding activity in asymmetrically hydrogenating chemicals, reducing CO₂ into chemicals, hydrogenation by hydrogen transfer and creating hydrogen through water. Through control of active sites, second coordination sites, defects and electrons/protons in the system, significant gains have been seen in reaction selectivity and frequency of turning over substrate into product. Nanozymes, biohybrid catalysis and artificial catalysts guided by deep learning are further broadening the applications of biomimetic catalysis in oxidation and hydrogenation. The article review aims to provide a summary of the most current progress with bioinspired and enzyme-mimicking catalysts, focusing on catalytic mechanisms, how to design such catalysts, how green chemistry benefits from their development and where further application is likely in the coming years.

The potential for the use of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) as anticancer agents has garnered much interest because of their selective cytotoxicity to tumor cells and ability to evade multidrug resistance mechanisms. AMPs are shorter cationic amphiphilic molecules, part of our innate immune system, with direct membrane-disruptive activity and immunomodulatory effects. Anticancer peptides (ACPs) can be derived from natural biophysical sources or synthetically engineered, taking advantage of the unique biophysical properties of cancer cell membranes to exert their anti-tumor activities rapidly and often without significant effects on normal tissues. Advances in peptide engineering, such as D-amino acid substitution, cyclization, and PEGylation, combined with nanocarrier systems, have provided opportunities to improve peptide stability, bioavailability, and delivery to targeted sites. Studies in preclinical and clinical models show promise, indicating that AMPs and ACPs can induce immunogenic cell death, modify tumor microenvironments, and be used in combination with more conventional therapies. While the promise of AMPs and ACPs as relatively novel cancer therapeutics is substantial, challenges such as proteolytic degradation, dose-dependent toxicity, costs for production, and regulatory hurdles are notable. This review organizes the current literature on classification, mechanism(s) of action, delivery strategies, preclinical and clinical data, and provides areas for future work to improve and help speed their clinical translation as new cancer therapies.

Redox homeostasis is the balance between oxidative processes and antioxidant defenses and is fundamental to cellular integrity. This review critically synthesizes current evidence on the phytochemical composition, redox-modulating mechanisms, and therapeutic bioactivities of Fagonia cretica L. (F. cretica), with the aim of evaluating its translational potential as a natural antioxidant and anticancer agent. F. cretica has emerged as a phytochemically rich candidate containing highly bioactive secondary metabolite for redox-targeted therapeutic applications. Its diverse secondary metabolite profile, including alkaloids, flavonoids, tannins, saponins, terpenoids, glycosides, and phenolic compounds, confers broad biological activity. Bioactive constituents, particularly kaempferol, catechin, quercetin, and arbutin, directly neutralize reactive oxygen species (ROS) and modulate inflammatory pathways through inhibition of COX-1, COX-2, and nitric oxide production. These compounds influence important major ROS-sensitive redox signaling pathways: activation of the Keap1/Nrf2/ARE axis to upregulate cytoprotective genes such as HO-1, NQO1, and GCL, suppression of the NF-κB pathway to attenuate pro-inflammatory cytokine transcription, including TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-6, and interference with the MAPK-PI3K/Akt cascade to disrupt aberrant cancer cell survival and proliferation. Bioactive compound-rich extracts of F. cretica exhibit anticancer activity in MCF-7 breast cancer cells by inducing DNA damage, cell cycle arrest, and apoptotic signaling through the FOXO3a/p53 pathways. Similar effects have been reported in colorectal (HCT-116) and prostate (PC-3) cancer cells through DNA (cytosine-5)-methyltransferase 1 (DNMT1) downregulation, oxidative stress induction, and ER-β activation. Moreover, these extracts demonstrate cytotoxic effects in HepG2 and Caco-2 intestinal cancer cells, often associated with topoisomerase inhibition and caspase activation. Despite encouraging preclinical evidence, systematic studies encompassing pharmacokinetic profiling, toxicological characterization, and human clinical trials remain essential to translate these findings into safe, evidence-based therapeutic applications.