Liver fibrosis is typically caused by chronic viral hepatitis and, more recently, fatty liver disease associated with obesity. There are currently no approved drugs for liver cirrhosis, and liver transplantation is limited by donor scarcity, thus driving the investigation of novel therapeutic strategies. The development of liver fibrosis presents with stage- and zone-dependent characteristics that manifest as distinct dynamic changes during vascularization and extracellular matrix (ECM) deposition. However, current cellular therapies do not consider the spatiotemporal variations of liver fibrosis without identifying the precise location and stage to administer the intervention to achieve optimal therapeutic effects. Herein, we focus on endothelial cell (EC) and macrophage therapy for liver fibrosis because of their important roles in regulating the spatiotemporal changes of vascularization and ECM deposition during liver fibrosis progression. Overall, this review summarizes the stage-dependent EC and macrophage therapy for liver fibrosis, elucidates their respective mechanisms, and exemplifies potential strategies to realize precise cell therapy by targeting specific liver zones.

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) as a powerful non-invasive spectroscopic technique has been intensively used in bio/chemical sensing, enabling ultrasensitive detection of various analytes and high specificity with a fingerprint-like characteristic. Flexible SERS sensors conformally adapting to nonplanar surfaces and allowing swab-sampling or in-situ detection of analytes, which are not achievable for rigid SERS sensors, greatly meet the demand of onsite and real-time diagnostics. However, the rational design and fabrication of flexible SERS-based sensors for point-of-care diagnostics aiming to simultaneously achieve extremely high sensitivity, stability, and good signal reproducibility remain many challenges. We present a state-of-the-art review of the flexible SERS sensors. Attentions are devoted to engineering plasmonic substrates for improving the performance of flexible SERS devices. Strategies of constructing the flexible SERS sensors toward point-of-care detection are investigated in depth. Advanced algorithms assisting the SERS data process are also presented for intelligently distinguishing the species and contents of analytes. The promising applications of flexible SERS sensors in medical diagnostics, environmental analyses, food safety, and forensic science are displayed. The flexible SERS devices serving as powerful analytical tools shed new light on the in-situ and point-of-care detection of real-world analytes in a convenient, facile, and non-destructive manner, and especially are conceivable to serve as next-generation wearable sensors for healthcare.