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Epilepsy Behav 2021 May 1;119:107982. Epub 2021 May 1.

Department of Pediatrics, Seoul National University Children's Hospital, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea.

Recent advances in mobile health have enabled health data collection, which includes seizure and medication tracking and epilepsy self-management. We developed a mobile epilepsy management application, integrated with a hospital electronic health record (EHR). In this prospective clinical trial, we assessed whether the mobile application provides quality healthcare data compared to conventional clinic visits, and enhances epilepsy self-management for patients with epilepsy. Read More

Epilepsy Behav 2021 May 1;119:107975. Epub 2021 May 1.

Department of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, Epilepsy and Brain Metabolism Alliance, and Epilepsy Research Center, University of Kentucky College of Medicine, Lexington, KY 40536, USA; Lafora Epilepsy Cure Initiative (LECI), USA. Electronic address:

Lafora disease (LD) is a fatal childhood dementia with severe epilepsy and also a glycogen storage disease that is caused by recessive mutations in either the EPM2A or EPM2B genes. Aberrant, cytoplasmic carbohydrate aggregates called Lafora bodies (LBs) are both a hallmark and driver of the disease. The 6 International Lafora Epilepsy Workshop was held online due to the pandemic. Read More

Annu Rev Neurosci 2021 May 4. Epub 2021 May 4.

School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and UCD Centre for Biomedical Engineering, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland; email:

The discovery of neural signals that reflect the dynamics of perceptual decision formation has had a considerable impact. Not only do such signals enable detailed investigations of the neural implementation of the decision-making process but they also can expose key elements of the brain's decision algorithms. For a long time, such signals were only accessible through direct animal brain recordings, and progress in human neuroscience was hampered by the limitations of noninvasive recording techniques. Read More

J Biomed Phys Eng 2021 Apr 1;11(2):197-204. Epub 2021 Apr 1.

PhD, Department of Mechanical Engineering, K. N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran.

Background: Fetal heart rate (FHR) extracted from abdominal electrocardiogram (ECG) is a powerful non-invasive method in appropriately assessing the fetus well-being during pregnancy. Despite significant advances in the field of electrocardiography, the analysis of fetal ECG (FECG) signal is considered a challenging issue which is mainly due to low signal to noise ratio (SNR) of FECG.

Objective: In this study, we present an approach for accurately locating the fetal QRS complexes in non-invasive FECG. Read More

IEEE Trans Neural Syst Rehabil Eng 2021 May 4;PP. Epub 2021 May 4.

This work is motivated by the recent advances in Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) and their widespread applications in human-machine interfaces. DNNs have been recently used for detecting the intended hand gesture through the processing of surface electromyogram (sEMG) signals. Objective: Although DNNs have shown superior accuracy compared to conventional methods when large amounts of data are available for training, their performance substantially decreases when data are limited. Read More

Expert Opin Ther Targets 2021 May 4. Epub 2021 May 4.

Division of Medical Oncology, Department of Medicine, Montefiore Hospital and Medical Center, Bronx, NY, USA 10467-2490.

IntroductionThe gene and its pathway normally plays a crucial role in cell homeostasis, motility, and apoptosis. However, when the gene is altered, there is an imbalance towards cell proliferation and invasion commonly seen in numerous different types of cancers. The heterogeneous group of alterations that includes amplification, exon 14 skipping mutation, and fusions has been difficult to diagnose and treat. Read More

Expert Rev Hematol 2021 May 4. Epub 2021 May 4.

Molecular Oncology and Cancer Immunology, Epworth Healthcare, Melbourne, Australia.

Introduction: Despite therapeutic advances, myeloma remains an essentially incurable disease, with a median survival of approximately 8 -10 years. Most patients will develop disease that is refractory to immunomodulatory agents (IMiDs) and proteasome inhibitors (PIs), and treatment regimens containing drugs with different mechanisms of action are necessary. Isatuximab is one such novel agent, an anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody (MoAb), and is the second drug in this class after daratumumab. Read More

Expert Opin Drug Saf 2021 May 4. Epub 2021 May 4.

Department of Anesthesiology, Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, Chicago, IL 60657.

Introduction: The healthcare expenditures in the United States are substantial for the management of refractory, chronic low back pain (CLBP). The objective of this review is to summarize and evaluate the safety profiles of different pharmacological treatment options used in the management of CLBP.

Areas Covered: The authors conducted a search of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) assessing the safety profiles of different pharmacological treatment options used in the management of CLBP. Read More

Biopreserv Biobank 2021 May 3. Epub 2021 May 3.

Center of Genomics and Policy, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.

Biomedical research based on the sharing and use of ever larger volumes of samples and data is increasingly becoming an essential component of scientific discovery. The success of biobanking and genomic research is dependent on the broad sharing of resources for use by investigators. However, important ethical challenges need to be addressed for the sample and data sharing to be successful. Read More

Plant Biotechnol J 2021 May 4. Epub 2021 May 4.

Research Centre for Viticulture and Enology, Council for Agricultural Research and Economics, CREA-VE), Via XXVIII Aprile 26, 31015, Conegliano, TV, Italy.

Traditional breeding or Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) have for a long time been the sole approaches to effectively cope with biotic and abiotic stresses and implement the quality traits of crops. However, emerging diseases as well as unpredictable climate changes affecting agriculture over the entire globe forces scientists to find alternative solutions required to quickly overcome seasonal crises. In this review, we first focus on cisgenesis and genome editing as challenging biotechnological approaches for breeding crops more tolerant to biotic and abiotic stresses. Read More

Methods Mol Biol 2021 May 5. Epub 2021 May 5.

Siriraj Center for Regenerative Medicine, Research Department, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand.

Advances in induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology provide a renewable source of cells for tissue regeneration and therefore hold great promise for cell replacement therapy. However, immune rejection of allograft due to human leukocyte antigen (HLA) mismatching remains a major challenge. Considerable efforts have been devoted to overcoming the immunogenicity of allograft transplantation. Read More

Protein Cell 2021 May 4. Epub 2021 May 4.

MOE Key Laboratory of Gene Function and Regulation, State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510275, China.

Recent advances in genome editing, especially CRISPR-Cas nucleases, have revolutionized both laboratory research and clinical therapeutics. CRISPR-Cas nucleases, together with the DNA damage repair pathway in cells, enable both genetic diversification by classical non-homologous end joining (c-NHEJ) and precise genome modification by homology-based repair (HBR). Genome editing in zygotes is a convenient way to edit the germline, paving the way for animal disease model generation, as well as human embryo genome editing therapy for some life-threatening and incurable diseases. Read More

Top Curr Chem (Cham) 2021 May 4;379(4):24. Epub 2021 May 4.

Key Laboratory of Interfacial Reaction and Sensing Analysis in Universities of Shandong, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, University of Jinan, Jinan, 250022, People's Republic of China.

This review mainly focused on the synthesis and properties of triazine-based materials as well as the state-of-the-art development of these materials in adsorption-based extraction techniques in the past 5 years, such as solid-phase extraction, magnetic solid-phase extraction, solid-phase microextraction and stir bar sorptive extraction, and the detection of various pollutants, including metal ions, drugs, estrogens, nitroaromatics, pesticides, phenols, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and parabens. In the triazine-functionalized composites, triazine-based polymers and covalent triazine frameworks have been developed as the adsorbents with potential for environmental pollutants, mainly relying on the large surface area and the affinity of triazinyl groups with the targets. Triazine-based adsorbents have satisfactory sensitivity and selectivity towards different types of analytes, attributed from various mechanisms including π-π, electrostatics, hydrogen bonds, and hydrophobic and hydrophilic effects. Read More

Acta Crystallogr A Found Adv 2021 May 12;77(Pt 3):186-195. Epub 2021 Mar 12.

Department of Biology, Section of Genetics, Cell Biology and Development, University of Patras, Patras, GR-26500, Greece.

Advances in instrumentation, as well as the development of powerful crystallographic software have significantly facilitated the collection of high-resolution diffraction data and have made X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD) particularly useful for the extraction of structural information; this is true even for complex molecules, especially when combined with synchrotron radiation. In this study, in-line with past instrumental profile studies, an improved data collection strategy exploiting the MYTHEN II detector system together with significant beam focusing and tailored data collection options was introduced and optimized for protein samples at the Material Science beamline at the Swiss Light Source. Polycrystalline precipitates of octreotide, a somatostatin analog of particular pharmaceutical interest, were examined with this novel approach. Read More

Elife 2021 May 4;10. Epub 2021 May 4.

Department CIBIO, University of Trento, Trento, Italy.

Culture-independent analyses of microbial communities have progressed dramatically in the last decade, particularly due to advances in methods for biological profiling via shotgun metagenomics. Opportunities for improvement continue to accelerate, with greater access to multi-omics, microbial reference genomes, and strain-level diversity. To leverage these, we present bioBakery 3, a set of integrated, improved methods for taxonomic, strain-level, functional, and phylogenetic profiling of metagenomes newly developed to build on the largest set of reference sequences now available. Read More

S Afr Med J 2021 Mar 2;111(3):215-219. Epub 2021 Mar 2.

School of Public Health and Family Medicine, University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Background: In recent years there have been significant advances in the management of stroke. In particular, reperfusion therapies have been shown to confer significant benefit, with the possibility of reversing ischaemic stroke or reducing disability when administered to suitable patients. However, these therapies also carry significant risk, including death. Read More

S Afr Med J 2021 Mar 2;111(3):203-205. Epub 2021 Mar 2.

Lancet Laboratories, Cape Town, South Africa.

Advances in DNA sequencing technologies and computational tools over the past few years have led to vast improvements in the metagenomic analysis of the human microbiota. While this has also significantly improved our understanding of the role of the host-microbiome interaction in health and disease, the current clinical expectation is that testing, particularly of the gastrointestinal biome, can be used to diagnose, manage and treat patients. The authors outline the available technologies and highlight current limitations of these techniques to address this clinical demand. Read More

Investig Clin Urol 2021 May;62(3):243-255

Department of Urology, Center for Urologic Cancer, Hospital, National Cancer Center, Goyang, Korea.

Over the past few decades, platinum-based combination chemotherapy (PBCC) has been the preferred initial therapy for metastatic urothelial cancer (mUC). However, despite a response rate of approximately 50%, a small proportion of patients with distant metastases may be cured by cisplatin-based combination chemotherapy (CBCC). In addition, up to 50% of patients are not eligible for CBCC due to age or comorbidities. Read More

J Cell Mol Med 2021 May 4. Epub 2021 May 4.

Department of Anesthesiology, Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, Jinan, China.

Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) featured a debilitating progressive disorder. Here, we intend to determine diagnosis-valuable biomarkers for PAH and decode the fundamental mechanisms of the biological function of these markers. Two mRNA microarray profiles (GSE70456 and GSE117261) and two microRNA microarray profiles (GSE55427 and GSE67597) were mined from the Gene Expression Omnibus platform. Read More

Obes Rev 2021 May 4:e13242. Epub 2021 May 4.

Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

Childhood obesity is a major public health challenge across Latin America and the United States. Addressing childhood obesity depends on valid, reliable, and culturally sensitive measurements. Such progress within and between countries of the Americas could be enhanced through better measurement across different age groups, different countries, and in sending and receiving communities. Read More

Dis Model Mech 2021 May 4;14(5). Epub 2021 May 4.

Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.

Neurodegenerative diseases and other protein-misfolding disorders represent a longstanding biomedical challenge, and effective therapies remain largely elusive. This failure is due, in part, to the recalcitrant and diverse nature of misfolded protein conformers. Recent work has uncovered that many aggregation-prone proteins can also undergo liquid-liquid phase separation, a process by which macromolecules self-associate to form dense condensates with liquid properties that are compositionally distinct from the bulk cellular milieu. Read More

Chem Soc Rev 2021 May 4. Epub 2021 May 4.

Hunan Key Laboratory of Two-Dimensional Materials, State Key Laboratory for Chemo/Biosensing and Chemometrics, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha, China.

Recent advances in moiré superlattices and moiré excitons, such as quantum emission arrays, low-energy flat bands, and Mott insulators, have rapidly attracted attention in the fields of optoelectronics, materials, and energy research. The interlayer twist turns into a degree of freedom that alters the properties of the systems of materials, and the realization of moiré excitons also offers the feasibility of making artificial exciton crystals. Moreover, moiré excitons exhibit many exciting properties under the regulation of various external conditions, including spatial polarisation, alternating dipolar to alternating dipolar moments and gate-dependence to gate voltage dependence; all are pertinent to their applications in nano-photonics and quantum information. Read More

Chem Soc Rev 2021 May 4. Epub 2021 May 4.

Division of Nanomaterials & Chemistry, Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, Institute of Energy, Hefei Comprehensive National Science Center, CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, Department of Chemistry, Institute of Biomimetic Materials & Chemistry, Anhui Engineering Laboratory of Biomimetic Materials, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China.

The metastable nature of metal chalcogenide nanomaterials (MCNs) provides us with fresh perspectives and plentiful grounds in the search of new strategies for physicochemical tuning. In the past decade, numerous efforts have been devoted to synthesizing and modifying diverse emerging MCNs based on their "soft chemistry", that is, gently regulating the composition, structure, phase, and interface while not entirely disrupting the original features. This tutorial review focuses on design principles based on the metastability of MCNs, such as ion mobility and vacancy, thermal and structural instability, chemical reactivity, and phase transition, together with corresponding soft chemical approaches, including ion-exchange, catalytic growth, segregation or coupling, template grafting or transformation, and crystal-phase engineering, and summarizes recent advances in their preparation and modification. Read More

Med Sci Monit 2021 May 4;27:e932915. Epub 2021 May 4.

Science Editor, Medical Science Monitor, International Scientific Information, Inc., Melville, NY, USA.

There have been rapid developments in safe and effective mRNA vaccines for zoonotic infections in the past year. Years of research have made these advances possible, leading to in vitro-transcribed (IVT) mRNA expressing therapeutic proteins. There are several advantages of mRNA vaccines that include their low-cost manufacturing process, large-scale and rapid production, and the ability to modify the vaccines in response to emerging infections and viral variants. Read More

Small 2021 May 4:e2007484. Epub 2021 May 4.

Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Institute of Energy and Climate Research (IEK-1): Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wilhelm-Johnen-Straße, Jülich, 52425, Germany.

Oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is expected to be of great importance for the future energy conversion and storage in form of hydrogen by water electrolysis. Besides the traditional noble-metal or transition metal oxide-based catalysts, carbonaceous electrocatalysts are of great interest due to their huge structural and compositional variety and unrestricted abundance. This review provides a summary of recent advances in the field of carbon-based OER catalysts ranging from "pure" or unintentionally doped carbon allotropes over heteroatom-doped carbonaceous materials and carbon/transition metal compounds to metal oxide composites where the role of carbon is mainly assigned to be a conductive support. Read More

Mol Oncol 2021 May 3. Epub 2021 May 3.

Analysis of Circulating Tumor Cells, Lab of Analytical Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, University of Athens, 15771, Athens, Greece.

Liquid biopsy, a minimally invasive approach, is a highly powerful clinical tool for the real-time follow up of cancer and overcomes many limitations of tissue biopsies. Epigenetic alterations have a high potential to provide a valuable source of innovative biomarkers for cancer, owing to their stability, frequency and non-invasive accessibility in bodily fluids. Numerous DNA methylation markers are now tested in circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) as potential biomarkers, in various types of cancer. Read More

Psychophysiology 2021 May 4:e13827. Epub 2021 May 4.

Picower Institute for Learning & Memory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.

Classical ways of analyzing neural time series data has led to static views on cognition, in which the cognitive processes are linked to sustained neural activity and interpreted as stationary states. The core analytical focus was on slow power modulations of neural oscillations averaged across many experimental trials. Whereas this custom analytical approach reduces the complexity and increases the signal-to-noise ratio, it may disregard or even remove important aspects of the underlying neural dynamics. Read More

Neurotherapeutics 2021 May 3. Epub 2021 May 3.

Department of Neurology, UAB Epilepsy Center, University of Alabama At Birmingham, 312 Civitan International Research Center, Birmingham, AL, 35294, USA.

Human neuroimaging has had a major impact on the biological understanding of epilepsy and the relationship between pathophysiology, seizure management, and outcomes. This review highlights notable recent advancements in hardware, sequences, methods, analyses, and applications of human neuroimaging techniques utilized to assess epilepsy. These structural, functional, and metabolic assessments include magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET), and magnetoencephalography (MEG). Read More

Lab Chip 2021 May 4. Epub 2021 May 4.

Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Sogang University, Seoul, South Korea.

Lymph transport inside lymphatic vessels is highly complex and not yet fully understood. So far, a consensus has not been reached among existing analytical models on how spatiotemporal coordination of contracting adjacent lymphangions affects lymph transport. To understand complex lymph transport, we created a novel microfluidic valvular chip with flexible bicuspid valves and segmental pneumatic pumps based on a microfluidic device with an inside 3D structure made of hydrogels. Read More

Nat Mater 2021 May 3. Epub 2021 May 3.

University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.

This Perspective addresses the design, creation, characterization and control of synthetic quantum materials with strong electronic correlations. We show how emerging synergies between theoretical/computational approaches and materials design/experimental probes are driving recent advances in the discovery, understanding and control of new electronic behaviour in materials systems with interesting and potentially technologically important properties. The focus here is on transition metal oxides, where electronic correlations lead to a myriad of functional properties including superconductivity, magnetism, Mott transitions, multiferroicity and emergent behaviour at picoscale-designed interfaces. Read More