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Xenotransplantation 2021 Apr 21:e12686. Epub 2021 Apr 21.

Xenotransplantation Program, Department of Surgery, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA.

Pig kidney xenotransplantation has the potential to alleviate the current shortage of deceased and living human organs and provide patients with end-stage renal disease with a greater opportunity for long-term survival and a better quality of life. In recent decades, advances in the genetic engineering of pigs and in immunosuppressive therapy have permitted the resolution of many historical obstacles to the success of pig kidney transplantation in nonhuman primates. Pig kidney xenotransplantation may soon be translated to the clinic. Read More

Br J Anaesth 2021 May 8;126(5):1046-1054. Epub 2021 Apr 8.

Institute of Anaesthesiology, University and University Hospital Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland. Electronic address:

Background: Failures in situation awareness cause two-thirds of anaesthesia complications. Avatar-based patient monitoring may promote situation awareness in critical situations.

Methods: We conducted a prospective, randomised, high-fidelity simulation study powered for non-inferiority. Read More

Cyberpsychol Behav Soc Netw 2021 Apr 20. Epub 2021 Apr 20.

International Gaming Research Unit, Psychology Department, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, United Kingdom.

This study assessed the mediating roles of problematic gaming, problematic social media use, and problematic smartphone use in the associations between psychological distress and screen time use among primary school children during the school hiatus due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Students ( = 2,026; mean [standard deviation] age = 10.71 years [1. Read More

Methods Mol Biol 2021 ;2263:217-230

Hit Discovery, Discovery Sciences, R&D BioPharmaceuticals, AstraZeneca, Alderley Park, UK.

It is clear from the analysis of the distribution of approved drug targets that enzymes continue to be a major target class for the pharmaceutical industry. The application of high-throughput screens designed to monitor the activity of these enzyme targets, and the ability of test compounds to modulate this activity, is still the predominant hit finding approach in the industry. The widespread use of enzyme activity-based screens has led to the development of several useful guidelines for the development and validation of robust and reliable assays. Read More

G3 (Bethesda) 2019 Jul;9(7):2267-2276

Physiological Chemistry, Biocenter, University of Wuerzburg, 97074 Wuerzburg, Germany.

Small aquarium fish models provide useful systems not only for a better understanding of the molecular basis of many human diseases, but also for first-line screening to identify new drug candidates. For testing new chemical substances, current strategies mostly rely on easy to perform and efficient embryonic screens. Cancer, however, is a disease that develops mainly during juvenile and adult stage. Read More

Artif Intell Med 2021 Apr 5;114:102050. Epub 2021 Mar 5.

Group of Applied AI and Data Science, Maersk-McKinney-Moller Institute, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M, Denmark. Electronic address:

Diabetes is currently one of the major public health threats. The essential components for effective treatment of diabetes include early diagnosis and regular monitoring. However, health-care providers are often short of human resources to closely monitor populations at risk. Read More

Comb Chem High Throughput Screen 2021 Apr 18. Epub 2021 Apr 18.

Department of Medical microbiology, College of Health Sciences, Hawler Medical University. Iraq.

Background: The presence of biofilm formation exoU gene is significant challenge to infection control management in hospitals and exposure by Pseudomonas aeruginosa may lead to further spread and development of antimicrobial resistance.

Methods: Out of 227 samples 40 clinical isolates of P. aeruginosa were collected from patients attending public hospitals ( Rizgary, Teaching hospital, Laboratory center, Raparin, Nanakaly hospitals)in Erbil city/Iraq over a period during 2018 to march 2019 and fully characterized by standard bacteriological procedures and antimicrobial susceptibility test and ESBL has been carried out by Vitek 2 compact system and. Read More

J Mater Chem B 2021 Apr 19. Epub 2021 Apr 19.

Department of Obstetrics/Gynecology, Joint Laboratory of Reproductive Medicine, SCU-CUHK, Key Laboratory of Obstetric, Gynaecologic and Paediatric Diseases and Birth Defects of Ministry of Education, West China Second University Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610041, China. and Reproductive Endocrinology and Regulation Laboratory, West China Second University Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610041, China.

A dual-site controlled pH probe, which is composed of gold nanoparticles and modified with rhodamine and fluorescein derivatives, was applied to sensitively monitor intracellular pH changes in sperm. The pH probe revealed the intracellular pH of sperm under different conditions and demonstrated the lower pH in asthenozoospermia patients as compared to healthy individuals. Importantly, the pH probe can help screen for healthy sperm. Read More

Syst Rev 2021 Apr 16;10(1):111. Epub 2021 Apr 16.

Department of Neonatology, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen University Hospital, Blegdamsvej 9, 2100, Copenhagen, Denmark.

Background: Multiple clinical conditions are associated with cerebral hypoxia/ischaemia and thereby an increased risk of hypoxic-ischaemic brain injury. Cerebral near-infrared spectroscopy monitoring (NIRS) is a tool to monitor brain oxygenation and perfusion, and the clinical uptake of NIRS has expanded over recent years. Specifically, NIRS is used in the neonatal, paediatric, and adult perioperative and intensive care settings. Read More

Biosens Bioelectron 2021 Apr 7;183:113228. Epub 2021 Apr 7.

Research Group of Consumer Safety, Korea Food Research Institute (KFRI), Wanju-gun, Jeonrabuk-do 55365, South Korea. Electronic address:

Mercury is one of the most common heavy metals and a major environmental pollutant that affects ecosystems. Since mercury and its compounds are toxic to humans, even at low concentrations, it is very important to monitor mercury contamination in water and foods. Although conventional mercury detection methods, including inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, atomic absorption spectroscopy, and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, exhibit excellent sensitivity and accuracy, they require operation by an expert in a sophisticated and fully controlled laboratory environment. Read More

Front Immunol 2021 29;12:626308. Epub 2021 Mar 29.

Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioral Neurobiology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.

We have previously shown that conformational change in the β-integrin is a very early activation marker that can be detected with fluorescent multimers of its ligand intercellular adhesion molecule (ICAM)-1 for rapid assessment of antigen-specific CD8 T cells. In this study, we describe a modified protocol of this assay for sensitive detection of functional antigen-specific CD4 T cells using a monoclonal antibody (clone m24 Ab) specific for the open, high-affinity conformation of the β-integrin. The kinetics of β-integrin activation was different on CD4 and CD8 T cells (several hours vs. Read More

JMIR Form Res 2021 Apr 13. Epub 2021 Apr 13.

Primary Health Care Corporation, Doha, QA.

Background: In December 2019, a novel coronavirus was identified as the cause of a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan, China. It rapidly spread due to strong evidence of human-to-human transmission, resulting in a pandemic throughout the world. Almost all countries around the world, including Qatar, have established guidelines and regulations to limit the spread of the virus and to preserve the health of societies. Read More

Sci Rep 2021 Apr 12;11(1):7954. Epub 2021 Apr 12.

Departments of Surgery and Biomedical Sciences, Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine, Huntington, WV, 25755, USA.

Cardiotoxic manifestation associated with breast cancer treatment by anthracycline regimen increases patients' susceptibility to myocardial injury, reduction in left ventricular ejection fraction and complications associated with heart failure. There is currently no standardized, minimally invasive, cost effective and clinically verified procedure to monitor cardiotoxicity post-anthracycline therapy initiation, and to detect early onset of irreversible cardiovascular complications. This study aims to create a panel of novel biomarkers and circulating miRNAs associated with cardiotoxicity, further assessing their correlation with cardiac injury specific markers, troponin I and T, and demonstrate the development of cardiac dysfunction in breast cancer patients. Read More

JMIR Form Res 2021 04 12;5(4):e25513. Epub 2021 Apr 12.

The Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia.

Background: The link between chronic diseases and the Big 6 lifestyle risk behaviors (ie, poor diet, physical inactivity, smoking, alcohol use, sedentary recreational screen time, and poor sleep) is well established. It is critical to target these lifestyle risk behaviors, as they often co-occur and emerge in adolescence. Smartphones have become an integral part of everyday life, and many adolescents already use mobile apps to monitor their lifestyle behaviors and improve their health. Read More

Comput Struct Biotechnol J 2021 5;19:1976-1985. Epub 2021 Apr 5.

School of Biology and Biological Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China.

With the global epidemic of SARS-CoV-2, it is important to effectively monitor the variation, haplotype subgroup epidemic trends and key mutations of SARS-CoV-2 over time. This is of great significance to the development of new vaccines, the update of therapeutic drugs, and the improvement of detection methods. The AutoVEM tool developed in the present study could complete all mutations detections, haplotypes classification, haplotype subgroup epidemic trends and candidate key mutations analysis for 131,576 SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences in 18 h on a 1 core CPU and 2 GB RAM computer. Read More

Protein Sci 2021 Apr 11. Epub 2021 Apr 11.

Genentech Inc.

Despite the need to monitor the impact of Cancer Immunotherapy (CI)/Immuno-Oncology (IO) therapeutics on neoantigen-specific T-cell responses, very few clinical programs incorporate this aspect of immune monitoring due to the challenges in high-throughput (HTP) generation of MHCI tetramers across a wide range of HLA alleles. This limitation was recently addressed through the development of MHCI complexes with peptides containing a non-natural UV cleavable amino acid (conditional MHCI ligands) that enabled HTP peptide exchange upon UV exposure. Despite this advancement, the number of alleles with known conditional MHCI ligands is limited. Read More

Talanta 2021 Jul 11;229:122287. Epub 2021 Mar 11.

Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry, 119991, Moscow, Russian Federation. Electronic address:

A great variety of magnetic nanomaterials are entering preclinical investigations with the objective to select the most promising candidates for diagnostic and therapeutic applications. For an analytical approach to be used as a high-throughput screening tool, simple and cost-efficient sample preparation protocol is a basiс prerequisite. Here, we demonstrate how the application of continuous magnetic field allows for quantitatively separating iron oxide magnetic nanoparticles from a mixture with human serum to facilitate monitoring of their biomolecular interactions with high-resolution inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Read More

J Pediatr Endocrinol Metab 2021 Apr 12. Epub 2021 Apr 12.

Department of Pediatric, CHU de Québec-Université Laval, Quebec, Canada.

Objectives: Chronic metabolic disturbances related to cancer treatment are well reported among survivors of pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). However, few studies have investigated the incidence of these complications during the phase of chemotherapy. We evaluated the incidence of acute metabolic complications occurring during therapy in our cohort of patients diagnosed with ALL. Read More

Zhonghua Wei Zhong Bing Ji Jiu Yi Xue 2021 Mar;33(3):263-268

Department of Pharmacy, the First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou 325000, Zhejiang, China.

Objective: To evaluate the predictive performance of the individualized drug delivery decision-making system including Smart Dose, PharmVan and JPKD on predicting the Vancomycin plasma concentration and to analyze the related factors affecting the predictive performance.

Methods: The clinical data of patients who were treated with Vancomycin and received therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) admitted to the First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University from January 2018 to July 2020 were retrospectively collected. Smart Dose and PharmVan were used to predict the plasma concentration of Vancomycin of the initial regimen. Read More

Syst Rev 2021 Apr 8;10(1):100. Epub 2021 Apr 8.

Department of International Public Health, The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool, UK.

Background: Alcohol consumption is a key public health challenge in sub-Saharan Africa, which has the highest burden of alcohol attributable injury and disease of any region. Excess alcohol use is particularly harmful for adolescents and has been associated with neurocognitive defects and social and emotional problems. Effective screening and assessment tools are necessary to implement, evaluate and monitor interventions to prevent and decrease adolescent alcohol use. Read More

J Int Med Res 2021 Apr;49(4):300060520977387

Special Surgery Department/Ophthalmology Division, School of Medicine, University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan.

Objectives: To measure central macular thickness in Jordanian patients with sickle cell disease who did not have retinopathy and compare the findings with age- and sex-matched controls using spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SDOCT).

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, participants underwent visual acuity testing, slit-lamp bio-microscopy, dilated ophthalmoscopy, and SDOCT imaging to measure central macular thickness. Macular quadrant measurements and thickness difference indexes (TDIs) were compared between groups. Read More

Appl Clin Inform 2021 03 7;12(2):266-273. Epub 2021 Apr 7.

Department of Nursing, MacKay Memorial Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.

Objective: The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an emerging infectious disease with strong infectious power and fatality rate. To protect national health, government agencies have regulations on hospital chaperoning and visiting. This article presents the development and implementation of a monitoring system for hospital visiting and chaperoning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Read More

Biomed Signal Process Control 2021 Jul 1;68:102582. Epub 2021 Apr 1.

LIBPhys-UC, Department of Physics, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, 3004-516, Portugal.

Radiologists, and doctors in general, need relevant information for the quantification and characterization of pulmonary structures damaged by severe diseases, such as the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Texture-based analysis in scope of other pulmonary diseases has been used to screen, monitor, and provide valuable information for several kinds of diagnoses. To differentiate COVID-19 patients from healthy subjects and patients with other pulmonary diseases is crucial. Read More

Nucleic Acids Res 2021 Apr 6. Epub 2021 Apr 6.

Department of Biochemistry, Institute of Biochemistry and Technical Biochemistry, University of Stuttgart, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany.

The lysine specific demethylase 1 (LSD1) plays a pivotal role in cellular differentiation by regulating the expression of key developmental genes in concert with different coregulatory proteins. This process is impaired in different cancer types and incompletely understood. To comprehensively identify functional coregulators of LSD1, we established a novel tractable fluorescent reporter system to monitor LSD1 activity in living cells. Read More

J Pediatr 2021 Apr 2. Epub 2021 Apr 2.

University of Michigan USA; Michigan State University USA. Electronic address:

Objective: To report vigilance attention outcomes from a cluster randomized controlled trial of early childhood development caregiver training for perinatally HIV-exposed/uninfected preschool-age children in rural Uganda. The Early Childhood Vigilance Test (ECVT) provides a webcam recording of proportion of time a child views an animation periodically moving across a computer screen.

Study Design: Sixty mothers/caregivers received biweekly year-long training sessions of the Mediational Intervention for Sensitizing Caregivers (MISC) and 59 mothers received biweekly training about nutrition, hygiene, and healthcare. Read More

Int J Environ Res Public Health 2021 03 22;18(6). Epub 2021 Mar 22.

Department of Neuroscience and Imaging, Institute for Advanced Biomedical Technologies, University G. D'Annunzio of Chieti-Pescara, Via Luigi Polacchi 13, 66100 Chieti, Italy.

Infrared thermal imaging (IRI) is a contact-less technology able to monitor human skin temperature for biomedical applications and in real-life contexts. Its capacity to detect fever was exploited for mass screening during past epidemic emergencies as well as for the current COVID-19 pandemic. However, the only assessment of fever may not be selective for the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. Read More

Cancers (Basel) 2021 Mar 18;13(6). Epub 2021 Mar 18.

Ph.D. Program in Drug Discovery and Development Industry, College of Pharmacy, Taipei Medical University, No. 250, Wuxing Street, Taipei 110, Taiwan.

The early detection of cancer can reduce cancer-related mortality. There is no clinically useful noninvasive biomarker for early detection of breast cancer. The aim of this study was to develop accurate and precise early detection biomarkers and a dynamic monitoring system following treatment. Read More

Int J Environ Res Public Health 2021 Mar 18;18(6). Epub 2021 Mar 18.

School of Public Health and Health Systems, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada.

Adolescents engage in multiple health risk behaviours that put them at risk of future chronic disease. By the time students graduate from secondary school, they may be engaging in behaviours that set them on a particular health trajectory. It is important to monitor the co-occurrence of health risk behaviours of cohorts of grade 12 students over time to highlight important areas for intervention. Read More

Int J Mol Sci 2021 Mar 9;22(5). Epub 2021 Mar 9.

Synapse Research Institute, 6217 KD Maastricht, The Netherlands.

Fibrinolysis is an important process in hemostasis responsible for dissolving the clot during wound healing. Plasmin is a central enzyme in this process via its capacity to cleave fibrin. The kinetics of plasmin generation (PG) and inhibition during fibrinolysis have been poorly understood until the recent development of assays to quantify these metrics. Read More

Cells 2021 Mar 6;10(3). Epub 2021 Mar 6.

Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, MN 55902, USA.

For nearly a decade, researchers in the field of pediatric oncology have been using zebrafish as a model for understanding the contributions of genetic alternations to the pathogenesis of neuroblastoma (NB), and exploring the molecular and cellular mechanisms that underlie neuroblastoma initiation and metastasis. In this review, we will enumerate and illustrate the key advantages of using the zebrafish model in NB research, which allows researchers to: monitor tumor development in real-time; robustly manipulate gene expression (either transiently or stably); rapidly evaluate the cooperative interactions of multiple genetic alterations to disease pathogenesis; and provide a highly efficient and low-cost methodology to screen for effective pharmaceutical interventions (both alone and in combination with one another). This review will then list some of the common challenges of using the zebrafish model and provide strategies for overcoming these difficulties. Read More