Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Differential Expression Of Genes Related To Innate Immune Responses In Ex Vivo Spinal Cord And Cerebellar Slice Cultures Infected With West Nile Virus, Amber M. Paul, Parminder J.S. Vig, Deyin Lu, Ram Kuwar, Maria Lopez, Dobrivoje S. Stokic, A. Arturo Leis, Michael R. Garrett, Fengwei Bai

Publications

West Nile virus (WNV) infection results in a spectrum of neurological symptoms, ranging from a benign fever to severe WNV neuroinvasive disease with high mortality. Many who recover from WNV neuroinvasive infection present with long-term deficits, including weakness, fatigue, and cognitive problems. While neurons are a main target of WNV, other cell types, especially astrocytes, play an important role in promoting WNV-mediated central nervous system (CNS) damage. Conversely, it has been shown that cultured primary astrocytes secrete high levels of interferons (IFNs) immediately after WNV exposure to protect neighboring astrocytes, as well as neurons. However, how intrinsic responses to WNV …

Heat Shock Protein 40 And Immune Function In Altered Gravity, Amber M. Paul, Brooke D. Shepard, Sharmila Bhattacharya

Publications

In space, astronauts are more susceptible to pathogens, viral reactivation and immunosuppression, which poses limits to their health and the mission. Interestingly, during space flight, stress-inducible heat shock proteins (HSP) are robustly induced, and the overexpression of HSPs have been implicated in immune dysregulation, therefore HSPs may be critically involved in regulating immune homeostasis. HSP40/DNAJ1 plays a major role in proper protein translation and folding. Its loss of function has been implicated in susceptibility to microbial infection, while its overexpression has been implicated in autoimmunity, collectively suggesting its complicated, but necessary, role in maintaining immunological function. To determine the role …

Neutrophil To Lymphocyte Ratio: A Prognostic Indicator For Astronaut Health, Amber M. Paul, Siddhita D. Mhatre, Egle Cekanaviciute, Ann-Sofie Schreurs, Candice G.T. Tahimic, Ruth K. Globus, Brian Crucian, Sharmila Bhattacharya

Publications

Short-term and long-term spaceflight missions can cause immune system dysfunction in astronauts. Recent studies indicate elevated white blood cells (WBC) and polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMN) in astronaut blood, along with unchanged or reduced lymphocyte counts, and reduced T cell function, during short-(days) and long-(months) term spaceflight. A high PMN to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) can acts as a strong predictor of poor prognosis in cancer, and as a biomarker for subclinical inflammation in humans and chronic stress in mouse models, however, the NLR has not yet been identified as a predictor of astronaut health during spaceflight. For this, complete blood cell count …

Stress-Induced Heat Shock Protein 40 And Immune Function In Altered Gravity, Amber M. Paul, Brooke D. Shepard, Sharmila Bhattacharya

Publications

In space, astronauts are more susceptible to pathogens, viral reactivation and immunosuppression, which poses limits to their health and the mission. Interestingly, during space flight, stress-inducible heat shock proteins (HSP) are robustly induced, and the overexpression of HSPs have been implicated in immune dysregulation, therefore HSPs may be critically involved in regulating immune homeostasis. HSP40/DNAJ1 plays a major role in proper protein translation and folding. Its loss of function has been implicated in susceptibility to microbial infection, while its overexpression has been implicated in autoimmunity, collectively suggesting its complicated, but necessary, role in maintaining immunological function. To determine the role …

Congenital Zika Virus Infection In Immunocompetent Mice Causes Postnatal Growth Impediment And Neurobehavioral Deficits, Amber M. Paul, Dhiraj Acharya, Biswas Neupane, E. Ashley Thompson, Gabriel Gonzalez-Fernandez, Katherine M. Copeland

Publications

A small percentage of babies born to Zika virus (ZIKV)-infected mothers' manifest severe defects at birth, including microcephaly. Among those who appeared healthy at birth, there are increasing reports of postnatal growth or developmental defects. However, the impact of congenital ZIKV infection in postnatal development is poorly understood. Here, we report that a mild congenital ZIKV-infection in pups born to immunocompetent pregnant mice did not display apparent defects at birth, but manifested postnatal growth impediments and neurobehavioral deficits, which include reduced locomotor and cognitive deficits that persisted into adulthood. We found that the brains of these pups were smaller, had …

Surgical And Medical Applications Of Drones: A Comprehensive Review, Brent Terwilliger, James C. Rosser Jr., Vudatha Vignesh, Brett C. Parker

Publications

Drones have the ability to gather real time data cost effectively, to deliver payloads and have initiated the rapid evolution of many industrial, commercial, and recreational applications. Unfortunately, there has been a slower expansion in the field of medicine. This article provides a comprehensive review of current and future drone applications in medicine, in hopes of empowering and inspiring more aggressive investigation.

Surgical And Medical Applications Of Drones: A Comprehensive Review, James C. Rosser, Vudatha Vignesh, Brent A. Terwilliger, Brett C. Parker

Publications

Background: Drones have the ability to gather real time data cost effectively, to deliver payloads and have initiated the rapid evolution of many industrial, commercial, and recreational applications. Unfortunately, there has been a slower expansion in the field of medicine. This article provides a comprehensive review of current and future drone applications in medicine, in hopes of empowering and inspiring more aggressive investigation. Database: A literature search was performed by EBSCO (Elton B. Stephens Company) Discovery Service, searching the phrases "drones," "UAV," "unmanned aerial vehicles," "UAS," and "unmanned aerial systems." A second search was used to identify sources that contained …

Reimagining Icarus: Ethics, Law And Policy Considerations For Commercial Human Spaceflight, Sara M. Langston

Publications

Commercial human spaceflight presents an area for engaging novel human activity and objectives, to include space exploration, entertainment, transportation and extraterrestrial resource acquisition. The inherent dangers and lack of scientific and medical certainty involved however raise interrelated questions of ethics, bioethics, law and public policy. This is particularly the case with spaceflight participant (SFP) screening, selection, and commercial human spaceflight activities where regulations are currently silent or lacking. In the absence of established law, ethics can play an important role by informing industry standards, policies and best practices. Understanding the fundamental ethical values at stake in the application of new …

Patient-Specific Multiscale Computational Fluid Dynamics Assessment Of Embolization Rates In The Hybrid Norwood: Effects Of Size And Placement Of The Reverse Blalock–Taussig Shunt, Ray Prather, John Seligson, Marcus Ni, Eduardo Divo, Alain J. Kassab, William Decampli

Publications

The hybrid Norwood operation is performed to treat hypoplastic left heart syndrome. Distal arch obstruction may compromise flow to the brain. In a variant of this procedure, a synthetic graft (reverse Blalock–Taussig shunt) is placed between the pulmonary trunk and innominate artery to improve upper torso blood flow. Thrombi originating in the graft may embolize to the brain. In this study, we used computational fluid dynamics and particle tracking to investigate the patterns of particle embolization as a function of the anatomic position of the reverse Blalock–Taussig shunt. The degree of distal arch obstruction and position of particle origin influence …

Exposure Implications Of Electronic Cigarette Surface Contamination, Cheri Marcham, Evan Floyd

Publications

• Retention of nicotine on porous, hydrophilic surfaces can be long enough to allow reaction with ambient gases to form TSNAs (tobacco specific nitrosamines).

• Potential risk for third-hand exposure over time appears to be low, but should be verified by longer term studies.

• Use of ECs (electronic cigarettes) should be consistent with traditional cigarette smoking policies.

Developing Certification Exam Questions: More Deliberate Than You May Think, Cheryl (Cheri) L. Marcham, Treasa M. Turnbeaugh, Susan Gould, Joel T. Nader

Publications

For more than 40 years, the multiple-choice examination has been the standardized assessment tool used in the certification process of OSH professionals (Wright, Turnbeaugh, Weldon, et al., 2015). The use of a multiple-choice exam to award a credential, however, has been criticized by many OSH professionals. This may be primarily due to a perception that relates to their previous academic experience with multiple-choice exams and a misunderstanding of the science behind the development of such exams.

The use of standardized tests clearly ensures a consistent and rapid method of scoring, but the use of such tests is legally defensible only …

Calnexin Is Necessary For T Cell Transmigration Into The Central Nervous System, Amber M. Paul, Joanna Jung, Paul Eggleton, Alison Robinson, Jessica Wang, Nick Gutowski

Publications

In multiple sclerosis (MS), a demyelinating inflammatory disease of the CNS, and its animal model (experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis; EAE), circulating immune cells gain access to the CNS across the blood-brain barrier to cause inflammation, myelin destruction, and neuronal damage. Here, we discovered that calnexin, an ER chaperone, is highly abundant in human brain endothelial cells of MS patients. Conversely, mice lacking calnexin exhibited resistance to EAE induction, no evidence of immune cell infiltration into the CNS, and no induction of inflammation markers within the CNS. Furthermore, calnexin deficiency in mice did not alter the development or function of the immune …

Human Factors Applied To Perioperative Process Improvement, Joseph R. Keebler, Elizabeth H. Lazzara, Elizabeth Blickensderfer, Thomas D. Looke

Publications

• Human factors/ergonomics (HF/E) is its own scientific discipline that can be applied to understanding performance in perioperative medicine.
• Humans are not perfect decision makers and are affected by a variety of factors that can greatly harm their ability to perform, including attention, bias, stress, and fatigue.
• HF/E has a unique perspective on human error, and HF/E can illustrate how moving away from blame can enhance safety.
• HF/E offers strategies for undertaking a systematic approach to assessment of work processes in perioperative medicine that can be used to increase safety and wellbeing of patients and providers.