Digital Commons Network^™

Good Scientific Practice In Eeg And Meg Research: Progress And Perspectives, Madison A Elliott, Karim Jerbi, Vanja Kovic, Katia Lehongre, Steven J Luck, Manuel Mercier, John C Mosher, Yuri G Pavlov, Aina Puce, Antonio Schettino, Daniele Schön, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Bertille Somon, Anđela Šoškić, Suzy J Styles, Roni Tibon, Martina G Vilas, Marijn Van Vliet, Maximilien Chaumon

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Good scientific practice (GSP) refers to both explicit and implicit rules, recommendations, and guidelines that help scientists to produce work that is of the highest quality at any given time, and to efficiently share that work with the community for further scrutiny or utilization. For experimental research using magneto- and electroencephalography (MEEG), GSP includes specific standards and guidelines for technical competence, which are periodically updated and adapted to new findings. However, GSP also needs to be regularly revisited in a broader light. At the LiveMEEG 2020 conference, a reflection on GSP was fostered that included explicitly documented guidelines and technical …

Accuracy Of Iol Power Calculation Formulas For Acrysof Sn60wf Versus Tecnis Zcb00 Intraocular Lenses

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

PURPOSE: To compare the accuracy of various intraocular lens power formulas for two monofocal hydrophobic foldable lenses, the AcrySof SN60WF and the Tecnis ZCB00.

METHODS: This retrospective study included 409 eyes from 409 patients who underwent uncomplicated cataract surgery (299 eyes with SN60WF and 110 eyes with ZCB00). Biometry was performed for all eyes with an IOLMaster 700. Predicted refraction from five different IOL power formulas (Barrett Universal II, Haigis, Hoffer-Q, Holladay 2, and SRK/T) was compared to postoperative refraction at one to three months for the following axial length strata: short eyes (

RESULTS: In patients with medium eyes, …

Mixed-Phenotype Acute Leukemia: Clinical Diagnosis And Therapeutic Strategies

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Mixed-phenotype acute leukemia (MPAL) comprises a heterogenous group of leukemias that are genetically, immunophenotypically, and clinically, diverse. Given the rarity of the disease, the diagnosis and treatment of MPAL is extremely challenging. Recent collaborative efforts have made significant progress in understanding the complex genomic landscape of MPAL. Some retrospective studies support starting ALL-type induction followed by an allogeneic stem cell transplant(allo-sct) in the first complete remission; however, due to the inherent bias of retrospective data and small case series, a prospective validation of AML- and ALL-based regimen, and the incorporation of targeted therapies based on genetics and immunophenotype are warranted. …

Relevance Of Medullary Vein Sign In Neurosarcoidosis, Parissa Feizi

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Central nervous system involvement is uncommon in patients with sarcoidosis. It remains a diagnostic challenge for clinicians, as there is a broad differential diagnosis that matches the presenting neurological signs. Often, the imaging findings also overlap with other disease entities. One understudied finding in patients with neurosarcoidosis is the presence of medullary vein engorgement on SWI imaging, termed the "medullary vein sign", which has been postulated to be a specific sign for neurosarcoidosis. This study aims to provide an understanding of the diagnostic potential of the medullary vein sign.

METHODS: Thirty-two patients who presented with neurologic signs concerning for …

Immunotherapy For Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus By Adjuvant-Free Schistosoma Japonicum-Egg Tip-Loaded Asymmetric Microneedle Patch (Stamp), Rengui Xu, Yusheng Gong, Zhengming Fang, Ting Wang, Wei Chen

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) is an autoimmune disease mediated by autoreactive T cells and dominated by Th1 response polarization. Insulin replacement therapy faces great challenges to this autoimmune disease, requiring highly frequent daily administration. Intriguingly, the progression of T1DM has proven to be prevented or attenuated by helminth infection or worm antigens for a relatively long term. However, the inevitable problems of low safety and poor compliance arise from infection with live worms or direct injection of antigens. Microneedles would be a promising candidate for local delivery of intact antigens, thus providing an opportunity for the clinical immunotherapy …

Targeting Hyaluronic Acid Synthase-3 (Has3) For The Treatment Of Advanced Renal Cell Carcinoma, Tatsunori Miyata, Chunhua Lin, Jinbo Yang

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Non-alcohol-associated fatty liver/steatohepatitis (NAFL/NASH) has become the leading cause of liver disease worldwide. NASH, an advanced form of NAFL, can be progressive and more susceptible to developing cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Currently, lifestyle interventions are the most essential and effective strategies for preventing and controlling NAFL without the development of fibrosis. While there are still limited appropriate drugs specifically to treat NAFL/NASH, growing progress is being seen in elucidating the pathogenesis and identifying therapeutic targets. In this review, we discussed recent developments in etiology and prospective therapeutic targets, as well as pharmacological candidates in pre/clinical trials and patents, with a …

Identification Of Missing Hierarchical Relations In The Vaccine Ontology Using Acquired Term Pairs, Licong Cui

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background

The Vaccine Ontology (VO) is a biomedical ontology that standardizes vaccine annotation. Errors in VO will affect a multitude of applications that it is being used in. Quality assurance of VO is imperative to ensure that it provides accurate domain knowledge to these downstream tasks. Manual review to identify and fix quality issues (such as missing hierarchical is-a relations) is challenging given the complexity of the ontology. Automated approaches are highly desirable to facilitate the quality assurance of VO.

Methods

We developed an automated lexical approach that identifies potentially missing is-a relations in VO. First, we construct two types …

Ic 012 Guide To University Of Texas Speech And Hearing Institute Records, 1960-1992, University Of Texas Speech And Hearing Institute

Institutional Finding Aids

The University of Texas Speech and Hearing Institute records contains annual reports, information booklets, catalogs, brochures, reports, budget documents, and advisory board information. There are also three scrapbooks--one with contents from approximately 1964-1967, one from approximately 1973-1974, one from approximately 1991-1992. There are a number of photographs and newspaper clippings in the scrapbooks, whose pages have been dis-bound and placed in individual folders. Finally, the collection includes plaques, paperweights, and two VHS tapes. See more at IC 012.

Improved Sars-Cov-2 Sequencing Surveillance Allows The Identification Of New Variants And Signatures In Infected Patients, Antonio Grimaldi, Francesco Panariello, Patrizia Annunziata, Teresa Giuliano, Michela Daniele, Biancamaria Pierri, Chiara Colantuono, Marcello Salvi, Valentina Bouché, Anna Manfredi, Maria Concetta Cuomo, Denise Di Concilio, Claudia Tiberio, Mariano Fiorenza, Giuseppe Portella, Ilaria Cimmino, Antonio Sorrentino, Giovanna Fusco, Maria Rosaria Granata, Pellegrino Cerino, Antonio Limone, Luigi Atripaldi, Andrea Ballabio, Davide Cacchiarelli

Duncan NRI Faculty and Staff Publications

Background: Genomic surveillance of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the only approach to rapidly monitor and tackle emerging variants of concern (VOC) of the COVID-19 pandemic. Such scrutiny is crucial to limit the spread of VOC that might escape the immune protection conferred by vaccination strategies or previous virus exposure. It is also becoming clear now that efficient genomic surveillance would require monitoring of the host gene expression to identify prognostic biomarkers of treatment efficacy and disease progression. Here we propose an integrative workflow to both generate thousands of SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences per week and analyze host …

Current Challenges In Image-Guided Magnetic Hyperthermia Therapy For Liver Cancer, Anirudh Sharma, Erik Cressman, Anilchandra Attaluri, Dara L Kraitchman, Robert Ivkov

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

For patients diagnosed with advanced and unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), liver transplantation remains the best option to extend life. Challenges with organ supply often preclude liver transplantation, making palliative non-surgical options the default front-line treatments for many patients. Even with imaging guidance, success following treatment remains inconsistent and below expectations, so new approaches are needed. Imaging-guided thermal therapy interventions have emerged as attractive procedures that offer individualized tumor targeting with the potential for the selective targeting of tumor nodules without impairing liver function. Furthermore, imaging-guided thermal therapy with added standard-of-care chemotherapies targeted to the liver tumor can directly reduce the …

Understanding Diagnostic Pathways In Systemic Sclerosis And Systemic Sclerosis-Associated Interstitial Lung Disease: A Retrospective Cohort Study, Donald F Zoz

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Systemic sclerosis-associated interstitial lung disease (SSc-ILD) is usually detected in a patient known to have SSc but may be diagnosed prior to SSc. We probed an insurance database to investigate documentation of ILD prior to SSc. Using Optum's Clinformatics® Data Mart Database, we identified patients with an SSc index date between January 1, 2010, and September 30, 2015, based on International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-9-Clinical Modification (CM) codes, ≥2 medical claims associated with SSc on different dates within 1 year, and ≥3 years of continuous enrollment prior to SSc index date (ICD-9-CM cohort). We identified an ICD-10-CM cohort comprising patients …

Regulation Of Microglial Activation In Stroke In Aged Mice: A Translational Study, Yan Xu

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Numerous neurochemical changes occur with aging and stroke mainly affects the elderly. Our previous study has found interferon regulatory factor 5 (IRF5) and 4 (IRF4) regulate neuroinflammation in young stroke mice. However, whether the IRF5-IRF4 regulatory axis has the same effect in aged brains is not known. In this study, aged (18-20-month-old), microglial IRF5 or IRF4 conditional knockout (CKO) mice were subjected to a 60-min middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO). Stroke outcomes were quantified at 3d after MCAO. Flow cytometry and ELISA were performed to evaluate microglial activation and immune responses. We found aged microglia express higher levels of IRF5 …

A Comprehensive Search Of Non-Canonical Proteins In Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer And Their Impact On The Immune Response, Ehsan Irajizad, Johannes F Fahrmann, James P Long, Jody Vykoukal, Makoto Kobayashi, Chuan-Yih Yu, Fu Chung Hsiao, Nikul Patel, Soyoung Park, Qian Peng, Jennifer B Dennison, Taketo Kato, Mei Chee Tai, Ayumu Taguchi, Humam Kadara, Ignacio I Wistuba, Hiroyuki Katayama, Kim-Anh Do, Samir M Hanash, Edwin J Ostrin

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

There is substantial interest in mining neoantigens for cancer applications. Non-canonical proteins resulting from frameshift mutations have been identified as neoantigens in cancer. We investigated the landscape of non-canonical proteins in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and their induced immune response in the form of autoantibodies. A database of cryptoproteins was computationally constructed and comprised all alternate open reading frames (altORFs) and ORFs identified in pseudogenes, noncoding RNAs, and untranslated regions of mRNAs that did not align with known canonical proteins. Proteomic profiles of seventeen lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) cell lines were searched to evaluate the occurrence of cryptoproteins. To assess …

Risk Of Transmission Of Respiratory Viruses During Aerosol-Generating Medical Procedures (Agmps) Revisited In The Covid-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review, Becky Skidmore, Stephen Tsekrekos, Bonita Lee, Joseph Vayalumkal, Jessica Dunn, Robyn Harrison, Melody Cordoviz, Roberta Dubois, Uma Chandran, Fiona Clement, Kathryn Bush, John Conly, Oscar Larios

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: In many jurisdictions healthcare workers (HCWs) are using respirators for aerosol-generating medical procedures (AGMPs) performed on adult and pediatric populations with all suspect/confirmed viral respiratory infections (VRIs). This systematic review assessed the risk of VRIs to HCWs in the presence of AGMPs, the role respirators versus medical/surgical masks have on reducing that risk, and if the risk to HCWs during AGMPs differed when caring for adult or pediatric patient populations.

MAIN TEXT: We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Central, Cochrane SR, CINAHL, COVID-19 specific resources, and MedRxiv for English and French articles from database inception to September 9, 2021. Independent …

A Differential Diagnosis Of Unusual Gastric Ulcer

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

The endoscopic findings of diffuse large B cell lymphoma have various presentations. In our case, the patient had developed multiple elevated central ulceration lesions, and the peripheral elevated portion had a heaped-up margin. The margin had a sharp, smooth edge that was not infiltrative and could be confused with a simple gastric ulcer. Endoscopists should be aware of the possibility of multiple lymphoma ulcers with heaped-up margins. We present some unusual endoscopic features of lymphoma, which are easily misdiagnosed as gastric ulcers.

Increased Expression Of Interferon-Induced Transmembrane 3 (Ifitm3) In Stroke And Other Inflammatory Conditions In The Brain, Sean P Marrelli

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Microglia, the resident innate immune cells of the brain, become more highly reactive with aging and diseased conditions. In collaboration with other cell types in brains, microglia can contribute both to worsened outcome following stroke or other neurodegenerative diseases and to the recovery process by changing their phenotype toward reparative microglia. Recently, IFITM3 (a member of the "interferon-inducible transmembrane" family) has been revealed as a molecular mediator between amyloid pathology and neuroinflammation. Expression of IFITM3 in glial cells, especially microglia following stroke, is not well described. Here, we present evidence that ischemic stroke causes an increase in IFITM3 expression along …

The Immune Response To Airway Mycosis, Jochen Daniel Muehlschlegel, Holger K Eltzschig

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Despite increasing availability and more successful interventional approaches to restore coronary reperfusion, myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury is a substantial cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. During myocardial ischemia, the myocardium becomes profoundly hypoxic, thus causing stabilization of hypoxia-inducible transcription factors (HIF). Stabilization of HIF leads to a transcriptional program that promotes adaptation to hypoxia and cellular survival. Transcriptional consequences of HIF stabilization include increases in extracellular production and signaling effects of adenosine. Extracellular adenosine functions as a signaling molecule via the activation of adenosine receptors. Several studies implicated adenosine signaling in cardioprotection, particularly through the activation of the Adora2a and Adora2b …

Random Field Modeling Of Multi-Trait Multi-Locus Association For Detecting Methylation Quantitative Trait Loci, Chen Lyu, Manyan Huang, Nianjun Liu, Zhongxue Chen, Philip J Lupo, Benjamin Tycko, John S Witte, Charlotte A Hobbs, Ming Li

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications

Motivation: CpG sites within the same genomic region often share similar methylation patterns and tend to be co-regulated by multiple genetic variants that may interact with one another.

Results: We propose a multi-trait methylation random field (multi-MRF) method to evaluate the joint association between a set of CpG sites and a set of genetic variants. The proposed method has several advantages. First, it is a multi-trait method that allows flexible correlation structures between neighboring CpG sites (e.g. distance-based correlation). Second, it is also a multi-locus method that integrates the effect of multiple common and rare genetic variants. Third, it models …

Insights Into Microbiome And Metabolic Signatures Of Children Undergoing Peanut Oral Immunotherapy, Thomas D Horvath, Jessica K Runge, Sigmund J Haidacher, Kathleen M Hoch, Anthony M Haag, Ruth Ann Luna, Aikaterini Anagnostou

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

BACKGROUND: Peanut oral immunotherapy has emerged as a novel, active management approach for peanut-allergic sufferers, but limited data exist currently on the role of the microbiome in successful desensitization.

OBJECTIVE: We examined the oral and gut microbiome in a cohort of 17 children undergoing peanut oral immunotherapy with the aim to identify the microbiome signatures associated with successful desensitization. We also set out to characterize their fecal metabolic profiles after successful therapy.

METHODS: Participants gradually built up their daily dose from 2 mg (starting dose) to 300 mg (maintenance dose) within approximately 40 weeks. We collected a buccal and stool …

A Mouse Holder For Awake Functional Imaging In Unanesthetized Mice: Applications In 31p Spectroscopy, Manganese-Enhanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging Studies, And Resting-State Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, I-Chih Tan, Shelli R Kesler, Vikram Rao, S A Amali S Subasinghe, Russell S Ray, Jason T Yustein, Matthew J Allen, Brian W Gibson, Justin J Verlinden, Stanley Fayn, Nicole Ruggiero, Caitlyn Ortiz, Elizabeth Hipskind, Aaron Feng, Chijindu Iheanacho, Alex Wang, Robia G Pautler

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Anesthesia is often used in preclinical imaging studies that incorporate mouse or rat models. However, multiple reports indicate that anesthesia has significant physiological impacts. Thus, there has been great interest in performing imaging studies in awake, unanesthetized animals to obtain accurate results without the confounding physiological effects of anesthesia. Here, we describe a newly designed mouse holder that is interfaceable with existing MRI systems and enables awake in vivo mouse imaging. This holder significantly reduces head movement of the awake animal compared to previously designed holders and allows for the acquisition of improved anatomical images. In addition to applications in …

Qualitative Interviews To Understand Health Care Providers’ Experiences Of Prescribing Licensed Peanut Oral Immunotherapy, Susan Laubach, Sarah M Donelson, Mohamed Yassine, Anna Nowak-Wegrzyn

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

OBJECTIVE: This research sought to explore health care providers' (HCPs) experiences of delivering the first US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Commission (EC) approved peanut oral immunotherapy (peanut OIT; Palforzia). Semi-structured qualitative interviews with HCPs who had initiated treatment with ≥ 3 patients in the first nine months following FDA approval sought to identify challenges faced and successful implementation strategies.

RESULTS: Eight allergists and three nurse practitioners from eight sites based in the United States participated. The HCPs included in this research were motivated to implement this novel treatment, however, entered the process with some reservations. HCPs described …

Oncogenic Collagen I Homotrimers From Cancer Cells Bind To Α3Β1 Integrin And Impact Tumor Microbiome And Immunity To Promote Pancreatic Cancer, Yang Chen, Sujuan Yang, Jena Tavormina, Desiree Tampe, Michael Zeisberg, Krishnan K Mahadevan, Hikaru Sugimoto, Chia-Chi Chang, Robert R Jenq, Kathleen M Mcandrews, Raghu Kalluri

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

In contrast to normal type I collagen (Col1) heterotrimer (α1/α2/α1) produced by fibroblasts, pancreatic cancer cells specifically produce unique Col1 homotrimer (α1/α1/α1). Col1 homotrimer results from epigenetic suppression of the Col1a2 gene and promotes oncogenic signaling, cancer cell proliferation, tumor organoid formation, and growth via α3β1 integrin on cancer cells, associated with tumor microbiome enriched in anaerobic Bacteroidales in hypoxic and immunosuppressive tumors. Deletion of Col1 homotrimers increases overall survival of mice with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), associated with reprograming of the tumor microbiome with increased microaerophilic Campylobacterales, which can be reversed with broad-spectrum antibiotics. Deletion of Col1 homotrimers enhances …

Spectral Library-Based Single-Cell Proteomics Resolves Cellular Heterogeneity, Sheng Pan

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Dissecting the proteome of cell types and states at single-cell resolution, while being highly challenging, has significant implications in basic science and biomedicine. Mass spectrometry (MS)-based single-cell proteomics represents an emerging technology for system-wide, unbiased profiling of proteins in single cells. However, significant challenges remain in analyzing an extremely small amount of proteins collected from a single cell, as a proteome-wide amplification of proteins is not currently feasible. Here, we report an integrated spectral library-based single-cell proteomics (SLB-SCP) platform that is ultrasensitive and well suited for a large-scale analysis. To overcome the low MS/MS signal intensity intrinsically associated with a …

Miracle Of Microrna-Driven Cancer Nanotherapeutics, Goknur Kara, Banu Arun, George A Calin, Bulent Ozpolat

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are non-protein-coding RNA molecules 20-25 nucleotides in length that can suppress the expression of genes involved in numerous physiological processes in cells. Accumulating evidence has shown that dysregulation of miRNA expression is related to the pathogenesis of various human diseases and cancers. Thus, stragegies involving either restoring the expression of tumor suppressor miRNAs or inhibiting overexpressed oncogenic miRNAs hold potential for targeted cancer therapies. However, delivery of miRNAs to tumor tissues is a challenging task. Recent advances in nanotechnology have enabled successful tumor-targeted delivery of miRNA therapeutics through newly designed nanoparticle-based carrier systems. As a result, miRNA therapeutics …

An Auto-Inhibited State Of Protein Kinase G And Implications For Selective Activation, Philipp Henning, Madoka Akimoto, Bryan Vanschouwen, Gundeep Kaur, Banumathi Sankaran, Kevin R Mackenzie, Giuseppe Melacini, Darren E Casteel, Friedrich W Herberg, Choel Kim

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Cyclic GMP-dependent protein kinases (PKGs) are key mediators of the nitric oxide/cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP) signaling pathway that regulates biological functions as diverse as smooth muscle contraction, cardiac function, and axon guidance. Understanding how cGMP differentially triggers mammalian PKG isoforms could lead to new therapeutics that inhibit or activate PKGs, complementing drugs that target nitric oxide synthases and cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterases in this signaling axis. Alternate splicing of PRKG1 transcripts confers distinct leucine zippers, linkers, and auto-inhibitory (AI) pseudo-substrate sequences to PKG Iα and Iβ that result in isoform-specific activation properties, but the mechanism of enzyme auto-inhibition and its alleviation …

Safety And Tolerability Of Carboplatin And Paclitaxel In Cancer Patients With Hiv (Amc-078), An Aids Malignancy Consortium (Amc) Study, Missak Haigentz, Page Moore, Milan Bimali, Timothy Cooley, Joseph Sparano, Michelle Rudek, Lee Ratner, David Henry, Juan Ramos, John Deeken, Paul Rubinstein, Elizabeth Chiao

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications

Background: Persons living with human immunodeficiency virus are an underserved population for evidence-based cancer treatment. Paclitaxel and carboplatin (PCb) is an active regimen against a variety of solid tumors, including several seen in excess in patients with HIV infection. We performed a pilot trial to evaluate the safety of full-dose PCb in people living with human immunodeficiency virus and cancer.

Methods: Eligible patients, stratified by concurrent antiretroviral therapy (ART) that included CYP3A4 inhibitors or not, received paclitaxel (175 mg/m2) in combination with carboplatin (target AUC 6) intravenously every 3 weeks for up to 6 cycles.

Results: Sixteen evaluable patients received …

Prevalence Of Human Papillomavirus Infection Among Women Born In The 1990s Vs The 1980s And Association With Hpv Vaccination In The Us, Zahed Shahmoradi, Haluk Damgacioglu, Jane Montealegre, Elizabeth Y Chiao, Keith Sigel, Kalyani Sonawane, Ashish A Deshmukh

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications

This cross-sectional study examines rates of human papillomavirus infections among a cohort of vaccinated and unvaccinated women born in the 1990s.

Identification Of The Nrf2 Transcriptional Network As A Therapeutic Target For Trigeminal Neuropathic Pain, Chirag Vasavda, Risheng Xu, Jason Liew, Ruchita Kothari, Ryan S Dhindsa, Evan R Semenza, Bindu D Paul, Dustin P Green, Mark F Sabbagh, Joseph Y Shin, Wuyang Yang, Adele M Snowman, Lauren K Albacarys, Abhay Moghekar, Carlos A Pardo-Villamizar, Mark Luciano, Judy Huang, Chetan Bettegowda, Shawn G Kwatra, Xinzhong Dong, Michael Lim, Solomon H Snyder

Duncan NRI Faculty and Staff Publications

Trigeminal neuralgia, historically dubbed the "suicide disease," is an exceedingly painful neurologic condition characterized by sudden episodes of intense facial pain. Unfortunately, the only U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved medication for trigeminal neuralgia carries substantial side effects, with many patients requiring surgery. Here, we identify the NRF2 transcriptional network as a potential therapeutic target. We report that cerebrospinal fluid from patients with trigeminal neuralgia accumulates reactive oxygen species, several of which directly activate the pain-transducing channel TRPA1. Similar to our patient cohort, a mouse model of trigeminal neuropathic pain also exhibits notable oxidative stress. We discover that stimulating the …

The Value Of In Vivo Reflectance Confocal Microscopy As An Assessment Tool In Chemotherapy-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy: A Pilot Study, Sabrina R Ramnarine, Patrick M Dougherty, Roman Rolke, Linda J Williams, Christi Alessi-Fox, Caterina Longo, Marie T Fallon

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: There is a lack of standardized objective and reliable assessment tools for chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN). In vivo reflectance confocal microscopy (RCM) imaging offers a non-invasive method to identify peripheral neuropathy markers, namely Meissner's corpuscles (MC). This study investigated the feasibility and value of RCM in CIPN.

Patients and methods: Reflectance confocal microscopy was performed on the fingertip to evaluate MC density in 45 healthy controls and 9 patients with cancer (prior, during, and post-chemotherapy). Quantification was completed by 2 reviewers (one blinded), with maximum MC count/3 × 3 mm image reported. Quantitative Sensory Testing (QST; thermal and mechanical …

Adaptation And Dosimetric Commissioning Of A Synchrotron-Based Proton Beamline For Flash Experiments, Ming Yang, Xiaochun Wang, Fada Guan, Uwe Titt, Kiminori Iga, Takeshi Takaoka, Tadashi Katayose, Masumi Umezawa, Emil Schüler, Steven Frank, Steven H Lin, Narayan Sahoo, Albert C Koong, Radhe Mohan, X Ronald Zhu

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Objective. Irradiation with ultra-high dose rates (>40 Gy s^-1), also known as FLASH irradiation, has the potential to shift the paradigm of radiation therapy because of its reduced toxicity to normal tissues compared to that of conventional irradiations. The goal of this study was to (1) achieve FLASH irradiation conditions suitable for pre-clinicalin vitroandin vivobiology experiments using our synchrotron-based proton beamline and (2) commission the FLASH irradiation conditions achieved.

Approach. To achieve these suitable FLASH conditions, we made a series of adaptations to our proton beamline, including modifying the spill length …