Digital Commons Network^™

Reduce The Off-Target Accumulation Of Radiopharmaceuticals In Kidney Using Nephilysin-Activated Cleavable Linkers, Eric Doorn, Mengshi Li, Nicholas Baumhover, Michael K. Schult

Summer Research

Radiolabeled low molecular weight peptides (LMW Peps) bind to highly expressed antigens on tumor cells (unexpressed on healthy cells) and deliver α-particle radiation to the tumor. They are cleared in urine through the kidney where the enzyme neprilysin (NEP) in the brush border membrane resides

Stormwater Capture Via Green Infrastructure In The Plaster Creek Watershed, Josian Aardema, Dat Cao, Saul Miranda, Jose Munoz, Daniel Kim, Simon Kok, Delaney Sall, Deanna Geelhoed, David Warners

Summer Research

Calvin University’s campus is located within the Plaster Creek watershed, an area of land that extends from Caledonia to the Grand River near downtown Grand Rapids. All of the water within this region drains into Plaster Creek, which, after many years of neglect and mistreatment, has become one of the most polluted waterways in West Michigan. Plaster Creek Stewards (PCS) aims to restore the local watershed by means of education, research and “on the ground” restoration. The focus of their restoration work is to reduce stormwater runoff containing high amounts of sediment, chemicals, and other pollutants. A variety of green …

Improving Temperature Control For Studying Lipid-Ion Channel Biophysics, Judah Manoraj, Loren Haarsma

Summer Research

• Cell membranes are made up of lipid bilayers that protect the cell and its contents.
• Ion channels are proteins in the lipid bilayer that allow ions to flow in and out of the cell.
• We can measure changes in electrical current as a function of time when a single ion channel in an artificial bilayer opens and closes.
• Ion channels open and close randomly with characteristic “dwell times” which are exponentially distributed.
• One of the main goals is to determine how these exponential time constants (tau) change with temperature and lipid type.

Intestinal Endothelial Cells Promote Hiv-1 Infection In Resting Cd4+ T-Cells Without Causing T-Cell Activation, Jessica Eddy, Rachel Chee, Esther Park, Anding Shen

Summer Research

It is generally understood that HIV-1 does not effectively infect resting CD4+ T cells, and latent infection in those cells may arise when activated infected CD4+ T Cells return to a resting state. However, we found that stimulation by intestinal endothelial cells (IEC) can render resting CD4+ T cells permissible for direct HIV infection. Upon infection, these stimulated T cells remain largely phenotypically inactivated. This study was centered around HIV-1 infection in the context of intestinal tissues, as HIV has extensive gut pathology. Endothelial cells are abundant in mucosal tissues and would have direct, constant interactions with CD4+ T Cells …

Environmental Contaminants And Bacterial Infection During Pregnancy: Pilot Study Of Pregnant Murine Co-Exposure To Trichloroethylene (Tce) And Group B Streptococcus (Gbs), Eleanor Scheeres, Emily Schellenboom, Sean Harris, Erica Boldenow

Summer Research

• TCE is a volatile organic solvent used in industrial processes and a known human carcinogen.
• GBS is a common bacteria in the vaginal flora but can lead to complications such as preterm birth during pregnancy.
• Co-treatment (GBS+DCVC) in placental membranes lead to inhibition of pathogen stimulated cytokine secretion
• We hypothesized that along with cytokine secretion, GBS+DCVC co-exposure would have impacts on MMP-9 (a protein involved in gestational membrane degradation) 4 and prostaglandin E2 (a hormone involved in cervical ripening and labor induction) 5, two important proteins in pregnancy and labor

Examining The Role Of Non-Canonical Wnt Receptors In Pancreatic Cancer Cell Motility, Emily Sall, Payton Stevens, Bart Williams

Summer Research

No abstract provided.

Stormwater Capture Via Green Infrastructure In The Plaster Creek Watershed, Brett Barents, Kiara Bromley, Haley Weesies, Deanna Geelhoed, David Warners

Summer Research

Calvin University’s campus is located within the Plaster Creek watershed, an area of land that extends from Caledonia to the Grand River near downtown Grand Rapids. All of the water within this region drains into Plaster Creek, which, after many years of neglect and mistreatment, has become one of the most polluted waterways in West Michigan. Plaster Creek Stewards (PCS) aims to restore the local watershed by means of education, research and “on the ground” restoration. The focus of their restoration work is to reduce stormwater runoff containing high amounts of sediment, chemicals, and other pollutants. A variety of green …

Physiology Of Ischyrobacter In Cephalotes Guts, Yangzhou Su, John T. Wertz

Summer Research

Nitrogen is an essential element for living organisms. For herbivorous ants like Cephalotes (Turtle ants), obtaining sufficient nitrogen is difficult. Previous studies have shown that the diet of turtle ants is nitrogen-limited. Hence they rely on bacterial gut symbionts to provision nitrogen through uric acid recycling. Metagenomic studies suggest the nitrogen recycling process involves multiple symbionts that together can degrade uric acid and produce amino acids. Of the symbionts in the ant gut, the recently cultured Ischyrobacter davidsoniae st. CV33 is an abundant member of the gut community that can degrade uric acid. What is not known is if this …

Grand Rapids Flora Then And Now: Emma Cole Project 2021, Haley Weesies, Zachary Hartwig, Lucas Walker, Natalie Vredevoogd, Garrett Crow, Dave Warners

Summer Research

In 1901, local botanist and teacher Emma Cole published Grand Rapids Flora: A Catalogue of the Flowering Plants and Ferns Growing Without Cultivation in the Grand Rapids Area. Despite immense changes in land use and development of Grand Rapids in the past 120 years, her work remains the most comprehensive floristic inventory of the area to date. • Develop floristic inventories of field sites. o Periodically visit each site May-August, documenting all plant species observed. o Make herbarium voucher specimens of all species in flower or in fruit to be pressed and dried. This is done in order to document …

Nutech Ventures Annual Report 2020-2021

NUtech Ventures: Publications

NUTech Ventures annual report 2020-2021.

Nutech Ventures Guide To Start-Up Companies At The University Of Nebraska-Lincoln

NUtech Ventures: Publications

NUTech Ventures guide to start-up companies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Overview

NUtech Ventures is the commercialization affiliate of the University of Nebraska, serving the Lincoln and Kearney campuses. We protect and license the university’s intellectual property and promote entrepreneurship through programming and sponsored events. Ultimately, our mission is to improve quality of life and promote economic development.

NUtech Ventures has created this guide to help aspiring University of Nebraska entrepreneurs in starting their entrepreneurial journey. It is focused on companies formed to commercialize innovations developed at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and protected via intellectual property rights owned by UNL …

Submerged Aquatic Vegetation And Habitat: Survey And Mapping Methodologies Review, Charles R. Harman, Paul Bovitz, Elizabeth Ravit, Catherine Nellie Tsipoura, Dan Cooke, Elizabeth Burke Watson, Jonathan Kennen, Meiyin Wu, Ildiko C. Pechmann

New Jersey Center for Water Science & Technology Reports

Submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV), consisting of approximately 60 species worldwide (Green & Short 2007), is found in marine, estuarine, and freshwater ecosystems. SAV populations are composed of rooted, vascular, flowering plants that live and grow primarily below the water surface and include seagrass species found globally in shallow marine and estuarine environments. These submerged communities contribute to one of the most productive ecosystems in the world (Havel 2018), supporting biogeochemical cycling, physical stabilization of sediments, and life cycle habitat needs of multiple aquatic species (Green & Short 2007). SAV provides a nutrient source, nursery area, and critical habitat for commercially …

Low-Dose Computed Tomography & Lung Cancer Screening, Brandon Kessler

Medical Imaging Senior Posters

Lung cancer is the most common cancer in the world, and could have devastating effects to one’s health if not caught early enough. In order to combat this, the implementation of low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) lung cancer screenings can be used to help detect the cancer early. Questionnaires are used in order to determine if people are high-risk for developing lung cancer and qualify for this scan. Physicians have been reported to believe in these screenings and feel they help improve survival rates and early diagnosis of lung cancer. Although there are many positives with LDCT, there are also some …

The Communicative Function Of Gender In Italian, Joseph C. M. Davis

Publications and Research

An analysis of gender in modern literary Italianbased on attested examples from various genres. The evidence-based hypothesis, thoroughly noncanonical, proposes a system of morphologically signaled meanings, and these are not the traditional categories “feminine” and “masculine.” Even the familiar and misleading term “gender” is replaced. The analysis concerns primarily what is typically called “gram­matical gender,” although it stands to inform too the use of Italian in communication having to do with human cultural gender. The analysis concerns primarily what is called here “variable gender” (essentially, adjectives) although it stands to inform too the problem of “invariable gender” (essentially, nouns).

Combined Responses Of Primary Coral Polyps And Their Algal Endosymbionts To Decreasing Seawater Ph, Federica Scucchia, Assaf Malik, Paul Zaslansky, Hollie M. Putnam, Tali Mass

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

With coral reefs declining globally, resilience of these ecosystems hinges on successful coral recruitment. However, knowledge of the acclimatory and/or adaptive potential in response to environmental challenges such as ocean acidification (OA) in earliest life stages is limited. Our combination of physiological measurements, microscopy, computed tomography techniques and gene expression analysis allowed us to thoroughly elucidate the mechanisms underlying the response of early-life stages of corals, together with their algal partners, to the projected decline in oceanic pH. We observed extensive physiological, morphological and transcriptional changes in surviving recruits, and the transition to a less-skeleton/more-tissue phenotype. We found that decreased …

Understanding The Genetics Of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, Α1-Antitrypsin Deficiency, And Implications For Clinical Practice, Jennifer R. Mammen, Jung Eun Lee

College of Nursing Faculty Publications

Cigarette smoking and poor air quality are the greatest risk factors for developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), but growing evidence indicates that genetic factors also affect predisposition to and clinical expression of disease. With the exception of α1-antitrypsin deficiency (AATD), a rare autosomal recessive disorder that is present in 1–3% of individuals with COPD, no single gene is associated with the development of obstructive lung disease. Instead, a complex interplay of genetic, epigenetic, and environmental factors is the basis for persistent inflammatory responses, accelerated cell aging, cell death, and fibrosis, leading to the clinical symptoms of COPD and different …

Balance In Life As A Prerequisite For Community-Dwelling Older Adults’ Sense Of Health And Well-Being After Retirement: An Interview-Based Study, Catharina Gillsjö, Maria Nyström, Lina Palmér, Gunilla Carlsson, Ann-Charlotte Dalheim-Englund, Irene Eriksson

College of Nursing Faculty Publications

Purpose: This study aimed to describe community-dwelling older adults’ perceptions of health and well-being in life after retirement.

Methods: This study is part of a larger project using a mixed-methods design to address lifestyles’ influence on community-dwelling older adults’ health. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 older adults in age 70 to 95 years. Data were analysed according to a phenomenographic approach.

Results: The results encompass four categories describing variations in community-dwelling older adults’ perceptions of health and well-being after retirement: feeling well despite illness and disease, interacting with and being useful for oneself and others, independently embracing opportunities …

Preferences Of Seniors Living In Selected Baltic Sea Region Countries Towards The Use Of Indoor Public Space Furniture, Beata Fabisiak, Anna Jankowska, Robert Klos, Catharina Gillsjö, Igor Kuprienko, Lyudmila Vidasova, Anja Poberznik, Vineta Kreigere

College of Nursing Faculty Publications

Demographic changes can be observed all over the world. The number of seniors located in the societies of well-developed countries continues to rise. Both enterprises and governments need to be prepared for such changes. Consequently, public spaces need to evolve to reduce problems related to ageism and be friendly to all. Much attention is currently being paid to finding solutions for redesigning public spaces and adjusting them to the needs and requirements of senior citizens. To identify the preferences of seniors in relation to the characteristics of furniture in indoor public spaces, a survey study with 1539 respondents aged 60+ …

Adjuvantation Of Influenza Vaccines To Induce Cross-Protective Immunity, Zhoufan Li, Yiwen Zhao, Yibo Li, Xinyuan Chen

Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty Publications

Influenza poses a huge threat to global public health. Influenza vaccines are the most effective and cost-effective means to control influenza. Current influenza vaccines mainly induce neutralizing antibodies against highly variable globular head of hemagglutinin and lack cross-protection. Vaccine adjuvants have been approved to enhance seasonal influenza vaccine efficacy in the elderly and spare influenza vaccine doses. Clinical studies found that MF59 and AS03-adjuvanted influenza vaccines could induce cross-protective immunity against non-vaccine viral strains. In addition to MF59 and AS03 adjuvants, experimental adjuvants, such as Toll-like receptor agonists, saponin-based adjuvants, cholera toxin and heat-labile enterotoxin-based mucosal adjuvants, and physical adjuvants, …

Isoform-Specific Effects Of Apolipoprotein E On Markers Of Inflammation And Toxicity In Brain Glia And Neuronal Cells In Vitro, Jaclyn Iannucci, Abhik Sen, Paula Grammas

Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty Publications

Mutations to the cholesterol transport protein apolipoprotein E (ApoE) have been identified as a major risk factor for the development of sporadic or late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (AD), with the e4 allele representing an increased risk and the rare e2 allele having a reduced risk compared to the primary e3 form. The reasons behind the change in risk are not entirely understood, though ApoE4 has been connected to inflammation and toxicity in both the brain and the periphery. The goal of this study was to better understand how the ApoE isoforms (ApoE2/3/4) confer differential AD-related risk by assessing cell-specific ApoE-related neuroinflammatory …

Circadian Regulation Of Night Feeding And Daytime Detoxification In A Formidable Asian Pest Spodoptera Litura, Jiwei Zhang, Shenglong Li, Wanshun Li, Zhiwei Chen, Huizhen Guo, Jianqiu Liu, Yajing Xu, Yingdan Xiao, Liying Zhang, Kallare P. Arunkumar, Guy Smagghe, Qingyou Xia, Marian R. Goldsmith, Makio Takeda, Kazuei Mita

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Voracious feeding, trans-continental migration and insecticide resistance make Spodoptera litura among the most difficult Asian agricultural pests to control. Larvae exhibit strong circadian behavior, feeding actively at night and hiding in soil during daytime. The daily pattern of larval metabolism was reversed, with higher transcription levels of genes for digestion (amylase, protease, lipase) and detoxification (CYP450s, GSTs, COEs) in daytime than at night. To investigate the control of these processes, we annotated nine essential clock genes and analyzed their transcription patterns, followed by functional analysis of their coupling using siRNA knockdown of interlocked negative feedback system core and repressor genes …

A Multi-Objective Optimization Method For Hospital Admission Problem—A Case Study On Covid-19 Patients, Amr Mohamed Abdel Aziz, Louai Alarabi, Saleh Basalamah, Abdeltawab Hendawi

Computer Science and Statistics Faculty Publications

The wide spread of Covid-19 has led to infecting a huge number of patients, simultaneously. This resulted in a massive number of requests for medical care, at the same time. During the first wave of Covid-19, many people were not able to get admitted to appropriate hospitals because of the immense number of patients. Admitting patients to suitable hospitals can decrease the in-bed time of patients, which can lead to saving many lives. Also, optimizing the admission process can minimize the waiting time for medical care, which can save the lives of severe cases. The admission process needs to consider …

Limiting Iron Acquisition Of E. Coli With Anti-Tonb1 And Antitonb2​, Jose Diaz, Ryan Luib, Seethal Doki

Protein Modeling Reports

The bacteria E Coli infect approximately 200,000 individuals in the United States and can lead to critical illnesses. The transfer of iron from the bloodstream to bacteria is one of the main requirements for the survival. One of the mechanisms to obtain iron by use of siderophores and the protein FhuA was investigated. Undergraduate students grouped into teams to each explain a unique molecular story- modeled in Jmol/Pymol and demonstrated through a poster and PowerPoint. Using the PDB file, 2GRX, a drug to inhibit the TonB-Ton Box interaction which provides the FhuA iron mechanism energy to operate was researched. A …

Global Dynamics Of Generalized Second-Order Beverton–Holt Equations Of Linear And Quadratic Type, E. Bertrand, Mustafa Kulenovic

Mathematics Faculty Publications

We investigate second-order generalized Beverton–Holt difference equations of the form

x_n+1 = af(x_n, x_n−1) / 1 + f(x_n, x_n−1) , n = 0, 1,…,

where f is a function nondecreasing in both arguments, the parameter a is a positive constant, and the initial conditions x₋₁ and x₀ are arbitrary nonnegative numbers in the domain of f. We will discuss several interesting examples of such equations and present some general theory. In particular, we will investigate the local and global dynamics in the event f is a certain type of …

How Well Can We Assess The Validity Of Non-Randomised Studies Of Medications? A Systematic Review Of Assessment Tools, Elvira D'Andrea, Vinals, Elisabetta Patorno, Jessica M. Franklin, Dimitri Bennett, Joan A. Largen, Daniela C. Moga, Hongbo Yuan, Xuerong Wen, Andrew R. Zullo, Thomas P. A. Debray, Grammati Sarri

Pharmacy Practice and Clinical Research Faculty Publications

Objective To determine whether assessment tools for non-randomised studies (NRS) address critical elements that influence the validity of NRS findings for comparative safety and effectiveness of medications.

Design Systematic review and Delphi survey.

Data sources We searched PubMed, Embase, Google, bibliographies of reviews and websites of influential organisations from inception to November 2019. In parallel, we conducted a Delphi survey among the International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology Comparative Effectiveness Research Special Interest Group to identify key methodological challenges for NRS of medications. We created a framework consisting of the reported methodological challenges to evaluate the selected NRS tools.

Study selection Checklists …

Substrate Profiling Of The Epigenetic Erasers Hdac1 And Lsd1, Herath Mudiyansela Gedara Kavinda Eranga Herath

Wayne State University Dissertations

Regulators of chromatin structure have emerged as a key driver of transcriptional responses inside the cell. Two such groups of regulators, histone writers and erasers; the proteins, that add or remove histone post translational modifications (PTMs), have become the central players in chromatin structure. Thus, the aberrant expression of writers and erasures is a hallmark in human diseases. For example, overexpression of the erasures histone deacetylase1 (HDAC1) and lysine specific demethylase1 (LSD1) had been reported in many cancers. Currently, HDAC inhibitors have been used successfully for cancer treatment and several inhibitors targeting LSD1 are in clinical trial. To date, apart …

An Emergent Legionnaires' Disease Syndemic: Water Supply Systems, Infrastructural Violence, And Afflicted Lives In The South Bronx, Ny, Eduardo Piqueiras

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation examines how contemporary approaches to Legionnaires’ disease (LD) narrowly view it as a biomedical entity that obscures critical moral, temporal, and contextual dimensions creating gaps in how LD “cases” are defined and mitigated. Those who receive an LD diagnosis experience many unique challenges (e.g., personal, existential, community-based, and environmental) yet little is known about how this group of individuals experience recovery and attach meaning to their individual experiences. Using an anthropological lens of illness and recovery and a syndemics view of infrastructural violence this study examines those inadequately addressed multiple dimensions which limit our ability to confront the …

The Efficacy Of A Novel Facebook-Based Psychosocial Intervention For Adults With Chronic Pain: A Randomized Clinical Trial, Bethany Danielle Pester

Wayne State University Dissertations

Social networking-based groups such as Facebook groups have become increasingly popular among people with chronic conditions, and the affordances of such groups make them a promising platform for chronic disease intervention. Yet, there have been few controlled tests of the effects of social networking-based groups. Our team developed a Facebook-based intervention that focuses on enhancing social support by connecting adults with peers who also have chronic pain. Using a randomized controlled clinical trial, we aimed to understand the efficacy of this intervention and to explore whether a professional-led support group leads to greater effects than a support group alone. The …

Exploring The Association Of Health Belief And Spiritual Coping With The Use Of Complementary Medicine By Parents Of Children And Adolescents With Cancer In Saudi Arabia, Logayn Hussamaldin

Wayne State University Dissertations

ABSTRACTExploring the Association of Health Belief and Spiritual Coping with the Use of Complementary Medicine by Parents of Children and Adolescents with Cancer in Saudi Arabia

byLOGAYN HUSSAMALDIN 2021 Advisor: Hossein N. Yarandi Major: Nursing Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is a term applied to treatments that are not part of conventional medicine, and in some cases, they may be used instead of conventional medicine. One national study and several international studies have identified the frequency of CM use in pediatric populations. The overall frequency of CM use among children in Saudi Arabia reached 87.8%-95% in …

Pharmaceuticals In The Environment: Health Implications And Environmental Toxicity, Jessica Phillips

Wayne State University Dissertations

Approximately 2.9 billion prescriptions are written annually in the United States, with a multitude of biochemical actions, with 63151 tons used by food producing animals worldwide and an additional 55-77 million prescriptions written for companion animals. With increasing prescription and unknown toxicologic effects of many of these chemicals, zebrafish (danio rerio), an NIH approved human model, were used to model potentially health effects. Significant abnormalities were seen with extended duration metformin exposure from 4 hours post fertilization up to 5 days post fertilization, although short term metformin exposure for 24 hours at 4-5 days post fertilization did not lead to …