Digital Commons Network^™

A Recombinant Murine-Like Rotavirus With Nano-Luciferase Expression Reveals Tissue Tropism, Replication Dynamics, And Virus Transmission, Yinxing Zhu, Liliana Sánchez-Tacuba, Gaopeng Hou, Takahiro Kawagishi, Ningguo Feng, Harry B Greenberg, Siyuan Ding

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Rotaviruses (RVs) are one of the main causes of severe gastroenteritis, diarrhea, and death in children and young animals. While suckling mice prove to be highly useful small animal models of RV infection and pathogenesis, direct visualization tools are lacking to track the temporal dynamics of RV replication and transmissibility

Bsl2-Compliant Lethal Mouse Model Of Sars-Cov-2 And Variants Of Concern To Evaluate Therapeutics Targeting The Spike Protein, Mohanraj Manangeeswaran, Derek D C Ireland, Seth G Thacker, Ha-Na Lee, Logan Kelley-Baker, Aaron P Lewkowicz, Paul W Rothlauf, Marjorie Cornejo Pontelli, Louis-Marie Bloyet, Michael A Eckhaus, Mirian I Mendoza, Sean Whelan, Daniela Verthelyi

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Since first reported in 2019, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is rapidly acquiring mutations, particularly in the spike protein, that can modulate pathogenicity, transmission and antibody evasion leading to successive waves of COVID19 infections despite an unprecedented mass vaccination necessitating continuous adaptation of therapeutics. Small animal models can facilitate understanding host-pathogen interactions, target selection for therapeutic drugs, and vaccine development, but availability and cost of studies in BSL3 facilities hinder progress. To generate a BSL2-compatible

At-Home Blood Collection And Stabilization In High Temperature Climates Using Home Rna, Lauren G Brown, Amanda J Haack, Dakota S Kennedy, Karen N Adams, Jennifer E Stolarczuk, Meg G Takezawa, Erwin Berthier, Sanitta Thongpang, Fang Yun Lim, Damien Chaussabel, Mathieu Garand, Ashleigh B Theberge

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Expanding whole blood sample collection for transcriptome analysis beyond traditional phlebotomy clinics will open new frontiers for remote immune research and telemedicine. Determining the stability of RNA in blood samples exposed to high ambient temperatures (>30°C) is necessary for deploying home-sampling in settings with elevated temperatures (e.g., studying physiological response to natural disasters that occur in warm locations or in the summer). Recently, we have developed

Regulation Of Rod Photoreceptor Function By Farnesylated G-Protein Γ-Subunits, Alexander V. Kolesnikov, Elena Lobysheva, Jaya P. Gnana-Prakasam, Vladimir J. Kefalov, Oleg G. Kisselev

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Heterotrimeric G-protein transducin, Gt, is a key signal transducer and amplifier in retinal rod and cone photoreceptor cells. Despite similar subunit composition, close amino acid identity, and identical posttranslational farnesylation of their Gγ subunits, rods and cones rely on unique Gγ1 (Gngt1) and Gγc (Gngt2) isoforms, respectively. The only other farnesylated G-protein γ-subunit, Gγ11 (Gng11), is expressed in multiple tissues but not retina. To determine whether Gγ1 regulates uniquely rod phototransduction, we generated transgenic rods expressing Gγ1, Gγc, or Gγ11 in Gγ1-deficient mice and analyzed their properties. Immunohistochemistry and Western blotting demonstrated the robust expression of each transgenic Gγ in …

Differences In Subjective Well-Being Between Individuals With Distinct Joint Personality (Temperament-Character) Networks In A Bulgarian Sample, Danilo Garcia, Maryam Kazemitabar, Kristina Stoyanova, Drozdstoy Stoyanov, C Robert Cloninger

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Background: Personality is the major predictor of people's subjective well-being (

Method: The sample consisted of 443 individuals from Bulgaria (68.70% females) with a mean age of 34 years (

Results: We found two Temperament Profiles and two Character Profiles that clustered into two distinctive Joint Personality Networks. All individuals in Joint Personality Network 1 had a Reliable (nhRP) Temperament Profile in combination with an Organized (SCt) Character Profile (

Conclusions: Although a stable temperament and a healthy character were separately important for well-being, it was clear that it was the interaction between such temperament and character configuration that yielded …

Chronic Stroke Sensorimotor Impairment Is Related To Smaller Hippocampal Volumes: An Enigma Analysis, Artemis Zavaliangos-Petropulu, Keith Lohse, Et Al

2020-Current year OA Pubs

No abstract provided.

Primary Care Experiences Of Providing Mental Healthcare For Children In The Usa During The Covid-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Study, Jane Garbutt, Sherry Dodd, Lauren Ericson, Randall Sterkel, Katie Plax

2020-Current year OA Pubs

No abstract provided.

Virtual Adaptation Of An International Exchange Program In Medical Education, Celia Fung, Nicholas Maxwell, Stephen Powell, Michelle Benassai, Natalia Chunga, Jennifer Corcoran, William Barbosa, Marisabel Lopez, Betsy Hanampa, Melissa Llaiqui-Condori, Victor Delgado-Lazo, Karina Mendoza, Yanet Astete, Martin Flor, Sheyla Palacios, Blanca Valdovinos, Jorge Risco, Isabel Camargo, Ralph Jozefowicz, Karlo J Lizárraga

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Medical education has drastically transformed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Measures such as adopting telemedicine visits, minimizing the number of trainees on service, discontinuing external rotations, and converting in-person to online didactics have been broadly and swiftly implemented. While these innovations have promoted greater interconnectivity amongst institutions and made continuing medical education possible, international exchange programs in medical education are still largely disrupted. In response to the changing guidelines and restrictions necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the authors used Kern's six-step approach to design and implement a virtual curriculum to replace the in-person activities of the 2020-2021 Neurology Peru-Rochester exchange program …

Voting Behavior During Fda Medical Device Advisory Committee Panel Meetings, Amanda Maisel-Campbell, Daniel I Schlessinger, Arianna F. Yanes, Emir Veledar, Kelly A. Reynolds, Sarah A. Ibrahim, Bianca Y. Kang, Noor Anvery, Emily Poon, Murad Alam

2020-Current year OA Pubs

OBJECTIVES: During premarket review, the US Food and Drug Administration may ask its Medical Device Advisory Committee (MDAC) Panels to assess the safety and effectiveness of medical devices being considered for approval. The objective of this study is to assess the relationship, if any, between individual votes and Panel recommendations and: (1) the composition of Panels, specifically the expertise and demographic features of individual members; or (2) Panel members' propensity to speak during Panel deliberations.

METHODS: This was a retrospective cohort study of routinely collected data from voting members of MDAC panels convened between January 2011 to June 2016 to …

Adverse Events Related To Ultrasound-Guided Regional Anesthesia Performed By Emergency Physicians: Systematic Review Protocol, Sean P. Stickles, Deborah Shipley Kane, Chadd K. Kraus, Robert J. Strony, Enyo A. Ablordeppey, Michelle M. Doering, Daniel Theodoro, Jacques Simon Lee, Christopher R. Carpenter

2020-Current year OA Pubs

The use of ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia for pain management has become increasingly prevalent in Emergency Medicine, with studies noting excellent pain control while sparing opioid use. However, the use of ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia may be hampered by concern about risks for patient harm. This systematic review protocol describes our approach to evaluate the incidence of adverse events from the use of ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia by Emergency Physicians as described in the literature. This project will also seek to document the scope of ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia applications being performed in Emergency Medicine literature, and potentially serve as a framework for future …

Cdc20 Regulates Sensitivity To Chemotherapy And Radiation In Glioblastoma Stem Cells, Diane D. Mao, Ryan T. Cleary, Amit Gujar, Tatenda Mahlokozera, Albert H. Kim

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Glioblastoma stem cells (GSCs) are an important subpopulation in glioblastoma, implicated in tumor growth, tumor recurrence, and radiation resistance. Understanding the cellular mechanisms for chemo- and radiation resistance could lead to the development of new therapeutic strategies. Here, we demonstrate that CDC20 promotes resistance to chemotherapy and radiation therapy. CDC20 knockdown does not increase TMZ- and radiation-induced DNA damage, or alter DNA damage repair, but rather promotes cell death through accumulation of the pro-apoptotic protein, Bim. Our results identify a CDC20 signaling pathway that regulates chemo- and radiosensitivity in GSCs, with the potential for CDC20-targeted therapeutic strategies in the treatment …

Comparative Analysis Of Dcas9-Vp64 Variants And Multiplexed Guide Rnas Mediating Crispr Activation, Kohei Omachi, Jeffrey H. Miner

2020-Current year OA Pubs

CRISPR/Cas9-mediated transcriptional activation (CRISPRa) is a powerful tool for investigating complex biological phenomena. Although CRISPRa approaches based on the VP64 transcriptional activator have been widely studied in both cultured cells and in animal models and exhibit great versatility for various cell types and developmental stages in vivo, different dCas9-VP64 versions have not been rigorously compared. Here, we compared different dCas9-VP64 constructs in identical contexts, including the cell lines used and the transfection conditions, for their ability to activate endogenous and exogenous genes. Moreover, we investigated the optimal approach for VP64 addition to VP64- and p300-based constructs. We found that MS2-MCP-scaffolded …

Unique Molecular Identifier-Based High-Resolution Hla Typing And Transcript Quantitation Using Long-Read Sequencing, Caleb Cornaby, Maureen C Montgomery, Chang Liu, Eric T Weimer

2020-Current year OA Pubs

HLA typing provides essential results for stem cell and solid organ transplants, as well as providing diagnostic benefits for various rheumatology, gastroenterology, neurology, and infectious diseases. It is becoming increasingly clear that understanding the expression of patient HLA transcripts can provide additional benefits for many of these same patient groups. Our study cohort was evaluated using a long-read RNA sequencing methodology to provide rapid HLA genotyping results and normalized HLA transcript expression. Our assay used NGSEngine to determine the HLA genotyping result and normalized mRNA transcript expression using Athlon2. The assay demonstrated an excellent concordance rate of 99.7%. Similar to …

Experiences Using A Multidisciplinary Model For Treating Injection Drug Use Associated Infections: A Qualitative Study, Nathanial S Nolan, Emily Gleason, Laura R Marks, Tracey Habrock-Bach, Stephen Y Liang, Michael J Durkin

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Background: Over the past two decades, the United States has experienced a dramatic increase in the rate of injection drug use, injection associated infections, and overdose mortality. A hospital-based program for treating opioid use disorder in people who inject drugs presenting with invasive infections was initiated at an academic tertiary care center in 2020. The goal of this program was to improve care outcomes, enhance patient experiences, and facilitate transition from the hospital to longer term addiction care. The purpose of this study was to interview two cohorts of patients, those admitted before vs. after initiation of this program, to …

Glutathione S-Transferase Alpha 4 Promotes Proliferation And Chemoresistance In Colorectal Cancer Cells, Zhanhu Zhang, Lili Xu, Lin Huang, Tianqi Li, Jane Y Wang, Chunhua Ma, Xiaoyun Bian, Xiaoyan Ren, Haibo Li, Xingmin Wang

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Glutathione

Efficient T Cell Migration And Activation Require L-Plastin, Hemant Joshi, Sharon Celeste Morley

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Rapid re-organization of the actin cytoskeleton supports T-cell trafficking towards immune sites and interaction with antigen presenting cells (APCs). F-actin rearrangement enables T-cell trafficking by stabilizing adhesion to vascular endothelial cells and promoting transendothelial migration. T-cell/APC immune synapse (IS) maturation also relies upon f-actin-anchored LFA-1:ICAM-1 ligation. Therefore, efficient T-cell responses require tight regulation of f-actin dynamics. In this review, we summarize how the actin-bundling protein L-plastin (LPL) regulates T-cell activation and migration. LPL enhances f-actin polymerization and also directly binds to the β2 chain of the integrin LFA-1 to support intercellular adhesion and IS formation in human and murine T …

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) Vaccine Breakthrough Infections Among Healthcare Personnel, December 2020-April 2021, Katelin B Nickel, Victoria J Fraser, Hilary M Babcock, Jennie H Kwon, Cdc Prevention Epicenters Program

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine effectiveness in the early months of vaccine availability was high among healthcare personnel (HCP) at 88.3% for 2-doses. Among those testing positive for severe acute respiratory coronavirus virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), those with breakthrough infection after vaccination were more likely to have had a non-work-related SARS-CoV-2 exposure compared to unvaccinated HCP.

Lack Of Pathogen Identification Influencing Antibiotic De-Escalation In Hospital-Acquired Pneumonia, Matthew C Bittmann, Scott T Micek, Marin H Kollef

2020-Current year OA Pubs

No abstract provided.

Child Dietary Patterns In Homo Sapiens Evolution: A Systematic Review, Lora L Iannotti, Emmanuel A Gyimah, Miranda Reid, Melissa Chapnick, Mary Kate Cartmill, Chessa K Lutter, Charles Hilton, Theresa E Gildner, Elizabeth A Quinn

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Dietary patterns spanning millennia could inform contemporary public health nutrition. Children are largely absent from evidence describing diets throughout human evolution, despite prevalent malnutrition today signaling a potential genome-environment divergence. This systematic review aimed to identify dietary patterns of children ages 6 months to 10 years consumed before the widespread adoption of agriculture. Metrics of mention frequency (counts of food types reported) and food groups (globally standardized categories) were applied to: compare diets across subsistence modes [gatherer-hunter-fisher (GHF), early agriculture (EA) groups]; examine diet quality and diversity; and characterize differences by life course phase and environmental context defined using Köppen-Geiger …

All-Cause And In-Hospital Mortality After Aspirin Use In Patients Hospitalized With Covid-19: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis, Nischit Baral, Joshua D Mitchell, Pramod K Savarapu, Maxwell Akanbi, Bandana Acharya, Soumya Kambalapalli, Amith Seri, Krishna P Bashyal, Arvind Kunadi, Niranjan Ojha, Annabelle Santos Volgman, Tripti Gupta, Timir K Paul

2020-Current year OA Pubs

BACKGROUND: With the results of the largest randomized controlled trial (RECOVERY) and the most extensive retrospective cohort study on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) recently published, we performed a meta-analysis on the association of aspirin with mortality of COVID-19. We aimed to investigate the role of aspirin in COVID-19 hospitalizations.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: We searched PubMed, EMBASE and Cochrane databases for studies from 1 January 2020 until 20 July 2022, that compared aspirin versus non-aspirin use in hospitalized COVID-19 patients. We excluded case reports, review articles and studies on non-hospitalized COVID-19 infections. We used the inverse variance method and random effects …

Hard Cases Make Bad Law? A Theoretical Investigation, Sepehr Shahshahani

Faculty Scholarship

I use formal models to probe the aphorism that “hard cases make bad law.” The analysis illuminates important features of the common law process, especially the influence of case characteristics on lawmaking and the role of strategic litigators. When a case raises concerns that are not reflected in doctrine, the court might distort the law to avoid a hardship. Distortion is more likely when the case is important or the facts are close to the border of legality. Litigators may exploit courts’ attention to extra-doctrinal concerns by strategically selecting cases for litigation. Surprisingly, though, a strategic litigator improves lawmaking relative …

How Experts Have Dominated The Neuroscience Narrative In Criminal Cases For Twelve Decades: A Warning For The Future, Deborah W. Denno

Faculty Scholarship

Phineas Gage, the man who survived impalement by a rod through his head in 1848, is considered “one of the great medical curiosities of all time.” While expert accounts of Gage's post-accident personality changes are often wildly damning and distorted, recent research shows that Gage mostly thrived, despite his trauma. Studying past cases such as Gage’s helps us imagine—and prepare for—a future of law and neuroscience in which scientific debates over the brain’s functions remain fiery, and experts divisively control how we characterize brain-injured defendants.

This Article examines how experts have long dominated the neuroscience narrative in U.S. criminal cases, …

Free-Ing Criminal Justice, I. Bennett Capers

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Antibodies In Healthcare Personnel Following Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus Virus 2 (Sars-Cov-2) Infection, Rachel E Bosserman, Christopher W Farnsworth, Caroline A O'Neil, Candice Cass, Daniel Park, Claire Ballman, Meghan A Wallace, Emily Struttmann, Henry Stewart, Olivia Arter, Kate Peacock, Victoria J Fraser, Philip J Budge, Margaret A Olsen, Carey-Ann D Burnham, Hilary M Babcock, Jennie H Kwon, Cdc Prevention Epicenters

2020-Current year OA Pubs

In a prospective cohort of healthcare personnel (HCP), we measured severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) nucleocapsid IgG antibodies after SARS-CoV-2 infection. Among 79 HCP, 68 (86%) were seropositive 14-28 days after their positive PCR test, and 54 (77%) of 70 were seropositive at the 70-180-day follow-up. Many seropositive HCP (95%) experienced an antibody decline by the second visit.

Variation In Ampicillin Dosing For Lower Respiratory Tract Infections And Neonatal Bacterial Infections In Us Children's Hospitals, Elizabeth A Daniels, Christopher C Mcpherson, Jason G Newland, Brian R Lee

2020-Current year OA Pubs

OBJECTIVE: We examined ampicillin dosing in pediatric patients across 3 conditions: (1) bacterial lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs) in infants and children >3 months, (2) neonates with suspected or proven sepsis, and (3) neonates with suspected central nervous system (CNS) infections. We compared our findings to dosing guidance for these specific indications.

DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study.

SETTING: The study included data from 32 children's hospitals in the United States.

METHODS: We reviewed prescriptions from the SHARPS study of antimicrobials, a survey of antibiotic prescribing from July 2016 to December 2017. Prescriptions were analyzed for indication, total daily dose per kilogram, …

Lowering The Stakes Of The Employment Contract, Aditi Bagchi

Faculty Scholarship

Every country has to make hard choices about the distribution of entitlements. But employers control the entitlements that individual Americans enjoy to a far greater extent than those in other rich democracies. In this Essay, I argue that, in the absence of the political consensus necessary to deliver state solutions to political questions, employers here are assigned an exaggerated role in employees’ lives. Government incentives for and directives to employers have become a strategy of political deflection. The effect has been to raise the stakes of employment well beyond the scope of those terms and conditions that relate to attracting …

Afrofuturism And The Law, I. Bennett Capers

Faculty Scholarship

Long before the film Black Panther captured the public’s imagination, the cultural critic Mark Dery coined the term “Afrofuturism” to describe “speculative fiction that treats African-American themes and addresses African-American concerns in the context of twentieth-century technoculture.” Since then, the term has been applied to speculative creatives as diverse as the pop artist Janelle Monae, the science fiction writer Octavia Butler, and the visual artist Nick Cave. But only recently have thinkers turned to how Afrofuturism might guide, and shape, law. This special issue, “Afrofuturism and the Law,” features articles that explore the many ways Afrofuturism can inform a range …

In Memoriam: A Friend To The Law School, Sean J. Griffith

Faculty Scholarship

Phillip . Blumberg served as Dean of the University of Connecticut School of Law from 1974 to 1984. These remarks were first delivered at the University of Connecticut School of Law's tribute to Dean Blumberg, "Honoring Phillip I. Blumberg," held on December 10, 2021. They have been lightly editedfor publication.

Selectively Disciplining Advocates, Bruce A. Green

Faculty Scholarship

After lawsuits challenging the results of the 2020 presidential election failed spectacularly, some wondered whether the plaintiffs’ lawyers would be disciplined for filing frivolous complaints. Time will tell. But, if these lawyers are not disciplined, one should not be surprised. This Article presents an empirical study of the New York disciplinary process, which confirms that advocates who violate disciplinary rules by overzealously pursuing their clients’ interests, such as by making frivolous claims, are rarely punished in the disciplinary process. That is because disciplinary prosecutors, operating in secret, have discretion as to whether to bring formal charges against lawyers who violate …

The Law, Economics, And Governance Of Generation Covid-19 Long-Haul, Julia Puaschunder, Martin Gelter

Faculty Scholarship

The SARS-CoV-2 novel coronavirus is an external shock to all societies with lasting impacts that have changed individual, political, and corporate decisions profoundly. Increasing evidence reveals that an estimated 10-50% of those previously infected with COVID-19 face a longer-term or long-term health impact and/or chronic debilitation that in many cases comes and goes in waves. This phenomenon has already been referred to as a pandemic within the pandemic. The broad-based and long-term impact of COVID Long Haulers have also holds the potential to change our world and modern society, lasting through the following three outlined speculative trends: (1) The coronavirus …