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Correction Of Griscelli Syndrome Type 2 Causing Mutations In The Rab27a Gene With Crispr/Cas9, Özgür Doğuş Erol, Şi̇mal Şenocak, Burcu Özçi̇men, Gülen Güney Esken, Hasan Basri̇ Kiliç, Yusuf Çeti̇n Kocaefe, Niek Peter Van Til, Fatima Aerts Kaya

Turkish Journal of Biology

Background/aimGriscelli Syndrome Type 2 (GS-2) is a rare, inherited immune deficiency caused by a mutation in the RAB27A gene. Current treatment consists of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Lack of suitable donors warrants the development of alternative treatment strategies, including gene therapy. The development of mutation-specific CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing technology has opened the way for custom designed gene correction of patient-derived stem cells. Here, we aimed to custom design CRISPR/Cas9 constructs and test their efficiency of homology directed repair (HDR) on the correction of exon 3 and exon 7 mutations in the RAB27A gene of GS-2 patient-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) …

Delivery Of Bikdd Proapoptotic Gene In Peptide-18 Targeted Poly(2-Oxazoline)-Dope Nanoliposomes For Breast Cancer Models, Zeynep Büşra Bolat, Ayça Ece Nezi̇r, Ongun Mehmet Saka, Itir Ebru Zemheri̇, Sevgi̇ Gülyüz, Umut Uğur Özköse, Özgür Yilmaz, Asuman Bozkir, Di̇lek Telci̇, Fi̇kretti̇n Şahi̇n

Turkish Journal of Biology

Breast cancer is the most common cancer type and the major cause of death in females worldwide. For effective breast cancer treatment, systems with promising delivery of anticancer agents is an important strategy. Peptide 18 (P18), a tumor homing peptide, shows high binding affinity towards breast cancer cells. Nanoliposomes are known to have enhanced accumulation ability in tumors with longer systemic circulation. Poly (2-ethyl-2-oxazoline) (PEtOx) polymers conjugated with DOPE were used to prepare PEtOx-DOPE nanoliposomes. BikDD is a mutant form of Bik gene, a member of the BH3-only proapoptotic genes, mimics the constitutively phosphorylated form of the gene. To the …

Disappearance Of Cdc14 From The Daughter Spindle Pole Body Requires Glc7-Bud14, İdi̇l Kirdök, Ayşe Koca Çaydaşi

Turkish Journal of Biology

Background/aim: The conserved phosphatase Cdc14 facilitates mitotic exit in budding yeast by counteracting mitotic Cyclin Dependent Kinase activity. Cdc14 is kept in the nucleolus until anaphase-onset, when its released transiently into the nucleoplasm. In late-anaphase, Cdc14 is fully released into the cytoplasm upon activation of the Mitotic Exit Network (MEN) to trigger mitotic exit. Cdc14 also localizes to yeast Spindle Pole Bodies (SPB) in anaphase and dephosphorylates key targets that resides at SPBs to license SPB duplication and prime the MEN. Protein Phosphatase 1 (Glc7) with its regulatory-subunit Bud14 is another phosphatase that plays a key role in spatiotemporal control …

Pterostilbene Suppresses Head And Neck Cancer Cell Proliferation Via Induction Of Apoptosis, Tali̇h Özdaş, Si̇bel Özdaş, İpek Canatar, Erdem Kaypak

Turkish Journal of Biology

Background/aim: Head and neck cancer (HNC) is one of the most prevalent causes of death worldwide, and the discovery of anticancer agents for its prevention is very important. Pterostilbene (PS) is a trans-stilbene reported to be beneficial in managing various cancers. The objective of the study was to evaluate the cytotoxic, anti-proliferative, pro-apoptotic and anti-migrative effect of PS on HEp-2, SCC-90, SCC-9, FaDu and Detroit-551 cell lines. Materials and Methods: MTT and live/dead assays were employed to assess cell-viability, while cell migration test was performed to evaluate wound healing capacity. The mRNA, protein and intracellular expression level of CASP-3, BAX …

Optical Imaging And Gene Transfection Potential Of Linear Polyethylenimine Coated Ag2s Near-Infrared Quantum Dots, Altay Savalan

Turkish Journal of Biology

Background/aimApplication of biocompatible heavy metal free and cationic Ag2S NIR QDs, which are highly luminesce in the medical range (700-900 nm), as a non-viral gene delivery system paves the way to overcome the auto-fluorescence and easily track the delivery of the genes in real time as it happens.Materials and methodsHere, the newly developed small and colloidally stable 2-mercaptopropionic acid (MPA)-capped Ag2S aqueous quantum dots electrostatically complexed with linear polyethyleneimine (LPEI) (Ag2S@2MPA/LPEI) was investigated for the first time both as a strong fluorescent probe and as a non-viral gene delivery vector for the highest tracking of the system and delivery of …

Preparation Of Wound Dressings Using Levan From Lactobacillus Gasseri And Polyvinyl Alcohol Polymer, Jehan Abdul Sattar Salman, Shaimaa Ms Zainulabdeen

Muthanna Medical Journal

Levan had been extracted, purified, and characterized from Lactobacillus gasseri. Levan characterization had been carried out using "thin-layer chromatography (TLC)", 1HNuclear-MagneticsResonances (HNMR), and Fouriere-transforms infrared spectroscopies (FTIR). Characterization demonstrated that pure levan is a homopolysaccharide with just fructose and atypical for carbohydrate bond area of 868 cm-1. The maximum water solubility index (WSI) percentage was 90% at a conc. of 100 mg/5 ml, while the highest water holding capacity value had been 252 at a conc. of 50 mg/5 ml. The wound dressings were prepared using purified levan from L.gasseri and its blend with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) polymer, and the …

Finite Sum Of Integral Operators From The Fractional Cauchy Spaces To Bloch-Type And Zygmund-Type Spaces, Rita A. Hibschweiler, Ajay K. Sharma

Faculty Publications

The family of fractional Cauchy transforms, defined on the open unit disc in the complex plane, is of classical and modern interest. Membership of an analytic function in the family is determined by the requirement that the function can be expressed as an integral of a certain kernel against a complex Borel measure on the disc. Such an integral representation imposes a growth condition on the function and its derivatives. This exposes a connection between the families of Cauchy transforms and familiar spaces of analytic functions, such as the Bloch spaces and the Zygmund space. The notion of a composition …

Finite Sum Of Integral Operators From The Fractional Cauchy Spaces To Bloch-Type And Zygmund-Type Spaces, Rita A. Hibschweiler, Ajay K. Sharma

Faculty Publications

The family of fractional Cauchy transforms, defined on the open unit disc in the complex plane, is of classical and modern interest. Membership of an analytic function in the family is determined by the requirement that the function can be expressed as an integral of a certain kernel against a complex Borel measure on the disc. Such an integral representation imposes a growth condition on the function and its derivatives. This exposes a connection between the families of Cauchy transforms and familiar spaces of analytic functions, such as the Bloch spaces and the Zygmund space. The notion of a composition …

Institutional Experience Of Lymphoproliferative Disorders With Initial Diagnosis Made Via Fine Needle Aspiration At Otolaryngology Clinic, Alaa S. Hrizat, Jerald Gong, Stacey M. Gargano

Department of Pathology, Anatomy, and Cell Biology Faculty Papers

BACKGROUND: This study characterizes lymphomas presenting as palpable head and neck masses and evaluates the role of fine needle aspiration (FNA) and flow cytometry (FC) in diagnosis.

DESIGN: A 5-year retrospective review of FNAs performed by pathologists in an ENT clinic identified cases with a predominant lymphoid population that lacked an epithelial component. Cytology, FC, and subsequent surgical pathology diagnoses were correlated.

RESULTS: Of 821 FNAs, 154 (19%) met selection criteria. Reactive lymph nodes accounted for 43% (67/154), with most diagnosed as 'negative for malignancy,' except one 'atypical' (ATY) case. Lymphoma was confirmed in 57% (87/154) of cases, categorized as …

Liming Acidic Soils Creates Profits, Land Use Options But Often More Emissions, Sud Kharel, Christophe D'Abbadie, Amir Abadi Ghadim, Chris Gazey, Ross Kingwell

Natural Resources Research Articles

Context

Soil acidity constrains crop production in Australia. The practice of liming can reduce soil acidity but produces greenhouse gas emissions.

Aims

By examining land use sequences over three decades at a range of locations in Western Australia, this study aims to identify firstly where and when liming might boost farm profits and secondly, what emissions and land use management flexibilities are generated by liming.

Methods

Bioeconomic simulation modelling is used to identify the gross margins and emissions associated with liming in land use sequences at 14 locations in Western Australia. Three intensities of cropping and three different rotational sequences …

Magnetoelectrics For Implantable Bioelectronics: Progress To Date, Fatima Alrashdan, Kaiyuan Yang, Jacob T Robinson

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

The coupling of magnetic and electric properties manifested in magnetoelectric (ME) materials has unlocked numerous possibilities for advancing technologies like energy harvesting, memory devices, and medical technologies. Due to this unique coupling, the magnetic properties of these materials can be tuned by an electric field; conversely, their electric polarization can be manipulated through a magnetic field. Over the past seven years, our lab work has focused on leveraging these materials to engineer implantable bioelectronics for various neuromodulation applications. One of the main challenges for bioelectronics is to design miniaturized solutions that can be delivered with minimally invasive procedures and yet …

Reproduction Has Immediate Effects On Female Mortality, But No Discernible Lasting Physiological Impacts: A Test Of The Disposable Soma Theory, Sharon E Mitchell, Megan Simpson, Lena Coulet, Solenn Gouedard, Catherine Hambly, Juliano Morimoto, David B Allison, John R Speakman

Children’s Nutrition Research Center Staff Publications

The disposable soma theory (DST) posits that organisms age and die because of a direct trade-off in resource allocation between reproduction and somatic maintenance. DST predicts that investments in reproduction accentuate somatic damage which increase senescence and shortens lifespan. Here, we directly tested DST predictions in breeding and nonbreeding female C57BL/6J mice. We measured reproductive outputs, body composition, daily energy expenditure, and oxidative stress at peak lactation and over lifetime. We found that reproduction had an immediate and negative effect on survival due to problems encountered during parturition for some females. However, there was no statistically significant residual effect on …

Determining The Prognostic Value Of Complete Blood Count Subgroup Parameters In Staphylococcus Aureus Bacteremia, Emily L. Matthews, Thomas J. Dilworth

Journal of Patient-Centered Research and Reviews

Purpose: Serum cytokine alterations are associated with increased Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia (SAB) mortality. Unfortunately, clinical use of these cytokines is uncommon due to limited availability and high cost. Complete blood count (CBC) with differential reflects the host immune response, and CBC subgroup parameters may have prognostic value in SAB. We sought to determine the association between CBC subgroup parameters on the day of index blood culture and 30-day all-cause mortality in SAB patients.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective study of adult SAB patients with infectious diseases consultation to evaluate the discriminatory capacity of CBC subgroup parameters in predicting SAB mortality. …

“It Is What It Is” – The Lived Experience Of Women With Breast Cancer Undergoing Axillary Lymph Node Dissection, Eva Vikhe Patil, Anna Forsberg, Carina Wennerholm, Jenny Drott

Journal of Patient-Centered Research and Reviews

Purpose: The lived experience of women undergoing axillary procedures as part of their breast cancer (BC) treatment remains unexplored. This lack of in-depth understanding could hamper implementation of person-centred care, which is concerning because BC is the most common form of cancer in women. The aim of this study was therefore to explore the lived experiences of women undergoing axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) due to BC.

Methods: Twelve women with a mean age of 59 years were interviewed about their lived experiences of axillary procedures as part of their BC treatment. The interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analysed …

Executive Committee - Agenda, 10/15/2024, Academic Senate

Academic Senate Agendas

No abstract provided.

Cdk12 Loss Drives Prostate Cancer Progression, Transcription-Replication Conflicts, And Synthetic Lethality With Paralog Cdk13, Jean Ching-Yi Tien, Jie Luo, Yu Chang, Yuping Zhang, Yunhui Cheng, Xiaoju Wang, Jianzhang Yang, Rahul Mannan, Somnath Mahapatra, Palak Shah, Xiao-Ming Wang, Abigail J Todd, Sanjana Eyunni, Caleb Cheng, Ryan J Rebernick, Lanbo Xiao, Yi Bao, James Neiswender, Rachel Brough, Stephen J Pettitt, Xuhong Cao, Stephanie J Miner, Licheng Zhou, Yi-Mi Wu, Estefania Labanca, Yuzhuo Wang, Abhijit Parolia, Marcin Cieslik, Dan R Robinson, Zhen Wang, Felix Y Feng, Jonathan Chou, Christopher J Lord, Ke Ding, Arul M Chinnaiyan

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Biallelic loss of cyclin-dependent kinase 12 (CDK12) defines a metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) subtype. It remains unclear, however, whether CDK12 loss drives prostate cancer (PCa) development or uncovers pharmacologic vulnerabilities. Here, we show Cdk12 ablation in murine prostate epithelium is sufficient to induce preneoplastic lesions with lymphocytic infiltration. In allograft-based CRISPR screening, Cdk12 loss associates positively with Trp53 inactivation but negatively with Pten inactivation. Moreover, concurrent Cdk12/Trp53 ablation promotes proliferation of prostate-derived organoids, while Cdk12 knockout in Pten-null mice abrogates prostate tumor growth. In syngeneic systems, Cdk12/Trp53-null allografts exhibit luminal morphology and immune checkpoint blockade sensitivity. Mechanistically, Cdk12 inactivation …

A Phase Ib/Ii Randomized Clinical Trial Of Oleclumab With Or Without Durvalumab Plus Chemotherapy In Patients With Metastatic Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma, Andrew L Coveler, Matthew J Reilley, Mark Zalupski, Teresa Macarulla, Christos Fountzilas, Mariano Ponz-Sarvisé, Adnan Nagrial, Nataliya V Uboha, Sophia Frentzas, Michael Overman, Anne Noonan, Wells A Messersmith, Nick Pavlakis, Niharika B Mettu, Ina Bisha, Ying Wang, Paul Smith, Elina Murtomaki, Agata A Bielska, Veronique Bragulat, Zachary A Cooper, Rakesh Kumar, David R Spigel

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Purpose: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma upregulates CD73, potentially contributing to immune surveillance evasion. Combining oleclumab (CD73 inhibitor) and durvalumab with chemotherapy may identify an effective treatment option.

Patients and methods: We describe a multicenter phase Ib/II randomized clinical trial in patients with metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, untreated (cohort A) or previously received gemcitabine-based chemotherapy (cohort B; NCT03611556). During escalation, patients received oleclumab 1,500 or 3,000 mg, durvalumab 1,500 mg, and gemcitabine plus nab-paclitaxel (GnP; cohort A; n = 14) or modified FOLFOX (cohort B; n = 11). During expansion, cohort A patients (n = 170) were randomized to GnP (arm …

“Ups And Downs, Joys And Sorrows” – Assessment And Clinical Relevance Of Patient Priorities In An Interdisciplinary Parkinson’S Disease Clinic, Esme D. Trahair, Allison M. Allen, Sneha Mantri

Journal of Patient-Centered Research and Reviews

Purpose: Barriers to communication and inaccurate provider assumptions about patient priorities limit the delivery of comprehensive, high-quality, patient-centered care (PCC) to people with Parkinson’s (PWP). This study aimed to analyze priorities of PWP using a qualitative, unstructured single-question survey and to test associations with validated quality of life (QOL) measures.

Methods: During appointments at a subspecialty, interdisciplinary clinic, PWP (n = 139) provided written responses to the prompt: “What is important for your care team to know about you?” Patient Health Questionnaire, Montreal Cognitive Assessment, and Hoehn and Yahr scales were obtained through retrospective chart review. Key qualitative themes were …

Yap1 Status Defines Two Intrinsic Subtypes Of Lcnec With Distinct Molecular Features And Therapeutic Vulnerabilities, C Allison Stewart, Lixia Diao, Yuanxin Xi, Runsheng Wang, Kavya Ramkumar, Alejandra G Serrano, Azusa Tanimoto, B Leticia Rodriguez, Benjamin B Morris, Li Shen, Bingnan Zhang, Yan Yang, Samera H Hamad, Robert J Cardnell, Alberto Duarte, Moushumi Sahu, Veronica Y Novegil, Bernard E Weissman, Michael Frumovitz, Neda Kalhor, Luisa Solis Soto, Pedro Da Rocha, Natalie Vokes, Don L Gibbons, Jing Wang, John V Heymach, Bonnie Glisson, Lauren Averett Byers, Carl M Gay

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Purpose: Large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma (LCNEC) is a high-grade neuroendocrine malignancy that, like small cell lung cancer (SCLC), is associated with the absence of druggable oncogenic drivers and dismal prognosis. In contrast to SCLC, however, there is little evidence to guide optimal treatment strategies, which are often adapted from SCLC and non-small cell lung cancer approaches.

Experimental design: To better define the biology of LCNEC, we analyzed cell line and patient genomic data and performed IHC and single-cell RNA sequencing of core needle biopsies from patients with LCNEC and preclinical models.

Results: In this study, we demonstrate that the presence …

Accurate Identification Of Locally Aneuploid Cells By Incorporating Cytogenetic Information In Single Cell Data Analysis, Ziyi Li, Ruoxing Li, Irene Ganan-Gomez, Hussein A Abbas, Guillermo Garcia-Manero, Wei Sun

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Single-cell RNA sequencing is a powerful tool to investigate the cellular makeup of tumor samples. However, due to the sparse data and the complex tumor microenvironment, it can be challenging to identify neoplastic cells that play important roles in tumor growth and disease progression. This is especially relevant for blood cancers, where neoplastic cells may be highly similar to normal cells. To address this challenge, we have developed partCNV and partCNVH, two methods for rapid and accurate detection of aneuploid cells with local copy number deletion or amplification. PartCNV uses an expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm with mixtures of Poisson distributions and …

Npm1-Mutated Myeloid Neoplasms Are A Unique Entity Not Defined By Bone Marrow Blast Percentage, Georgina Gener-Ricos, Alex Bataller, Juan Jose Rodriguez-Sevilla, Kelly S Chien, Andres E Quesada, Emmanuel Almanza-Huante, Danielle Hammond, Koji Sasaki, Courtney Dinardo, Tapan Kadia, Naval Daver, Gautam Borthakur, Ghayas C Issa, Nicholas J Short, Rashmi Kanagal-Shamanna, Hagop M Kantarjian, Guillermo Garcia-Manero, Guillermo Montalban-Bravo

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Introduction: NPM1-mutated (NPM1mut) myeloid neoplasms (MNs) with < 20% bone marrow (BM) blasts (NPM1mut MNs< 20) are uncommon, and their classification remains inconsistent.

Methods: The clinicopathologic features of 54 patients with NPM1mut MNs < 20 were evaluated and compared with wild-type NPM1 MNs < 20 and NPM1mut MNs≥20, respectively.

Results: NPM1mut MNs had similar features regardless of blast percentage, except for higher IDH2 (29% vs 7%, p = .023) and FLT3 (70% vs 11%, p < .001) frequency in patients with ≥20% BM blasts. Thirty-three (61%) patients with NPM1mut MNs < 20 received low-intensity chemotherapy (LIC) and 12 (22%) received intensive chemotherapy (IC). Higher complete remission rates (75% vs 27%, p = .006) and median overall survival (mOS) (not reached vs 30.4 months, p = .06) were observed with IC compared to LIC. Young patients (age < 60 years) did not reach mOS either when treated with LIC or IC. Stem cell transplant was associated with increased survival only in patients treated with LIC (HR, 0.24; p = .025). No differences in mOS were observed by BM blast strata (32.2 months, not reached and 46.9 months for < 10%, 10%-19%, and ≥20% blasts, p = .700) regardless of treatment modality (LIC: p = .900; IC: p = .360). Twenty-three patients (43%) with NPM1mut MNs < 20 had marrow blast progression to ≥20%.

Conclusions: Overall, NPM1mut MNs define a unique entity independent of BM blast percentage.

Buried Ice-Wedge Pseudomorphs As Indicators Of Younger Dryas Climate-Related Lake Evolution, Dali Lake, Inner Mongolia, Xiangge Zhang, Martin Stokes, Xujiao Zhang, Haoyue Zhang, Zexin He, Yifan Wang, Lingyue Wang, Haoshu Rao, Long Deng, Jingmin Guo, Junlei Li, Mingzhong Tian, Junxiang Zhao

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

Ice wedges / pseudomorphs (IWPs) are key indicators of cold-climate (periglacial) frozen ground conditions. Their occurrence within the sedimentary sequences of lacustrine landforms can provide important evidence about palaeoenvironmental and palaeoclimatic change. However, research using lake sediments in a geomorphological context to investigate climate change is limited. Here, we use newly discovered IWPs developed within lake sediment sequences to explore climate-related lake-level fluctuations in the Dali Lake region, a key area of the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) system that drives Quaternary hydroclimate variability across East Asia. The IWPs penetrate down through clay-silt lake sediments and are overlain by coarser-fossiliferous, …

Biochemical And Structural Insights Into A 5′ To 3′ Rna Ligase Reveal A Potential Role In Trna Ligation, Yingjie Hu, Victor A Lopez, Hengyi Xu, James P Pfister, Bing Song, Kelly A Servage, Masahiro Sakurai, Benjamin T Jones, Joshua T Mendell, Tao Wang, Jun Wu, Alan M Lambowitz, Diana R Tomchick, Krzysztof Pawłowski, Vincent S Tagliabracci

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

ATP-grasp superfamily enzymes contain a hand-like ATP-binding fold and catalyze a variety of reactions using a similar catalytic mechanism. More than 30 protein families are categorized in this superfamily, and they are involved in a plethora of cellular processes and human diseases. Here, we identify C12orf29 (RLIG1) as an atypical ATP-grasp enzyme that ligates RNA. Human RLIG1 and its homologs autoadenylate on an active site Lys residue as part of a reaction intermediate that specifically ligates RNA halves containing a 5’-phosphate and a 3’-hydroxyl. RLIG1 binds tRNA in cells and can ligate tRNA within the anticodon loop in vitro. Transcriptomic …

Evaluating Debio 1347 In Patients With Fgfr Fusion-Positive Advanced Solid Tumors From The Fuze Multicenter, Open-Label, Phase Ii Basket Trial, Petros Grivas, Elena Garralda, Funda Meric-Bernstam, Ingo K Mellinghoff, Lipika Goyal, James J Harding, E Claire Dees, Rastislav Bahleda, Nilofer S Azad, Asha Karippot, Razelle Kurzrock, Josep Tabernero, Juha Kononen, Matthew C H Ng, Rutika Mehta, Nataliya V Uboha, Frédéric Bigot, Valentina Boni, Samantha E Bowyer, Valeriy Breder, Andrés Cervantes, Nancy Chan, James M Cleary, Mallika Dhawan, Rikke L Eefsen, James Ewing, Donna M Graham, Tormod K Guren, Jin Won Kim, Krassimir Koynov, Do-Youn Oh, Rebecca Redman, Chia-Jui Yen, David Spetzler, Marie-Claude Roubaudi-Fraschini, Valerie Nicolas-Metral, Rafik Ait-Sarkouh, Claudio Zanna, Abdallah Ennaji, Anna Pokorska-Bocci, Keith T Flaherty

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Purpose: This multicenter phase II basket trial investigated the efficacy, safety, and pharmacokinetics of Debio 1347, an investigational, oral, highly selective, ATP-competitive, small molecule inhibitor of FGFR1-3, in patients with solid tumors harboring a functional FGFR1-3 fusion.

Patients and methods: Eligible adults had a previously treated locally advanced (unresectable) or metastatic biliary tract (cohort 1), urothelial (cohort 2), or another histologic cancer type (cohort 3). Debio 1347 was administered at 80 mg once daily, continuously, in 28-day cycles. The primary endpoint was the objective response rate. Secondary endpoints included duration of response, progression-free survival, overall survival, pharmacokinetics, and incidence of …

First-In-Human Clinical Outcomes With Ng-350a, An Anti-Cd40 Expressing Tumor-Selective Vector Designed To Remodel Immunosuppressive Tumor Microenvironments, Aung Naing, Danny Khalil, Oliver Rosen, D Ross Camidge, Tom Lillie, Rui-Ru Ji, Andrea Stacey, Matthew Thomas, Lee Rosen

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: Tumor-selective oncolytic viral vectors are promising anticancer therapeutics; however, challenges with dosing and potency in advanced/metastatic cancers have limited efficacy and usage. NG-350A is a next-generation blood-stable adenoviral vector engineered to express an agonist anti-cluster of differentiation (CD)40 antibody without affecting tumor-selectivity and oncolytic potency.

Methods: Intravenous and intratumoral (IT) administration of NG-350A was assessed in a phase Ia/Ib study in patients with metastatic/advanced epithelial tumors (NCT03852511). Dose-escalation was performed separately for intravenous (four dose levels available, each with infusions on Days 1, 3 and 5 of a 57-day treatment period) and IT (single injection on D1 …

Antibiofilm Activity Of Pdms/Tio2 Against Candida Glabrata Through Inhibited Hydrophobic Recovery, Khoi Nguyen Nguyen, Leena Sao, Kevin Kyllo, Danitza Hernandez, Samantha Salomon, Kalp Shah, Dahyun Oh, Katy C. Kao

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Coatings with antibiofilm properties are desirable for biomedical applications. Titanium dioxide (TiO2) has been explored as an antimicrobial agent in materials development primarily due to it being an excellent photocatalyst. Candida glabrata (C. glabrata) is an emerging human fungal pathogen with known high resistance to oxidative stress. Here, we fabricated a polydimethylsiloxane/titanium dioxide (PDMS/TiO2) nanocomposite coating and tested its antibiofilm activities against C. glabrata. The resulting nanocomposite exhibited >50% reduction in C. glabrata biofilm formation with 2.5 wt % TiO2 loading, even in the dark. Through ROS detection and surface characterization, the antibiofilm activity was attributed to the synergistic interaction …

Design, Fabrication And Performance Evaluation Of Parabolic And Enhanced Solar Box Cookers In Isimani, Tanzania, Margaret E Samiji, Nuru R Mlyuka

Tanzania Journal of Science

Clean cooking energy is a global priority, especially in developing countries where firewood and charcoal remain the primary cooking fuels. Solar cooking is an attractive alternative in these countries since it is eco-friendly and utilises freely available solar radiation. Utilisation of solar cookers however is still very low mainly due to the perceived complexity and lack of confidence in the available solar cooker models. In this work, the enhanced box and parabolic solar cookers were designed, fabricated and tested taking into consideration standard solar cookers and local cooking requirements. The enhanced box solar cooker was designed with booster mirrors making …

Electric Potential Energy Optimized 3d Radial Sampling Trajectories For Mri, Christopher Huynh, Datta Singh Goolaub, Christopher K Macgowan

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

A novel method for creating “golden” 3D center-out radial MRI sampling trajectories was developed and analyzed. This method, called ELECTRO (ELECTRic potential energy Optimized), uses repulsive forces to minimize electric potential energy. An objective function , the electric potential energies of all subsets of consecutive readouts in a 3D radial trajectory, and its reduced form were minimized using a multi-stage optimization strategy. A metric called normalized mean nearest neighbor angular distance (NMNA) was proposed for describing distributions of points on a sphere. ELECTRO and other relevant golden trajectories were compared in silico using NMNA and point spread function analysis. Consecutive …

Knowledge Discovery Of Patients Reviews On Breast Cancer Drugs: Segmentation Of Side Effects Using Machine Learning Techniques, Mehrbakhsh Nilashi, Hossein Ahmadi, Rabab Ali Abumalloh, Mesfer Alrizq, Abdullah Alghamdi, Sultan Alyami

School of Nursing and Midwifery

Breast cancer stands as the most frequently diagnosed life-threatening cancer among women worldwide. Understanding patients' drug experiences is essential to improving treatment strategies and outcomes. In this research, we conduct knowledge discovery on breast cancer drugs using patients’ reviews. A new machine learning approach is developed by employing clustering, text mining and regression techniques. We first use Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) technique to discover the main aspects of patients' experiences from the patients’ reviews on breast cancer drugs. We also use Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm to segment the data based on patients’ overall satisfaction. We then use the Forward Entry Regression …

Microwave-Assisted Hydrothermal Synthesis Of Photocatalytic Truncated-Bipyramidal Tio2/Ti3cn Heterostructures Derived From Ti3cn Mxene, Muhammad Abiyyu Kenichi Purbayanto, Madhurya Chandel, Dominika Bury, Anna Wójcik, Dorota Moszczyńska, Anika Tabassum, Vadym Mochalin, Michael Naguib, Agnieszka Maria Jastrzębska

Chemistry Faculty Research & Creative Works

TiO₂/MXene heterostructure has garnered significant interest as a photocatalyst due to its large surface area and efficient charge carrier separation at the interface. However, current synthesis methods produce TiO₂ without clear crystal faceting and often require complicated postprocessing step, limiting its practical applications. We demonstrate a facile and controlled microwave-assisted hydrothermal synthesis for transforming multilayered Ti₃CN MXene to a truncated-bipyramidal TiO₂/Ti₃CN heterostructure. The resulting TiO₂ nanocrystals at the Ti₃CN surface exhibited crystalline anatase truncated bipyramids, exposing {001} and {101} facets. We further tailored an indirect optical band gap …