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Full-Text Articles in Medicine and Health Sciences

Engineering Novel Detection And Treatment Strategies For Bacterial Therapy Of Cancer, Jan T. Panteli Aug 2015

Engineering Novel Detection And Treatment Strategies For Bacterial Therapy Of Cancer, Jan T. Panteli

Doctoral Dissertations

Finding and treating cancer is difficult due to limited sensitivity and specificity of current detection and treatment strategies. Many chemotherapeutic drugs are small molecules that are limited by diffusion, making it difficult to reach cancer sites requiring high doses that lead to systemic toxicity and off-target effects. Tomographic detection techniques, like PET, MRI and CT, are good at identifying macroscopic lesions in the body but are limited in their ability to detect microscopic lesions. Biomarker detection strategies are extremely sensitive and able to identify ng/ml concentrations of protein, but are poor at discriminating between healthy and disease state levels due …


The Effects Of Ovarian Hormones And Exercise On Gene Markers Of Cardiac Dysfunction, Anisha S. Patel Jul 2015

The Effects Of Ovarian Hormones And Exercise On Gene Markers Of Cardiac Dysfunction, Anisha S. Patel

Masters Theses

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in women in the United States. Premenopausal women appear to have better cardiac function and lower risk of heart disease compared to male postmenopausal female counterparts. Ovarian hormone loss influences blood pressure homeostasis and causes systemic inflammation, which may result in chronic stress on the heart. Two key physiological changes in cardiac dysfunction are reemergence of the fetal gene pattern and myocardial remodeling. Physical activity has been linked to improved cardiac function. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of ovariectomy on early markers of cardiac dysfunction and fibrosis …


A Novel Population Of Natural Killer Cells Plays A Critical Role In The Depletion Of Splenic B2 B Cells During Experimental African Trypanosomiasis, Deborah Frenkel Mar 2015

A Novel Population Of Natural Killer Cells Plays A Critical Role In The Depletion Of Splenic B2 B Cells During Experimental African Trypanosomiasis, Deborah Frenkel

Doctoral Dissertations

Loss of humoral immune competence in T. brucei-infected mice is associated with the apoptotic depletion of splenic transitional, marginal zone and follicular B cells as well as a depletion of CD8+ T cells. This occurs rapidly after infection and impairs responses to vaccine antigens in addition to responses to newly arising VSG antigenic variants, leading to uncontrolled parasite growth and death of the infected mice. Infection-induced B2 B cell and CD8+ T cell loss requires the presence of a novel population of natural killer (NK) cells and is mediated by a perforin-dependent process consistent with perforin- and …