Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Regression Of Gastric Cancer By Systemic Injection Of Rna Nanoparticles Carrying Both Ligand And Sirna, Daxiang Cui, Chunlei Zhang, Bing Liu, Yi Shu, Tong Du, Dan Shu, Kan Wang, Fangping Dai, Yanlei Liu, Chao Li, Fei Pan, Yuming Yang, Jian Ni, Hui Li, Beate Brand-Saberi, Peixuan Guo

Markey Cancer Center Faculty Publications

Gastric cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. RNA nanotechnology has recently emerged as an important field due to recent finding of its high thermodynamic stability, favorable and distinctive in vivo attributes. Here we reported the use of the thermostable three-way junction (3WJ) of bacteriophage phi29 motor pRNA to escort folic acid, a fluorescent image marker and BRCAA1 siRNA for targeting, imaging, delivery, gene silencing and regression of gastric cancer in animal models. In vitro assay revealed that the RNA nanoparticles specifically bind to gastric cancer cells, and knock-down the BRCAA1 gene. Apoptosis of gastric cancer cells …

Ceramides Promote Apoptosis For Virus-Infected Lymphoma Cells Through Induction Of Ceramide Synthases And Viral Lytic Gene Expression, Lu Dai, Jimena Trillo-Tinoco, Aiping Bai, Yihan Chen, Jacek Bielawski, Luis Del Valle, Charles D. Smith, Augusto C. Ochoa, Zhiqiang Qin, Chris Parsons

School of Medicine Faculty Publications

Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) is the etiologic agent for several human cancers including primary effusion lymphoma (PEL), a rapidly progressive malignancy arising preferentially in immunocompromised patients. With conventional chemotherapy, PEL continues to portend high mortality, dictating the development of novel therapeutic strategies. Sphingosine kinase 2 (SphK2) represents a key gatekeeper for sphingolipid metabolism, responsible for conversion of ceramides to sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P). We have previously demonstrated that targeting SphK2 using a novel selective inhibitor, ABC294640, leads to intracellular accumulation of ceramides and induces apoptosis for KSHV-infected PEL cells, while suppressing tumor progression in vivo. In the current study, we sought to …

Rationale, Design And Respondent Characteristics Of The 2013–2014 New York City Health And Nutrition Examination Survey (Nyc Hanes 2013–2014), Lorna E. Thorpe, Carolyn Greene, Amy Freeman, Elisabeth Snell, Jesica S. Rodriguez-Lopez, Martin Frankel, Amado Punsalang Jr., Claudia Chernov, Elizabeth Lurie, Mark Friedman, Ram Koppaka, Sharon E. Perlman

Publications and Research

Purpose. Capacity to monitor non-communicable diseases (NCDs) at state or local levels is limited. Emerging approaches include using biomeasures and electronic health record (EHR) data. In 2004, New York City (NYC) performed a population-based health study on adult residents using biomeasures (NYC Health and Nutrition Examination Study, or NYC HANES), modeled after NHANES. A second NYC HANES was launched in 2013 to examine change over time, evaluate municipal policies, and validate a proposed EHR-based surveillance system. We describe the rationale and methods of NYC HANES 2013–2014.

Methods. NYC HANES was a population-based, cross-sectional survey of NYC adults using three-stage cluster …

Jefferson Digital Commons Quarterly Report, April-June 2015, Daniel G. Kipnis, Msi

Jefferson Digital Commons News

The latest JDC quarterly report has been posted. Topics include:

10,000th Asset

Pennsylvania Research Commons

Faculty Day presentations

Variety of new assets in the JDC

Inside Out literary journal

What people are saying about the JDC

Plastin 3 Expression Does Not Modify Spinal Muscular Atrophy Severity In The ∆7 Sma Mouse, Vicki L. Mcgovern, Aurelie Massoni-Laporte, Xueyong Wang, Thanh T. Le, Hao T. Le, Mark M. Rich, Arthur H. M. Burghes

Neuroscience, Cell Biology & Physiology Faculty Publications

Spinal muscular atrophy is caused by loss of the SMN1 gene and retention of SMN2. TheSMN2 copy number inversely correlates with phenotypic severity and is a modifier of disease outcome. The SMN2 gene essentially differs from SMN1 by a single nucleotide in exon 7 that modulates the incorporation of exon 7 into the final SMN transcript. The majority of the SMN2transcripts lack exon 7 and this leads to a SMN protein that does not effectively oligomerize and is rapidly degraded. However theSMN2 gene does produce some full-length SMN and theSMN2 copy number along with how …

Lesion-Specific Immune Response In Granulomas Of Patients With Pulmonary Tuberculosis: A Pilot Study, Selvakumar Subbian, Liana Tsenova, Mi-Jeong Kim, Helen C. Wainwright, Annalie Visser, Nirmalya Bandyopadhyay, Joel S. Bader, Petros C. Karakousis, Gabriele B. Murrmann, Linda-Gail Bekker, David G. Russell, Gilla Kaplan

Publications and Research

The formation and maintenance of granulomas is central to the host response to Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) infection. It is widely accepted that the lungs of patients with tuberculosis (TB) usually contain multiple infection foci, and that the granulomas evolve and differentiate independently, resulting in considerable heterogeneity. Although gene expression profiles of human blood cells have been proposed as biomarkers of Mtb infection and/or active disease, the immune profiles of discrete lesion types has not been studied extensively. Using histology, immunopathology and genome-wide transcriptome analysis, we explored the immunological profile of human lung TB granulomas. We show that although the different …

Providing Compassion Through Flow, Lydia Royeen

The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy

Meg Kral, MS, OTR/L, CLT, is the cover artist for the Summer 2015 issue of The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy. Her untitled piece of art is an oil painting and is a re-creation of a photograph taken while on vacation. Meg is currently supervisor of outpatient services at Rush University Medical Center. She is lymphedema certified and has a specific interest in breast cancer lymphedema. Art and occupational therapy serve similar purposes for Meg: both provide a sense of flow. She values the outcomes, whether it is a piece of art or improved functional status.

Framing Ecological Validity In Occupational Therapy Practice, Patricia A. Crist

The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy

No abstract provided.

He Said—He Said: A Scholarly Conversation About Assessment, Glen Gillen, Jim Hinojosa

The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy

No abstract provided.

Spiritual Assessments In Occupational Therapy, Barbara Hemphill

The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy

Spirituality is recognized as an important concept in the study and practice of medicine, including occupational therapy. This aligns with occupational therapy’s core value of treating people holistically—mind, body, and spirit. Currently, the Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Hospital Organizations (JCAHO) requires that a spiritual assessment be given to patients on admission. To conduct effective spiritual assessments, occupational therapists must distinguish between religion and spirituality. They also must be aware of their own spiritual beliefs and practices and how those might influence their clinical interactions. This article presents spiritual assessment tools that occupational therapists can use in clinical practice; …

A Review And Case Exemplifications Of Health Enhancement Lifestyle Profile (Help) And Its Screener (Help–Screener) For Older Adults, Eric J. Hwang, Terry Peralta-Catipon

The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy

Growing interest in promoting healthy lifestyles as a way to enhance successful aging has led to the necessity of screening and monitoring lifestyle behaviors among older adults. The 56-item Health Enhancement Lifestyle Profile (HELP) and its screening version, the 15-item HELP-Screener are a set of instruments designed for assessing various health-related lifestyle behaviors in older adults, including exercise, diet, social and productive activities, leisure, activities of daily living, stress management and spiritual participation, and other health promotion and risk behaviors. This article depicts the critical features (e.g., administration and scoring) and clinical usefulness of the two instruments and reviews the …

Assessing Volition In Pediatrics: Using The Volitional Questionnaire And The Pediatric Volitional Questionnaire, Anne Kiraly-Alvarez

The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy

Evidence suggests that pediatric occupational therapists predominantly use bottom-up, impairment-focused theoretical frameworks and assessments to guide their practice, despite the current trends promoting top-down, occupation-based approaches. Understanding a child’s volition, guided by the use of the Model of Human Occupation, contributes to a more occupation-based, client-centered, holistic, and strength-based approach to therapy. Two assessment tools, the Volitional Questionnaire and the Pediatric Volitional Questionnaire, contribute to a therapists’ understanding of children’s volition. These assessments facilitate therapists’ clinical reasoning and the ability to assess and address volition throughout the occupational therapy process.

Exploring Content Validity Of Shore Handwriting Screening And Newly Developed Score Sheet With Pre-Kindergarten Students, Denise K. Donica, Erin Francsis

The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy

Background: Limited tools exist to measure handwriting readiness skills of pre-kindergarten students. This study was a preliminary exploration of content validity of the Shore Handwriting Screening (SHS) and the newly developed Score Sheet with the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency, Second Edition (BOT-2) in 4- and 5-year-old pre-kindergarten students. Because socioeconomic status (SES) is known to impact handwriting skills, data from two different socioeconomic groups were collected.

Method: Students from a Lower SES group (n = 36) and a Higher SES group (n = 14) completed the SHS and fine motor composite of the BOT-2. Pearson’s correlation was used to …

Examining The Purdue Pegboard Test For Occupational Therapy Practice, Debra K. Lindstrom-Hazel, Nicole Vandervlies Veenstra

The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy

Background: Occupational therapy ethics require that therapists use current assessment tools that provide useful comparison data. When an assessment only has normative data that is more than 40 years old, it cannot be considered current. The purpose of this study was to examine the past and current use of the Purdue Pegboard Test by occupational therapists and other professionals and to determine if it is beneficial to conduct a large normative study on the Purdue Pegboard Assembly Task (PPAT) in order to bring the test up to date.

Method: This was a psychometric study of inter-rater reliability and a small …

The Social Profiles Of Occupational Therapy Students’ Educational Groups, Tore Bonsaksen, Mari N. Eirum, Mary V. Donohue

The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy

Background: Today’s occupational therapy models emphasize that a person’s choice of, satisfaction with, and performance in occupations are markedly influenced by the context. For students undergoing a group-based study module, the group is an important context factor. Until recently, there has been a lack of instruments available for the assessment of functioning and participation at the group level. This mixed methods pilot study aimed to examine occupational therapy students’ perceptions of their group’s level of functioning and course of development during one study module.

Methods: The students’ perceptions of their group’s functioning were assessed in two ways: by examining their …

Performance-Based Tools For Assessing Functional Performance In Individuals With Mild Cognitive Impairment, Patricia Da Cunha Belchior, Melanie Holmes, Nathalie Bier, Carolina Bottari, Barbara Mazer, Alexandra Robert, Navaldeep Kaur

The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy

Background: It is now recognized that individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) face subtle functional declines that can compromise performance in everyday tasks. However, it is still not clear how to capture these declines in the clinical setting. Thus, the goal of this study was to conduct a scoping review to identify performance-based tools for which the psychometric properties have been evaluated with the MCI population.

Methods: A scoping review of the scientific literature was performed with the guidance of a health science librarian in searching the MEDLINE, PsychINFO, CINAHL, and EMBASE databases from their inception until May 2014.

Results: …

Does The Role Checklist Measure Occupational Participation?, Tore Bonsaksen, Ursula Meidert, Deana Schuman, Hildegunn Kvarsnes, Lena Haglund, Susan Prior, Kirsty Forsyth, Takashi Yamada, Patricia J. Scott

The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy

Background: Among the Model of Human Occupation (MOHO) assessments, the Role Checklist is one of the most established. In spite of its widespread use, no studies have examined role examples and their association with the three embedded levels of doing, as established in the MOHO theory.

Method: A cross-sectional survey of 293 respondents from the US, the UK, Japan, Switzerland, Sweden, and Norway produced 7,182 role examples. The respondents completed Part I of the Role Checklist and provided examples of each internalized role they performed. Responses were classified as occupational skill, occupational performance, or occupational participation.

Results: …

Exploring The Role And Scope Of Clinical Assessment In Occupational Therapy, Ann M. Chapleau

The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Pelvic Floor Therapy On Adult Women With Intersticial Cystitis/Painful Bladder Syndrome, Christina M. Shuker

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Program

Interstitial cystitis/painful bladder syndrome is a major source of chronic pelvic pain and disability affecting women of all ages, predominantly age 18 years and over. Estimates of prevalence among US women range from 2.7% to 6.5% translating to 3.4 and 7.9 million women who have symptoms consistent with this debilitating condition (Kerr, 2009). The bladder epithelium has been the focus for diagnosing and treating symptoms of IC, however taking focus away from the bladder has opened the door for clinicians to explore pelvic floor dysfunction indicating that pelvic floor therapies should be a first line treatment for those women with …

Selenoprotein P Influences Colitis-Induced Tumorigenesis By Mediating Stemness And Oxidative Damage., C. W. Barrett, V. K. Reddy, S. P. Short, A. K. Motley, M. K. Lintel, A. M. Bradley, T. Freeman, J. Vallance, W. Ning, B. Parang, Shenika Poindexter Toliver

Faculty and Staff Publications

Patients with inflammatory bowel disease are at increased risk for colon cancer due to augmented oxidative stress. These patients also have compromised antioxidant defenses as the result of nutritional deficiencies. The micronutrient selenium is essential for selenoprotein production and is transported from the liver to target tissues via selenoprotein P (SEPP1). Target tissues also produce SEPP1, which is thought to possess an endogenous antioxidant function. Here, we have shown that mice with Sepp1 haploinsufficiency or mutations that disrupt either the selenium transport or the enzymatic domain of SEPP1 exhibit increased colitis-associated carcinogenesis as the result of increased genomic instability and …

Healthnet News V.30:No.3 Summer 2015, Wendy Urciuoli

Articles - Patient Care

No abstract provided.

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter, Summer 2015

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Development Of A Biosensor-Based Rapid Urine Test For Detection Of Urogenital Schistosomiasis., Kathleen E Mach, Ruchika Mohan, Shailja Patel, Pak Kin Wong, Michael Hsieh, Joseph C Liao

Urology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Dentists' Knowledge, Skills, And Application Of Behavior Guidance Techniques On Adults With Dental Fear And Anxiety, Sarah Moriarty

Student Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

A thesis submitted to the College of Dental Medicine of Nova Southeastern University of the degree of Master of Science in Dentistry.

Goals and objectives. To gather information intended to advocate for increased behavioral sciences integration into dentistry that could directly benefit the pediatric population by easing transitions to other dental specialists or into adult dental care. Furthermore, to facilitate the potential indirect effect of vertical transmission reduction through fearful adults pursuing dental care. Background. Extensive detail is provided regarding; the negative effects of DFA on the patient and practitioner, deficits in the literature on the topic, identification and management …

Medical Education Digest, Vol. 17 No. 4 (July-August 2015), Nova Southeastern University

Medical Education Digest

No abstract provided.

Effect Of A Mindfulness Intervention On Stress And Coping Strategies In Physician Assistant Students, Mark Volpe

Yale School of Medicine Physician Associate Program Theses

Physician assistant students represent a stressed population, often with poor coping skills. Prior research amongst undergraduate and graduate students has shown that mindfulness interventions are often effective in reducing stress in the short-term. This has not been studied in physician assistant students or for long-term outcomes. We propose a randomized controlled trial to study the effects of a mindfulness intervention on short-term and long-term physician assistant student stress and coping skills. Students from three sites in Connecticut will be provided an eight week mindfulness intervention or be placed in a control group. Stress and coping skills will be measured at …

The Effect Of Pregabalin In Patients With Phantom Limb Pain: A Randomized Controlled Trial, Brandon Beattie

Yale School of Medicine Physician Associate Program Theses

Phantom Limb Pain is perceived pain in a region of the body that has been removed through amputation. It is a devastating syndrome affecting up to 80% of all post-amputation patients, however, no reliable treatment option currently exists. Pregabalin is proven to be effective in the treatment of similar symptoms of a diabetic neuropathic origin. We propose a double-blinded, randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effect of pregabalin in patients who experience Phantom Limb Pain. We expect the pregabalin treatment to produce a statistically significant change in mean pain from baseline as well as an improvement in quality of life …

Practical Pearl: Chest Pain - July 2015, Yvonne Paris Md

Pediatrics Practical Pearls: Referral Guidelines for Common Problems

No abstract provided.

Patient Experiences With Family Planning In Community Health Centers, Susan F. Wood, Tishra Beeson, Debora Goetz Goldberg, Holly Mead, Peter Shin, Aliyah Abdul-Wakil, Anna Rui, Bhakti Sahgal, Maya Shimony, Hallie Stevens, Sara Rosenbaum

Geiger Gibson/RCHN Community Health Foundation Research Collaborative

Women of childbearing age represent one of the single largest groups of community health center patients, and family planning plays a critical role in the health, economic, and social circumstances of women, their children, and families. Family planning is a required service at all health centers, and the major expansion of health centers under the Affordable Care Act means that for low-income women of reproductive age this service should be increasingly available. The Quality Family Planning (QFP) Guidelines, jointly developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Office of Population Affairs (OPA) and released in 2014, …

A Randomized Controlled Trial Of Exercise In Spinal And Bulbar Muscular Atrophy., Joseph A Shrader, Ilona Kats, Angela Kokkinis, Cris Zampieri, Ellen Levy, Galen O Joe, Joshua G. Woolstenhulme, Bart E Drinkard, Michaele R Smith, Willie Ching, Laboni Ghosh, Derrick Fox, Sungyoung Auh, Alice B Schindler, Kenneth H Fischbeck, Christopher Grunseich

Physical Therapy and Health Care Sciences Faculty Publications

OBJECTIVE: To determine the safety and efficacy of a home-based functional exercise program in spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy (SBMA).

METHODS: Subjects were randomly assigned to participate in 12 weeks of either functional exercises (intervention) or a stretching program (control) at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. A total of 54 subjects enrolled, and 50 completed the study with 24 in the functional exercise group and 26 in the stretching control group. The primary outcome measure was the Adult Myopathy Assessment Tool (AMAT) total score, and secondary measures included total activity by accelerometry, muscle strength, balance, timed up …