Medical Specialties Commons^™

Retinal Hemorrhage Associated With Neonatal Idiopathic Thrombocytopenia, Samara J. Hamou, Iniya K. Adhan, Maureen E. Lloyd, Barry N. Wasserman

Wills Eye Hospital Papers

PURPOSE: To describe a premature neonate with thrombocytopenia and retinal hemorrhage.

OBSERVATION: A 33 week premature neonate with neonatal thrombocytopenia (34 × 10⁹ platelet) was found to have left eye retinal hemorrhage. Bilateral retinal exam showed a healthy optic nerve and macula. A 10–12 disc diameter large nasal subretinal hemorrhage with an intraretinal white-centered hemorrhage was found. No other retinal abnormalities were found. Resolution of the hemorrhage occurred over the next three months. By this time, thrombocytopenia resolved (final platelet count: 259 × 10⁹/L), and the patient was able to fix and follow.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPORTANCE: Neonatal …

What Single-Cell Rna Sequencing Taught Us About Mgmt Expression In Glioblastoma, Iyad Alnahhas, Mehak Majid Khan, Wenyin Shi

Department of Neurology Faculty Papers

Background.

The promoter methylation status of O-6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMTp) is an important prognostic marker in GBM. Previous studies showed that the expression of MGMT based on immunohistochemistry did not correlate with survival. This is partly because nontumor cells express MGMT. Single-cell sequencing assesses gene expression in tumor cells specifically.

Methods.

We used publicly available data from 3 recent single-cell/nucleus sequencing GBM studies that included MGMTp methylation status data for patients to evaluate MGMT expression at the single-cell level.

Results.

In the CPTAC study, a median of 0.82% and 5.7% of tumor cells expressed MGMT in the …

Prediction Of Persistent Incomplete Occlusion Of Intracranial Aneurysms Treated With Woven Endobridge Device, Muhammed Amir Essibayi, Mohamed Sobhi Jabal, Hasan Jamil, Hamza Adel Salim, Basel Musmar, Nimer Adeeb, Mahmoud Dibas, Nicole M. Cancelliere, Jose Danilo Bengzon, Oktay Algin, Sherief Ghozy, Sovann V. Lay, Adrien Guenego, Leonardo Renieri, Joseph Carnevale, Guillaume Saliou, Panagiotis Mastorakos, Kareem El Naamani, Eimad Shotar, Markus Möhlenbruch, Michael Kral, Charlotte Chung, Mohamed M. Salem, Ivan Lylyk, Paul M. Foreman, Hamza Shaikh, Vedran Župančić, Muhammad U. Hafeez, Joshua Catapano, Muhammad Waqas, Muhammed Said Besler, Yasin Celal Gunes, James D. Rabinov, Julian Maingard, Clemens M. Schirmer, Mariangela Piano, Anna L. Kühn, Caterina Michelozzi, Robert M. Starke, Ameer Hassan, Mark Ogilvie, Anh Nguyen, Jesse Jones, Waleed Brinjikji, Marie T. Nawka, Marios Psychogios, Christian Ulfert, Bryan Pukenas, Jan-Karl Burkhardt, Thien Huynh, Juan Carlos Martinez-Gutierrez, Sunil A. Sheth, Diana Slawski, Rabih Tawk, Benjamin Pulli, Boris Lubicz, Pietro Panni, Ajit S. Puri, Guglielmo Pero, Eytan Raz, Christoph J. Griessenauer, Hamed Asadi, Adnan Siddiqui, Elad I. Levy, Deepak Khatri, Neil Haranhalli, Andrew F. Ducruet, Felipe C. Albuquerque, Robert W. Regenhardt, Christopher J. Stapleton, Peter Kan, Vladimir Kalousek, Pedro Lylyk, Srikanth Boddu, Jared Knopman, Stavropoula I. Tjoumakaris, Hugo H. Cuellar-Saenz, Pascal Jabbour, Frédéric Clarençon, Nicola Limbucci, Vitor Mendes Pereira, Aman B. Patel, David J. Altschul, Adam A. Dmytriw, Worldwideweb Consortium Collaborators

Department of Neurosurgery Faculty Papers

While the Woven EndoBridge (WEB) device has transformed the treatment of wide-neck intracranial aneurysms, incomplete occlusion remains a significant challenge requiring better understanding of contributing factors. A retrospective analysis was conducted on multicenter data from patients who underwent WEB device treatment for intracranial aneurysms between January 2011 and December 2022. Using machine learning models, Cox regression, and time-stratified analyses, we evaluated factors associated with persistent incomplete occlusion, defined as non-improving Raymond-Roy Occlusion Classification grade 2 or 3 at final follow-up. Among 813 patients (607 with < 24 months follow-up, 206 with ≥ 24 months), machine learning analysis identified aneurysm height, Acom location, neck diameter, and pretreatment mRS as predictors of persistent incomplete occlusion. On Cox regression. larger aneurysm neck diameter (HR 1.13, 95% CI 1.01-1.27, p = 0.027) and height (HR 1.14, 95% CI 1.02-1.26, p = 0.017), and radial …

Spasticity And Pain And The Improvement Of Muscle Strength In Athletes With Partial Spinal Cord Injury, Dariusz Tadeusz Skalski, Kinga Łosińska, Magdalena Prończuk, Alicja Markiel, Jarosław Markowski, Jan Pilch, Joanna Motowidło, Petr Stastny, Adam Maszczyk

Baltic Journal of Health and Physical Activity

Spasticity and chronic pain are common secondary complications following spinal cord injury (SCI), significantly impacting functional recovery and quality of life. Robot-assisted gait training (RAGT) using the Lokomat has been proposed as an effective rehabilitation method to improve motor function and reduce these symptoms. However, the impact of training frequency on rehabilitation outcomes remains unclear, particularly in athletes and physically active individuals. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of Lokomat training on spasticity reduction, pain alleviation, and improvements in gait function and lower limb muscle strength in athletes and physically active individuals with partial SCI. A total of 45 …

Predictors Of Outcomes In Pediatric Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension, Aditya Doni Pradana

Journal of the Saudi Heart Association

There is no abstract for this article type.

Be(D) Fast For Faster Screening, Allison Goshorn, Alaine Schauer

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

No abstract provided.

Evaluation Of The Distress Thermometer In Older Patients With Cancer, Charlotte Zuber, Kristine Swartz, Andrew Chapman, Lora Rhodes, Tingting Zhan, Kuang-Yi Wen

Kimmel Cancer Center Faculty Papers

INTRODUCTION: The Geriatric Depression Scale is a useful tool in screening for depression in older adults, a particularly vulnerable population in oncology. The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Distress Thermometer (DT) has been validated as a fast and effective screening tool for psychological distress in general oncology populations, and it could possibly be used as a surrogate for the longer Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) test in older adults with cancer.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this retrospective cross-sectional study in older adults prior to starting cancer treatment, we evaluated the relationship between the DT and GDS by comparing 242 older adults …

Gene Expression Profiling Of Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma Cells In Hypercapnia Identifies Siah3 As A Novel Prognostic Biomarker, Nitzan Zohar, Ryan Maguire, Saed Khalilieh, Aditi Jain, Dmitriy Bosykh, Wilbur B. Bowne, Harish Lavu, Charles J. Yeo, Avinoam Nevler

Department of Surgery Faculty Papers

Hypercapnia is a key feature of the respiratory microenvironment in many pathologic conditions. It occurs both as a regional and as a systemic process, and it is associated with multiple metabolic changes such as mitochondrial dysfunction, decreased ATP production, and metabolic shift from glycolytic energy production to fatty acid metabolism. In the cancer tumor microenvironment, hypercapnia has been linked at times to enhanced cell migration, invasion, and chemoresistance. Our previous work has shown that hypercapnia-associated gene signatures can be used as prognostic biomarkers. However, unlike the hypoxia-inducible factor pathway, there are no validated targets to quantify hypercapnia. In this study, …

Islet Single-Cell Transcriptomic Profiling During Obesity-Induced Beta Cell Expansion In Female Mice, Peter M Masschelin, Scott A Ochsner, Sean M Hartig, Neil J Mckenna, Aaron R Cox

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Targeting beta cell proliferation is an appealing approach to restore glucose control in type 1 diabetes. However, the underlying mechanisms of beta cell proliferation remain incompletely understood, limiting identification of new therapeutic targets. Obesity is a naturally occurring process that potently induces human and rodent beta cell replication, representing an ideal model to study mechanisms of beta cell proliferation. We showed previously acute whole-body

Antimicrobial Performance Of A Novel Drug-Eluting Bioenvelope, Zerelda Esquer Garrigos, Sunil Kapur, Michelle Leroux Williams, M Rizwan Sohail

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

No abstract provided.

Dependence Of Mitochondrial Calcium Signalling And Dynamics On The Disaggregase, Clpb, Donato D'Angelo, Víctor H. Sánchez-Vázquez, Benjamín Cartes-Saavedra, Denis Vecellio Reane, Ryan R. Cupo, Hilda Delgado De La Herran, Giorgia Ghirardo, James Shorter, Ron A. Wevers, Saskia B. Wortmann, Fabiana Perocchi, Rosario Rizzuto, Anna Raffaello, György Hajnóczky

Department of Pathology, Anatomy, and Cell Biology Faculty Papers

Cells utilize protein disaggregases to avoid abnormal protein aggregation that causes many diseases. Among these, caseinolytic peptidase B protein homolog (CLPB) is localized in the mitochondrial intermembrane space and linked to human disease. Upon CLPB loss, MICU1 and MICU2, regulators of the mitochondrial calcium uniporter complex (mtCU), and OPA1, a main mediator of mitochondrial fusion, become insoluble but the functional outcome remains unclear. In this work we demonstrate that CLPB is required to maintain mitochondrial calcium signalling and fusion dynamics. CLPB loss results in altered mtCU composition, interfering with mitochondrial calcium uptake independently of cytosolic calcium and mitochondrial membrane potential. …

Protocol For Unlocking Alternative Polyadenylation Insights From Bulk Rna-Seq Data With Polyaminer-Bulk, Venkata Jonnakuti, Sriya Jonnakuti, Hari Krishna Yalamanchili

Duncan NRI Faculty and Staff Publications

PolyAMiner-Bulk, a deep-learning-based algorithm to decode alternative polyadenylation (APA) dynamics from bulk RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) data, enables scientists to identify and quantify APA events from processed bulk RNA-seq data. The protocol allows researchers to explore differential APA usage between two conditions and gain a better understanding of post-transcriptional regulatory mechanisms. The major steps involve input data preparation, executing PolyAMiner-Bulk, and interpreting the results. A basic familiarity with pre-processing bulk RNA-seq data and command-line tools is suggested.

For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Jonnakuti et al.¹

Neighborhood Disadvantage And Inequities In Access To Preemptive And Living Kidney Transplantation, Brandon M Fairless, Oluwatunmise A Fawole, Duc T Nguyen, Ankona Banerjee, Kenneth J Nobleza, Abiodun O Oluyomi, Omar Rosales, Jayna M Dave, Elizabeth A Onugha

Children’s Nutrition Research Center Staff Publications

Key Points:

1. Pediatric patients residing in low-resource neighborhoods experienced lower rates of preemptive and living donor kidney transplantation.

2. Household-level factors (single-parent, non-English primary language, and receiving government assistance) may also affect the type of transplant received.

3. Area Deprivation Index scores offer an objective way to quantify neighborhood-level disadvantage and can enhance pretransplant screening.

Background: Living donor kidney transplant (LDKT) generally results in better outcomes than deceased donor kidney transplant (DDKT). Preemptive kidney transplant (KT) allows patients to bypass undergoing maintenance dialysis and is associated with improved patient and graft survival. Studies in the US pediatric population have shown racial-ethnic disparities …

Rare Damaging Ccr2 Variants Are Associated With Lower Lifetime Cardiovascular Risk, Marios K Georgakis, Rainer Malik, Omar El Bounkari, Natalie R Hasbani, Jiang Li, Jennifer E Huffman, Gabrielle Shakt, Reinier W P Tack, Tamara N Kimball, Yaw Asare, Alanna C Morrison, Noah L Tsao, Renae Judy, Braxton D Mitchell, Huichun Xu, May E Montasser, Ron Do, Eimear E Kenny, Ruth J F Loos, James G Terry, John Jeffrey Carr, Joshua C Bis, Bruce M Psaty, W T Longstreth, Kendra A Young, Sharon M Lutz, Michael H Cho, Jai Broome, Alyna T Khan, Fei Fei Wang, Nancy Heard-Costa, Sudha Seshadri, Ramachandran S Vasan, Nicholette D Palmer, Barry I Freedman, Donald W Bowden, Lisa R Yanek, Brian G Kral, Lewis C Becker, Patricia A Peyser, Lawrence F Bielak, Farah Ammous, April P Carson, Michael E Hall, Laura M Raffield, Stephen S Rich, Wendy S Post, Russel P Tracy, Kent D Taylor, Xiuqing Guo, Michael C Mahaney, Joanne E Curran, John Blangero, Shoa L Clarke, Jeffrey W Haessler, Yao Hu, Themistocles L Assimes, Charles Kooperberg, Jürgen Bernhagen, Christopher D Anderson, Scott M Damrauer, Ramin Zand, Jerome I Rotter, Paul S De Vries, Martin Dichgans

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Previous work has shown a role of CCL2, a key chemokine governing monocyte trafficking, in atherosclerosis. However, it remains unknown whether targeting CCR2, the cognate receptor of CCL2, provides protection against human atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.

METHODS: Computationally predicted damaging or loss-of-function (REVEL > 0.5) variants within CCR2 were detected in whole-exome-sequencing data from 454,775 UK Biobank participants and tested for association with cardiovascular endpoints in gene-burden tests. Given the key role of CCR2 in monocyte mobilization, variants associated with lower monocyte count were prioritized for experimental validation. The response to CCL2 of human cells transfected with these variants was tested …

Non-Canonical Splice Variants In Thoracic Aortic Dissection Cases And Marfan Syndrome With Negative Genetic Testing, David R Murdock, Dong-Chuan Guo, John S Depaolo, Ulrike Schwarze, Xue-Yan Duan, Alana C Cecchi, Isabella C Marin, Yingying Tang, Jessica X Chong, Michael J Bamshad, Kathleen A Leppig, Peter H Byers, Scott M Damrauer, Dianna M Milewicz

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Individuals with heritable thoracic aortic disease (HTAD) face a high risk of deadly aortic dissections, but genetic testing identifies causative variants in only a minority of cases. We explored the contribution of non-canonical splice variants (NCVAS) to thoracic aortic disease (TAD) using SpliceAI and sequencing data from diverse cohorts, including 551 early-onset sporadic dissection cases and 437 HTAD probands with exome sequencing, 57 HTAD pedigrees with whole genome sequencing, and select sporadic cases with clinical panel testing. NCVAS were identified in syndromic HTAD genes such as FBN1, SMAD3, and COL3A1, including intronic variants in FBN1 in two Marfan syndrome (MFS) …

Trajectories Of Forced Vital Capacity In Patients With Systemic Sclerosis-Associated Interstitial Lung Disease, Oliver Distler, Madelon C Vonk, Arata Azuma, Maureen D Mayes, Dinesh Khanna, Kristin B Highland, Gerrit Toenges, Margarida Alves, Yannick Allanore

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

We used data from the SENSCIS and SENSCIS-ON trials to assess decline in forced vital capacity (FVC) in patients with systemic sclerosis-associated interstitial lung disease (SSc-ILD) who received long-term treatment with nintedanib and the effect of switching patients from placebo to nintedanib. In the SENSCIS trial, patients were randomised to receive nintedanib or placebo until the last patient reached week 52 but for ≤ 100 weeks. In SENSCIS-ON, the extension to SENSCIS, all patients received open-label nintedanib. Per protocol, the off-treatment period between these trials was ≤ 12 weeks. We assessed the trajectory of FVC in patients who received nintedanib …

Dna-Pk Inhibition Sustains The Antitumor Innate Immune Response In Small Cell Lung Cancer, Caterina De Rosa, Floriana Morgillo, Luisa Amato, Francesca Iommelli, Viviana De Rosa, Virginia Tirino, Federica Papaccio, Concetta Tuccillo, Gaetano Di Guida, Domenico Michele D'Angiolella, Alessandra Di Liello, Silvia Zappavigna, Michele Caraglia, Antonio Gambardella, Valerio Nardone, Kavya Ramkumar, Qi Wang, Jing Wang, Ferdinando De Vita, Davide Ciardiello, Erika Martinelli, Teresa Troiani, Stefania Napolitano, Giulia Martini, Alberto Servetto, Lauren Averett Byers, Fortunato Ciardiello, Carminia Maria Della Corte

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is a highly aggressive form of lung cancer with limited treatment options. Patients often respond well to initial chemo-immunotherapy but relapse quickly, necessitating new strategies to enhance immune responsiveness. Recent research explores combining DNA-damaging therapies with immunotherapy to activate the STING pathway and improve the antitumor immune response. The addition of DNA Damage Repair (DDR) inhibitors, such as DNA-PKcs inhibitors, after chemotherapy has shown promise in activating innate immune sensors and enhancing CD8

A Saudi Heart Association Position Statement On The Use Of Doacs In Patients With Arterial And Venous Thrombosis, Waleed Alhabeeb, Adel Tash, Ahmed Aljedai, Ayman Morsy, Feras Khaliel, Iman Alhazmi, Mohammed Alsheef, Mohammed Arafah, Owayed Alshammeri, Saeed Alahmari

Journal of the Saudi Heart Association

Background: Direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) have emerged as non-inferior and effective alternatives to traditional anticoagulants in managing thromboembolic risks associated with various cardiovascular conditions. This position statement by the Saudi Heart Association (SHA) aims to provide guidance on the use of DOACs in the context of cardiovascular disease, particularly patients with arterial and venous thrombosis.

Methods: A multidisciplinary panel of experts reviewed current evidence and international guidelines on DOACs, considering the local healthcare context in Saudi Arabia. The statement addresses the initiation, maintenance, interruption, and re-initiation of DOAC therapy across different patient populations.

Results: DOACs are effective alternatives to traditional …

Longitudinal Changes In Aerodigestive Responses To Varying Nipple Properties In Infant Pigs, François D H Gould, Christopher Mayerl, Khaled Adjerid, Jessica Reibel, Nichole Charles, Chloe Edmonds, Rebecca Z German

Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine Departmental Research

Coordination of respiration and swallowing is critical for survival in infant mammals and changes throughout infant maturation. Infants show sensorimotor feeding responses to changes in physical properties of nipples. Commercial nipples are promoted as improving aerodigestive coordination. However, it is unknown how nipple properties influence coordination of respiration and swallowing. Furthermore, how infant-nipple interactions change throughout maturation is not well understood. We designed and manufactured four silicone nipples of the same shape that varied in two parameters: nipple opening diameter and nipple stiffness. We used our validated infant pig model to test the impact of nipple parameters on aerodigestive coordination …

Using The 5ms Framework To Advance Aging-Responsive Care For Heart Failure With Reduced Ejection Fraction, Abigail Latimer, Debra K. Moser, Jia-Rong Wu, Kim K. Birtcher, Malachy J. Clancy, Jennifer D. Portz, Joanna Paladino, Daniel D. Matlock, Christopher E. Knoepke

Department of Occupational Therapy Faculty Papers

Complexity of care is the inevitable consequence of an aging population and is particularly true in instances where patients are managing chronic conditions such as heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF). HFrEF itself is complex, with an undulating course of illness, increased risk of sudden cardiac death, and myriad accompanying treatment considerations. Generalist management of HFrEF among older patients is further complicated by competing comorbidities, potential for financial toxicity, potential for mental health symptoms, and risk of care with does not align with goals and preferences. The 5Ms (multicomplexity, mind, mobility, medications, and matters most) is a holistic conceptualization …

Evaluating Medical Usage And Injury Prevalence At The 2024 College World Series, Roarick Schollmeyer, Jd Gregerson, Benjamin Stevens, Katie Weaver, Joseph Lippert

EMET Projects

Large-scale events such as the College World Series (CWS) pose unique challenges for medical services due to high crowd density, prolonged event durations, and variable environmental conditions. This study aimed to assess the medical usage rate (MUR) and injury prevalence at the 2024 CWS to inform future event planning and emergency medical preparedness. A retrospective analysis was conducted using patient encounter data collected between June 14 and June 24, 2024. Data sources included Union Medical event services, which documented on-site treatments and dispositions, and Omaha Fire Department EMS records detailing prehospital care. The MUR was calculated as the number of …

Characterization Of Novel Arrhythmogenic Patterns Arising Secondary To Heterogeneous Expression And Activation Of Nav1.8, Zhong-He Zhang, Hector Barajas-Martinez, Hong-Yi Duan, Guo-Hua Fan, Hong Jiang, Charles Antzelevitch, Hao Xia, Dan Hu

Department of Medicine Faculty Papers

Background: Previous studies suggested that SCN10A/Nav1.8 may influence cardiac electrophysiology and the susceptibility to cardiac arrhythmias. Notably, the expression of SCN10A is not uniform, showing variable expression in each cardiac chamber. The present study aims to explore the functional significance of Nav1.8 expression among different cell types present in the ventricular myocardium.

Methods: The effect of the specific Nav1.8 blocker, A-803467, on action potential was recorded from epicardial, mid-myocardial (M cells) and Purkinje tissue slices isolated from the canine left ventricle using standard microelectrode techniques and on late sodium current from Purkinje cells using patch-clamp techniques.

Results: A-803467 treatment …

Persistent Barriers To Implementation Of Long-Acting Injectable Antiretroviral Therapy, Jessica Hack, Adati Tarfa, Harlan Sayles, Nada Fadul

EMET Projects

No abstract provided.

Nutritional Status, Social Determinants Of Health And Clinical Outcomes In Critically Ill Children, Yash Desai, Andrea Marroquín, Paola Hong-Zhu, Nicole Knebusch, Stephanie Vazquez, Marwa Mansour, Thomas P Fogarty, M Hossein Tcharmtchi, Fernando Stein, Jorge A Coss-Bu

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Introduction: Childhood malnutrition remains a risk factor for morbidity and mortality. Children admitted to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) are at a higher risk of worsening nutritional status with adverse clinical outcomes. The burden of malnutrition is strongly linked to various well-defined social determinants of health, including race, socioeconomic status, and geography, as these factors influence household food insecurity. This study aimed to analyze the interrelationships of nutritional status, social determinants of health, and health outcomes in critically ill children.

Methods: Retrospective cohort study of 6418 critically ill children admitted to PICU from January 2014 to December 2017. Demographic …

Comparison Of Syndromic Surveillance And Hospital Discharge Data For Unintentional Drowning In Metropolitan Houston, Texas, Usa, Nicholas Peoples, Jennifer L Jones, Elizabeth A Camp, Ned Norman Levine, Rohit P Shenoi

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Background: Syndromic surveillance, which provides real-time data, may provide timely drowning surveillance compared with hospital discharge data where the release of data may be delayed. We compared data on hospital visits for unintentional drowning identified in hospital discharge and syndromic surveillance data sets for accuracy and completeness.

Methods: We compared data for hospital visits for unintentional drowning identified in the Texas Health Care Information Collection hospital discharge and syndromic surveillance data sets for metropolitan Houston, Texas, USA from 2019 to 2021. Hospital visits included emergency department-only visits and hospital admissions. We compared time-series visualisation of hospital visits between data sets. …

Deciphering The Dark Cancer Phosphoproteome Using Machine-Learned Co-Regulation Of Phosphosites, Wen Jiang, Eric J Jaehnig, Yuxing Liao, Zhiao Shi, Tomer M Yaron-Barir, Jared L Johnson, Lewis C Cantley, Bing Zhang

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Mass spectrometry-based phosphoproteomics offers a comprehensive view of protein phosphorylation, yet our limited knowledge about the regulation and function of most phosphosites hampers the extraction of meaningful biological insights. To address this challenge, we integrate machine learning with phosphoproteomic data from 1195 tumor specimens spanning 11 cancer types to construct CoPheeMap, a network that maps the co-regulation of 26,280 phosphosites. By incorporating network features from CoPheeMap into a second machine learning model, namely CoPheeKSA, we achieve superior performance in predicting kinase-substrate associations. CoPheeKSA uncovers 24,015 associations between 9399 phosphosites and 104 serine/threonine kinases, shedding light on many unannotated phosphosites and …

Adipose Progenitor Cell-Derived Extracellular Vesicles Suppress Macrophage M1 Program To Alleviate Midlife Obesity, Qing Zhou, Jia Gao, Guorao Wu, Chenwei Wang, Yan Yang, Teng Huang, Yi Wang, Tiantian Yue, Zhichao Gao, Hao Xie, Fei Xiong, Ke Xiang, Tuying Yong, Wanguang Zhang, Tongtong Zhang, Wen Kong, Cai Chen, Shu Zhang, Qilin Yu, Xuemei Fan, Shiwei Liu, Yanjun Liu, Cong-Yi Wang

Children’s Nutrition Research Center Staff Publications

Among different age groups, middle-aged individuals are particularly susceptible to obesity, with a 22% higher risk of all-cause mortality. However, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. In this study, we identify adipose progenitor cells (APCs) in the white adipose tissue (WAT) of middle-aged subjects as potential causes of midlife obesity. Specifically, the extracellular vesicles (EVs) derived from APCs display an impaired ability to mitigate the inflammaging of adipose tissue macrophages (ATMs) in middle-aged individuals. Mechanistically, these EVs, lacking miR-145-5p, fail to suppress the expression of L-selectin in ATMs, thereby facilitating their M1 program via the NF-κB signaling pathway. In contrast, EVs …

A Geospatial Analysis Of The Lung Cancer Burden In Philadelphia, Using Pennsylvania Cancer Registry Data From 2008-2017, Russell K. Mcintire, Katherine Senter, Christine S. Shusted, Rickisa Yearwood, Julie Barta, Scott W. Keith, Charnita Zeigler-Johnson

Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine Faculty Papers

(1) Background: Lung cancer is the deadliest and second most prevalent cancer in Pennsylvania (PA), and African American patients are disproportionately affected. Lung cancer morbidity and mortality in Philadelphia County are among the highest in PA. Geographic information systems (GIS) are useful to explore geospatial variations in the cancer burden and risk factors. Therefore, we used GIS to analyze the lung cancer burden in Philadelphia to assess which areas of the city have the highest morbidity and mortality, identify potential clusters, and determine which census tract-level characteristics were associated with higher tract-level cancer burden. (2) Methods: Using secondary data from …

Two-Dimensional Speckle Tracking Of The Ascending Aorta: A Novel Approach To Evaluate Arterial Stiffness In Pediatric Patients With Repaired Conotruncal Anomalies Using Echocardiography., Anmol Goyal, Anitha Parthiban, David A. White, Daniel Forsha, Doaa Aly

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

BACKGROUND: Children with repaired conotruncal abnormalities (CTA) are at risk of progressive aortic dilation and deteriorating aortic elasticity even after surgical correction. Strain imaging, using a 2-dimensional speckle tracking echocardiography (2D-STE), has been used for arterial stiffness assessment, but pediatric data are still lacking. We investigated the feasibility, reproducibility, and clinical value of 2D-STE derived ascending aorta (AAo) stiffness in children with repaired CTA.

METHODS: 22 pediatric patients with repaired CTA were included along with 25 age- and sex- matched healthy controls (mean age 10.2 ± 4.5 years). Conventional 2D echocardiographic and 2D-STE assessment of AAo mechanics was performed. M-mode …

Do We Need To Add The Type Of Treatment Planning System, Dose Calculation Grid Size, And Ct Density Curve To Predictive Models?, Reza Reiazi, Surendra Prajapati, Leonardo Che Fru, Dongyeon Lee, Mohammad Salehpour

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: Generalizability and domain dependency are critical challenges in developing predictive models for healthcare, particularly in medical diagnostics and radiation oncology. Predictive models designed to assess tumor recurrence rely on comprehensive and high-quality datasets, encompassing treatment planning parameters, imaging protocols, and patient-specific data. However, domain dependency, arising from variations in dose calculation algorithms, computed tomography (CT) density conversion curves, imaging modalities, and institutional protocols, can significantly undermine model reliability and clinical utility.

Methods: This study evaluated dose calculation differences in the head and neck cancer treatment plans of 19 patients using two treatment planning systems, Pinnacle 9.10 and RayStation 11, …