Therapeutics Commons^™

Increased Venous Access With Ultrasound Guided Ultralong Iv Placement, Daniel Purifoy

MSN Capstone Projects

Maintaining intravenous (IV) access is a vital part of providing care in critical care areas of nursing. It allows for continuous therapies, blood draws, complicated scans, and emergency treatment when needed. There are current procedures for obtaining IV access that are guaranteed to have a successful attempt and placement of a long catheter in a deeper vein. Patients that have been determined to have difficult venous access have proven to lose access quickly with an IV catheter of less than 3.18cm in length (Moy & Keeyapaj, 2017). These difficulties can cause monetary loss to the patients and hospitals, and damage …

Lai Antipsychotics Vs. Oral Antipsychotics: Treatment Adherence, Relapses, And Readmissions, Natalie N. Lewis Bsn, Rn, Mallory F. Johnson Bsn, Rn-Bc, Tyler N. Halle-Todd Bsn, Rn, Natalie N. Ragland Bsn, Rn, Sharon H. Little Dnp, Aprn, Fnp-Bc, Jacqueline Sharp Dnp, Aprn,Pmhnp-Bc

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

Purpose/Background

Schizophrenia is a lifelong illness with recurrent and often debilitating symptoms that may impair daily functioning, cognition, behaviors, socialization, emotions, and expression. It is recognized as a global mental health burden that affects the individual, their family, and society. Medication nonadherence and resulting relapse detrimentally affect the patient’s physical and mental health and quality of life. They are associated with increased hospitalization and emergency room visits, substance use, suicide, and homelessness. Current guidelines endorse second-generation antipsychotics such as Risperidone and Aripiprazole as the first-line treatment for most cases of psychosis. However, long-acting injectable (LAIs) atypical antipsychotics are a promising …

Best Screening: Introducing The Neonatal Assessment Visual European Grid To Nicus In Tennessee, Gabrielle Sledge

OTD Capstone Projects

Blind Early Services Tennessee (BEST) is an early intervention agency that serves children ages 0-5 with visual impairments across Tennessee. BEST serves over 200 children and families across the state offering early intervention (BEST Start), parent empowerment (BEST Advocate), and family support (BEST Together) programming. The purpose of this project was to assist in the implementation of an early identification initiative (BEST Screening) using the Neonatal Assessment Visual European Grid (NAVEG). The NAVEG is a newborn vision screening shown to identify neurological risk for visual impairments. The long-term goal of this program is to promote the screening and early identification …

Do Nsaids' Decrease Union Rates Following Joint Arthrodesis? A Meta-Analysis, Emerson Rowe, Julian Takagi-Stewart, Asif Ilyas, Sina Ramtin

Tower Health Research Day

No abstract provided.

Measuring Fibrinogen To Shorten Post-Alteplase Administration Window, Ahmad Hamid, Jennifer A. Ross, Mandy J. Binning

Tower Health Research Day

No abstract provided.

The Revolutionary St. Louis Insane Asylum, Julia Talbert

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Even with its grand structure on Arsenal Street towering over the city below, few residents of St. Louis and surrounding areas are aware of the grand history or even existence of the St. Louis Insane Asylum. The building is over 150 years old and was a place of hope, failure, strife, and empathy. The asylum had a large impact on St. Louis and provided revolutionary outlooks, unique perspectives, and curious therapies.

Nebulization Based Inhalation Nanomedicine For Lung Cancer Treatments, Rahul Tiwari, Meghana Kolli, Neeraj Chauhan, Eswara Naga Hanuma, Vivek Kashyap, Subhash Chauhan, Murali Yallapu

Research Symposium

Background: Lung cancer is reported to have a high incidence rate and first leading cause of cancer-related morbidity and mortality across the world including in the United States. Noninvasive nebulized inhalation is a promising delivery strategy for lung, which can enhance the targeting efficiency and detention time interval of nanoparticles in the lung tissue, thus elevating the therapeutic index of therapeutic agent(s) at lower dosages. The aim of this study is to develop inhalable nanoparticles (INPs) for effective delivery of therapeutic agents in lung cancer cell lines and ex vivo models.

Methods: The inhalation nanoparticles (INPs) were prepared by solvent …

Limonene Exerts Anti-Inflammatory Effect On Lps-Induced Jejunal Injury In Mice By Inhibiting Nf-Κb/Ap-1 Pathway, Sarmed H. Kathem, Yasameen Sh. Nasrawi, Shihab H. Mutlag, Surya M. Nauli

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

The human gastrointestinal system is a complex ecosystem crucial for well-being. During sepsis-induced gut injury, the integrity of the intestinal barrier can be compromised. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS), an endotoxin from Gram-negative bacteria, disrupts the intestinal barrier, contributing to inflammation and various dysfunctions. The current study explores the protective effects of limonene, a natural compound with diverse biological properties, against LPS-induced jejunal injury in mice. Oral administration of limonene at dosages of 100 and 200 mg/kg was used in the LPS mouse model. The Murine Sepsis Score (MSS) was utilized to evaluate the severity of sepsis, while serum levels of urea and …

Sepsis Treatment: Reinforced Sequential Decision-Making For Saving Lives, Dipesh Tamboli, Jiayu Chen, Kiran Pranesh Jotheeswaran, Denny Yu, Vaneet Aggarwal

Graduate Industrial Research Symposium

Sepsis, a life-threatening condition triggered by the body's exaggerated response to infection, demands urgent intervention to prevent severe complications. Existing machine learning methods for managing sepsis struggle in offline scenarios, exhibiting suboptimal performance with survival rates below 50%. Our project introduces the "PosNegDM: Reinforcement Learning with Positive and Negative Demonstrations for Sequential Decision-Making" framework utilizing an innovative transformer-based model and a feedback reinforcer to replicate expert actions while considering individual patient characteristics. A mortality classifier with 96.7% accuracy guides treatment decisions towards positive outcomes. The PosNegDM framework significantly improves patient survival, saving 97.39% of patients and outperforming established machine learning …

Measurement And Imaging Of Intra Matrix Igg Diffusion, Riya Debbarma, Antonio C. F. Dos Santos, Diana Milena Ramiez Gutierrez, Fernanda M. Da Cunha, Michael Ladisch

Graduate Industrial Research Symposium

Bovine IgG diffusion measurement by tracking the movement of the protein over time in an in-vitro matrix is motivated by the large number of protein/peptide therapeutics currently under various stages of development in the pharmaceutical industry. Many of these therapeutics are monoclonal antibodies (IgG type proteins) that are candidates for subcutaneous, intra-vitreous and intra-articular administration depending on the target of the therapeutic. Hyaluronic acid (HA) is a major constituent and determines the key attributes of the subcutaneous environment, vitreous humor of the eye and synovial fluid of the knee joint. HA exhibits varying molecular weight at these anatomic locations thereby …

Early Renal Denervation Attenuates Cardiac Dysfunction In Heart Failure With Preserved Ejection Fraction, Jake E. Doiron, Zhen Li, Xiaoman Yu, Kyle B. Lapenna, Heather Quiriarte, Timothy D. Allerton, Kashyap Koul, Andrew Malek, Sanjiv J. Shah, Thomas E. Sharp, Traci T. Goodchild, Daniel R. Kapusta, David J. Lefer

School of Graduate Studies Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: The renal sympathetic nervous system modulates systemic blood pressure, cardiac performance, and renal function. Pathological increases in renal sympathetic nerve activity contribute to the pathogenesis of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF). We investigated the effects of renal sympathetic denervation performed at early or late stages of HFpEF progression. METHODS AND RESULTS: Male ZSF1 obese rats were subjected to radiofrequency renal denervation (RF-RDN) or sham procedure at either 8 weeks or 20 weeks of age and assessed for cardiovascular function, exercise capacity, and cardiorenal fibrosis. Renal norepinephrine and renal nerve tyrosine hydroxylase staining were performed to quantify denervation …

Pancreatic Cancer Tumor Microenvironment Is A Major Therapeutic Barrier And Target, Conner Hartupee, Bolni Marius Nagalo, Chiswili Y. Chabu, Mulu Z. Tesfay, Joycelynn Coleman-Barnett, John T. West, Omeed Moaven

School of Medicine Faculty Publications

Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is projected to become the 2nd leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. Limitations in early detection and treatment barriers contribute to the lack of substantial success in the treatment of this challenging-to-treat malignancy. Desmoplasia is the hallmark of PDAC microenvironment that creates a physical and immunologic barrier. Stromal support cells and immunomodulatory cells face aberrant signaling by pancreatic cancer cells that shifts the complex balance of proper repair mechanisms into a state of dysregulation. The product of this dysregulation is the desmoplastic environment that encases the malignant cells leading to a dense, hypoxic …

De Novo Drug Design Using Transformer-Based Machine Translation And Reinforcement Learning Of An Adaptive Monte Carlo Tree Search, Dony Ang, Cyril Rakovski, Hagop S. Atamian

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

The discovery of novel therapeutic compounds through de novo drug design represents a critical challenge in the field of pharmaceutical research. Traditional drug discovery approaches are often resource intensive and time consuming, leading researchers to explore innovative methods that harness the power of deep learning and reinforcement learning techniques. Here, we introduce a novel drug design approach called drugAI that leverages the Encoder–Decoder Transformer architecture in tandem with Reinforcement Learning via a Monte Carlo Tree Search (RL-MCTS) to expedite the process of drug discovery while ensuring the production of valid small molecules with drug-like characteristics and strong binding affinities towards …

Cd133-Dependent Activation Of Phosphoinositide 3-Kinase /Akt/Mammalian Target Of Rapamycin Signaling In Melanoma Progression And Drug Resistance, Naji Kharouf, Thomas W. Flanagan, Abdulhadi A. Alamodi, Youssef Al Hmada, Sofie Yasmin Hassan, Hosam Shalaby, Simeon Santourlidis, Sarah Lilly Hassan, Youssef Haikel, Mossad Megahed, Robert T. Brodell, Mohamed Hassan

School of Medicine Faculty Publications

Melanoma frequently harbors genetic alterations in key molecules leading to the aberrant activation of PI3K and its downstream pathways. Although the role of PI3K/AKT/mTOR in melanoma progression and drug resistance is well documented, targeting the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway showed less efficiency in clinical trials than might have been expected, since the suppression of the PI3K/mTOR signaling pathway-induced feedback loops is mostly associated with the activation of compensatory pathways such as MAPK/MEK/ERK. Consequently, the development of intrinsic and acquired resistance can occur. As a solid tumor, melanoma is notorious for its heterogeneity. This can be expressed in the form of genetically divergent …

Antimicrobial And Synergistic Effects Of Syzygium Cumini, Moringa Oleifera, And Tinospora Cordifolia Against Different Candida Infections, Adedayo O. Adelakun, Ayoola Awosika, Uzochukwu Adabanya, Adekunle E. Omole, Akinyode I. Olopoda, Emmanuel T. Bello

School of Medicine Faculty Publications

Introduction The burden of multiple drug resistance in human pathogens has necessitated the search for and development of antimicrobial agents with a wide range of structural classes and potentials to selectively act on the several mechanisms of actions exhibited by the pathogens. However, most synthetic antimicrobial agents have been linked with adverse side effects and high costs, furthering the need to explore more options. Syzygium cumini, Moringa oleifera, and Tinospora cordifolia are three medicinal plants used in traditional medicine systems for various infectious diseases. They contain various phytochemicals that exhibit antimicrobial activities against various bacteria, fungi, and parasites. The mechanisms …

Mechanisms Of Melanoma Progression And Treatment Resistance: Role Of Cancer Stem-Like Cells, Youssef Al Hmada, Robert T. Brodell, Naji Kharouf, Thomas W. Flanagan, Abdulhadi A. Alamodi, Sofie Yasmin Hassan, Hosam Shalaby, Sarah Lilly Hassan, Youssef Haikel, Mosaad Megahed, Simeon Santourlidis, Mohamed Hassan

School of Medicine Faculty Publications

Melanoma is the third most common type of skin cancer, characterized by its heterogeneity and propensity to metastasize to distant organs. Melanoma is a heterogeneous tumor, composed of genetically divergent subpopulations, including a small fraction of melanoma-initiating cancer stem-like cells (CSCs) and many non-cancer stem cells (non-CSCs). CSCs are characterized by their unique surface proteins associated with aberrant signaling pathways with a causal or consequential relationship with tumor progression, drug resistance, and recurrence. Melanomas also harbor significant alterations in functional genes (BRAF, CDKN2A, NRAS, TP53, and NF1). Of these, the most common are the BRAF and NRAS oncogenes, with 50% …

Nonhormonal Pharmacotherapies For The Treatment Of Postmenopausal Vasomotor Symptoms, Taylor Witten, Julia Staszkiewicz, Logan Gold, Mallory A. Granier, Rachel J. Klapper, Gabriel Lavespere, Bradley Dorius, Varsha Allampalli, Shahab Ahmadzadeh, Sahar Shekoohi, Alan D. Kaye, Giustino Varrassi

School of Medicine Faculty Publications

An average of 60-80% of all menopausal women experience bothersome vasomotor symptoms (VMSs), such as flushing and sweating, within the first seven years of onset. However, despite increasing prevalence, these hot flashes remain hard to treat and have a negative effect on the quality of life. Though hormone replacement therapy is commonly utilized as a standard treatment for VMSs, this therapy is not recommended for all women. Specifically, the oral form of hormone replacement therapy is associated with several contraindications, including a history of thromboembolic disease, migraine headache with aura, liver failure, heart disease, and hormone-dependent cancers. For women with …

The Effects Of Physical Activity On Experimental Models Of Vascular Dementia; A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis, Ifechukwude J. Biose, Wesley H. Chastain, Rebecca J. Solch-Ottaiano, Viktoriya S. Grayson, Hanyun Wang, Somdeb Banerjee, Gregory J. Bix

School of Medicine Faculty Publications

Background; Physical activity is associated with improved brain health and cognition in humans. However, the validity, range, and quality of evidence for the beneficial outcomes linked to exercise in experimental models of vascular dementia (VaD) have not been evaluated. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies that assessed the effect of exercise intervention on models of VaD to provide an unbiased and comprehensive determination of the cognitive function and brain morphology benefits of exercise. Summary; A systematic search in three databases as well as study design characteristics and experimental data extraction were completed in December 2021. We investigated …

Utilizing Ai Integrated Neuroimaging Technology To Expand Upon Machine Learning In Positron Emission Tomography Technology With The Aim Of Detecting Amyloid Beta Biomarkers Early In The Onset Of Alzheimer's., Ethan S. Terman

Undergraduate Research Posters

Early intervention in Alzheimer's is vital for treatment. The earlier a professional can detect symptoms and make a diagnosis the earlier a prognosis can be implemented. With the prevalence of data in our day-to-day world combined with Artificial intelligence (AI), utilizing both for machine learning can pave the way for more accurate and efficient detection of Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases. AI combined with Machine learning (ML) increases diagnostic efficiency and reduces human errors, making it a valuable resource for physicians and clinicians alike. With the increasing amount of data processing and image interpretation required, the ability to use AI …

Hsp70 Is A Critical Regulator Of Hsp90 Inhibitor's Effectiveness In Preventing Hcl-Induced Chronic Lung Injury And Pulmonary Fibrosis, Ruben M. L. Colunga Biancatelli, Pavel A. Solopov, Tierney Day, Betsy Gregory, Michael Osei-Nkansah, Christiana Dimitropoulou, John D. Catravas

Bioelectrics Publications

Exposure to hydrochloric acid (HCl) can provoke acute and chronic lung injury. Because of its extensive production for industrial use, frequent accidental exposures occur, making HCl one of the top five chemicals causing inhalation injuries. There are no Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved treatments for HCl exposure. Heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) inhibitors modulate transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) signaling and the development of chemical-induced pulmonary fibrosis. However, little is known on the role of Heat Shock Protein 70 (HSP70) during injury and treatment with HSP90 inhibitors. We hypothesized that administration of geranylgeranyl-acetone (GGA), an HSP70 inducer, or gefitinib (GFT), an …