Publications by authors named "Alyssa Thomas"

Background: Newborns with critical congenital heart disease (CCHD) require specialized delivery room management, but varying experience and knowledge can reduce confidence and impact care.

Methods: A pre-delivery, structured huddle checklist was introduced, addressing team roles, expected physiology, and management plans. PDSA cycles incorporated guidelines and simulation-based education to improve confidence in specialized resuscitation strategies.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The Neonatal Resuscitation Program (NRP) is widely used for resuscitating infants in the NICU, but the needs of these infants can be complex and may require additional resuscitation strategies.
  • Institutions might use additional algorithms like Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) or a combination of NRP and PALS to meet these varied needs.
  • The article discusses challenges in applying these algorithms effectively in the NICU, highlights specific patient cases, and explores educational obstacles in resuscitation training for healthcare providers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) from HIV-1 infected donors show promise for vaccine development, particularly because they target specific glycan structures on HIV envelope proteins.
  • Two methods for modifying the glycan structures of HIV envelope proteins are proposed: using the NGAF3 cocktail to reduce complex glycans and co-expressing certain enzymes (B4G and ST6) to promote desirable glycan types.
  • Experimental results indicate that while B4G and ST6 modifications generally led to less complex glycan structures, they may alter antibody responses in vaccinations, with implications for future vaccine design strategies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Coarctation of the aorta (CoA) is a ductus arteriosus (DA)-dependent form of congenital heart disease (CHD) characterized by narrowing in the region of the aortic isthmus. CoA is a challenging diagnosis to make prenatally and is the critical cardiac lesion most likely to go undetected on the pulse oximetry-based newborn critical CHD screen. When undetected CoA causes obstruction to blood flow, life-threatening cardiovascular collapse may result, with a high burden of morbidity and mortality.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The 'immune risk profile' has been shown to predict mortality in the elderly, highlighting the need to better understand age-related immune dysfunction. While aging leads to many defects affecting all arms of the immune system, this review is focused on the accrual of immuno-suppressive CD4 + T cell populations, including FoxP3 + regulatory T cells, and subsets of IL-10-producing T follicular helper cells. New data suggest that such accumulations constitute feedback mechanisms to temper the ongoing progressive low-grade inflammation that develops with age, the so-called "inflammaging", and by doing so, how they have the potential to promote healthier aging.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: Existing pulmonary embolism (PE) risk scores were developed to predict death within weeks, but not more proximate adverse events. We determined the ability of 3 PE risk stratification tools (simplified pulmonary embolism severity index [sPESI], 2019 European Society of Cardiology guidelines [ESC], and PE short-term clinical outcomes risk estimation [PE-SCORE]) to predict 5-day clinical deterioration after emergency department (ED) diagnosis of PE.

Methods: We analyzed data from six EDs on ED patients with confirmed PE.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Infants born with critical congenital heart defects (CCHDs) have unique transitional pathophysiology that often requires special resuscitation and management considerations in the delivery room (DR). While much is known about neonatal resuscitation of infants with CCHDs, current neonatal resuscitation guidelines such as the neonatal resuscitation programme (NRP) do not include algorithm modifications or education specific to CCHDs. The implementation of CCHD specific neonatal resuscitation education is further hampered by the large number of healthcare providers (HCPs) that need to be reached.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • - Recent research indicates that an abnormal population of T follicular helper cells (Tfh10) that produces IL-10 accumulates with age, contributing to reduced effectiveness of vaccines in older adults.
  • - Analysis revealed that aged Tfh and Tfh10 cells show increased CD153 expression, linked to higher IL-6 levels and the molecule c-Maf, which are associated with "inflammaging."
  • - Blocking CD153 in older mice led to decreased vaccine-driven antibody responses, highlighting that while Tfh cell function declines with age, increased CD153 may still enhance some of their activity in response to vaccines.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Aging profoundly affects immune-system function, promoting susceptibility to pathogens, cancers and chronic inflammation. We previously identified a population of IL-10-producing, T follicular helper-like cells (" "), linked to suppressed vaccine responses in aged mice. Here, we integrate single-cell ( )RNA-seq, scATAC-seq and genome-scale modeling to characterize Tfh10 - and the full CD4 memory T cell ( ) compartment - in young and old mice.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In recent years, environmental stewardship has been emphasized as one solution to social-ecological sustainability concerns, especially at the local scale. The Stewardship Mapping and Assessment Project (STEW-MAP) is a national research program developed by the USDA Forest Service that has been implemented at numerous locations in the United States and internationally. This study compared the mission statements of environmental stewardship groups in the Los Angeles River Watershed to previously proposed definitions and frameworks of organizational environmental stewardship to see how well they were reflected.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: The Pulmonary Embolism Quality-of-Life (PEmb-QoL) questionnaire assesses quality of life (QoL) after pulmonary embolism (PE). We aimed to determine whether any clinical or pathophysiologic features of PE were associated with worse PEmb-QoL scores 1 month after PE.

Methods: In this prospective multicenter registry, we conducted PEmb-QoL questionnaires.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The HIV-1 Nef protein plays a critical role in viral infectivity, high-titer replication in vivo, and immune escape of HIV-infected cells. Nef lacks intrinsic biochemical activity, functioning instead through interactions with diverse host cell signaling proteins and intracellular trafficking pathways. Previous studies have established an essential role for Nef homodimer formation at the plasma membrane for most if not all its functions.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Simulation-based education has become standard within emergency medicine training. Toxicological clinical presentations are challenging to identify and treat in the emergency department. Recognizing that active teaching methods are superior to standard lecture for learner retention, we created an experiential simulation case for education on lithium toxicity.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Age-associated microglial dysfunction contributes to the accumulation of amyloid-β (Aβ) plaques in Alzheimer's disease. Although several studies have shown age-related declines in the phagocytic capacity of myeloid cells, relatively few have examined phagocytosis of normally aged microglia. Furthermore, much of the existing data on aging microglial function have been generated in accelerated genetic models of Alzheimer's disease.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Larger and more severe wildfires are becoming more frequent and impacting different communities and human settlements. Much of the scientific literature and media on wildfires has focused on area of ecosystems burned and numbers of structures destroyed. Equally unprecedented, but often less reported, are the increasing socioeconomic impacts different people and communities face from wildfires.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

: A healthy physician performs better clinically and provides superior care to patients than a physician struggling with burnout. : The purpose of this study is to assess the physician perception of "health" and "burnout," to identify successful wellness-promoting behaviors, and to build a model characterizing the successful transition from poor health to wellness. : Utilizing a qualitative approach, the team conducted one-on-one, in-depth, semi-structured interviews with physicians from different specialties.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Aging and obesity both involve chronic, low-grade inflammation and dysfunctional immune responses, with emerging research revealing their interconnected mechanisms.
  • Chronic inflammation in these conditions alters the immune system's baseline state, where aging leads to regulatory immune populations that worsen dysfunction, while obesity affects immune cell function due to expanding fat tissue.
  • The review aims to compare these altered immune states in aging and obesity and explore how they contribute to a common issue: reduced effectiveness of vaccines.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: We sought to determine associations of early electrocardiogram (ECG) patterns with clinical deterioration (CD) within 5 days and with RV abnormality (abnlRV) by echocardiography in pulmonary embolism (PE).

Methods: In this prospective, multicenter study of newly confirmed PE patients, early echocardiography and initial ECG were examined. Initial ECG patterns included lead-specific ST-segment elevation (STE) or depression (STD), T-wave inversion (TWI), supraventricular tachycardia (SVT), sinus tachycardia, and right bundle branch block as complete (cRBBB) or incomplete (iRBBB).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Given the importance of understanding methodical reporting and statistical terminology in ensuring evidence-based decision-making, physicians should possess statistical literacy. The purpose of this study was to distinguish statistical terminology commonly used in emergency medicine methods and describe changes in statistical methods from 2011 to 2021.

Methods: The research team chose four journals in emergency medicine widely read and clinically relevant: Academic Emergency Medicine, American Journal of Emergency Medicine, Annals of Emergency Medicine, and Journal of Emergency Medicine.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Congenital heart disease (CHD) and prematurity are the leading causes of infant mortality in the United States. Importantly, the combination of prematurity and CHD results in a further increased risk of mortality and significant morbidity. The key factors in these adverse outcomes are not well understood, but likely include maternal-fetal environment, perinatal and neonatal elements, and challenging postnatal care.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: Identifying right ventricle (RV) abnormalities is important to stratifying pulmonary embolism (PE) severity. Disposition decisions are influenced by concerns about early deterioration. Triaging strategies, like the Simplified Pulmonary Embolism Severity Index (sPESI), do not include RV assessments as predictors or early deterioration as outcome(s).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Study Objectives: The objective of this study was to compare the combination of intramuscular (IM) droperidol/midazolam to haloperidol/lorazepam regarding time to sedation in patients with acute undifferentiated agitation in the emergency department (ED).

Methods: This was a prospective, unblinded observational study in the ED of a university teaching hospital. Subjects with acute undifferentiated agitation refractory to verbal de-escalation were assigned to receive a combination of either haloperidol 5 mg/lorazepam 2 mg or droperidol 5 mg/midazolam 5 mg IM.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Synopsis of recent research by authors named "Alyssa Thomas"

  • - Alyssa Thomas's recent research focuses on neonatal care, emphasizing the need for improved resuscitation education and protocols for healthcare providers in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) and the delivery room, as evidenced by multiple articles published on this topic.
  • - In the context of HIV research, Thomas explores the role of glycan structures in the immunogenicity of broadly neutralizing antibodies, highlighting the complex interactions that influence vaccine design and effectiveness.
  • - Further investigations into age-related immune dysfunction reveal insights into the accumulation of immuno-suppressive T cell populations, proposing mechanisms that could mitigate inflammation in older adults while considering its implications for overall immunity.