Publications by authors named "Andrew Gallagher"

Stress is a major risk for the onset of several maladaptive processes including pathological anxiety, a diffuse state of heightened apprehension over anticipated threats. Pathological anxiety is prevalent in up to 59% of patients with Tuberous Sclerosis complex (TSC), a neurodevelopmental disorder (NDD) caused by loss-of-function mutations in genes for Tuberin () and/or Hamartin () that together comprise the eponymous protein complex. Here, we generated cell type-specific heterozygous knockout of in cells expressing oxytocin receptor (OTRCs) to model pathological anxiety-like behaviors observed in TSC patient population.

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Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are becoming an increasingly important health concern due to a rapidly ageing global population. The fastest growing NCD, type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), is responsible for over 2 million deaths annually. Lifestyle changes, including dietary changes to low glycemic response (GR) foods, have been shown to reduce the risk of developing T2DM.

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Background: With the ongoing increase in antimicrobial resistances seen in bacterial isolates causing a keratitis in humans, animal models have become an important tool to study new antimicrobial therapies. Nevertheless, the establishment of experimental keratitis is difficult. Here, we discuss the impact of different arrangements, including animal age, bacterial strain and dose as well as epithelium removal on the outcome of experimental keratitis.

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Objective: There is a paucity of papers synthesizing the cost-effectiveness (CE) of lifestyle interventions to support cancer patients, and the synthesis papers available have used analytic methods that do not permit easy comparison between studies. We therefore evaluated the CE of adjunctive lifestyle interventions compared with usual care.

Methods: A systematic literature search of Scopus, MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, CINAHL and the Cochrane Library databases was conducted from database inception until June 2021.

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Aortic stenosis has a high mortality rate in patients who do not receive aortic valve replacement. Previously, transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) was an intervention reserved for individuals deemed high-risk for surgery. Since that time, TAVR has increasingly been offered to lower risk patients, yet it is unclear whether TAVR will meet an acceptable cost-effectiveness threshold in this group.

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Purpose: To determine the amoebicidal activity of functionalized poly-epsilon-lysine hydrogels (pɛK+) against Acanthamoeba castellanii.

Methods: A. castellanii trophozoites and cysts were grown in the presence of pɛK solution (0-2.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The text discusses the use of monoclonal antibodies targeting specific pathways (immunoglobulin E and interleukin-5) in severe asthma treatment, noting some patients do not respond adequately to these treatments.
  • - New therapies that target interleukin-4 and interleukin-13 have been developed to improve asthma management, as these cytokines influence multiple aspects of the disease.
  • - A systematic review of studies involving 41 randomized controlled trials was conducted to evaluate the efficacy and safety of anti-interleukin-4 and anti-interleukin-13 agents compared to placebo and other asthma treatments in various age groups.
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A family of poly-ε-lysine hydrogels can be synthesized by crosslinking with bis-carboxylic acids using carbodiimide chemistry. In addition to creating hydrogels using a simple cast method, a fragmented method is used to introduce increased porosity within the hydrogel structure. Both methods have created tunable characteristics ranging in their mechanical properties, transparency, and water content, which is of interest to corneal tissue engineering and can be tailored to specific cellular needs and applications.

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Background: There are many benefits of maintaining healthy blood glucose levels, and studies have shown that lifestyle changes such as changes to diet can successfully restore normoglycaemia in participants with dysglycaemia. Significant health-related lifestyle changes are often difficult to implement and functional ingredients that can reduce glycaemic and insulaemic responses may help at risk populations. The aim of this study was to investigate whether a mulberry leaf extract could lower the glycaemic and insulinaemic responses to 75 g sucrose in healthy individuals.

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Purpose: To determine the antimicrobial activity of poly-epsilon-lysine (pɛK) functionalization of hydrogels against Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Methods: Antimicrobial activities of pɛK and pɛK+ hydrogels were tested against both keratitis and a laboratory strain of Paeruginosa at a range of inocula sizes, over 4 and 24 hours. The number of viable CFU on pɛK and pɛK+ hydrogels or commercial contact lenses (CL) was investigated.

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The limited regenerative capacity of the CNS poses formidable challenges to the repair of spinal cord injury (SCI). Two key barriers to repair are (i) the physical gap left by the injury, and (ii) the inhibitory milieu surrounding the injury, the glial scar. Biomaterial implantation into the injury site can fill the cavity, provide a substrate for cell migration, and potentially attenuate the glial scar.

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Dysfunction of the corneal endothelium (CE) resulting from progressive cell loss leads to corneal oedema and significant visual impairment. Current treatments rely upon donor allogeneic tissue to replace the damaged CE. A donor cornea shortage necessitates the development of biomaterials, enabling in vitro expansion of corneal endothelial cells (CECs).

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Background: Guidelines for the management of type 2 diabetes universally recommend that adults with type 2 diabetes and obesity be offered individualized interventions to encourage weight loss. Yet despite the existing recommendations, provision of weight management services is currently patchy around the United Kingdom and where services are available, high attrition rates are often reported. In addition, individuals often fail to take up services, that is, after discussion with a general practitioner or practice nurse, individuals are referred to the service but do not attend for an appointment.

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The complex interactions that give rise to heart rate variability (HRV) involve coupled physiological oscillators operating over a wide range of different frequencies and length-scales. Based on the premise that interactions are key to the functioning of complex systems, the time-dependent deterministic coupling parameters underlying cardiac, respiratory and vascular regulation have been investigated at both the central and microvascular levels. Hypertension was considered as an example of a globally altered state of the complex dynamics of the cardiovascular system.

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Purpose: The purpose of this study was to develop a more efficient drug delivery device to overcome the limitations of current drop therapy for the treatment of fungal keratitis.

Methods: Amphotericin B (AmpB), 0 to 30 μg/mL, was associated with a poly-ε-lysine (pεK) hydrogel. Fungicidal effect against Candida albicans was assessed at 18 and 42 hours by optical density (OD600) and growth on agar.

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Electrical transport measurements were performed on URu Fe Si single-crystal specimens in high magnetic fields up to 45 T (DC fields) and 60 T (pulsed fields). We observed a systematic evolution of the critical fields for both the hidden-order (HO) and large-moment antiferromagnetic (LMAFM) phases and established the 3D phase diagram of In the HO phase, / scales with / and collapses onto a single curve. However, in the LMAFM phase, this single scaling relation is not satisfied.

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Background: High sugar and refined carbohydrate intake is associated with weight gain, increased incidence of diabetes and is linked with increased cardiovascular mortality. Reducing the health impact of poor quality carbohydrate intake is a public health priority. Reducose, a proprietary mulberry leaf extract (ME), may reduce blood glucose responses following dietary carbohydrate intake by reducing absorption of glucose from the gut.

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A peptide hydrogel with an antimicrobial activity is developed as a bandage contact lens. The antimicrobial activity is enhanced with the addition of the biomolecules penicillin G or poly-ε-lysine and is positive against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli. The lens is also noncytotoxic toward a human corneal epithelial cell line and as a consequence is of great potential as a drug-eluting bandage lens replacing conventional corneal ulcer treatment.

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Background: Worldwide sugar consumption has tripled during the last fifty years. High sugar intake is associated with weight gain and increased incidence of diabetes and has been linked with increased cardiovascular mortality. Reducing the health impact of dietary sugar and poor quality carbohydrate intake is a public health priority.

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Objects occupy physical space and obey physical laws. To truly understand a scene, we must reason about the space that objects in it occupy, and how each objects is supported stably by each other. In other words, we seek to understand which objects would, if moved, cause other objects to fall.

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This paper introduces the new idea of describing people using first names. We show that describing people in terms of similarity to a vector of possible first names is a powerful representation of facial appearance that can be used for a number of important applications, such as naming never-seen faces and building facial attribute classifiers. We build models for 100 common first names used in the US and for each pair, construct a pairwise first-name classifier.

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A break in periodicity occurs in the actinide series between plutonium and americium as the result of the localization of 5f electrons. The subsequent chemistry of later actinides is thought to closely parallel lanthanides in that bonding is expected to be ionic and complexation should not substantially alter the electronic structure of the metal ions. Here we demonstrate that ligation of californium(III) by a pyridine derivative results in significant deviations in the properties of the resultant complex with respect to that predicted for the free ion.

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