The Ruggero Ceppellini Advanced School of Immunology and the Neapolitan Scientific Renaissance.

In this article the author, cofounder with Serafino Zappacosta and few other knowledgeable scientists of the Ruggero Ceppellini Advanced School of Immunology in 1991, discusses the significance of this initiative not only for the spreading of immunological culture among scientists-including those from disadvantaged Countries-but also for the resurgence of the city of Naples as a cultural pole of attraction for brilliant minds, as it was in its past history. This is a tribute to Serafino Zappacosta's foresightedness and generosity.

Regulatory T cells as suppressors of anti-tumor immunity: Role of metabolism.

Novel concepts in immunometabolism support the hypothesis that glucose consumption is also used to modulate anti-tumor immune responses, favoring growth and expansion of specific cellular subsets defined in the past as suppressor T cells and currently reborn as regulatory T (Treg) cells. During the 1920s, Otto Warburg and colleagues observed that tumors consumed high amounts of glucose compared to normal tissues, even in the presence of oxygen and completely functioning mitochondria. However, the role of the Warburg Effect is still not completely understood, particularly in the context of an ongoing anti-tumor immune response.

Boceprevir or telaprevir in hepatitis C virus chronic infection: The Italian real life experience.

Aim: To check the safety and efficacy of boceprevir/telaprevir with peginterferon/ribavirin for hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotype 1 in the real-world settings.

Methods: This study was a non-randomized, observational, prospective, multicenter. This study involved 47 centers in Italy.

Terlipressin plus albumin versus midodrine and octreotide plus albumin in the treatment of hepatorenal syndrome: A randomized trial.

Unlabelled: Hepatorenal syndrome (HRS), a serious complication of cirrhosis, is associated with high mortality without treatment. Terlipressin with albumin is effective in the reversal of HRS. Where terlipressin is not available, as in the United States, midodrine and octreotide with albumin are used as an alternative treatment of HRS.

Fast approximation of transfer cross coefficient for optical proximity correction.

Model Based Optical Proximity Correction (MBOPC) is since a decade a widely used technique that permits to achieve resolutions on silicon layout smaller than the wavelength used in commercially-available photolithography tools. This is an important point, because patterns dimensions on masks are continuously shrinking. Commonly-used algorithms, involving Transfer Cross Coefficients (TCC) drawn from Hopkins formulation to compute aerial images during MBOPC treatment are based on TCC decomposition into its eigenvectors using matricization and the well known Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) tool.

Leptin surge precedes onset of autoimmune encephalomyelitis and correlates with development of pathogenic T cell responses.

In the work presented here, we explored the influence of leptin on the kinetics of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) onset, in the EAE-associated inflammatory anorexia, and in the development of pathogenic T cell responses. We found that the expression of serum leptin increased before the clinical onset of EAE in disease-susceptible C57BL/6J (H-2(b)) and SJL/J (H-2(s)) strains of mice, which are models of chronic-progressive and relapsing-remitting EAE, respectively. This increase in serum leptin correlated with disease susceptibility, reduction in food intake, and decrease in body weight.