Biodegradable 3D-Printed Conjunctival Inserts for the Treatment of Dry Eyes.

Purpose: To fabricate 3D-printed, biodegradable conjunctival gelatin methacrylate (GelMA) inserts that can release polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) when exposed to an ocular surface enzyme.

Method: In this work, biodegradable conjunctival inserts were 3D-printed using a stereolithography-based technique. The release of PVA from these insert formulations (containing 10% GelMA and 5% PVA (P-Gel-5%)) was assessed along with different mathematical models of drug release.

Efficient In-Training Adaptive Compound Loss Function Contribution Control for Medical Image Segmentation.

Image segmentation plays a crucial role in many clinical applications, including disease diagnosis and monitoring. Current state-of-the-art segmentation approaches use deep neural networks that are trained on their target tasks by minimizing a loss function. Class imbalance is one of the major challenges that these networks face, where the target object is significantly underrepresented.

3D-Printed Contact Lenses to Release Polyvinyl Alcohol as a Therapeutic Agent for the Treatment of Dry Eyes.

Dry eye disease is highly prevalent, and the most common treatment, lubricating eye drops, only remains effective for a very short period of time. This project aims to 3D print a proof-of-concept, custom-fit, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)-eluting contact lens (CL) for the treatment of dry eye disease. PVA is a commonly used viscosity enhancer in eye drops, with the capability of reducing symptoms of dry eye by stabilizing the tear film and reducing tear evaporation.

Design and Development of Natural-Product-Derived Nanoassemblies and Their Interactions with Alpha Synuclein.

Biomimetic nanoassemblies derived from natural products are considered promising nanomaterials due to their self-assembling ability and their favorable interactions with biological molecules leading to their numerous applications as therapeutic agents or as molecular probes. In this work, we have created peptide nanoconjugates of two natural products, β-Boswellic acid (BA) and β-glycyrrhetinic acid (GH). Both BA and GH are known for their medicinal value, including their role as strong antioxidants, anti-inflammatory, neuroprotective and as anti-tumor agents.

Carbapenem-Resistant Isolated From a Patient in a Midwestern U.S. Hospital With a History of Indian Travel: Therapeutic Strategies and Clinical Outcomes.

Carbapenemases have had increasing prevalence within the United States and worldwide. Here, we present a case of carbapenem-resistant (CRKP) which is unique due to the rarity of multiple mechanisms of resistance within the harboring New Delhi metallo--lactamases (NDM), oxacillinase-48 (OXA-48)-like, and cefotaximase (CTX-M) resistance genes, detected in a patient following an international travel. This case demonstrates the need for a multidisciplinary approach to optimize the treatment of multidrug-resistant Gram-negative organisms.