Development of a Lipid-encapsulated TGFβRI-siRNA Drug for Liver Fibrosis Induced by Schistosoma mansoni.

Schistosoma mansoni infection leads to chronic schistosomiasis and severe hepatic fibrosis. We designed a liver-targeted lipid nanoparticle (LNP) carrying siRNA against type I TGF-β receptor (TGFβRI) mRNA to treat schistosomiasis-induced liver fibrosis in BALB/c mice. Knockdown of TGFβRI by LNP-siTGFβRI reduced LX-2 cell activation in vitro and alleviated liver fibrosis in S.

Enhancing Local Disaster Management Network through Developing Resilient Community in New Taipei City, Taiwan.

Large-scaled disaster events had increasingly occurred worldwide due to global and environmental change. Evidently, disaster response cannot rely merely on the public force. In the golden hour of crisis, not only the individuals should learn to react, protect themselves, and try to help each other, but also the local school, enterprise, non-government organization (NGO), nonprofit organization (NPO), and volunteer groups should collaborate to effectively deal with disaster events.

The association between zolpidem and infection in patients with sleep disturbance.

Objective: Recent case reports suggest that zolpidem usage may be associated with infection events. The aim of this study was to determine the risk of infection events in patients with sleep disturbance taking zolpidem in a full 3-year follow-up study.

Methods: A total of 17474 subjects with a diagnosis of sleep disturbance in 2002 and 2003 were identified, of whom 5882 had used zolpidem after recruitment.