Publications by authors named "Claudia Torres"

Effective, unbiased, high-throughput methods to functionally identify both class II and class I HLA-presented T cell epitopes and their cognate T cell receptors (TCRs) are essential for and prerequisite to diagnostic and therapeutic applications, yet remain underdeveloped. Here, we present T-FINDER [T cell Functional Identification and (Neo)-antigen Discovery of Epitopes and Receptors], a system to rapidly deconvolute CD4 and CD8 TCRs and targets physiologically processed and presented by an individual's unmanipulated, complete human leukocyte antigen (HLA) haplotype. Combining a highly sensitive TCR signaling reporter with an antigen processing system to overcome previously undescribed limitations to target expression, T-FINDER both robustly identifies unknown peptide:HLA ligands from antigen libraries and rapidly screens and functionally validates the specificity of large TCR libraries against known or predicted targets.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Breast cancer is the most common female malignancy and melanoma is the most lethal type of skin cancer. Traditional therapy for cancer treatment is far from satisfactory due to drug resistance and side effects, thus a search for new medicines is being emphasized. Palladium(II) complexes have been reported as anticancer potential agents.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The ICAR trial investigated the safety and effectiveness of chemotherapy (IC) followed by chemoradiation (CRT) with or without aspirin (ASA) in patients with high-risk locally advanced rectal cancer.
  • Results showed that while the treatment was generally safe and well-tolerated, adding ASA did not improve MRI tumor response, leading to the trial's closure.
  • Key outcomes included a 30.4% clinical complete response rate after treatment and promising 2-year disease-free survival (DFS) and 3-year overall survival (OS) rates, at 83.1% and 81.5%, respectively.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Intraoperative neuromonitoring (IONM) is commonly used during surgery of the spine and spinal cord for early surveillance of iatrogenic injury to the central and peripheral nervous system. However, for infants and young children under 3 years of age, the use of IONM is challenging due to incomplete central and peripheral myelination.

Case Presentation: We report a case of a T4-T6 dermal sinus tract (DST) that was resected on day of life 23, with the successful use of IONM.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (neoCRT) followed by surgery is the standard of care for locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC), but the emergence of different drug regimens may result in different response rates. Good clinical response translates into greater sphincter preservation, but quality of life (QOL) may be impaired after treatment due to chemoradiotherapy and surgical side effects.

Objective: To prospectively evaluate the impact of clinical response and surgical resection on QOL in a randomized trial comparing two different neoCRT regimens.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The native potatoes (Solanum tuberosum subsp. tuberosum L.) grown in Chile (Chiloé) represent a new, unexplored source of endophytes to find potential biological control agents for the prevention of bacterial diseases, like blackleg and soft rot, in potato crops.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: To determine the nursing workload in intensive care units (ICUs) and the factors associated with the Nursing Activities Score (NAS).

Method: An analytical cross-sectional study was carried out in three ICUs in Bucaramanga, Colombia, between February 2018 and February 2020. The nursing workload was estimated based on the NAS.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: to identify factors inherent in hospital care that favor urinary incontinence in the elderly.

Method: an integrative review with Scopus, CINAHL and Pubmed searches. Includes original articles, no language restriction, published between 2008 and 2018.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background/aim: Melanoma represents a big challenge for clinical treatment. Besides being the most aggressive and the deadliest form of skin cancer, it is often refractory to commonly used anticancer drugs. Hence, developing new anti-cancer agents is crucial to improve refractory melanoma treatment.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In 2014, vaccinia virus (VACV) infections were identified among farmworkers in Caquetá Department, Colombia; additional cases were identified in Cundinamarca Department in 2015. VACV, an orthopoxvirus (OPXV) used in the smallpox vaccine, has caused sporadic bovine and human outbreaks in countries such as Brazil and India. In response to the emergence of this disease in Colombia, we surveyed and collected blood from 134 farmworkers and household members from 56 farms in Cundinamarca Department.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In this work, we partially sequenced genomes of two Atriplex species ( Phil. and Phil.), using Illumina technology (Hiseq 2500 paired-end system) and assembly strategy.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Recent findings have suggested that the primary factors for development of chronic venous disease (CVD), which commonly manifests as varicose veins (VV), are due to structural and biochemical modifications of the vessel wall. The aim of this exploratory study was to characterize by flow cytometry the endothelial cells (EC) mechanically extracted from the varicose saphenous veins (VSV) segments of patients submitted to VV surgery, and to compare the expression of cell surface molecules in these EC with that observed in the EC from the graft SV (GSV) of patients undergoing bypass surgery. EC were isolated from distal- (varicose trunk) and from proximal- (nearly normal) VSV segments of 30 patients submitted to VV surgery, and from proximal GSV segments of 20 patients submitted to bypass surgery (control group), using a mechanical method, and their immunophenotype was characterized by flow cytometry.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: To evaluate the effect of the "Caring for Caregivers" program in the caring ability and burden in family caregivers of patients with chronic diseases at health care institutions.

Methods: A randomized controlled clinical trial was conducted in 34 relatives of patients with chronic diseases that had cared for them for more than 3 months. Zarit scale was used to measure caregiver burden and the CAI (Caring Ability Inventory) was also used to measure caring ability.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

New epidemics of infectious diseases can emerge any time, as illustrated by the emergence of chikungunya virus (CHIKV) and Zika virus (ZIKV) in Latin America. During new epidemics, public health officials face difficult decisions regarding spatial targeting of interventions to optimally allocate limited resources. We used a large-scale, data-driven, agent-based simulation model (ABM) to explore CHIKV mitigation strategies, including strategies based on previous DENV outbreaks.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A novel catalytic system with a tripodal cobalt complex is developed for efficiently converting primary alcohols to esters. KO Bu is found essential to the transformation. A preliminary mechanistic study suggests a plausible reaction route that involves an initial Co-catalyzed dehydrogenation of alcohol to aldehyde, followed by a Tishchenko-type pathway to ester mediated by KO Bu.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

: To evaluate the plasma levels of soluble endothelial cell molecules in patients with venous thromboembolism (VTE) out of the acute phase as compared with healthy individuals. We also investigated the possible associations of the soluble endothelial cell molecules among them, as well as with other clinical and laboratory data, including the numbers of circulating endothelial cells (CEC), circulating endothelial progenitor cells (CEP), and CEC expressing activation-related [cluster of differentiation (CD)54 and CD62E] and procoagulant (CD142) markers. In total, 15 patients with VTE and 20 normal individuals were studied.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Although the mental health problems of college students have been the subject of increasing research, there are no studies about its prevalence in Ecuadorian college students. The aim of this study was to determine the mental health problems and their associated factors in Ecuadorian freshmen university students. A sample of 1092 students (53.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: This article presents a model of a dengue and severe dengue epidemic in Colombia based on the cases reported between 1995 and 2011.

Methodology: We present a methodological approach that combines multiresolution analysis and fuzzy systems to represent cases of dengue and severe dengue in Colombia. The performance of this proposal was compared with that obtained by applying traditional fuzzy modeling techniques on the same data set.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Circulating endothelial cells (CEC) may be a biomarker of vascular injury and pro-thrombotic tendency, while circulating endothelial progenitor cells (CEP) may be an indicator for angiogenesis and vascular remodelling. However, there is not a universally accepted standardized protocol to identify and quantify these cells and its clinical relevancy remains to be established.

Objectives: To quantify CEC and CEP in patients with venous thromboembolism (VTE) and with myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN), to characterize the CEC for the expression of activation (CD54, CD62E) and procoagulant (CD142) markers and to investigate whether they correlate with other clinical and laboratory data.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The antitumorigenic potential of two palladium(II) complexes, [Pd(ca(2)-o-phen)Cl(2)] - C1 and [Pd(dmba)(dppp)Cl] - C2, was evaluated, using MDA-MB-435 cells, a human breast adenocarcinoma cell-line that does not express the estrogen receptor α (ER-). Growth inhibition and induced alterations in cell-morphology were analyzed. The sulforhodamine B test showed that, compared to control cells, both C1 and C2 significantly inhibited (p < 0.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Microbiological control programmes at industrial level should aim at reducing both the detrimental effects of microorganisms on the process and the environmental impact associated to the use of biocides as microbiological control products. To achieve this target, new efficient and environmentally friendly products are required. In this paper, 17 non-specific, commercial enzymatic mixtures were tested to assess their efficacy for biofilm prevention and control at laboratory and pilot plant scale.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Community acquired pneumonia (CAP) in the elderly has unique features and there is little information about the effects of nutrition status on its outcome.

Aim: To assess the clinical manifestations and prognostic factors of CAP in immunocompetent elderly patients requiring hospitalization.

Patients And Methods: Prospective study of all patients with CAP, admitted to Puerto Montt Hospital, Chile over one year.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The spindle assembly checkpoint monitors the status of kinetochore-microtubule (K-MT) attachments and delays anaphase onset until full metaphase alignment is achieved. Recently, the role of spindle assembly checkpoint proteins was expanded with the discovery that BubR1 and Bub1 are implicated in the regulation of K-MT attachments. One unsolved question is whether Bub3, known to form cell cycle constitutive complexes with both BubR1 and Bub1, is also required for proper chromosome-to-spindle attachments.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We aimed to identify drinking rates in a prospectively identified cohort of pregnant women, and subsequently, to identify the drinkers of 48 g or more alcohol/day among them, by using complementary methods for verifying self-reported drinking habits. A research team of social workers and health professionals at the Maipú Clinic, located in a lower middle class neighborhood of Santiago, Chile, conducted interviews of women attending a prenatal clinic between August 1995 and July 2000. Women whose interview responses met predefined criteria (identified in the text) were further evaluated by home visits.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF