Profiling the transcriptomic age of single-cells in humans.

Although aging clocks predicting the age of individual organisms have been extensively studied, the age of individual cells remained largely unexplored. Most recently single-cell omics clocks were developed for the mouse, however, extensive profiling the age of human cells is still lacking. To fill this gap, here we use available scRNA-seq data of 1,058,909 blood cells of 508 healthy, human donors (between 19 and 75 years), for developing single-cell transcriptomic clocks and predicting the age of human blood cells.

Statistical assessment of natural radioactivity, radon activity, and associated radiological exposure due to artisanal mining in Atiwa West district of the Eastern region, Ghana.

The activity concentration of natural radionuclides, radon activity concentration, mass and area exhalation rates have been studied in soils from gold mining communities in Atiwa West district. The natural radionuclides were determined by gamma ray spectrometry method while radon concentrations were measured using CR-39 detectors. The mean activity concentrations were found to be 26.

Cell Tree Rings: the structure of somatic evolution as a human aging timer.

Biological age is typically estimated using biomarkers whose states have been observed to correlate with chronological age. A persistent limitation of such aging clocks is that it is difficult to establish how the biomarker states are related to the mechanisms of aging. Somatic mutations could potentially form the basis for a more fundamental aging clock since the mutations are both markers and drivers of aging and have a natural timescale.

Unique Patterns in Amino Acid Sequences of Aging-Related Proteins.

Aging has strong genetic components and the list of genes that may regulate the aging process is collected in the GenAge database. There may be characteristic patterns in the amino acid sequences of aging-related proteins that distinguish them from other proteins and this information will lead to a better understanding of the aging process. To test this hypothesis, human protein sequences are extracted from the UniProt database and the relative frequency of every amino acid residue in aging-related proteins and the remaining proteins is calculated.

Radiological assessment in beach sediment of coastline, Ghana.

The natural and artificial radioactivity in beach sediment sampled from the coastline of Ghana were analyzed using High Purity Germanium gamma ray detector. The overall average activity concentrations of Ra, Th, K and Cs were estimated to be 43 ± 6, 22 ± 1, 393 ± 74 and 8.4 ± 0.

Investigation of a failed DNA assay leads to identification of an unexpected contaminant in a commonly used chromatography buffer.

For mammalian cell-derived recombinant biotherapeutics, controlling host cell DNA levels below a threshold is a regulatory requirement to ensure patient safety. DNA removal during drug substance manufacture is accomplished by a series of chromatography-based purification steps and a qPCR-based analytical method is most used to measure DNA content in the purified drug substance to enable material disposition. While the qPCR approach is mature and its application to DNA measurement is widespread in the industry, it is susceptible to trace levels of process-related contaminants that are carried forward.

Mental and psychosocial health and health related quality of life before and after cardiac rehabilitation: a prospective cohort study with comparison to specific population norms.

Background: Data on mental health improvement after cardiac rehabilitation (CR) are contradictory. The aim was to examine the mental and psycho-social health of patients admitted to our rehabilitation center following hospital treatment for acute coronary syndrome, before and after multidisciplinary CR.

Methods: Outcome was measured at admission and discharge by the 36-Item Short Form Survey (SF-36), the Symptom Checklist-90 Revised (SCL-90R), the Coping Strategy Questionnaire (CSQ) and the 6-min-walking distance test.

Transfer of radionuclides from soil to Acacia auriculiformis trees in high radioactive background areas in North Vietnam.

The Acacia auriculiformis is a tree common in tropical Asian countries, capable of growing in many different soil types, so it could be used for biomonitoring for high natural radionuclide areas in tropical and subtropical climates. The transfer factor (TF) of radionuclides from soil to A. auriculiformis in eight uranium and rare earth element (REE) mining areas of North Vietnam was investigated.

Intercomparison on the measurement of the thoron exhalation rate from building materials.

Thoron (Rn) exhalation from building materials has become increasingly recognized as a potential source for radiation exposure in dwellings. However, contrary to radon (Rn), limited information on thoron exposure is available. As a result no harmonized test procedures for determining thoron exhalation from building materials are available at present.

Study of soil to plant transfer factors of Ra, Th, K and Cs in Vietnamese crops.

The study of staple food products is crucial to assure public safety and provides input for predictive dose assessment models. To further this goal, the activity concentrations, transfer factors, and radiological hazards of Ra, Th, K, and Cs were studied for ten pairs of selected vegetables and soils in Tien Le near Hanoi in Vietnam. This is the first study in this area for Vietnamese vegetable samples.

The Mental Landscape of Imagining Life Beyond the Current Life Span: Implications for Construal and Self-Continuity.

Background And Objectives: With rapid advancements in medicine, technology, and nutrition, the future holds the possibility of longer and healthier lives. Despite garnering attention from myriad disciplines, psychological perspectives on life extension are scarce. In three studies, we addressed this gap by exploring key mental characteristics and psychological variables associated with simulating an expanded life span and thus an extremely distant future self.

Real-Time Monitoring of a Protein Biomarker.

The ability to monitor protein biomarkers continuously and in real-time would significantly advance the precision of medicine. Current protein-detection techniques, however, including ELISA and lateral flow assays, provide only time-delayed, single-time-point measurements, limiting their ability to guide prompt responses to rapidly evolving, life-threatening conditions. In response, here we present an electrochemical aptamer-based sensor (EAB) that supports high-frequency, real-time biomarker measurements.

Gross alpha and gross beta activities in selected marine species in Vietnam.

The measured gross alpha and gross beta activities in the edible muscle tissues of eleven selected marine species along the coast of North Vietnam varied from 10.2 ± 1.5 to 73.

Tobacco plant as possible biomonitoring tool of red mud dust fallout and increased natural radioactivity.

Exposure to toxic heavy metal content in soil and inherent naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) needs to be monitored, especially after industrial accidents and remediation efforts. Just such an accident happened near Ajka city in Hungary; a large quantity of red mud flooded out from a reservoir. The afflicted area was remediated, and the red mud deposition technology was changed from a wet to a dry procedure.

Seconds-resolved pharmacokinetic measurements of the chemotherapeutic irinotecan in the living body.

The ability to measure drugs in the body rapidly and in real time would advance both our understanding of pharmacokinetics and our ability to optimally dose and deliver pharmacological therapies. To this end, we are developing electrochemical aptamer-based (E-AB) sensors, a seconds-resolved platform technology that, as critical for performing measurements , is reagentless, reversible, and selective enough to work when placed directly in bodily fluids. Here we describe the development of an E-AB sensor against irinotecan, a member of the camptothecin family of cancer chemotherapeutics, and its adaptation to sensing.

Click-Particle Display for Base-Modified Aptamer Discovery.

Base-modified aptamers that incorporate non-natural chemical moieties can achieve greatly improved affinity and specificity relative to natural DNA or RNA aptamers. However, conventional methods for generating base-modified aptamers require considerable expertise and resources. In this work, we have accelerated and generalized the process of generating base-modified aptamers by combining a click-chemistry strategy with a fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS)-based screening methodology that measures the affinity and specificity of individual aptamers at a throughput of ∼10 per hour.

OCCUPATIONAL EXPOSURE ASSESSMENT AT A THERAPEUTIC RADON SPA FACILITY IN HUNGARY.

In order to estimate occupational exposure of workers in a therapeutic radon spa facility, radon concentration in the workplace air was investigated at Markhot Ferenc Hospital, Eger, Hungary. The investigated balneotherapeutic facility and its natural hot spa water are used for treatments and rehabilitations of rheumatic patients. Radon concentration, radon decay products at a bathhouse, treatment rooms and a consultation room were continuously measured in August and September 2018.

Shape-based separation of synthetic microparticles.

The functional properties of colloidal materials can be tailored by tuning the shape of their constituent particles. Unfortunately, a reliable, general methodology for purifying colloidal materials solely based on shape is still lacking. Here we exploit the single-particle analysis and sorting capabilities of the fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) instrument, a commonly used tool in biomedical research, and demonstrate the ability to separate mixtures of synthetic microparticles based solely on their shape with high purity.

The PRIDE database and related tools and resources in 2019: improving support for quantification data.

The PRoteomics IDEntifications (PRIDE) database (https://www.ebi.ac.

Strategy for Generating Sequence-Defined Aptamer Reagent Sets for Detecting Protein Contaminants in Biotherapeutics.

Biologic drugs are typically manufactured in mammalian host cells, and it is critical from a drug safety and efficacy perspective to detect and remove host cell proteins (HCPs) during production. This is currently achieved with sets of polyclonal antibodies (pAbs), but these suffer from critical shortcomings because their composition is inherently undefined, and they cannot detect nonimmunogenic HCPs. In this work, we report a high-throughput screening and array-based binding characterization strategy that we employed to generate a set of aptamers that overcomes these limitations to achieve sensitive, broad-spectrum detection of HCPs from the widely used Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell line.

Radiological survey of the covered and uncovered drilling mud depository.

In petroleum engineering, the produced drilling mud sometimes contains elevated amounts of natural radioactivity. In this study, a remediated Hungarian drilling mud depository was investigated from a radiological perspective. The depository was monitored before and after a clay layer was applied as covering.

Preliminary Results of Radon Survey in the Kindergartens of V4 Countries.

The measurements of radon concentration were carried out in kindergartens of V4 countries (Hungary, Poland and Slovakia). RSKS detectors (Radosys Ltd., Hungary) were used for integrating measurement in indoor air.

Radon measurements and dose estimate of workers in a manganese ore mine.

In the new European Basic Safety Standard (EU-BSS), a new reference level for indoor radon concentration in workplaces has recommended that the annual average activity concentration of indoor radon shall not be higher than 300Bqm. This paper describes the radon concentration level in an underground workplace (manganese ore mine) over long time intervals (4 years). Several common radon monitors devices - including NRPB and Raduet (as a passive method based on CR-39), AlphaGUARD PQ 2000Pro, SARAD EQF3220, TESLA and Pylon WLX (as active methods) - were used for continuous radon measurements.

The ProteomeXchange consortium in 2017: supporting the cultural change in proteomics public data deposition.

The ProteomeXchange (PX) Consortium of proteomics resources (http://www.proteomexchange.org) was formally started in 2011 to standardize data submission and dissemination of mass spectrometry proteomics data worldwide.

High-Throughput Discovery of Aptamers for Sandwich Assays.

Sandwich assays are among the most powerful tools in molecular detection. These assays use "pairs" of affinity reagents so that the detection signal is generated only when both reagents bind simultaneously to different sites on the target molecule, enabling highly sensitive and specific measurements in complex samples. Thus, the capability to efficiently screen affinity reagent pairs at a high throughput is critical.