Intra-arterial chemotherapy for retinoblastoma: Experience from the pediatric ophthalmology referral center in Malaysia with literature review.

Purpose: We aimed to analyze our 4-year experience of intra-arterial chemotherapy (IAC) for retinoblastoma (RB) and to examine the tumor response, globe salvage, mortality, and safety profile of IAC in the Malaysian profile.

Materials And Methods: This was a retrospective, interventional case series. A total of 22 eyes of 20 patients with RB who underwent IAC using melphalan and topotecan from January 2018 to December 2021 in Hospital Kuala Lumpur were retrospectively reviewed.

Synthetic developmental biology: molecular tools to re-design plant shoots and roots.

Plant morphology and anatomy strongly influence agricultural yield. Crop domestication has strived for desirable growth and developmental traits, such as larger and more fruits and semi-dwarf architecture. Genetic engineering has accelerated rational, purpose-driven engineering of plant development, but it can be unpredictable.

Mechanical conflict caused by a cell-wall-loosening enzyme activates de novo shoot regeneration.

Cellular heterogeneity is a hallmark of multicellular organisms. During shoot regeneration from undifferentiated callus, only a select few cells, called progenitors, develop into shoot. How these cells are selected and what governs their subsequent progression to a patterned organ system is unknown.

Quantitative Hole Mobility Simulation and Validation in Substituted Acenes.

Knowledge of the full phonon spectrum is essential to accurately calculate the dynamic disorder (σ) and hole mobility (μ) in organic semiconductors (OSCs). However, most vibrational spectroscopy techniques under-measure the phonons, thus limiting the phonon validation. Here, we measure and model the full phonon spectrum using multiple spectroscopic techniques and predict μ using σ from only the Γ-point and the full Brillouin zone (FBZ).

Age, Wound Size, and Position of Injury - Dependent Vascular Regeneration Assay in Growing Leaves.

Recurring damage to the aerial organs of plants necessitates their prompt repair, particularly their vasculature. While vascular regeneration assays for aerial plant parts such as the stem and inflorescence stalk are well established, those for leaf vasculature remain unexplored. Recently, we established a new vascular regeneration assay in growing leaves and discovered the underlying molecular mechanism.

A Study on the Impact of the Novel Biochemical Parameter-Calcium Score in Preventing the Progression of the Cardiovascular Diseases to Invasive Interventions.

Cardiovascular diseases is increasing its pace day by day. Though the traditional biomarkers are made available the novel biomarkers are being incorporated to predict the risk of cardiovascular diseases for earlier detection. The present study aimed to investigate the impact of calcium score level the novel biochemical parameter in preventing the progression of the cardiovascular patients to PTCA (percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty) and CABG (coronary artery bypass grafting).

Correlation between Color and Elasticity in Shells: Biological Design to Enhance the Mechanical Properties.

(Oyster) shell has an inorganic "pseudo nacre" microstructure that is colored (white, yellow, orange, and red) with varying concentrations of organic polyene pigments. Using Brillouin laser light scattering, we measured the elastic constants of and Abalone prismatic and nacre microstructures. We find a direct correlation between the polyene concentration and the measured elastic stiffnesses of shells, suggesting that polyene pigment enhances the shell's primary function of mechanical protection.

A coherent feed-forward loop drives vascular regeneration in damaged aerial organs of plants growing in a normal developmental context.

Aerial organs of plants, being highly prone to local injuries, require tissue restoration to ensure their survival. However, knowledge of the underlying mechanism is sparse. In this study, we mimicked natural injuries in growing leaves and stems to study the reunion between mechanically disconnected tissues.

Regrowing the damaged or lost body parts.

Plants display extraordinary ability to revive tissues and organs lost or damaged in injury. This is evident from the root tip restoration and classical experiments in stem demonstrating re-establishment of vascular continuity. While recent studies have begun to unravel the mechanistic understanding of tissue restoration in response to injury in underground plant organs, the molecular mechanisms of the same in aerial organs remain to be ventured deeper.

Intermediate Developmental Phases During Regeneration.

The initial view that regeneration can be a continuum in terms of regulatory mechanisms is gradually changing, and recent evidence points towards the presence of discrete regulatory steps and intermediate phases. Furthermore, regeneration presents an excellent example of a process generating order and pattern, i.e.

Shoot regeneration: a journey from acquisition of competence to completion.

Plants display an extraordinary ability to regenerate complete shoot systems from a tissue fragment or even from a single cell. Upregulation of the determinants of pluripotency during a precise window of time in response to external inductive cues is a key decisive factor for shoot regeneration. A burst of recent studies has begun to provide an understanding of signaling molecules that are instrumental in the making of the regenerative mass, as well as the developmental regulators that are seminal in shaping the pluripotent state.

Fungal Production and Manipulation of Plant Hormones.

Living organisms are part of a highly interconnected web of interactions, characterised by species nurturing, competing, parasitizing and preying on one another. Plants have evolved cooperative as well as defensive strategies to interact with neighbour organisms. Among these, the plant-fungus associations are very diverse, ranging from pathogenic to mutualistic.

De novo assembly of plant body plan: a step ahead of Deadpool.

While in the movie Deadpool it is possible for a human to recreate an arm from scratch, in reality plants can even surpass that. Not only can they regenerate lost parts, but also the whole plant body can be reborn from a few existing cells. Despite the decades old realization that plant cells possess the ability to regenerate a complete shoot and root system, it is only now that the underlying mechanisms are being unraveled.

Protocol: a method to study the direct reprogramming of lateral root primordia to fertile shoots.

Background: Plants have the remarkable property to elaborate entire body plan from any tissue part. The conversion of lateral root primordium (LRP) to shoot is an ideal method for plant propagation and for plant researchers to understand the mechanism underlying trans-differentiation. Until now, however, a robust method that allows the efficient conversion of LRP to shoot is lacking.

Guest dependent Brillouin and Raman scattering studies of zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8) under external pressure.

We have investigated the pressure dependence of the acoustic modes of zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF-8) in different pressure transmitting mediums and also under non-hydrostatic conditions using high pressure Brillouin spectroscopy. Our study shows the pressure induced flexibility and dynamics of ZIF-8 framework as well as a huge increase in the acoustic velocities on applying external pressure, illustrating the role of guest in enhancing the elastic properties of the framework. In fact, the elastic constant C11 of the guest incorporated ZIF-8 increases by ∼183% on applying a pressure of only 1.

Effect of pore occupancy on the acoustic properties of zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF)-8: A Brillouin spectroscopic study at ambient and low temperatures.

Brillouin spectroscopy is used to study the effect of pore occupancy on the elastic constants by incorporating various guest molecules into zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF)-8. A systematic study on the effect of mass and polarizability of the guest has been carried out by incorporating alcohols of varying chain lengths at room temperature. The interaction between the guest and host affects the elastic properties, lifetimes and guest dynamics inside the pores.

Highly Decoupled Graphene Multilayers: Turbostraticity at its Best.

The extraordinary properties of graphene are truly observable when it is suspended, being free from any substrate influence. Here, a new type of multilayer graphene is reported wherein each layer is turbostratically decoupled, resembling suspended graphene in nature, while maintaining high degree of 2D crystallinity. Such defect-free graphene multilayers have been made over large areas by Joule heating of a Ni foil coated with a solid hydrocarbon.