Publications by authors named "Diaz-Martinez L"

Article Synopsis
  • Biomedicine is moving towards decentralized data collection, which improves reproducibility and collaboration across labs.
  • A study evaluated biocytometry, a method using engineered bioparticles, and found it effective for counting target cells at low concentrations, even with varying user expertise.
  • The findings suggest that biocytometry is a practical option for immunophenotyping, allowing for sensitive and scalable analysis of rare cells in diverse samples without needing advanced training.
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Article Synopsis
  • Preterm birth (PTB) is a major public health issue, especially in early pregnancy, and researchers are looking for new biomarkers to identify women at risk.
  • Recent studies suggest that the complement pathway, particularly proteins like factor H, could play a role in the occurrence of spontaneous preterm birth (sPTB).
  • A study involving 355 pregnant women found that lower levels of factor H in the blood during the first trimester were significantly associated with an increased risk of sPTB, highlighting its potential as an early biomarker, though further validation is needed.
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  • This study compares two methods for drying endoscopes after disinfection: a standard drying method (SD) using an endoscope washer-disinfector (EWD) and a novel drying method (ND) using a special device with laminar and turbulent airflow.
  • Results showed that the ND was more effective, with no residual water left in endoscope channels compared to 90% in the SD group, and significantly less bacterial contamination after 14 days.
  • The ND also reduced drying time from over 16 minutes to under 6 minutes, highlighting its efficiency and potential as a better alternative for reprocessing flexible endoscopes.
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: Preterm birth (PTB) remains a significant global health challenge. Previous attempts to predict preterm birth in the first trimester using cervical length have been contradictory. The cervical consistency index (CCI) was introduced to quantify early cervical changes and has shown promise across various clinical scenarios in the mid-trimester, though testing in the first trimester is lacking.

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Background: Ocular trauma is one of the most important causes of ocular morbidity and inadequate visual acuity in developed and developing countries. In some countries, eye trauma is the leading cause of monocular blindness. Studies conducted in developing countries like Colombia suggest that there is a lack of awareness of preventive measures.

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Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) are increasingly becoming the first, and perhaps only, research experience for many biology students. Responsible and ethical conduct of research (RECR) is crucial for the integrity of scientific research and essential for students to have an understanding of the scientific process at any academic level. However, there is a current lack of RECR education in biology CUREs.

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Nervous necrosis virus, NNV, is a neurotropic virus that causes viral nervous necrosis disease in a wide range of fish species, including European sea bass (). NNV has a bisegmented (+) ssRNA genome consisting of RNA1, which encodes the RNA polymerase, and RNA2, encoding the capsid protein. The most prevalent NNV species in sea bass is red-spotted grouper nervous necrosis virus (RGNNV), causing high mortality in larvae and juveniles.

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Most studies on the benefits of participation in undergraduate research (UGR) use data from student participants in undergraduate research programs (URPs), which offer a limited number of positions. In reality, however, the majority of UGR students participate in undergraduate research not in programs (URNPs). The authors conducted an institution-wide study at a Hispanic-serving institution to examine the relationship between academic success and participation in these two UGR modalities.

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Beneficial microorganisms are used to stimulate the germination of seeds; however, their growth-promoting mechanisms remain largely unexplored. Bacillus subtilis is commonly found in association with different plant organs, providing protection against pathogens or stimulating plant growth. We report that application of B.

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Purpose: Preterm birth (PTB) is a public health issue. Interventions to prolong the length of gestation have not achieved the expected results, as the selection of population at risk of PTB is still a challenge. Cervical length (CL) is the most accepted biomarker, however in the best scenario the CL identifies half of the patients.

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Congenital heart defects have been associated with adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes due to factors that result in a hypoxic-ischemic cerebral cumulative effect. We present a pair of fraternal twins: the first twin was healthy, and the second was born with a complex congenital heart defect (CCHD). They were followed for growth and neurodevelopmental outcomes to determine the comparative effect of exposure to a CCHD.

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An epidemic of Zika virus (ZIKV) infection began in Colombia in October 2015. Previous studies have identified a cause-effect relationship between fetal exposure to the ZIKV and the development of microcephaly and other central nervous system (CNS) anomalies with variable degrees of neurodevelopmental delay. Less is known about the neurodevelopmental outcome of infants without CNS anomalies born to symptomatic ZIKV RT-PCR-positive women.

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In the course of experiments aimed at deciphering the inhibition mechanism of mycophenolic acid and ribavirin in hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, we observed an inhibitory effect of the nucleoside guanosine (Gua). Here, we report that Gua, and not the other standard nucleosides, inhibits HCV replication in human hepatoma cells. Gua did not directly inhibit the in vitro polymerase activity of NS5B, but it modified the intracellular levels of nucleoside di- and tri-phosphates (NDPs and NTPs), leading to deficient HCV RNA replication and reduction of infectious progeny virus production.

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Transplacental transmission of Zika virus has been reported during all trimesters of pregnancy and might lead to central nervous system anomalies, including microcephaly. We report 3 cases of perinatal Zika infection identified during the epidemic in Colombia and provide detailed descriptions of clinical features, diagnosis, and neurodevelopmental outcome at 18 months of age (corrected).

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Introduction: In October 2015, an epidemic of Zika began in Colombia's geographic areas with a high population of mosquitoes of the genus Aedes. We aimed to describe the fetal brain ultrasound findings in pregnant women with active symptoms or a history of symptoms suggestive of Zika virus (ZIKV) infection.

Material And Methods: Eligible pregnant women were tested with reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for ZIKV and followed prospectively using detailed anatomic ultrasound and transvaginal neurosonography to detect structural anomalies of the fetal central nervous system (CNS).

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Bacterial communities are in a continuous adaptive and evolutionary race for survival. In this work we expand our knowledge on the chemical interplay and specific mutations that modulate the transition from antagonism to co-existence between two plant-beneficial bacteria, Pseudomonas chlororaphis PCL1606 and Bacillus amyloliquefaciens FZB42. We reveal that the bacteriostatic activity of bacillaene produced by Bacillus relies on an interaction with the protein elongation factor FusA of P.

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Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs), which often engage students as early as freshman year, have become increasingly common in biology curricula. While many studies have highlighted the benefits of CUREs, little attention has been paid to responsible and ethical conduct of research (RECR) education in such contexts. Given this observation, we adopted a mixed methods approach to explore the extent to which RECR education is being implemented and assessed in biological sciences CUREs nationwide.

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Bacillus cereus is a common food-borne pathogen that is responsible for important outbreaks of food poisoning in humans. Diseases caused by B. cereus usually exhibit two major symptoms, emetic or diarrheic, depending on the toxins produced.

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Objective: To design and validate a scale to evaluate the quality of life in children and adolescents with epilepsy.

Methods: Scale validation, multicentered, three-phase study. We did a literature review for the construction of the instrument, and a validation of appearance, construct, criterion, and reproducibility.

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Article Synopsis
  • Cohesin is a protein complex important for 3D genome organization, sister chromatid cohesion, and DNA repair but its ubiquitination mechanisms are not well understood.
  • Researchers used gene editing to tag cohesin components in human cells and identified the USP13 deubiquitinase as a key interacting protein with cohesin.
  • USP13 is essential for regulating cohesin's ubiquitination and its interaction with chromatin during cell division, though it does not affect sister chromatid cohesion directly.
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Introduction: Low back pain is one of the main causes of work disability in Mexico, conservative treatment includes performing exercises.

Objective: To assess the effects of lower back pain with a controlled exercise program to improve flexibility and strength in the core or center of the body.

Material And Methods: We included 18 people, 12 women and six men between 24 and 70 years of age, with low back pain, with a score of 2 to 10 using the visual analogue scale (VAS), with or without referred pain in the lower limb.

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is the main causal agent of powdery mildew in cucurbits and, arguably, the most important fungal pathogen of cucurbit crops. Here, we present the first reference genome assembly for . We performed a hybrid genome assembly, using reads from Illumina NextSeq550 and PacBio Sequel S3.

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Bacteria can form biofilms that consist of multicellular communities embedded in an extracellular matrix (ECM). In Bacillus subtilis, the main protein component of the ECM is the functional amyloid TasA. Here, we study further the roles played by TasA in B.

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Pentraxin-3 has been reported as a promising biomarker of pre-eclampsia and its severity; however, available studies have small sample sizes, and analyses are not always adjusted for confounders. The aim of this study is to establish the strength of the association between maternal Pentraxin-3 level and pre-eclampsia or HELLP syndrome. It was a case-control study.

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This study presents a correlation between prenatal ultrasonographic images and neuropathologic findings of postmortem tissue samples from five confirmed cases of perinatal Zika virus (ZIKV) infection belonging to the cohort of the ZEN Initiative in Bucaramanga, Colombia. Deaths occurred between June 2016 and March 2017. Mothers consulted with ZIKV infection clinical manifestations or fetal central nervous system (CNS) abnormalities or both.

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