Advancing 3D Engineered In Vitro Models for Heart Failure Research: Key Features and Considerations.

Heart failure is characterized by intricate myocardial remodeling that impairs the heart's pumping and/or relaxation capacity, ultimately reducing cardiac output. It represents a major public health burden, given its high prevalence and associated morbidity and mortality rates, which continue to challenge healthcare systems worldwide. Despite advancements in medical science, there are no treatments that address the disease at its core.

Preclinical Models of Cardiac Disease: A Comprehensive Overview for Clinical Scientists.

For recent decades, cardiac diseases have been the leading cause of death and morbidity worldwide. Despite significant achievements in their management, profound understanding of disease progression is limited. The lack of biologically relevant and robust preclinical disease models that truly grasp the molecular underpinnings of cardiac disease and its pathophysiology attributes to this stagnation, as well as the insufficiency of platforms that effectively explore novel therapeutic avenues.

Readthrough compounds for nonsense mutations: bridging the translational gap.

Approximately 10% of all pathological mutations are nonsense mutations that are responsible for several severe genetic diseases for which no treatment regimens are currently available. The most widespread strategy for treating nonsense mutations is by enhancing ribosomal readthrough of premature termination codons (PTCs) to restore the production of the full-length protein. In the past decade several compounds with readthrough potential have been identified.

Emotions as guardians of group norms: expressions of anger and disgust drive inferences about autonomy and purity violations.

Other people's emotional reactions to a third person's behaviour are potentially informative about what is appropriate within a given situation. We investigated whether and how observers' inferences of such injunctive norms are shaped by expressions of anger and disgust. Building on the moral emotions literature, we hypothesised that angry and disgusted expressions produce relative differences in the strength of autonomy-based versus purity-based norm inferences.

[Effectiveness of influenza vaccine in the Netherlands: predominant circulating virus type and vaccine match are important conditions].

Objective: To investigate the relationship between circulating influenza virus A types and subtypes and influenza B lineages, their match with the vaccine and the effectiveness of the influenza vaccine (IVE).

Design: Test negative case control study.

Method: We used data from the Dutch Sentinel Practices of the Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research (NIVEL) Primary Care Database.

Influenza vaccine effectiveness estimates in the Dutch population from 2003 to 2014: The test-negative design case-control study with different control groups.

Information about influenza vaccine effectiveness (IVE) is important for vaccine strain selection and immunization policy decisions. The test-negative design (TND) case-control study is commonly used to obtain IVE estimates. However, the definition of the control patients may influence IVE estimates.

Evaluation of the immunogenicity and safety of different doses and formulations of a broad spectrum influenza vaccine (FLU-v) developed by SEEK: study protocol for a single-center, randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled clinical phase IIb trial.

Background: Current influenza vaccines, based on antibodies against surface antigens, are unable to provide protection against newly emerging virus strains which differ from the vaccine strains. Therefore the population has to be re-vaccinated annually. It is thus important to develop vaccines which induce protective immunity to a broad spectrum of influenza viruses.

Evaluating the immunogenicity and safety of a BiondVax-developed universal influenza vaccine (Multimeric-001) either as a standalone vaccine or as a primer to H5N1 influenza vaccine: Phase IIb study protocol.

Introduction: Influenza is a major respiratory viral infection of humans with high mortality and morbidity rates and profound economic impact. Although influenza vaccines are generally updated yearly to match the viruses expected in the coming season, genetic mutation and reassortment can result in unexpected novel strains. Therefore, it is important to develop universal vaccines inducing protective immunity to such strains before they appear.

Occurrence, Predictors, and Prognosis of Alcohol Withdrawal Syndrome and Delirium Tremens Following Traumatic Injury.

Objectives: We sought to determine occurrence, predictors, and prognosis of alcohol withdrawal syndrome and delirium tremens in patients with traumatic injury.

Design: Retrospective multicenter cohort study.

Setting: Three U.

Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness in the Netherlands from 2003/2004 through 2013/2014: The Importance of Circulating Influenza Virus Types and Subtypes.

Influenza vaccine effectiveness (IVE) varies over different influenza seasons and virus (sub)types/lineages. To assess the association between IVE and circulating influenza virus (sub)types/lineages, we estimated the overall and (sub)type specific IVE in the Netherlands. We conducted a test-negative case control study among subjects with influenza-like illness or acute respiratory tract infection consulting the Sentinel Practices over 11 influenza seasons (2003/2004 through 2013/2014) in the Netherlands.

Influenza Vaccine Research funded by the European Commission FP7-Health-2013-Innovation-1 project.

Due to influenza viruses continuously displaying antigenic variation, current seasonal influenza vaccines must be updated annually to include the latest predicted strains. Despite all the efforts put into vaccine strain selection, vaccine production, testing, and administration, the protective efficacy of seasonal influenza vaccines is greatly reduced when predicted vaccine strains antigenically mismatch with the actual circulating strains. Moreover, preparing for a pandemic outbreak is a challenge, because it is unpredictable which strain will cause the next pandemic.

Meta-Analysis on Randomized Controlled Trials of Vaccines with QS-21 or ISCOMATRIX Adjuvant: Safety and Tolerability.

Background And Objectives: QS-21 shows in vitro hemolytic effect and causes side effects in vivo. New saponin adjuvant formulations with better toxicity profiles are needed. This study aims to evaluate the safety and tolerability of QS-21 and the improved saponin adjuvants (ISCOM, ISCOMATRIX and Matrix-M™) from vaccine trials.

Safety and tolerability evaluation of the use of Montanide ISA™51 as vaccine adjuvant: A systematic review.

Montanide ISA™51 (ISA 51) is a vaccine adjuvant which has been tested in therapeutic and prophylactic vaccine trials. The aim of this review is to present a comprehensive examination of the safety and tolerability of ISA 51 containing vaccines. A systematic literature search was conducted in PubMed, EMBASE and clinicaltrials.

National Differences in Requirements for Ethical and Competent Authority Approval for a Multinational Vaccine Trial under the EU Directive 2001/20/EC.

Obtaining approval for a multinational vaccine trial from an ethics committee and the national competent authority of different Member States of the European Union (EU) is challenging under clinical trial Directive 2001/20/EC because of the differences in the implementation of the directive in national laws of Member States. In this review the national differences in requirements for ethical and competent authority approval are illustrated. The national ethical and competent authority review procedures in Finland, Hungary, The Netherlands, Norway and Slovenia are described under the EU trial directive after discussing the provisions of the trial directive related to both review procedures.

Deriving meaning from others' emotions: attribution, appraisal, and the use of emotions as social information.

Emotional expressions constitute a rich source of information. Integrating theorizing on attribution, appraisal processes, and the use of emotions as social information, we examined how emotional expressions influence attributions of agency and responsibility under conditions of ambiguity. Three vignette studies involving different scenarios indicate that participants used information about others' emotional expressions to make sense of ambiguous social situations.

How instructors' emotional expressions shape students' learning performance: the roles of anger, happiness, and regulatory focus.

How do instructors' emotional expressions influence students' learning performance? Scholars and practitioners alike have emphasized the importance of positive, nurturing emotions for successful learning. However, teachers may sometimes lose their temper and express anger at their pupils. Drawing on emotions as social information (EASI) theory, we hypothesized that expressions of anger can benefit learning performance.

Emotion and the construal of social situations: inferences of cooperation versus competition from expressions of anger, happiness, and disappointment.

The notion that emotional expressions regulate social life by providing information is gaining popularity. Prior research on the effects of emotional expressions on observers' inferential processes has focused mostly on inferences regarding the personality traits of the expresser, such as dominance and affiliation. We extend this line of research by exploring the possibility that emotional expressions shape observers' construal of social situations.

Prevalence of delayed gastric emptying in diabetic patients and relationship to dyspeptic symptoms: a prospective study in unselected diabetic patients.

Objective: Data on the prevalence of abnormal gastric emptying in diabetic patients are still lacking. The relation between gastric emptying and dyspeptic symptoms assessed during gastric emptying measurement has not yet been investigated. The aim was to investigate the prevalence of delayed gastric emptying in a large cohort of unselected diabetic patients and to investigate the relation between gastric emptying and gastrointestinal sensations experienced in the 2 weeks before and during the test meal, prospectively.

Autism and mental retardation: the planning of a therapeutic environment.

Autism and mental retardation are concepts of a different level. The combination of these concepts in the mentally retarded autistic child requires a specific therapeutic environment. This therapeutic environment must take full account of both the child's limited cognitive potentials and the specific needs and limitations on the basis of autism.

Disc diffusion test for the determination of semi-quantitative substrate profiles of beta-lactamases.

The incorporation of beta-lactamases from crude, cell-free lysates incorporated into agar plates used for antibiotic sensitivity testing with sensitivity discs results in a characteristic decrease in the inhibition zones. The degree of zone reduction for a particular antibiotic depends on the substrate specificity of the enzyme involved and the concentration of the enzyme in the agar. By using this technique a distinction can be made between cephalosporinases, penicillinases and broad-spectrum enzymes.

A simple method for the identification of aminoglycoside-modifying enzymes.

In order to study the correlation between the presence of aminoglycoside-modifying enzymes in bacteria and the susceptibility of these bacteria to aminoglycosides, 133 resistant strains were collected, representing the most frequently occurring modifying enzymes in clinical isolates today. Enzymes in these resistant strains were identified by the determination of substrate profiles for eight different aminoglycosides in vitro. Thirteen different enzymes or combinations of enzymes appeared to be present in this collection, whereas in seven cases the resistance appeared to be non-enzyme-mediated.

Oxygen consumption by Campylobacter sputorum subspecies Bubulus with formate as substrate.

The kinetics of oxygen utilization by the microaerophile Campylobacter sputorium subspecies bubulus was studied. With formate as substrate two enzyme systems were found to be responsible for electron transfer between formate and oxygen. In the case of lactate oxidation one enzyme system could account for the activity measured.