EJNMMI Radiopharm Chem
January 2025
Background: (S)-4-(3-F-Fluoropropyl)-ʟ-glutamic acid ([F]FSPG) is a positron emission tomography radiotracer used to image system x, an antiporter that is upregulated in several cancers. Not only does imaging system x with [F]FSPG identify tumours, but it can also provide an early readout of response and resistance to therapy. Unfortunately, the clinical production of [F]FSPG has been hampered by a lack of robust, cGMP-compliant methods.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe eastern or Tasmanian bettong ( ) is one of four extant bettong species and is listed as 'Near Threatened' by the IUCN. We sequenced short read data on the 10x system to generate a reference genome 3.46Gb in size and contig N50 of 87.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) are essential to care for the growing number of individuals with advanced illness given the shortage of palliative care clinicians.
Problem: Graduate education for specialty practice palliative APRNs lacks consistency in structure, content, and standardization of specialty palliative APRN education.
Approach: A workgroup of expert palliative APRNs and graduate faculty conducted focused discussions and a literature review to develop consensus recommendations based on national palliative APRN competencies and aligned with the 8 core concepts of the AACN Essentials.
Aim: To assess the clinical outcomes of patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest attended by prehospital critical care teams compared to non-critical care teams.
Methods: This review was prospectively registered with PROSPERO and the eligibility criteria followed a PICOST framework for ILCOR systematic reviews. Prehospital critical care was defined as any provider with enhanced clinical competencies beyond standard advanced life support algorithms and dedicated dispatch to critically ill patients.
Background And Objective: Personal wheelchair budgets (PWBs) are offered to everyone in England eligible for a wheelchair provided through the National Health Service (NHS) to support their choice of equipment. The WATCh (Wheelchair outcomes Assessment Tool for Children) and related WATCh-Ad for adults are patient-centred outcome measures (PCOMs) developed to help individual users express their main outcome needs when obtaining a wheelchair and rate their satisfaction with subsequent outcomes after receiving their equipment. Use was explored in a real-world setting, aiming to produce guidance for use alongside the PWB process.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFElicitation of HIV broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs) by vaccination first requires the activation of diverse precursors, followed by successive boosts that guide these responses to enhanced breadth through the acquisition of somatic mutations. Because HIV bnAbs contain mutations in their B cell receptors (BCRs) that are rarely generated during conventional B cell maturation, HIV vaccine immunogens must robustly engage and expand B cells with BCRs that contain these improbable mutations. Here, we engineered an immunogen that activates diverse precursors of an HIV V3-glycan bnAb and promotes their acquisition of a functionally critical improbable mutation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMultidisciplinary collaboration is key to strengthening the evidence base for multifaceted illness prevention interventions. We bring together health economics and behavioral science to explore the well-being benefits and social cost-benefit of volunteer gardening at an accredited botanic garden, Wales, UK. A health economics-informed social return on investment (SROI) evaluation was combined with the assessment of volunteers' basic psychological needs (autonomy, competence, and relatedness), connection to nature, and their interrelatedness in this innovative nature-based intervention study.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: We observed that the tumor microenvironment (TME) in metastatic epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) and in other solid tumors can reprogram normal neutrophils to acquire a complement-dependent suppressor phenotype characterized by inhibition of stimulated T cell activation. This study aims to evaluate whether serum markers of neutrophil activation and complement at diagnosis of EOC would be associated with clinical outcomes.
Experimental Design: We conducted a two-center prospective study of patients with newly diagnosed EOC (N = 188).
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View Article and Find Full Text PDFLower educational attainment has been linked to worse pain in individuals with chronic pain, but the mechanisms of this relationship are not fully elucidated. This observational study analyzed the relationship between educational attainment and pain in patients with fibromyalgia (FM) and the potential psychological mechanisms driving this relationship. We hypothesized that (1) lower educational attainment would be associated with greater pain intensity and interference, and that (2) concerns about pain (CAP), anxiety, and depression would mediate the relationship between educational attainment and pain.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThere has been a predominant focus on psychosocial risk factors associated with poor pain outcomes among individuals with chronic pain. However, it is also important to identify resilience factors that may mitigate the negative impact of or confer successful adaptation to pain. We argue for a dual-focus approach that evaluates the contributions of both risk and resilience factors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Back pain is increasingly common, leading to more spine surgeries. While most people experience pain relief and improved function after surgery, many continue to suffer from chronic post-surgical pain (CPSP) with limited functional improvement. CPSP is often treated with opioids, raising concerns about misuse, poor functional outcomes, and broader public health impacts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF(HNVs), a genus within the family, includes the highly virulent Nipah and Hendra viruses that cause yearly reoccurring outbreaks of deadly disease. Recent discoveries of several new species, including the zoonotic Langya virus, have revealed much higher antigenic diversity than currently characterized. Here, to explore the limits of structural and antigenic variation in HNVs, we construct an expanded, antigenically diverse panel of HNV fusion (F) and attachment (G) glycoproteins from 56 unique HNV strains that better reflects global HNV diversity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe impact of cooking with solid fuels on neighborhood-scale PM concentrations in rural towns and communities is poorly quantified due to the lack of credible ground-level monitoring sites and spatial heterogeneity at a scale that is below the resolution of remote sensing GEOS-Chem hybrid models. Emissions of PM from use of open fires for cooking in rural Mexico are known to cause poor indoor air quality. The effectiveness of different intervention strategies to reduce such pollution exposures also varies because of different local building densities and source intensities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study, a multi-site prospective longitudinal cohort study, will examine human brain, cognitive, behavioral, social, and emotional development beginning prenatally and planned through early childhood. The goal is to recruit over 7000 caregiver-child dyads across the United States, with 25 % of the study population comprising children exposed in utero to substances to better understanding the effects of prenatal substance exposure on fetal and child development. However, barriers of mistrust for pregnant persons who are substance involved can create challenges to recruiting and retaining this population.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMutations in the NRF2-KEAP1 pathway are common in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and confer broad-spectrum therapeutic resistance, leading to poor outcomes. Currently, there is no means to non-invasively identify NRF2 activation in living subjects. Here, we show that positron emission tomography imaging with the system x radiotracer, [F]FSPG, provides a sensitive and specific marker of NRF2 activation in orthotopic, patient-derived, and genetically engineered mouse models of NSCLC.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Rehabilitation in hospital is effective in reducing mortality after hip fracture. However, there is uncertainty over optimal in-hospital rehabilitation treatment ingredients, and the generalizability of trial findings to subgroups of patients systematically excluded from previous trials. The aim of this study is to determine the feasibility of a randomized controlled trial which aims to assess the clinical- and cost-effectiveness of adding a stratified care intervention to usual care designed to improve outcomes of acute rehabilitation for all older adults after hip fracture.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: In the United Kingdom, it is estimated that 5,000 patients sustain eye injuries or ocular trauma requiring hospital admission annually, of which 250 patients will be permanently blinded. This study explores the cost-effectiveness of Adjunctive Steroid Combination in Ocular Trauma (ASCOT) given during surgery versus standard treatment in vitreoretinal surgery in patients with open globe trauma.
Methods: This economic evaluation was embedded alongside the ASCOT RCT (ClinicalTrials.
Familial syringomas were diagnosed in a 37-year-old female with lesions on the vulva/face/trunk and with periorbital lesions in family members. A correct and early diagnosis of vulvar syringomas is important as these can be erroneously diagnosed as a STI (warts/molluscum contagiosum) which may result in unnecessary psychological distress.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: The B cell antigen receptor (BCR) complex, comprised of antigen recognition and signaling components, functions in initiating B cell activation. While structural studies have described BCR domain organization, gaps remain in our understanding of its antigen binding domain (Fab, fragment antigen-binding) disposition, and how antigen binding is sensed to initiate signaling. Here, we report antigen affinity and signaling of the immunoglobulin (Ig) class IgM and IgG BCRs and define conformational states of full-length BCRs of two human broadly neutralizing antibodies, the glycan-specific, heavy chain domain-swapped, I-shaped 2G12, and a canonical Y-shaped antibody, CH31, that recognizes the CD4-binding site on the HIV-1 Envelope protein (Env).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMotivation: Phage therapy is a viable alternative for treating bacterial infections amidst the escalating threat of antimicrobial resistance. However, the therapeutic success of phage therapy depends on selecting safe and effective phage candidates. While experimental methods focus on isolating phages and determining their lifecycle and host range, comprehensive genomic screening is critical to identify markers that indicate potential risks, such as toxins, antimicrobial resistance, or temperate lifecycle traits.
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