Use of epigenetically modified bacteriophage and dual beta-lactams to treat a Mycobacterium abscessus sternal wound infection.

Nontuberculous mycobacterium (NTM) infections are challenging to manage and are frequently non-responsive to aggressive but poorly-tolerated antibiotic therapies. Immunosuppressed lung transplant patients are susceptible to NTM infections and poor patient outcomes are common. Bacteriophages present an alternative treatment option and are associated with favorable clinical outcomes.

A Quality Improvement Initiative to Reduce Pediatrician Burnout Led by the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Internal Medicine and Pediatrics (Med-Peds).

Physician burnout impacts care (of self and patient), productivity, longevity of career, and overall cost to the system. While burnout rates for pediatricians are lower than average, they have not improved significantly over time. While strategies at the system level have been more successful than those at the individual level, both aspects are vital.

Safety and efficacy of hydroxychloroquine as prophylactic against COVID-19 in healthcare workers: a meta-analysis of randomised clinical trials.

Objective: We studied the safety and efficacy of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) as pre-exposure prophylaxis for COVID-19 in healthcare workers (HCWs), using a meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials (RCTs).

Data Sources: PubMed and EMBASE databases were searched to identify randomised trials studying HCQ.

Study Selection: Ten RCTs were identified (n=5079 participants).

Utility of Urine Cultures During Febrile Neutropenia Workup in Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation Recipients Without Urinary Symptoms.

The utility of obtaining screening urine cultures for febrile neutropenia (FN) during hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HCT) is unknown. In 667 adult HCT patients with FN, only 40 (6%) were found with bacteriuria. Antibiotics were modified in 3 patients (0.

Hydroxychloroquine for pre-exposure prophylaxis of COVID-19 in health care workers: a randomized, multicenter, placebo-controlled trial Healthcare Worker Exposure Response and Outcomes of Hydroxychloroquine (HERO-HCQ).

Objectives: To determine whether hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) is safe and effective at preventing COVID-19 infections among health care workers (HCWs).

Methods: In a 1: 1 randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind, parallel-group, superiority trial at 34 US clinical centers, 1360 HCWs at risk for COVID-19 infection were enrolled between April and November 2020. Participants were randomized to HCQ or matched placebo.

Scintillation light detection in the 6-m drift-length ProtoDUNE Dual Phase liquid argon TPC.

DUNE is a dual-site experiment for long-baseline neutrino oscillation studies, neutrino astrophysics and nucleon decay searches. ProtoDUNE Dual Phase (DP) is a 6   6   6 m liquid argon time-projection-chamber (LArTPC) that recorded cosmic-muon data at the CERN Neutrino Platform in 2019-2020 as a prototype of the DUNE Far Detector. Charged particles propagating through the LArTPC produce ionization and scintillation light.

Evaluating the Impact of a Pilot Nationwide Webinar Series on National Med-Peds Residents' Association Membership.

Background: As the COVID-19 pandemic significantly reduced the ability of medical students to travel and interact directly with combined Internal Medicine-Pediatrics (Med-Peds) residency programs, medical students desiring appropriate guidance and information about Med-Peds residency training needed a national forum for information during an unprecedented virtual recruitment year.

Objective: To develop a nationally coordinated webinar series for medical students and student advisors to learn about the Med-Peds specialty for residency training to keep applicant numbers and applicant interest from significantly falling.

Methods: A national webinar series focusing on general Med-Peds information, career interests, and tailored advising was created amongst the three national Med-Peds organizations over a three-month period in Spring 2020.

Prospects for beyond the Standard Model physics searches at the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment: DUNE Collaboration.

The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) will be a powerful tool for a variety of physics topics. The high-intensity proton beams provide a large neutrino flux, sampled by a near detector system consisting of a combination of capable precision detectors, and by the massive far detector system located deep underground. This configuration sets up DUNE as a machine for discovery, as it enables opportunities not only to perform precision neutrino measurements that may uncover deviations from the present three-flavor mixing paradigm, but also to discover new particles and unveil new interactions and symmetries beyond those predicted in the Standard Model (SM).

Design of the Healthcare Worker Exposure Response and Outcomes (HERO) research platform.

Background: The SARS CoV-2 virus has caused one of the deadliest pandemics in recent history, resulting in over 170 million deaths and global economic disruption. There remains an urgent need for clinical trials to test therapies for treatment and prevention.

Design: An online research platform was created to support a registry community of healthcare workers (HCWs) to understand their experiences and conduct clinical studies to address their concerns.

Perceptions of Resident Autonomy in Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, and Internal Medicine-Pediatrics.

Background: Although graduated autonomy is an essential component of residency training, we have an incomplete understanding of resident and attending faculty perceptions of autonomy.

Objective: In this study, we assessed differences in perceived autonomy among residents and faculty in pediatrics, internal medicine, and combined internal medicine-pediatrics.

Methods: We surveyed senior-level (PGY-2-5) residents and faculty in pediatrics, internal medicine, and combined internal medicine-pediatrics in three large, urban training centers in November 2014.

Virtual Med-Peds: Description of the First Virtual Med-Peds Student Elective During COVID-19.

For medical students seeking additional specialty experience in Med-Peds, in-person electives have often been a source of mentorship and guidance. The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the ability for the completion of in-person clerkships for medical students across the nation. Virtual opportunities to increase exposure to Med-Peds programs and didactics are lacking at this time.

Plants and earthworms control soil carbon and water quality trade-offs in turfgrass mesocosms.

Understanding how plants and earthworms regulate soil-based ecosystem services can guide design and management of built environments to improve environmental quality. We tested whether plant and earthworm activity results in trade-offs between soil carbon (C) retention and water quality. In a 2 × 2 factorial random block design, we introduced shrubs (Aronia melanocarpa) and earthworms (Lumbricus terrestris) to turfgrass (Lolium perenne) sandy loam mesocosms in a greenhouse.

Correction to: Building houses and managing lawns could limit yard soil carbon for centuries.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.

Building houses and managing lawns could limit yard soil carbon for centuries.

Background: Comparisons of soil carbon (C) pools across land uses can be confounded by site-specific history. To better quantify the response of soil C pools to residential development and use, we compared yard soils (n = 20) to adjacent mown fields and second-growth forests within land-use clusters (LUC; n = 12). Land uses within clusters shared site-specific legacies (land use and other soil forming history) prior to residential development (15-227 years ago).

Development of a gene-editing approach to restore vision loss in Leber congenital amaurosis type 10.

Leber congenital amaurosis type 10 is a severe retinal dystrophy caused by mutations in the CEP290 gene. We developed EDIT-101, a candidate genome-editing therapeutic, to remove the aberrant splice donor created by the IVS26 mutation in the CEP290 gene and restore normal CEP290 expression. Key to this therapeutic, we identified a pair of Staphylococcus aureus Cas9 guide RNAs that were highly active and specific to the human CEP290 target sequence.

Pairwise library screen systematically interrogates Staphylococcus aureus Cas9 specificity in human cells.

Therapeutic genome editing with Staphylococcus aureus Cas9 (SaCas9) requires a rigorous understanding of its potential off-target activity in the human genome. Here we report a high-throughput screening approach to measure SaCas9 genome editing variation in human cells across a large repertoire of 88,692 single guide RNAs (sgRNAs) paired with matched or mismatched target sites in a synthetic cassette. We incorporate randomized barcodes that enable whitelisting of correctly synthesized molecules for further downstream analysis, in order to circumvent the limitation of oligonucleotide synthesis errors.

Organic horizon and mineral soil mercury along three clear-cut forest chronosequences across the northeastern USA.

Mercury (Hg) is a globally distributed pollutant trace metal that has been increasing in terrestrial environments due to rising anthropogenic emissions. Vegetation plays an important role in Hg sequestration in forested environments, but increasing tree removal for biofuels and wood products may affect this process. The long-term effect of clear-cutting on forest soil Hg remains uncertain, since most studies are limited to measuring changes for < 10 years following a single harvest event.

Exotic Earthworms Decrease Cd, Hg, and Pb Pools in Upland Forest Soils of Vermont and New Hampshire USA.

Exotic earthworms are present in the forests of northeastern USA, yet few studies have documented their effects on pollutant metals in soil. The objective of this study was to identify if Cd, Hg, and Pb strong-acid extractable concentrations and pools (bulk inventories) in forest soils decreased with the presence of exotic earthworms. We compared 'Low Earthworm Abundance' (LEA) sites (≤10 g m earthworms, n = 13) and 'High Earthworm Abundance' (HEA) (>10 g m earthworms, n = 17) sites at five watersheds across Vermont and New Hampshire.

Nutrient and pollutant metals within earthworm residues are immobilized in soil during decomposition.

Earthworms are known to bioaccumulate metals, making them a potential vector for metal transport in soils. However, the fate of metals within soil upon death of earthworms has not been characterized. We compared the fate of nutrient (Ca, Mg, Mn) and potentially toxic (Cu, Zn, Pb) metals during decomposition of and in soil columns.

Conventional intensive logging promotes loss of organic carbon from the mineral soil.

There are few data, but diametrically opposed opinions, about the impacts of forest logging on soil organic carbon (SOC). Reviews and research articles conclude either that there is no effect, or show contradictory effects. Given that SOC is a substantial store of potential greenhouse gasses and forest logging and harvesting is routine, resolution is important.

Forest floor decomposition, metal exchangeability, and metal bioaccumulation by exotic earthworms: Amynthas agrestis and Lumbricus rubellus.

Earthworms have the potential to reduce the retention of pollutant and plant essential metals in the forest floor (organic horizons) by decomposing organic matter and increasing exchangeability of metals. We conducted a laboratory experiment to investigate the effects of two exotic earthworms, Amynthas agrestis and Lumbricus rubellus, on forest floor decomposition, metal exchangeability, and metal bioaccumulation. Eighty-one pots containing homogenized forest floor material were incubated for 20, 40, or 80 days under three treatments: no earthworms, A.

Deactivation of the GATA Transcription Factor ELT-2 Is a Major Driver of Normal Aging in C. elegans.

To understand the molecular processes underlying aging, we screened modENCODE ChIP-seq data to identify transcription factors that bind to age-regulated genes in C. elegans. The most significant hit was the GATA transcription factor encoded by elt-2, which is responsible for inducing expression of intestinal genes during embryogenesis.