Publications by authors named "G Prema Kumara"
Decreasing incidence of hospital diagnosed CKD/CKDu in North Central Province of Sri Lanka: is it related to provision of drinking water reverse osmosis plants?
BMC Nephrol
March 2024
Article Synopsis
- The study examined the impact of reverse osmosis (RO) water on the rates of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in North Central Province (NCP) of Sri Lanka between 2010 and 2020.
- Hospital diagnosis rates of CKD showed a significant increase from 2010 to 2016, but began to decline after 2017, particularly in areas where over 20% of families had access to RO water.
- The findings suggest that access to RO water may contribute to reducing the incidence of CKD/CKDu in communities within NCP.
A procedure based on acid extraction using a mixture of conc. sulfuric and nitric acids (8:1) to recover graphite attached to rock pieces of the vein contact zones of graphite mines, is developed as a sustainable mining practice. When the extracted graphite is heated at 600 °C for 15 min, it is converted to a highly expanded form resembling worm-like structures.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLow-Cost Perovskite Solar Cell Fabricated using the Expanded Graphite Back Contact and Electronically Conducting Activated Carbon as the Hole Transporting Material.
ACS Omega
July 2023
Although perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have reached a record high conversion efficiency of 25.7%, the materials used to fabricate them invoke costly hole-transporting materials, such as spiro-OMeTAD, and expensive gold back contacts. The cost of fabrication of a solar cell or any other practical device is an important issue in their practical applications.
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- This study presents a molecular diagnostic system that combines a colorimetric probe and isothermal gene amplification for rapid and sensitive detection of SARS-CoV-2 at the point of care.
- The system utilizes a visible color change from the RHthio-CuSO probe in response to pyrophosphate released during DNA amplification, achieving detection sensitivity as low as 1.13 copies/reaction within just one hour.
- Its ability to selectively identify SARS-CoV-2 while differentiating it from other respiratory viruses, along with the simplicity of performing the test at a single temperature without any equipment, makes it a promising tool for COVID-19 testing.
In this study we developed a fluorescent double-stranded DNA, incorporating an unnatural dU nucleotide, that we used as a probe for the detection of alkaline phosphatase (ALP) based on enzymatic cleavage of the non-fluorescent complementary strand. Primer extension performed using the unnatural nucleotide triphosphate dUTP and the natural deoxynucleotide triphosphates dATP, dCTP, and dGTP provided a simple fluorescent DNA strand that hybridized with the 5́-monophosphate non-fluorescent complementary strand. When applying the 5́-phosphate recognition and cleavage properties of lambda exonuclease (λ-exo), this probe could bind to graphene oxide (GO) and quench the fluorescence (in the absence of ALP) or not bind to GO and retain its fluorescence (in the presence of ALP).
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