Addressing COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy: A content analysis of government social media platforms in England and Italy during 2020-2021.

Objectives: This study investigates how England's and Italy's Public Health Governmental Departments addressed COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy (VH) on social media platforms.

Study Design: A conventional content analysis of the social media accounts of Public Health England (PHE), currently the UK Health Security Agency, and the Italian Ministry of Health (IMH) were performed during December 1st, 2020-April 30th, 2021.

Methods: A total of 531 and 110 posts were extracted from the accounts of PHE and the IMH respectively.

Clinical and health economic evaluation of a post-stroke arrhythmia monitoring service.

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a major cause of recurrent stroke and transient ischaemic attack (TIA) in the UK. As many patients can have asymptomatic paroxysmal AF, prolonged arrhythmia monitoring is advised in selected patients following a stroke or TIA. This service evaluation assessed the clinical and potential health economic impact of prolonged arrhythmia monitoring post-stroke using R-TEST monitoring devices.

Health, care or shelter? An exploratory analysis of the factors affecting overall satisfaction with services of residents' relatives in nursing homes.

Residents' relatives are regularly solicited to evaluate the hotel, social- and health-care services that nursing homes provide to the aged in order to preserve their residual cognitive, physical, and social capabilities. In this study we argue that, due to the services' different technical and functional elements, residents' relatives find it easier to assess the quality of the hotel services instead of the other types of services. Based on 2012 responses from residents' relatives in 38 nursing homes in the Northern part of Italy, our results show that satisfaction with hotel services partially mediates the impact of satisfaction with social- and health-care services, above and beyond their direct effect on the overall satisfaction with all services.

Evaluation of myCOPD Digital Self-management Technology in a Remote and Rural Population: Real-world Feasibility Study.

Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a common, costly, and incurable respiratory disease affecting 1.2 million people in the United Kingdom alone. Acute COPD exacerbations requiring hospitalization place significant demands on health services, and the incidence of COPD in poor, remote, and rural populations is up to twice that of cities.

An exploration of the link between residents' demands and caregivers' well-being: Evidence from the long-term healthcare industry.

This study examines the extent to which important personal characteristics of nursing home residents affect the well-being of caregivers, as reflected in their levels of work-related positive and negative affect. To do this, we applied the Job Demands-Resources model to the analysis of caregivers' work-related well-being by focusing on residents' and their . A multiple regression analysis was carried out based on combined data from a sample of 1080 caregivers and 290 residents from 13 nursing homes in Italy.

How breathing can help you make better decisions: Two studies on the effects of breathing patterns on heart rate variability and decision-making in business cases.

Deep slow breathing can increase vagal nerve activity, indexed by heart rate variability (HRV). HRV is also associated with better decision-making. This research examined the effects of two breathing patterns on HRV (Study 1) and on stress and decision-making performance (Study 2).

Cross-talk between human airway epithelial cells and 3T3-J2 feeder cells involves partial activation of human MET by murine HGF.

There is considerable interest in the ex vivo propagation of primary human basal epithelial stem/progenitor cells with a view to their use in drug development, toxicity testing and regenerative medicine. These cells can be expanded in co-culture with mitotically inactivated 3T3-J2 murine embryonic feeder cells but, similar to other epithelial cell culture systems employing 3T3-J2 cells, the aspects of cross-talk between 3T3-J2 cells and human airway basal cells that are critical for their expansion remain largely unknown. In this study, we investigated secreted growth factors that are produced by 3T3-J2 cells and act upon primary human airway basal cells.

Human embryonic lung epithelial tips are multipotent progenitors that can be expanded in vitro as long-term self-renewing organoids.

The embryonic mouse lung is a widely used substitute for human lung development. For example, attempts to differentiate human pluripotent stem cells to lung epithelium rely on passing through progenitor states that have only been described in mouse. The tip epithelium of the branching mouse lung is a multipotent progenitor pool that self-renews and produces differentiating descendants.

Mechanistic overlap between chronic lung injury and cancer: ERS Lung Science Conference 2017 report.

http://ow.ly/mL3Q30coNjY

Epithelial cell migration as a potential therapeutic target in early lung cancer.

Lung cancer is the most lethal cancer type worldwide, with the majority of patients presenting with advanced stage disease. Targeting early stage disease pathogenesis would allow dramatic improvements in lung cancer patient survival. Recently, cell migration has been shown to be an integral process in early lung cancer ontogeny, with preinvasive lung cancer cells shown to migrate across normal epithelium prior to developing into invasive disease.

microRNAs and DICER1 are regulated by 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D in prostate stroma.

Vitamin D deficiency increases the risk of lethal prostate adenocarcinomas (PCa) and the majority of older men are deficient. Although PCa arises from the epithelium, the surrounding stroma has hormonal regulatory control over the epithelium and contributes to carcinogenesis. Herein, we describe regulation of microRNAs (miRs) by the active hormone dihydroxyvitamin D (1,25(OH)D) in human prostate stroma.

Expansion of Human Airway Basal Stem Cells and Their Differentiation as 3D Tracheospheres.

Although basal cells function as human airway epithelial stem cells, analysis of these cells is limited by in vitro culture techniques that permit only minimal cell growth and differentiation. Here, we report a protocol that dramatically increases the long-term expansion of primary human airway basal cells while maintaining their genomic stability using 3T3-J2 fibroblast coculture and ROCK inhibition. We also describe techniques for the differentiation and imaging of these expanded airway stem cells as three-dimensional tracheospheres containing basal, ciliated, and mucosecretory cells.

CADM1 inhibits squamous cell carcinoma progression by reducing STAT3 activity.

Although squamous cell carcinomas (SqCCs) of the lungs, head and neck, oesophagus, and cervix account for up to 30% of cancer deaths, the mechanisms that regulate disease progression remain incompletely understood. Here, we use gene transduction and human tumor xenograft assays to establish that the tumour suppressor Cell adhesion molecule 1 (CADM1) inhibits SqCC proliferation and invasion, processes fundamental to disease progression. We determine that the extracellular domain of CADM1 mediates these effects by forming a complex with HER2 and integrin α6β4 at the cell surface that disrupts downstream STAT3 activity.

Rapid Expansion of Human Epithelial Stem Cells Suitable for Airway Tissue Engineering.

Rationale: Stem cell-based tracheal replacement represents an emerging therapeutic option for patients with otherwise untreatable airway diseases including long-segment congenital tracheal stenosis and upper airway tumors. Clinical experience demonstrates that restoration of mucociliary clearance in the lungs after transplantation of tissue-engineered grafts is critical, with preclinical studies showing that seeding scaffolds with autologous mucosa improves regeneration. High epithelial cell-seeding densities are required in regenerative medicine, and existing techniques are inadequate to achieve coverage of clinically suitable grafts.

Real-life experience with liver iron concentration R2 MRI measurement in patients with hemoglobinopathies: baseline data from LICNET.

Background: Real-life data on the use of R2 MRI for the assessment of liver iron concentration (LIC) remain limited.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional analysis on 363 patients (mean age 35.6 yr, 44.

An official American Thoracic Society workshop report: stem cells and cell therapies in lung biology and diseases.

The University of Vermont College of Medicine and the Vermont Lung Center, in collaboration with the NHLBI, Alpha-1 Foundation, American Thoracic Society, European Respiratory Society, International Society for Cell Therapy, and the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation, convened a workshop, "Stem Cells and Cell Therapies in Lung Biology and Lung Diseases," held July 29 to August 1, 2013 at the University of Vermont. The conference objectives were to review the current understanding of the role of stem and progenitor cells in lung repair after injury and to review the current status of cell therapy and ex vivo bioengineering approaches for lung diseases. These are all rapidly expanding areas of study that both provide further insight into and challenge traditional views of mechanisms of lung repair after injury and pathogenesis of several lung diseases.

Differential expression and regulation of vitamin D hydroxylases and inflammatory genes in prostate stroma and epithelium by 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D in men with prostate cancer and an in vitro model.

Previous work on vitamin D in the prostate has focused on the prostatic epithelium, from which prostate cancer arises. Prostatic epithelial cells are surrounded by stroma, which has well-established regulatory control over epithelial proliferation, differentiation, and the inflammatory response. Here we examined the regulation of vitamin D-related genes and inflammatory genes by 1α,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (1,25(OH)2D) in laser-capture microdissected prostate tissue from a vitamin D3 clinical trial and in an in vitro model that facilitates stromal-epithelial crosstalk.

Coupled cellular therapy and magnetic targeting for airway regeneration.

Airway diseases including COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), cystic fibrosis and lung cancer are leading causes of worldwide morbidity and mortality, with annual healthcare costs of billions of pounds. True regeneration of damaged airways offers the possibility of restoring lung function and protecting against airway transformation. Recently, advances in tissue engineering have allowed the development of cadaveric and biosynthetic airway grafts.

The biochemical determinants of tissue regeneration.

The field of regenerative medicine offers tantalizing hope for the repair and replacement of damaged organs and tissues, with the ultimate goal of restoring normal tissue function. This field represents an enormous range of biological, chemical and biophysical technologies that harness the restorative properties of living materials, especially human cells, to produce new molecular and cellular medicines, diagnostics, devices and healthcare research tools. The goal of this Biochemical Society Annual Symposium was to explore the key biochemical determinants of tissue regeneration, and we highlight the contribution of biochemistry to this emerging field of regenerative medicine.

Systemic but not topical TRAIL-expressing mesenchymal stem cells reduce tumour growth in malignant mesothelioma.

Malignant pleural mesothelioma is a rare but devastating cancer of the pleural lining with no effective treatment. The tumour is often diffusely spread throughout the chest cavity, making surgical resection difficult, while systemic chemotherapy offers limited benefit. Bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) home to and incorporate into tumour stroma, making them good candidates to deliver anticancer therapies.

Cell migration leads to spatially distinct but clonally related airway cancer precursors.

Background: Squamous cell carcinoma of the lung is a common cancer with 95% mortality at 5 years. These cancers arise from preinvasive lesions, which have a natural history of development progressing through increasing severity of dysplasia to carcinoma in situ (CIS), and in some cases, ending in transformation to invasive carcinoma. Synchronous preinvasive lesions identified at autopsy have been previously shown to be clonally related.

Targeting EGFR signalling in chronic lung disease: therapeutic challenges and opportunities.

Chronic respiratory diseases, including pulmonary fibrosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and lung cancer, are the second leading cause of death among Europeans. Despite this, there have been only a few therapeutic advances in these conditions over the past 20 years. In this review we provide evidence that targeting the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) signalling pathway may represent a novel therapeutic panacea for treating chronic lung disease.

Stochastic homeostasis in human airway epithelium is achieved by neutral competition of basal cell progenitors.

Lineage tracing approaches have provided new insights into the cellular mechanisms that support tissue homeostasis in mice. However, the relevance of these discoveries to human epithelial homeostasis and its alterations in disease is unknown. By developing a novel quantitative approach for the analysis of somatic mitochondrial mutations that are accumulated over time, we demonstrate that the human upper airway epithelium is maintained by an equipotent basal progenitor cell population, in which the chance loss of cells due to lineage commitment is perfectly compensated by the duplication of neighbours, leading to "neutral drift" of the clone population.