Comparison of perioperative analgesic effectiveness of ultrasound-guided erector spinae plane block and transversus abdominis plane block in patients undergoing laparoscopic nephrectomy.

Objectives: In this study, we aimed to compare the efficacy of two regional anesthesia methods, transversus abdominis plane (TAP) block and erector spinae plane (ESP) block, for intraoperative and postoperative pain relief in patients undergoing laparoscopic nephrectomy.

Methods: Fifty patients aged 18-80 years with American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) classification I-II scheduled for elective laparoscopic nephrectomy were included after ethical approval and informed consent. Patients were randomly assigned to either Group TAP (receiving TAP block) or Group ESP (receiving ESP block).

The Role of Intravenous Selexipag in Managing PAH and Bridging Gaps in Oral Treatment: A Narrative Review.

Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a rare and potentially fatal condition characterized by progressive increases in blood pressure in the arteries of the lungs. Oral selexipag, approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2015 for the treatment of PAH, targets prostacyclin receptors on pulmonary arterial vascular smooth muscle and endothelial cells to improve blood flow through the lungs and reduce pulmonary vascular resistance. Oral selexipag is effective, but may be discontinued due to factors like side effects, emergency conditions, or inability to take oral medication, potentially leading to severe adverse events, such as rebound pulmonary hypertension and right heart failure.

Intracellular pressure controls the propagation of tension in crumpled cell membranes.

Propagation of membrane tension mediates mechanical signal transduction along surfaces of live cells and sets the time scale of mechanical equilibration of cell membranes. Recent studies in several cell types and under different conditions revealed a strikingly wide variation range of the tension propagation speeds including extremely low ones. The latter suggests a possibility of long-living inhomogeneities of membrane tension crucially affecting mechano-sensitive membrane processes.

Twenty-five years of sentinel laboratory-based surveillance of shigellosis in a high-income country endemic for the disease, Israel, 1998 to 2022.

Background is a leading cause of moderate-to-severe diarrhoea worldwide and diarrhoeal deaths in children in low- and-middle-income countries.AimWe investigated trends and characteristics of shigellosis and antimicrobial resistance of in Israel.MethodsWe analysed data generated by the Sentinel Laboratory-Based Surveillance Network for Enteric Pathogens that systematically collects data on detection of at sentinel laboratories, along with the characterisation of the isolates at the National Reference Laboratory.

Micro-tensile rheology of fibrous gels quantifies strain-dependent anisotropy.

Semiflexible fiber gels such as collagen and fibrin have unique nonlinear mechanical properties that play an important role in tissue morphogenesis, wound healing, and cancer metastasis. Optical tweezers microrheology has greatly contributed to the understanding of the mechanics of fibrous gels at the microscale, including its heterogeneity and anisotropy. However, the explicit relationship between micromechanical properties and gel deformation has been largely overlooked.

Ebola Virus Glycoprotein Strongly Binds to Membranes in the Absence of Receptor Engagement.

Ebola virus (EBOV) is an enveloped virus that must fuse with the host cell membrane in order to release its genome and initiate infection. This process requires the action of the EBOV envelope glycoprotein (GP), encoded by the virus, which resides in the viral envelope and consists of a receptor binding subunit, GP1, and a membrane fusion subunit, GP2. Despite extensive research, a mechanistic understanding of the viral fusion process is incomplete.

IgG Serum Antibodies to Lipopolysaccharide Are Inversely Associated with the Incidence of Culture-Proven Shigellosis in Israeli Children and Adolescents.

Background: is a leading cause of moderate-to-severe diarrhea globally, with young children most affected. The burden of shigellosis drops increasingly with age, inferring the acquisition of natural immunity. We tested the hypothesis that IgG antibodies elicited against O-specific polysaccharide (O-SP) are correlates of age-acquired immunity.

Micropatterning the organization of multicellular structures in 3D biological hydrogels; insights into collective cellular mechanical interactions.

Control over the organization of cells at the microscale level within supporting biomaterials can push forward the construction of complex tissue architectures for tissue engineering applications and enable fundamental studies of how tissue structure relates to its function. While cells patterning on 2D substrates is a relatively established and available procedure, micropatterning cells in biomimetic 3D hydrogels has been more challenging, especially with micro-scale resolution, and currently relies on sophisticated tools and protocols. We present a robust and accessible 'peel-off' method to micropattern large arrays of individual cells or cell-clusters of precise sizes in biological 3D hydrogels, such as fibrin and collagen gels, with control over cell-cell separation distance and neighboring cells position.

"I Believe More in the Ability of the Small Person to Make Big Changes": Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship to Promote Public Health in Israel.

Social entrepreneurship has grown worldwide in recent decades as it attempts to create and implement innovative solutions to social and environmental issues through business strategies. The aim of this study was to explore what motivates public health social entrepreneurs to act, the challenges and barriers they face, achievements, and competencies required for success. As such, we interviewed 15 social entrepreneurs in Israel.

Inference of long-range cell-cell force transmission from ECM remodeling fluctuations.

Cells sense, manipulate and respond to their mechanical microenvironment in a plethora of physiological processes, yet the understanding of how cells transmit, receive and interpret environmental cues to communicate with distant cells is severely limited due to lack of tools to quantitatively infer the complex tangle of dynamic cell-cell interactions in complicated environments. We present a computational method to systematically infer and quantify long-range cell-cell force transmission through the extracellular matrix (cell-ECM-cell communication) by correlating ECM remodeling fluctuations in between communicating cells and demonstrating that these fluctuations contain sufficient information to define unique signatures that robustly distinguish between different pairs of communicating cells. We demonstrate our method with finite element simulations and live 3D imaging of fibroblasts and cancer cells embedded in fibrin gels.

Predictors of reinfection with pre-Omicron and Omicron variants of concern among individuals who recovered from COVID-19 in the first year of the pandemic.

Objectives: The predictors of SARS-CoV-2 reinfection are unclear. We examined predictors of reinfection with pre-Omicron and Omicron variants among COVID-19-recovered individuals.

Methods: Randomly selected COVID-19-recovered patients (N = 1004) who donated convalescent plasma during 2020 were interviewed between August 2021 and March 2022 regarding COVID-19 vaccination and laboratory-proven reinfection.

A Shigella flexneri 2a synthetic glycan-based vaccine induces a long-lasting immune response in adults.

Shigella is a leading cause of moderate to severe diarrhea worldwide and of diarrhea-associated deaths in children under 5 years of age in low-and middle-income countries. A vaccine against shigellosis is in high demand. SF2a-TT15, a synthetic carbohydrate-based conjugate vaccine candidate against Shigella flexneri 2a (SF2a) was found safe and strongly immunogenic in adult volunteers.

Recovery of vanadium and nickel from heavy oil fly ash (HOFA): a critical review.

Heavy oil fly ash "HOFA" is the fly ash generated in power stations using heavy oil as fuel. HOFA is considered a hazardous waste because it contains considerable amounts of heavy metals. However, it contains significant amounts of vanadium "V" and nickel "Ni", which are precious metals for manufacturing processes.

Tetraspanin 4 stabilizes membrane swellings and facilitates their maturation into migrasomes.

Migrasomes are newly discovered cell organelles forming by local swelling of retraction fibers. The migrasome formation critically depends on tetraspanin proteins present in the retraction fiber membranes and is modulated by the membrane tension and bending rigidity. It remained unknown how and in which time sequence these factors are involved in migrasome nucleation, growth, and stabilization, and what are the possible intermediate stages of migrasome biogenesis.

Probing Local Force Propagation in Tensed Fibrous Gels.

Fibrous hydrogels are a key component of soft animal tissues. They support cellular functions and facilitate efficient mechanical communication between cells. Due to their nonlinear mechanical properties, fibrous materials display non-trivial force propagation at the microscale, that is enhanced compared to that of linear-elastic materials.

Strain Gradient Programming in 3D Fibrous Hydrogels to Direct Graded Cell Alignment.

Biological tissues experience various stretch gradients which act as mechanical signaling from the extracellular environment to cells. These mechanical stimuli are sensed by cells, triggering essential signaling cascades regulating cell migration, differentiation, and tissue remodeling. In most previous studies, a simple, uniform stretch to 2D elastic substrates has been applied to analyze the response of living cells.

SARS-CoV-2 IgG Antibody Levels in Women with IBD Vaccinated during Pregnancy.

Introduction: Regulatory agencies supported vaccination of pregnant women with SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines, including patients with IBD. No data exist regarding these vaccines in IBD during pregnancy.

Aim: To assess the serologic response to two doses of the mRNA SARS-CoV-2 BNT162b2 vaccine in pregnant women with IBD vaccinated during pregnancy, compared to that of pregnant women without IBD, and non-pregnant women with IBD.

Transmembrane proteins tetraspanin 4 and CD9 sense membrane curvature.

Multiple membrane-shaping and remodeling processes are associated with tetraspanin proteins by yet unknown mechanisms. Tetraspanins constitute a family of proteins with four transmembrane domains present in every cell type. Prominent examples are tetraspanin4 and CD9, which are required for the fundamental cellular processes of migrasome formation and fertilization, respectively.

Threshold protective levels of serum IgG to Shigella lipopolysaccharide: re-analysis of Shigella vaccine trials data.

Objectives: Establishing a correlate of protection is essential for the development and licensure of Shigella vaccines. We examined potential threshold levels of serum IgG to Shigella lipopolysaccharide (LPS) that could predict protection against shigellosis.

Methods: We performed new analyses of serologic and vaccine efficacy (VE) data from two randomized vaccine-controlled trials of the Shigella sonnei-Pseudomonas aeruginosa recombinant exoprotein A (rEPA) conjugate conducted in young adults and children aged 1-4 years in Israel.

Pentraxin 3 and LPS and IpaB Antibodies Interplay to Defeat Shigellosis.

Shigella causes moderate to severe diarrhea or dysentery after invading the colon mucosa. Long Pentraxin 3 (PTX3) is recognized as the humoral component of the innate immune response to bacterial pathogens. We examined the interplay between levels of PTX3 and levels of anti-Shigella lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and anti-Shigella type 3 secretion system protein-IpaB antibodies in children during acute shigellosis and after recovery.

Anti-TNFα Treatment Impairs Long-Term Immune Responses to COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine in Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Diseases.

Patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) treated with anti-tumor-necrosis factor-alpha (TNFα) exhibited lower serologic responses one-month following the second dose of the COVID-19 BNT162b2 vaccine compared to those not treated with anti-TNFα (non-anti-TNFα) or to healthy controls (HCs). We comprehensively analyzed long-term humoral responses, including anti-spike (S) antibodies, serum inhibition, neutralization, cross-reactivity and circulating B cell six months post BNT162b2, in patients with IBD stratified by therapy compared to HCs. Subjects enrolled in a prospective, controlled, multi-center Israeli study received two BNT162b2 doses.

Diagnostic Rechallenge with F-FCH PET/CT Often Allows Minimally Invasive Parathyroidectomy While Maintaining Exceptional Cure Rates.

Background: Minimally invasive parathyroidectomy (MIP) has gained acceptance as the preferred surgical procedure for management of primary hyperparathyroidism (pHPT). Appropriate selection of patients for a MIP is a crucial step in its utilization. The aim of the study was to evaluate the role of F-FCH PET/CT as second-line imaging for accurately directing MIP.

Comparison of Intra- and postoperative effectiveness of erector spinae plane block and patient controlled analgesia in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting surgery.

The aim of our study was to compare bilateral erector spinae plane block (ESPB) efficacy on pain management with patient controlled analgesia (PCA) during the perioperative period in patients scheduled for coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). After ethics committee approval (2019-7/31 dated 09.04.

Lower Serologic Response to COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine in Patients With Inflammatory Bowel Diseases Treated With Anti-TNFα.

Background & Aim: Patients with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), specifically those treated with anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF)α biologics, are at high risk for vaccine-preventable infections. Their ability to mount adequate vaccine responses is unclear. The aim of the study was to assess serologic responses to messenger RNA-Coronavirus Disease 2019 vaccine, and safety profile, in patients with IBD stratified according to therapy, compared with healthy controls (HCs).