Data Disaggregation of Asian-American Family Physicians.

The singular label of "Asian" obscures socioeconomic differences between Asian ethnic groups that affect matriculation into the field of medicine. Using data from American Board of Family Medicine Examination candidates in 2023, we found that compared to the US population, among Asian-American family physicians, Indians were present at higher rates, while Chinese and Filipinos were underrepresented, suggesting the importance of continued disaggregation of Asian ethnicities in medicine.

Evaluating Weight Loss With Semaglutide in Elderly Patients With Type II Diabetes.

Semaglutide is an effective agent indicated for type II diabetes mellitus (T2DM) treatment and weight management. It is unknown if the magnitude of weight loss differs significantly between nonelderly (18-64 years old) and elderly (≥65 years old) patients diagnosed with T2DM. To determine whether there is a significant difference in percent weight loss between elderly and nonelderly Veterans diagnosed with T2DM and initiating semaglutide.

The Use of Probiotic as a Pre-Harvest Intervention to Reduce in Finishing Beef Cattle: An In Vitro Model.

Reducing Salmonella in cattle may mitigate the risk of transmission through the food chain. Megasphaera elsdenii (ME) is a microorganism found naturally in the bovine rumen that can be administered as a probiotic to mitigate ruminal acidosis. Understanding the impact of feeding ME to Salmonella populations in cattle was the objective of this study.

Pharmacological Management of Steroid-Induced Psychosis: A Review of Patient Cases.

To review the efficacy and safety of medications used in the management of steroid-induced psychosis. A comprehensive literature search was conducted using PubMed, MEDLINE, ProQuest, and Scopus between May and October 2020 using the following search terminology: "steroid-induced psychosis" OR "corticosteroid-induced psychosis." Definitive cases, as defined by the , were included in this review.

Assessment of Year-to-Year Patient-Specific Comorbid Conditions Reported in the Medicare Chronic Conditions Data Warehouse.

This cross-sectional study evaluates the persistence of chronic condition flags for 51 conditions over single-year and multiyear periods.

Cortical column and whole-brain imaging with molecular contrast and nanoscale resolution.

Optical and electron microscopy have made tremendous inroads toward understanding the complexity of the brain. However, optical microscopy offers insufficient resolution to reveal subcellular details, and electron microscopy lacks the throughput and molecular contrast to visualize specific molecular constituents over millimeter-scale or larger dimensions. We combined expansion microscopy and lattice light-sheet microscopy to image the nanoscale spatial relationships between proteins across the thickness of the mouse cortex or the entire brain.

Expansion microscopy: enabling single cell analysis in intact biological systems.

There is a need for single cell analysis methods that enable the identification and localization of different kinds of biomolecules throughout cells and intact tissues, thereby allowing characterization and classification of individual cells and their relationships to each other within intact systems. Expansion microscopy (ExM) is a technology that physically magnifies tissues in an isotropic way, thereby achieving super-resolution microscopy on diffraction-limited microscopes, enabling rapid image acquisition and large field of view. As a result, ExM is well-positioned to integrate molecular content and cellular morphology, with the spatial precision sufficient to resolve individual biological building blocks, and the scale and accessibility required to deploy over extended 3-D objects like tissues and organs.

Deleting HDAC3 rescues long-term memory impairments induced by disruption of the neuron-specific chromatin remodeling subunit BAF53b.

Multiple epigenetic mechanisms, including histone acetylation and nucleosome remodeling, are known to be involved in long-term memory formation. Enhancing histone acetylation by deleting histone deacetylases, like HDAC3, typically enhances long-term memory formation. In contrast, disrupting nucleosome remodeling by blocking the neuron-specific chromatin remodeling subunit BAF53b impairs long-term memory.

Feasibility of achieving the 2025 WHO global tuberculosis targets in South Africa, China, and India: a combined analysis of 11 mathematical models.

Background: The post-2015 End TB Strategy proposes targets of 50% reduction in tuberculosis incidence and 75% reduction in mortality from tuberculosis by 2025. We aimed to assess whether these targets are feasible in three high-burden countries with contrasting epidemiology and previous programmatic achievements.

Methods: 11 independently developed mathematical models of tuberculosis transmission projected the epidemiological impact of currently available tuberculosis interventions for prevention, diagnosis, and treatment in China, India, and South Africa.

Can China achieve the WHO global targets for TB control by 2035?

To reach the ambitious WHO TB global targets by 2035, it is likely that China will need a comprehensive strategy that builds on its existing high-quality directly observed treatment, short-course program. This will require optimizing the use of existing tools within a changing health system landscape. In addition, new tools are needed to identify and treat TB in high-risk groups and in older people, who are a growing driver of disease incidence.

Semi-adaptive response and noise attenuation in bone morphogenetic protein signalling.

Temporal dynamics of morphogen-driven signalling events are critical for proper embryonic development. During development, cells translate extracellular bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) gradients, often subject to noise, into graded intracellular tail-phosphorylated SMAD (TP-SMAD) levels. Using modelling and experimental approaches, we found that BMPs induce TP-SMAD responses in neural precursor cells in a concentration-dependent manner, which are semi-adaptive within a specific intermediate range of BMP concentration.

Tuberculosis control strategies to reach the 2035 global targets in China: the role of changing demographics and reactivation disease.

Background: In the last 20 years, China ramped up a DOTS (directly observed treatment, short-course)-based tuberculosis (TB) control program with 80% population coverage, achieving the 2015 Millennium Development Goal of a 50% reduction in TB prevalence and mortality. Recently, the World Health Organization developed the End TB Strategy, with an overall goal of a 90% reduction in TB incidence and a 95% reduction in TB deaths from 2015-2035. As the TB burden shifts to older individuals and China's overall population ages, it is unclear if maintaining the current DOTS strategy will be sufficient for China to reach the global targets.

Calibration of an intrahost malaria model and parameter ensemble evaluation of a pre-erythrocytic vaccine.

Background: A pre-erythrocytic vaccine could provide a useful tool for burden reduction and eventual eradication of malaria. Mathematical malaria models provide a mechanism for evaluating the effective burden reduction across a range of transmission conditions where such a vaccine might be deployed.

Methods: The EMOD model is an individual-based model of malaria transmission dynamics, including vector lifecycles and species-specific behaviour, coupled to a mechanistic intrahost model of malaria parasite and host immune system dynamics.

Convection and retro-convection enhanced delivery: some theoretical considerations related to drug targeting.

Delivery of drugs and macromolecules into the brain is a challenging problem, due in part to the blood-brain barrier. In this article, we focus on the possibilities and limitations of two infusion techniques devised to bypass the blood-brain barrier: convection enhanced delivery (CED) and retro-convection enhanced delivery (R-CED). CED infuses fluid directly into the interstitial space of brain or tumor, whereas R-CED removes fluid from the interstitial space, which results in the transfer of drugs from the vascular compartment into the brain or tumor.

HIV TAT peptide modifies the distribution of DNA nanolipoparticles following convection-enhanced delivery.

We evaluated gene transfer using PEGylated bioresponsive nanolipid particles (NLPs) containing plasmid DNA administered by convection-enhanced delivery (CED) into orthotopically implanted U87-MG tumors in rat brain. We hypothesized that attachment of the human immunodeficiency virus trans-acting transcriptional activator peptide (TATp) to pH-sensitive, reduction-sensitive NLPs would increase gene transfer. TATp was attached either directly to a phospholipid (TATp-lipid) or via a 2-kd polyethylene glycol (PEG) to a lipid (TATp-PEG-lipid).

Retro-convection enhanced delivery to increase blood to brain transfer of macromolecules.

A retro-convection enhanced delivery (R-CED) method has been developed to improve the entry of intravenously administered therapeutics within solid brain tumors. R-CED uses an osmotic gradient to withdraw brain interstitial fluid (ISF) in a controlled manner via an implanted microdialysis catheter. Withdrawal of ISF increases the local tissue specific gravity in normal brain and increases twofold the extravasation of intravenous Evans blue (EB) albumin in normal brain and in an orthotopic 9L tumor.

Barriers to carrier mediated drug and gene delivery to brain tumors.

Brain tumor patients face a poor prognosis despite significant advances in tumor imaging, neurosurgery and radiation therapy. Potent chemotherapeutic drugs fail when used to treat brain tumors because biochemical and physiological barriers limit drug delivery into the brain. In the past decade a number of strategies have been introduced to increase drug delivery into the brain parenchyma.