Optimizing lyophilization primary drying: A vaccine case study with experimental and modeling techniques.

In this study, we present the lyophilization process development efforts for a vaccine formulation aimed at optimizing the primary drying time (hence, the total cycle length) through comprehensive evaluation of its thermal characteristics, temperature profile, and critical quality attributes (CQAs). Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and freeze-drying microscopy (FDM) were used to experimentally determine the product-critical temperatures, viz., the glass transition temperature (T') and the collapse temperature (T).

Post-operative kinetics of C-reactive protein to distinguish between bacterial infection and systemic inflammation in infants after cardiopulmonary bypass surgery: the early and the late period.

Objectives: Differentiation between post-operative inflammation and bacterial infection remains an important issue in infants following congenital heart surgery. We primarily assessed kinetics and predictive value of C-reactive protein for bacterial infection in the early (days 0-4) and late (days 5-28) period after cardiopulmonary bypass surgery. Secondary objectives were frequency, type, and timing of post-operative infection related to the risk adjustment for congenital heart surgery score.

Protective immunity to infectious bronchitis in broilers vaccinated against Marek's disease either in ovo or at hatch and against infectious bronchitis at hatch.

Two experiments were conducted using commercial broiler chickens to determine if Marek's disease (MD) vaccines HVT/SB-1 and HVT plus CVI-988 given either in ovo or at hatch adversely affected the efficacy of infectious bronchitis (IB) vaccines (Ark and Mass serotypes) given by eyedrop on the day of hatch. Nonvaccinated negative controls and controls that received only IB vaccines were included in each study. Birds were challenged with either infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) Mass-41 or IBV Ark-99 on either day 26 or 27 of age.

Refined 2.3 A X-ray crystal structure of bovine thrombin complexes formed with the benzamidine and arginine-based thrombin inhibitors NAPAP, 4-TAPAP and MQPA. A starting point for improving antithrombotics.

Well-diffracting crystals of bovine epsilon-thrombin in complex with several "non-peptidic" benzamidine and arginine-based thrombin inhibitors have been obtained by co-crystallization. The 2.3 A crystal structures of three complexes formed either with NAPAP, 4-TAPAP, or MQPA, were solved by Patterson search methods and refined to crystallographic R-values of 0.

Episodic and semantic memory in early versus late onset Alzheimer's disease.

The aim of this study was to replicate and extend previous work demonstrating selective impairment of semantic, but not episodic, memory in late versus early onset Alzheimer's disease (AD). Measures of episodic and semantic memory were administered to 12 pairs of patients; early (less than or equal to 62) and late (greater than or equal to 68) onset pairs were matched on dementia severity and education. As hypothesized, the groups did not differ on the three episodic memory measures but did on two of three semantic memory measures.

Crystal structure of cleaved human alpha 1-antichymotrypsin at 2.7 A resolution and its comparison with other serpins.

The crystal structure of proteolytically modified human alpha 1-antichymotrypsin (ACT), a member of the serpin superfamily, has been solved by Paterson search techniques and refined to an R-factor of 18.0% at 2.7 A resolution with mean deviations from standard bond lengths and angles of 0.

Maze learning in Alzheimer's disease.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients and normal elderly controls performed a block of 10 trials on a finger maze, followed by a 45-min period during which verbal learning measures were administered. Subjects then performed an additional 10 trials on the original maze, followed by 10 trials on a new maze. The AD patients and a subset of control subjects decreased mean completion time across Blocks 1 and 2, suggesting skill acquisition.

Preserved word-stem-completion priming of semantically encoded information in Alzheimer's disease.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients and normal elderly control subjects completed 80 standardized sentence frames with single words, yielding a measure of semantic memory. Memory for best fit sentence endings was then tested either explicitly, with a forced-choice recognition task, or implicitly, with a word-stem-completion task. The patients completed fewer sentences with best fit word endings than did the control subjects.

[Correlation between CT findings and clinical course in viral and bacterial meningoencephalitis].

The computed axial tomograms (CAT) of 50 patients with viral or bacterial meningoencephalitis are correlated with the clinical course, the laboratory data, and the EEG changes. The diagnostic value of CAT in the early diagnosis of herpes simplex encephalitis is of specific importance. Hypodense regions are demonstrated after the fifth day of illness in the temporal lobe.

[Watershed infarctions--a special type of infarction in cases with carotid artery stenosis or occlusion verified by CT and angiography (author's transl)].

Watershed infarctions appear in the axial CT-sections mostly as stained or striated hypodense areas in the white matter of the parietal and seldom temporal region, without or with extension into the supply area of the adjacent cerebral arteries. We observed these changes in approximately 40% of our series with carotid artery stenosis or occlusion. These findings may be very subtle, and in such cases angiography should be performed.