Publications by authors named "Hecht F"

Despite antiretroviral therapy (ART), HIV persists in latently-infected cells (the HIV reservoir) which decay slowly over time. Here, leveraging >500 longitudinal samples from 67 people living with HIV (PLWH) treated during acute infection, we developed a mathematical model to predict reservoir decay from peripheral CD4 + T cells. Nonlinear generalized additive models demonstrated rapid biphasic decay of intact DNA (week 0-5: t ~ 2.

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Background: A key research priority for developing an HIV cure strategy is to define the viral dynamics and biomarkers associated with sustained post-treatment control. The ability to predict the likelihood of sustained post-treatment control or non-control could minimize the time off antiretroviral therapy (ART) for those destined to not control and anticipate longer periods off ART for those destined to control.

Methods: Mathematical modeling and machine learning were used to characterize virologic predictors of long-term virologic control using viral kinetics data from several studies in which participants interrupted ART.

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Objective: People commonly cope with chronic low back pain (cLBP) by ignoring and distraction. Can mindful interoceptive exposure to the pain sensation itself and its phenomenological components be an alternative approach?

Methods: Single-arm feasibility study in patients with cLBP using a 2-minute attention exercise guided by a smartphone app several times per day over 8 weeks. We assessed feasibility, pre/post pain, function, and psychological parameters using mixed methods: standard questionnaires, ecological momentary assessment, and exit interviews that included micro-phenomenology technique and subsequent reflexive thematic qualitative analysis.

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Objectives: To assess the molecular profile of follicular cell-derived thyroid carcinomas (FCDTCs) and correlate the identified mutations with the clinical and pathological features of the affected patients.

Materials And Methods: Cross-sectional study of tumor samples from 100 adult patients diagnosed with FCDTC between 2010 and 2019. The patients' clinical and pathological data were collected.

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Restricting amino acids from tumors is an emerging therapeutic strategy with significant promise. While typically considered an intracellular antioxidant with tumor-promoting capabilities, glutathione (GSH) is a tripeptide of cysteine, glutamate, and glycine that can be catabolized, yielding amino acids. The extent to which GSH-derived amino acids are essential to cancers is unclear.

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Background: Prior data suggests the Mindfulness-Based Interventions: (MBI) Teaching Assessment Criteria (MBI:TAC) has good inter-rater reliability, but many raters knew teacher experience level.

Objective: We sought to further evaluate the MBI-TAC's inter-rater reliability and obtain preliminary data on predictive validity.

Methods: We videorecorded 21 MBSR teachers from academic and community settings.

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Objective: Ionizing radiation generates genomic instability by promoting the accumulation of chromosomal rearrangements. The oncogenic translocation RET/PTC1 is present in more than 70% of radiation-induced thyroid cancers. Both RET and CCDC6, the genes implicated in RET/PTC1, are found within common fragile sites - chromosomal regions prone to DNA breakage during slight replication stress.

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Article Synopsis
  • Cells depend on antioxidants like glutathione (GSH) for survival, with its production controlled by the enzyme GCLC.
  • GSH is crucial for maintaining lipid levels in the liver, a key site for lipid production, and its deficiency affects fat storage and triglyceride levels.
  • The study reveals that GSH influences lipid abundance by regulating the transcription factor NRF2, linking antioxidant function to lipid metabolism.
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Algorithms for the detection of COVID-19 illness from wearable sensor devices tend to implicitly treat the disease as causing a stereotyped (and therefore recognizable) deviation from healthy physiology. In contrast, a substantial diversity of bodily responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection have been reported in the clinical milieu. This raises the question of how to characterize the diversity of illness manifestations, and whether such characterization could reveal meaningful relationships across different illness manifestations.

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Sleep monitoring has become widespread with the rise of affordable wearable devices. However, converting sleep data into actionable change remains challenging as diverse factors can cause combinations of sleep parameters to differ both between people and within people over time. Researchers have attempted to combine sleep parameters to improve detecting similarities between nights of sleep.

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Introduction: The type 2 deiodinase and its Thr92Ala-DIO2 polymorphism have been linked to clinical outcomes in acute lung injury and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

Objective: The objective was to identify a potential association between Thr92Ala-DIO2 polymorphism and body composition (appendicular muscle mass, myosteatosis, and fat distribution) and to determine whether they reflect the severity or mortality associated with the disease.

Methods: In this prospective cohort study (June-August 2020), 181 patients hospitalized with moderate-to-severe COVID-19 underwent a non-contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CT) of the thorax to assess body composition, laboratory tests, and genotyping for the Thr92Ala-DIO2 polymorphism.

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Background: Concern about side effects is a common reason for SARS-CoV-2 vaccine hesitancy.

Objective: To determine whether short-term side effects of SARS-CoV-2 messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccination are associated with subsequent neutralizing antibody (nAB) response.

Design: Prospective cohort study.

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Objectives: The main objectives of the current paper were to examine the feasibility, acceptability, and adherence of a remotely delivered intervention consisting of mindfulness-based stress reduction plus prenatal sleep classes (MBSR+PS) compared with treatment as usual (TAU).

Method: In this pilot randomized controlled trial, 52 pregnant women with poor sleep quality were randomized to MBSR+PS or TAU. MBSR was delivered through eight weekly 2.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a combined treatment for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) that includes cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and whole-body hyperthermia (WBH).
  • Sixteen adults participated in the trial, with most completing 4 WBH sessions and all completing the self-report depression assessments, showing significant improvements in depression symptoms.
  • Although promising, the study's small sample size and design limit how widely the results can be applied, highlighting the need for larger future trials.
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Background: Among other structures, nuclear grooves are vastly found in papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC). Considering that the application of artificial intelligence in thyroid cytology has potential for diagnostic routine, our goal was to develop a new supervised convolutional neural network capable of identifying nuclear grooves in Diff-Quik stained whole-slide images (WSI) obtained from thyroid fineneedle aspiration.

Methods: We selected 22 Diff-Quik stained cytological slides with cytological diagnosis of PTC and concordant histological diagnosis.

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Despite antiretroviral therapy (ART), HIV persists in latently-infected cells ("the reservoir") which decay slowly over time. Here, leveraging >500 longitudinal samples from 67 people with HIV (PWH) treated during acute infection, we developed a novel mathematical model to predict reservoir decay from peripheral CD4+ T cells. Nonlinear generalized additive models demonstrated rapid biphasic decay of intact DNA (week 0-5: t~2.

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Commercially available wearable devices (wearables) show promise for continuous physiological monitoring. Previous works have demonstrated that wearables can be used to detect the onset of acute infectious diseases, particularly those characterized by fever. We aimed to evaluate whether these devices could be used for the more general task of syndromic surveillance.

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There is a substantial body of clinical evidence supporting the beneficial effects of lower-carbohydrate dietary patterns on multiple established risk factors associated with insulin resistance and cardiovascular diseases in adult populations. Nutrition and health researchers, clinical practitioners, and stakeholders gathered for, "The Scientific Forum on Nutrition, Wellness, and Lower-Carbohydrate Diets: An Evidence- and Equity-Based Approach to Dietary Guidance" to discuss the evidence base around lower-carbohydrate diets, health outcomes, and dietary guidance. Consensus statements were agreed upon to identify current areas of scientific agreement and spotlight gaps in research, education, and practice to help define and prioritize future pathways.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates the relationship between body temperature and depression, hypothesizing that more severe depressive symptoms correlate with higher body temperature, smaller temperature differences between awake and asleep states, and lower temperature amplitude throughout the day.* -
  • Using data from over 20,000 participants, the research found that both self-reported and wearable sensor data indicated higher body temperatures were linked to greater depression severity.* -
  • While lower diurnal temperature amplitude also showed a trend towards being associated with higher depression severity, this result wasn’t statistically significant, suggesting that body temperature changes could be important in understanding and treating major depressive disorder.*
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Scientists in this field often joke, "If you don't have a mechanism, say it's ROS." Seemingly connected to every biological process ever described, reactive oxygen species (ROS) have numerous pleiotropic roles in physiology and disease. In some contexts, ROS act as secondary messengers, controlling a variety of signaling cascades.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates the relationship between host gene expression and the HIV reservoir in people with HIV who are on antiretroviral therapy, identifying key genes associated with both smaller and larger viral reservoirs.
  • Higher expression of tumor suppressor genes P3H3 and NBL1 correlates with a smaller total DNA viral reservoir, while lower expression of 17 other host genes, including those related to membrane channels and innate immunity, is linked to higher levels of HIV transcription.
  • The research also highlights significant gene signaling pathways involved in HIV persistence and introduces potential biomarkers for targeting the HIV reservoir, making it one of the largest studies of its kind.
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Background: Females have been historically excluded from biomedical research due in part to the documented presumption that results with male subjects will generalize effectively to females. This has been justified in part by the assumption that ovarian rhythms will increase the overall variance of pooled random samples. But not all variance in samples is random.

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