Outcome and safety 90 days after combined airway valve treatment of the right upper and middle lobes in patients with severe pulmonary emphysema.

Background: In COPD patients with severe right-sided emphysema, complete major and incomplete minor fissure, implantation of one-way valves in both the right upper (RUL) and middle lobes (ML) is a possible approach for endoscopic lung volume reduction. The aim of this retrospective analysis was to evaluate the response to therapy and the complication rate at 90 days (90d-FU) after combined RUL-ML valve implantation.

Methods: This retrospective, monocentric study included all patients from the Thoraxklinik Heidelberg who underwent RUL-ML valve treatment between 2012 and 2023 with available follow-up data.

Investigating skyrmion stability and core polarity reversal in NdMnGe.

We present a study on nanoscale skyrmionic spin textures in [Formula: see text], a rare-earth complex noncollinear ferromagnet. We confirm, using X-ray microscopy, that [Formula: see text] can host lattices of metastable skyrmion bubbles at room temperature in the absence of a magnetic field, after applying a suitable field cooling protocol. The skyrmion bubbles are robust against temperature changes from room temperature to 330 K.

High-throughput optimisation of protein secretion in yeast via an engineered biosensor.

Secretion of high-value proteins and enzymes is fundamental to the synthetic biology economy, allowing continuous fermentation during production and protein purification without cell lysis. Most eukaryotic protein secretion is encoded by an N-terminal signal peptide (SP); however, the strong impact of SP sequence variation on the secretion efficiency of a given protein is not well defined. Despite high natural SP sequence diversity, most recombinant protein secretion systems use only a few well-characterised SPs.

Optimization of H9c2 differentiation leads to calcium-active and striated cardiac cells without addition of retinoic acid.

As a reliable alternative to animal testing in cardiovascular research, it is crucial to improve differentiation of immortalized cell lines. In this study, we focused on optimizing the differentiation efficiency of the H9c2 cell line into cardiomyocytes using a high-throughput, automated image processing approach. While previous studies used protocols involving retinoic acid to enhance cardiac differentiation, we applied a simplified medium composition that results in higher differentiation rates.