Customizable patterned membranes for cardiac tissue engineering: A model-assisted design method.

Myocardial infarction can cause irreversible damage to the heart muscle, which can lead to heart failure. The difficulty of the treatment mainly arises from the anisotropic behavior of the myocardium fibrous structure. Patches or cardiac restraint devices appear to be a promising approach to post-infarction treatment.

Experimental Analysis of the Influence of Heat Treatments on the Flexibility of NiTi Alloy for Endodontic Instruments Manufacturing.

The flexibility of NiTi based endodontic files is improved by heat treatment, leading to lower risk of failure, ledges, and canal transportation during the preparation of curved root canals. The aim of this study is to investigate and clearly highlight the influence of every parameter of heat treatment on the flexibility of NiTi wires and thus of endodontic instruments. A full factorial Design of Experiment (DoE) and a designed bending-torsion bench following the ISO 3630-1 standard were used for this investigation.

Predictive performance of multi-model ensemble forecasts of COVID-19 across European nations.

Background: Short-term forecasts of infectious disease burden can contribute to situational awareness and aid capacity planning. Based on best practice in other fields and recent insights in infectious disease epidemiology, one can maximise the predictive performance of such forecasts if multiple models are combined into an ensemble. Here, we report on the performance of ensembles in predicting COVID-19 cases and deaths across Europe between 08 March 2021 and 07 March 2022.

A Chemical Biology Toolbox Targeting the Intracellular Binding Site of CCR9: Fluorescent Ligands, New Drug Leads and PROTACs.

A conserved intracellular allosteric binding site (IABS) has recently been identified at several G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). Starting from vercirnon, an intracellular C-C chemokine receptor type 9 (CCR9) antagonist and previous phase III clinical candidate for the treatment of Crohn's disease, we developed a chemical biology toolbox targeting the IABS of CCR9. We first synthesized a fluorescent ligand enabling equilibrium and kinetic binding studies via NanoBRET as well as fluorescence microscopy.

Bivalent ligands promote endosomal trafficking of the dopamine D3 receptor-neurotensin receptor 1 heterodimer.

Bivalent ligands are composed of two pharmacophores connected by a spacer of variable size. These ligands are able to simultaneously recognize two binding sites, for example in a G protein-coupled receptor heterodimer, resulting in enhanced binding affinity. Taking advantage of previously described heterobivalent dopamine-neurotensin receptor ligands, we demonstrate specific interactions between dopamine D3 (DR) and neurotensin receptor 1 (NTSR1), two receptors with expression in overlapping brain areas that are associated with neuropsychiatric diseases and addiction.