Publications by authors named "J-R Chen"

Background: Few population-based studies have assessed sex differences in stroke recurrence. In addition, contributors to sex differences in recurrence and poststroke mortality, including social factors, are unclear. We investigated sex differences in these outcomes and the contribution of social, clinical, and behavioral factors to the sex differences.

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The largest risk factor for dementia is age. Heterochronic blood exchange studies have uncovered age-related blood factors that demonstrate 'pro-aging' or 'pro-youthful' effects on the mouse brain. The clinical relevance and combined effects of these factors for humans is unclear.

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This investigation explores the potential of co-incorporating nickel (Ni) and cobalt (Co) into copper oxide (CuO) nanostructures for bifunctional electrochemical charge storage and oxygen evolution reactions (OER). A facile wet chemical synthesis method is employed to co-incorporate Ni and Co into CuO, yielding diverse nanostructured morphologies, including rods, spheres, and flake. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Raman analyses confirmed the formation of NiCo-CuO nanostructure, with minor phases of nickel oxide (NiO) and cobalt tetraoxide (CoO).

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The aim of dynamic prediction is to provide individualized risk predictions over time, which are updated as new data become available. In pursuit of constructing a dynamic prediction model for a progressive eye disorder, age-related macular degeneration (AMD), we propose a time-dependent Cox survival neural network (tdCoxSNN) to predict its progression using longitudinal fundus images. tdCoxSNN builds upon the time-dependent Cox model by utilizing a neural network to capture the nonlinear effect of time-dependent covariates on the survival outcome.

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Background: Postdischarge contacts (PDCs) after hospitalization are common practice, but their effectiveness in reducing use of acute care after discharge remains unclear.

Purpose: To assess the effects of PDC on 30-day emergency department (ED) visits, 30-day hospital readmissions, and patient satisfaction.

Data Sources: MEDLINE, Embase, and CINAHL searched from 2012 to 25 May 2023.

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Background: Women experience more poststroke physical activity limitations, but sex differences in social activity participation, an important patient-reported outcome for stroke recovery, remain uncertain.

Methods: Incident stroke survivors aged ≥65 years were identified from the US NHATS (National Health and Aging Trends Study), 2011-2022. Participants were asked to report restricted participation in the past month in 2 formal activities (religious services and clubs/classes) and 2 informal activities (visiting friends/family and going out for enjoyment) in the year of stroke onset.

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The advent of spatial transcriptomics and spatial proteomics have enabled profound insights into tissue organization to provide systems-level understanding of diseases. Both technologies currently remain largely independent, and emerging same slide spatial multi-omics approaches are generally limited in plex, spatial resolution, and analytical approaches. We introduce IN-situ DEtailed Phenotyping To High-resolution transcriptomics (IN-DEPTH), a streamlined and resource-effective approach compatible with various spatial platforms.

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Spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage(ICH) represents a life-threatening form of stroke, marked by its impact on survival and quality of life. ICH can be categorized from monogenic disorders linked to causal germline variants in ICH-related genes to complex sporadic cases, highlighting the interaction among lifestyle factors, environmental influences, and genetic components in determining risk. Among sporadic ICH, the influence of these factors varies across ICH subtypes, evidenced by heritability rates of up to 73% for lobar ICH versus 34% for non-lobar ICH.

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New treatment approaches are warranted for patients with advanced melanoma refractory to immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) or BRAF-targeted therapy. We designed BNT221, a personalized, neoantigen-specific autologous T cell product derived from peripheral blood, and tested this in a 3 + 3 dose-finding study with two dose levels (DLs) in patients with locally advanced or metastatic melanoma, disease progression after ICB, measurable disease (Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors version 1.1) and, where appropriate, BRAF-targeted therapy.

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Background: Previous trials have failed to demonstrate the benefits of extracranial-intracranial (EC-IC) bypass surgery for patients with carotid or middle cerebral artery occlusion. However, little evidence has focused on the effect of age on prognosis. This study aimed to explore whether EC-IC bypass surgery can provide greater benefits than medical therapy alone in specific age groups.

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  • * Researchers identified 21 human ITPR1 GOF variants and created a mouse model with one of these variants (ITPR1-W1457G), which was found to be prone to stress-induced ventricular arrhythmias.
  • * Both mouse models and human data suggest that ITPR1 GOF variants increase Ca handling abnormalities and arrhythmia risk, with 7 rare ITPR1 variants in a human database showing similar GOF behavior linked to cardiac
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Linguistic rules form the cornerstone of human communication, enabling people to understand and interact with one another effectively. However, there are always irregular exceptions to regular rules, with one of the most notable being the past tense of verbs in English. In this work, a naming game approach is developed to investigate the collective effect of social behaviours on language dynamics, which encompasses social learning, self-learning with preference and forgetting due to memory constraints.

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  • - The study investigates how bromoform (CHBr) behaves when exposed to near-infrared (NIR) light, focusing on its breakdown and isomerization in cationic states through advanced imaging techniques.
  • - It is observed that the dissociation process, particularly when forming HBr and Br fragments, occurs with a delay compared to the faster breakdown of the C-Br bond.
  • - Molecular dynamics simulations indicate that this delay results from temporary isomerization processes involving H- and Br-migrations before the final fragments are produced.
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  • Antidepressants are commonly prescribed to older adults for depression, but their impact on recovery after hip fractures is not well understood.
  • A study involving nearly 18,000 older adults with depression who underwent hip fracture surgery found that those using antidepressants before the injury had shorter hospital stays.
  • The findings suggest that antidepressant use does not hinder recovery post-hip fracture and may even be beneficial, with no significant differences based on sex noted in the results.
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The major histocompatibility complex class I related protein (MR1) presents microbially derived vitamin B2 precursors to mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells. MR1 can also present other metabolites to activate MR1-restricted T cells expressing more diverse T cell receptors (TCRs), some with anti-tumor reactivity. However, knowledge of the range of the antigen(s) that can activate diverse MR1-reactive T cells remains incomplete.

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Objective: We evaluated the cost-effectiveness of a bundled intervention including an antimicrobial stewardship program (ASP), procalcitonin (PCT) testing, and rapid blood culture identification (BCID), compared with pre-implementation standard care in critically ill adult patients with sepsis.

Methods: We conducted a decision tree model-based cost-effectiveness analysis alongside a previously published pre- and post-implementation quality improvement study. We adopted a public Canadian healthcare payer's perspective.

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Somatic alterations in the oncogenic kinase AKT1 have been identified in a broad spectrum of solid tumours. The most common AKT1 alteration replaces Glu17 with Lys (E17K) in the regulatory pleckstrin homology domain, resulting in constitutive membrane localization and activation of oncogenic signalling. In clinical studies, pan-AKT inhibitors have been found to cause dose-limiting hyperglycaemia, which has motivated the search for mutant-selective inhibitors.

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  • Researchers are merging unstructured patient data with structured health records to create the MSK-CHORD dataset, consisting of varied cancer types from nearly 25,000 patients at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
  • This dataset allows for in-depth analysis of cancer outcomes using advanced techniques like natural language processing, revealing new relationships that smaller datasets may not show.
  • Using MSK-CHORD for machine learning models, findings suggest that incorporating features from these unstructured texts can better predict patient survival than relying solely on genomic data or cancer staging.
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  • Metastatic disease is a major cause of cancer-related deaths, yet its tumor microenvironment is not well understood due to technical challenges in studying it.
  • This research created a comprehensive map of 67 tumor biopsies from 60 metastatic breast cancer patients, using advanced techniques like single-cell RNA sequencing and various spatial expression assays to analyze tumor characteristics.
  • Key findings included identifying different macrophage spatial patterns, three phenotypes of epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, and gene expression linked to T cell presence or absence, highlighting the study's potential for clinical insights.
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The abundance of Lp(a) protein holds significant implications for the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), which is directly impacted by the copy number (CN) of KIV-2, a 5.5 kbp sub-region. KIV-2 is highly polymorphic in the population and accurate analysis is challenging.

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  • - Dormant cancer stem cells (DCSCs) play a crucial role in tumor recurrence and metastasis due to their resistance to chemotherapy and ability to evade the immune system, mainly through enhanced PD-L1 signaling and the influence of quiescin sulfhydryl oxidase 1 (QSOX1).
  • - QSOX1, produced by quiescent fibroblasts, boosts PD-L1 expression in DCSCs and creates an environment that excludes CD8 T cells, thus supporting immune evasion.
  • - Targeting QSOX1 with Ebselen, in combination with anti-PD-1 and chemotherapy, shows promise for successfully eradicating dormant DCSCs and improving patient responses to treatment. *
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Purpose: To evaluate the surveillance value of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) for detecting distant metastasis and indicating systemic therapeutic efficacy in conjunctival melanoma (CoM).

Design: Retrospective, observational case series.

Methods: From July 2021 to June 2023, 30 CoM patients in our center underwent plasma ctDNA assessment, out of which 12 individuals presented with distant metastases.

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PROTAC® (proteolysis-targeting chimera) molecules induce proximity between an E3 ligase and protein-of-interest (POI) to target the POI for ubiquitin-mediated degradation. Cooperative E3-PROTAC-POI complexes have potential to achieve neo-substrate selectivity beyond that established by POI binding to the ligand alone. Here, we extend the collection of ubiquitin ligases employable for cooperative ternary complex formation to include the C-degron E3 KLHDC2.

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Diarrhoeal disease caused by Cryptosporidium is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in young and malnourished children from low- and middle-income countries, with no vaccine or effective treatment. Here we describe the discovery of EDI048, a Cryptosporidium PI(4)K inhibitor, designed to be active at the infection site in the gastrointestinal tract and undergo rapid metabolism in the liver. By using mutational analysis and crystal structure, we show that EDI048 binds to highly conserved amino acid residues in the ATP-binding site.

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  • - Recent advancements in synthesizing organofluorine compounds have primarily focused on traditional methods, but this study introduces a novel enzymatic approach using iron-catalyzed radical transfer for creating C-F bonds.
  • - The researchers repurposed an enzyme called HppE to effectively catalyze a specific type of fluorination to produce chiral benzylic fluoride products, achieving high efficiency and selectivity.
  • - The study's findings suggest that the rate-determining step is related to activating the N-F bond, and the effectiveness of the process increases with the presence of sodium azide, improving the reaction's spatial dynamics.
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