Cancer Diagnostics and Early Detection Using Electrochemical Aptasensors.

The detection of early-stage cancer offers patients the best chance of treatment and could help reduce cancer mortality rates. However, cancer cells or biomarkers are present in extremely small amounts in the early stages of cancer, requiring high-precision quantitative approaches with high sensitivity for accurate detection. With the advantages of simplicity, rapid response, reusability, and a low cost, aptamer-based electrochemical biosensors have received considerable attention as a promising approach for the clinical diagnosis of early-stage cancer.

Sex-Based Differences in Cardiac Gene Expression and Function in BDNF Val66Met Mice.

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is a pleiotropic neuronal growth and survival factor that is indispensable in the brain, as well as in multiple other tissues and organs, including the cardiovascular system. In approximately 30% of the general population, BDNF harbors a nonsynonymous single nucleotide polymorphism that may be associated with cardiometabolic disorders, coronary artery disease, and Duchenne muscular dystrophy cardiomyopathy. We recently showed that transgenic mice with the human BDNF rs6265 polymorphism (Val66Met) exhibit altered cardiac function, and that cardiomyocytes isolated from these mice are also less contractile.