Rapid and comprehensive detection of viral antibodies and nucleic acids via an acoustofluidic integrated molecular diagnostics chip: AIMDx.

Precise and rapid disease detection is critical for controlling infectious diseases like COVID-19. Current technologies struggle to simultaneously identify viral RNAs and host immune antibodies due to limited integration of sample preparation and detection. Here, we present acoustofluidic integrated molecular diagnostics (AIMDx) on a chip, a platform enabling high-speed, sensitive detection of viral immunoglobulins [immunoglobulin A (IgA), IgG, and IgM] and nucleic acids.

Targeting cartilage EGFR pathway for osteoarthritis treatment.

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a widespread joint disease for which there are no disease-modifying treatments. Previously, we found that mice with cartilage-specific epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) deficiency developed accelerated knee OA. To test whether the EGFR pathway can be targeted as a potential OA therapy, we constructed two cartilage-specific EGFR overactivation models in mice by overexpressing heparin binding EGF-like growth factor (HBEGF), an EGFR ligand.

Use of Oppositely Polarized External Magnets To Improve the Accumulation and Penetration of Magnetic Nanocarriers into Solid Tumors.

Drug delivery to solid tumors is hindered by hydrostatic and physical barriers that limit the penetration of nanocarriers into tumor tissue. When exploiting the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect for passive targeting of nanocarriers, the increased interstitial fluid pressure and dense extracellular matrix in tumors limits the distribution of the nanocarriers to perivascular regions. Previous strategies have shown that magnetophoresis enhances accumulation and penetration of nanoparticles into solid tumors.

Use of magnetic fields and nanoparticles to trigger drug release and improve tumor targeting.

Drug delivery strategies aim to maximize a drug's therapeutic index by increasing the concentration of drug at target sites while minimizing delivery to off-target tissues. Because biological tissues are minimally responsive to magnetic fields, there has been a great deal of interest in using magnetic nanoparticles in combination with applied magnetic fields to selectively control the accumulation and release of drug in target tissues while minimizing the impact on surrounding tissue. In particular, spatially variant magnetic fields have been used to encourage accumulation of drug-loaded magnetic nanoparticles at target sites, while time-variant magnetic fields have been used to induce drug release from thermally sensitive nanocarriers.

Radiofrequency-Triggered Drug Release from Nanoliposomes with Millimeter-Scale Resolution Using a Superimposed Static Gating Field.

Drug delivery to a specific site in the body typically relies on the use of targeting agents that recognize a unique biomarker. Unfortunately, it is often difficult to identify unique molecular signatures that exist only at the site of interest. An alternative strategy is to deliver energy (e.

Improved Photodynamic Therapy Efficacy of Protoporphyrin IX-Loaded Polymeric Micelles Using Erlotinib Pretreatment.

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has attracted widespread attention in recent years as a noninvasive and highly selective approach for cancer treatment. We have previously reported a significant increase in the 90-day complete response rate when tumor-bearing mice are treated with the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibitor erlotinib prior to PDT with the photosensitizer benzoporphyrin-derivative monoacid ring A (BPD-MA) compared to treatment with PDT alone. To further explore this strategy for anticancer therapy and clinical practice, we tested whether pretreatment with erlotinib also exhibited a synergistic therapeutic effect with a nanocarrier containing the clinically relevant photosensitizer protoporphyrin IX (PpIX).

Direct and specific chemical control of eukaryotic translation with a synthetic RNA-protein interaction.

Sequence-specific RNA-protein interactions, though commonly used in biological systems to regulate translation, are challenging to selectively modulate. Here, we demonstrate the use of a chemically-inducible RNA-protein interaction to regulate eukaryotic translation. By genetically encoding Tet Repressor protein (TetR)-binding RNA elements into the 5'-untranslated region (5'-UTR) of an mRNA, translation of a downstream coding sequence is directly controlled by TetR and tetracycline analogs.

Reconstruction of ECG signals in presence of corruption.

We present an approach to identifying and reconstructing corrupted regions in a multi-parameter physiological signal. The method, which uses information in correlated signals, is specifically designed to preserve clinically significant aspects of the signals. We use template matching to jointly segment the multi-parameter signal, morphological dissimilarity to estimate the quality of the signal segment, similarity search using features on a database of templates to find the closest match, and time-warping to reconstruct the corrupted segment with the matching template.