Obesity and age are transmission risk factors for SARS-CoV-2 infection among exposed individuals.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has occurred in Massachusetts in multiple waves led by a series of emerging variants. While the evidence has linked obesity with severe symptoms of COVID-19, the effect of obesity on susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection remains unclear. Identification of intrinsic factors, which increase the likelihood of exposed individuals succumbing to productive SARS-CoV-2 infection could help plan mitigation efforts to curb the illness.

Cellular Heterogeneity of Activated Primary Human Macrophages and Associated Drug-Gene Networks: From Biology to Precision Therapeutics.

Background: Interferon-γ (IFNγ) signaling plays a complex role in atherogenesis. IFNγ stimulation of macrophages permits in vitro exploration of proinflammatory mechanisms and the development of novel immune therapies. We hypothesized that the study of macrophage subpopulations could lead to anti-inflammatory interventions.

A disease-driver population within interstitial cells of human calcific aortic valves identified via single-cell and proteomic profiling.

Cellular heterogeneity of aortic valves complicates the mechanistic evaluation of the calcification processes in calcific aortic valve disease (CAVD), and animal disease models are lacking. In this study, we identify a disease-driver population (DDP) within valvular interstitial cells (VICs). Through stepwise single-cell analysis, phenotype-guided omic profiling, and network-based analysis, we characterize the DDP fingerprint as CD44CD29CD59CD73CD45 and discover potential key regulators of human CAVD.

Systems Approach to Discovery of Therapeutic Targets for Vein Graft Disease: PPARα Pivotally Regulates Metabolism, Activation, and Heterogeneity of Macrophages and Lesion Development.

Background: Vein graft failure remains a common clinical challenge. We applied a systems approach in mouse experiments to discover therapeutic targets for vein graft failure.

Methods: Global proteomics and high-dimensional clustering on multiple vein graft tissues were used to identify potential pathogenic mechanisms.

Evolution of Cooperation in the Presence of Higher-Order Interactions: From Networks to Hypergraphs.

Many real systems are strongly characterized by collective cooperative phenomena whose existence and properties still need a satisfactory explanation. Coherently with their collective nature, they call for new and more accurate descriptions going beyond pairwise models, such as graphs, in which all the interactions are considered as involving only two individuals at a time. Hypergraphs respond to this need, providing a mathematical representation of a system allowing from pairs to larger groups.

Effective approach to epidemic containment using link equations in complex networks.

Epidemic containment is a major concern when confronting large-scale infections in complex networks. Many studies have been devoted to analytically understand how to restructure the network to minimize the impact of major outbreaks of infections at large scale. In many cases, the strategies are based on isolating certain nodes, while less attention has been paid to interventions on the links.

Assessing reliable human mobility patterns from higher order memory in mobile communications.

Understanding how people move within a geographical area, e.g. a city, a country or the whole world, is fundamental in several applications, from predicting the spatio-temporal evolution of an epidemic to inferring migration patterns.

Strategical incoherence regulates cooperation in social dilemmas on multiplex networks.

Cooperation is a very common, yet not fully-understood phenomenon in natural and human systems. The introduction of a network within the population is known to affect the outcome of cooperative dynamics, allowing for the survival of cooperation in adverse scenarios. Recently, the introduction of multiplex networks has yet again modified the expectations for the outcome of the Prisoner's Dilemma game, compared to the monoplex case.