An Orthogonal Workflow of Electrochemical, Computational, and Thermodynamic Methods Reveals Limitations of Using a Literature-Reported Insulin Binding Peptide in Biosensors.

Developing a continuous insulin-monitoring biosensor is of great importance for both the cellular biomanufacturing industry and for treating diabetes mellitus. Such a sensor needs to be able to effectively monitor insulin across a range of temperatures and pHs and with varying concentrations of competing analytes. One of the two main components of any biosensor is the recognition element, which is responsible for interacting with the molecule of interest.

Improving electrochemical hybridization assays with restriction enzymes.

Nucleic acids in blood are early indicators of disease that could be detected by point-of-care biosensors if sufficiently sensitive and facile sensors existed. Electrochemical hybridization assays are sensitive and specific but are limited to very short nucleic acids. We have developed a restriction enzyme-assisted electrochemical hybridization (REH) assay for improved nucleic acid detection.

Carbon Electrode-Based Biosensing Enabled by Biocompatible Surface Modification with DNA and Proteins.

Modification of electrodes with biomolecules is an essential first step for the development of bioelectrochemical systems, which are used in a variety of applications ranging from sensors to fuel cells. Gold is often used because of its ease of modification with thiolated biomolecules, but carbon screen-printed electrodes (SPEs) are gaining popularity due to their low cost and fabrication from abundant resources. However, their effective modification with biomolecules remains a challenge; the majority of work to-date relies on nonspecific adhesion or broad amide bond formation to chemical handles on the electrode surface.

The emergence of psychoanalytical electrochemistry: the translation of MDD biomarker discovery to diagnosis with electrochemical sensing.

The disease burden and healthcare costs of psychiatric diseases along with the pursuit to understand their underlying biochemical mechanisms have led to psychiatric biomarker investigations. Current advances in evaluating candidate biomarkers for psychiatric diseases, such as major depressive disorder (MDD), focus on determining a specific biomarker signature or profile. The origins of candidate biomarkers are heterogenous, ranging from genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics, while incorporating associations with clinical characterization.

The prevention of firearm injuries in Canadian youth.

Firearm injuries are a significant and preventable cause of death in Canadian youth. Adolescent and young adult males are disproportionately affected; however, firearm-related deaths occur in youth of all ages. Canada's rate of firearm ownership is lower than that of the USA, but high compared with other upper-income countries.

The Impact of Age and Cognitive Reserve on Resting-State Brain Connectivity.

Cognitive reserve (CR) is a protective mechanism that supports sustained cognitive function following damage to the physical brain associated with age, injury, or disease. The goal of the research was to identify relationships between age, CR, and brain connectivity. A sample of 90 cognitively normal adults, ages 45-64 years, had their resting-state brain activity recorded with electroencephalography (EEG) and completed a series of memory and executive function assessments.

A Chemical Biology Study of Human Pluripotent Stem Cells Unveils HSPA8 as a Key Regulator of Pluripotency.

Chemical biology methods such as high-throughput screening (HTS) and affinity-based target identification can be used to probe biological systems on a biomacromolecule level, providing valuable insights into the molecular mechanisms of those systems. Here, by establishing a human embryonal carcinoma cell-based HTS platform, we screened 171,077 small molecules for regulators of pluripotency and identified a small molecule, Displurigen, that potently disrupts hESC pluripotency by targeting heat shock 70-kDa protein 8 (HSPA8), the constitutively expressed member of the 70-kDa heat shock protein family, as elucidated using affinity-based target identification techniques and confirmed by loss-of-function and gain-of-function assays. We demonstrated that HSPA8 maintains pluripotency by binding to the master pluripotency regulator OCT4 and facilitating its DNA-binding activity.

Acclimating international graduate students to professional engineering ethics.

This article describes the education portion of an ongoing grant-sponsored education and research project designed to help graduate students in all engineering disciplines learn about the basic ethical principles, rules, and obligations associated with engineering practice in the United States. While the curriculum developed for this project is used for both domestic and international students, the educational materials were designed to be sensitive to the specific needs of international graduate students. In recent years, engineering programs in the United States have sought to develop a larger role for professional ethics education in the curriculum.

Correlation of a reported history of chickenpox with seropositive immunity in pregnant women.

Objective: To evaluate to what degree a positive verbal history of prior chickenpox infection correlates with current immunity.

Study Design: Patients presenting for prenatal registration at Naval Medical Center, San Diego, from January through June 2002 were candidates to participate in the study. Each patient was asked about her personal history of chickenpox.