Publications by authors named "Kevin J Tu"

Article Synopsis
  • Sepsis is more severe in rural and socially vulnerable areas, and this study investigates whether telehealth consultations (tele-ED) can help address these disparities.
  • The research involved analyzing data from 1191 patients across 23 rural emergency departments, revealing that providers in high social vulnerability index (SVI) counties were less likely to use tele-ED for sepsis treatment.
  • Key findings indicate that housing and transportation issues significantly impacted tele-ED usage, suggesting that while tele-ED can improve access to care, it doesn't fully eliminate the treatment disparities faced by these vulnerable communities.
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Medulloblastoma is the most common malignant brain tumor of children. Although standard of care radiotherapy for pediatric medulloblastoma (PM) can lead to long-term remission or cure in many patients, it can also cause life-long cognitive impairment and other adverse effects. The pathophysiological mechanisms involved in radiation-induced cerebral damage are incompletely understood, and their elucidation may lead to interventions that mitigate radiation toxicity.

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Enzymes with novel functions are needed to enable new organic synthesis techniques. Drawing inspiration from gain-of-function cancer mutations that functionally alter proteins and affect cellular metabolism, we developed METIS (Mutated Enzymes from Tumors In silico Screen). METIS identifies metabolism-altering cancer mutations using mutation recurrence rates and protein structure.

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Purpose: Docetaxel (DXL), a noted radiosensitizer, is one of the few chemotherapy drugs approved for castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC), though only a fraction of CRPCs respond to it. CAV-1, a critical regulator of radioresistance, has been known to modulate DXL and radiation effects. Combining DXL with radiotherapy may create a synergistic anticancer effect through CAV-1 and improve CRPC patients' response to therapy.

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Pooled genetic screens represent a powerful approach to identify vulnerabilities in cancer. Here we used pooled CRISPR/Cas9-based approaches to identify vulnerabilities associated with telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) promoter mutations (TPMs) found in >80% of glioblastomas. We first developed a platform to detect perturbations that cause long-term growth defects in a TPM-mutated glioblastoma cell line.

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Objectives: Sepsis is associated with significant mortality. Telehealth may improve the quality of early sepsis care, but the use and impact of telehealth applications for sepsis remain unclear. We aim to describe the telehealth interventions that have been used to facilitate sepsis care, and to summarize the reported effect of telehealth on sepsis outcomes.

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Background: Amongst risk alleles associated with late-onset Alzheimer's disease (AD), those that converged on the regulation of microglia activity have emerged as central to disease progression. Yet, how canonical amyloid-β (Aβ) and tau pathologies regulate microglia subtypes during the progression of AD remains poorly understood.

Methods: We use single-cell RNA-sequencing to profile microglia subtypes from mice exhibiting both Aβ and tau pathologies across disease progression.

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Article Synopsis
  • * 3-Bromopyruvate (3-BP) shows promise as a cancer treatment by targeting and inhibiting the hexokinase II enzyme, crucial for the glycolytic pathway in cancer cells, resulting in significant cell death and damaged mitochondria.
  • * In mouse models, 3-BP demonstrated a substantial reduction in tumor growth (75-80%) and had positive effects on biomarkers of cancer cell death and immune response, indicating its potential as an effective treatment for pancreatic cancer.
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Chordoma is a cancer of spinal cord, skull base, and sacral area. Currently, the standard of care to treat chordoma is resection followed by radiation therapy. Since, chordoma is present in the spinal cord and these are very sensitive structures and often complete removal by surgery is not possible.

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