Diagnostic and Therapeutic Microbial Circuit with Application to Intestinal Inflammation.

Bacteria genetically engineered to execute defined therapeutic and diagnostic functions in physiological settings can be applied to colonize the human microbiome, providing in situ surveillance and conditional disease modulation. However, many engineered microbes can only respond to single-input environmental factors, limiting their tunability, precision, and effectiveness as living diagnostic and therapeutic systems. For engineering microbes to improve complex chronic disorders such as inflammatory bowel disease, the bacteria must respond to combinations of stimuli in the proper context and time.

Blocking TGF-β- and Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal Transition (EMT)-mediated activation of vessel-associated mural cells in glioblastoma impacts tumor angiogenesis.

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common malignant primary brain tumor in adults. GBM displays excessive and unfunctional vascularization which may, among others, be a reason for its devastating prognosis. Pericytes have been identified as the major component of the irregular vessel structure in GBM.

Development of an optimized, non-stem cell line for intranasal delivery of therapeutic cargo to the central nervous system.

Neural stem cells (NSCs) are considered to be valuable candidates for delivering a variety of anti-cancer agents, including oncolytic viruses, to brain tumors. However, owing to the previously reported tumorigenic potential of NSC cell lines after intranasal administration (INA), here we identified the human hepatic stellate cell line LX-2 as a cell type capable of longer resistance to replication of oncolytic adenoviruses (OAVs) as a therapeutic cargo, and that is non-tumorigenic after INA. Our data show that LX-2 cells can longer withstand the OAV XVir-N-31 replication and oncolysis than NSCs.

A parents' perspective on the pediatric intensive care unit: our family's journey.

The pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) can be an intimidating and frightening place for parents and family members of critically ill children. Most parents experience a loss of control and feelings of utter helplessness. Many PICUs are working with family members to improve the quality of care provided through patient- and family-centered care, which is in fact 1 of the 6 tenets of the Institute of Medicine's definition of quality health care.

Identification of Akt-selective cytotoxic compounds that enhance cytotoxic responses to rapamycin.

We performed a high-throughput screen to identify compounds with a selective ability to induce apoptosis in Akt-expressing cells without disrupting Bcl-xL-dependent survival. Results showed that a screening strategy based on Alamar Blue underrepresented the viability of Bcl-xL-expressing cells relative to Akt-expressing cells, possibly due to metabolic differences between the two cell survival programs. Using an alternative screen based on plasma membrane integrity, we identified several compounds that target Akt-dependent survival without toxic effect to Bcl-xL-dependent survival.