Publications by authors named "Levenson A"

Individuals with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (I/DDs) encounter barriers to vaccine access, uptake, and confidence, leading to health inequities. These include barriers related to healthcare provider capacity to effectively address the social determinants of health, provide accessible needle procedures, and translate and disseminate inclusive public health information. The current study aimed to test the preliminary effectiveness of a virtual continuing medical education (CME) course on enhancing healthcare provider capacity to address these barriers.

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Bottlebrush polymers represent an important class of macromolecular architectures, with applications ranging from drug delivery to organic electronics. While there is an abundance of literature describing the synthesis, structure, and applications of linear bottlebrush polymers using ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP), there are comparatively less reports on their cyclic counterparts. This lack of research is primarily due to the difficulty in synthesizing cyclic bottlebrush polymers, as extensions of typical routes towards linear bottlebrush polymers (, "grafting-through" polymerizations of macromonomers with ROMP) produce only ultrahigh molar mass cyclic bottlebrush polymers with poor molar mass control.

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Atypical lipomatous tumor/well-differentiated liposarcoma (ALT/WDL) is a rare subtype of endobronchial tumor that has been rarely reported in medical literature. Due to its low incidence, distinguishing it from endobronchial lipoma poses a significant diagnostic challenge, necessitating histopathologic and cytogenetic analysis. As of today, the treatment and surveillance protocols for these neoplasms remain poorly defined, often resulting in their misclassification and treatment as endobronchial lipomas.

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The metastasis-associated protein 1/protein kinase B (MTA1/AKT) signaling pathway has been shown to cooperate in promoting prostate tumor growth. Targeted interception strategies by plant-based polyphenols, specifically stilbenes, have shown great promise against MTA1-mediated prostate cancer progression. In this study, we employed a prostate-specific transgenic mouse model with MTA1 overexpression on the background of phosphatase and tensin homolog () null (; ) and PC3M prostate cancer cells which recapitulate altered molecular pathways in advanced prostate cancer.

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Scope: Resistance of castrate-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) to enzalutamide (Enz) involves the expression of constitutively active androgen receptor splice variant (AR-V7). In addition to altered AR pathways, CRPC is characterized by "non-AR-driven" signaling, which includes an overexpression of metastasis-associated protein 1 (MTA1). Combining natural compounds with anticancer drugs may enhance drug effectiveness while reducing adverse effects.

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The synthesis of well-defined cyclic polymers is crucial to exploring applications spanning engineering, energy, and biomedicine. These materials lack chain-ends and are therefore imbued with unique bulk properties. Despite recent advancements, the general methodology for controlled cyclic polymer synthesis via ring-expansion metathesis polymerization (REMP) remains challenging.

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The initial presentation of pediatric diabetes is variable, making prompt diagnosis and treatment challenging. The overlap between type 1 and type 2 diabetes and presence of developmental delays can complicate diagnosis, resulting in delays and severe illness at presentation. Here we describe a case of a 13-year-old male with autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder who presented with severe diabetic ketoacidosis, multiple organ failure, and shock.

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Nutritional chemoprevention is particularly suitable for prostate cancer. Gnetin C, a resveratrol dimer found abundantly in the melinjo plant (), may possess more potent biological properties compared to other stilbenes. We examined the effects of gnetin C in a high-risk premalignant transgenic mouse model overexpressing tumor-promoting metastasis-associated protein 1 (MTA1) on the background of heterozygosity (; ; ).

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This paper describes a novel synthetic approach for the conversion of zero-valent copper metal into a conductive two-dimensional layered metal-organic framework (MOF) based on 2,3,6,7,10,11-hexahydroxytriphenylene (HHTP) to form Cu(HHTP). This process enables patterning of Cu(HHTP) onto a variety of flexible and porous woven (cotton, silk, nylon, nylon/cotton blend, and polyester) and non-woven (weighing paper and filter paper) substrates with microscale spatial resolution. The method produces conductive textiles with sheet resistances of 0.

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A 5-year-old girl presented to the emergency room with altered mental status secondary to severe diabetic ketoacidosis due to new-onset GAD65 antibody positive, type 1 diabetes mellitus. On hospital day 0, she developed anuria, shock, and hypertriglyceridemia-associated acute pancreatitis. Following intravenous insulin therapy, the patient's ketoacidosis improved.

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Accumulated experimental data have suggested that natural plant products may be effective miRNA-modulating chemopreventive and therapeutic agents. Dietary polyphenols such as flavonoids, stilbenes, and lignans, among others, have been intensively studied for their miRNA-mediated cardioprotective, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anticancer properties. The aim of this review is to outline known stilbene-regulated miRNAs in cancer, with a special focus on the interplay between various miRNAs and MTA1 signaling in prostate cancer.

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Background: The risk of cardiovascular disease in type 1 diabetes remains extremely high, despite marked advances in blood glucose control and even the widespread use of cholesterol synthesis inhibitors. Thus, a deeper understanding of insulin regulation of cholesterol metabolism, and its disruption in type 1 diabetes, could reveal better treatment strategies.

Methods: To define the mechanisms by which insulin controls plasma cholesterol levels, we knocked down the insulin receptor, FoxO1, and the key bile acid synthesis enzyme, CYP8B1.

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We report on the first experimental observation of spontaneous mirror symmetry breaking (SSB) in coherently driven-dissipative coupled optical cavities. SSB is observed as the breaking of the spatial or mirror Z_{2} symmetry between two symmetrically pumped and evanescently coupled photonic crystal nanocavities, and manifests itself as random intensity localization in one of the two cavities. We show that, in a system featuring repulsive boson interactions (U>0), the observation of a pure pitchfork bifurcation requires negative photon hopping energies (J<0), which we have realized in our photonic crystal molecule.

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Prostate cancer remains one of the most prevalent cancers in aging men. Active surveillance subpopulation of patients with prostate cancer includes men with varying cancer risk categories of precancerous disease due to prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PIN) heterogeneity. Identifying molecular alterations associated with PIN can provide preventable measures through finding novel pharmacologic targets for cancer interception.

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Fluoxetine is commonly prescribed during pregnancy but developmental exposure to the drug, like infection, is associated with sex-specific behavioral changes in the offspring. We evaluated the effects of Fluoxetine on production of biomarkers for inflammation (pro/anti-inflammatory cytokines) and neurodevelopment (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor, BDNF) in the presence and absence of infection in female and male placenta explant cultures. In addition to minor anti-inflammatory effects of the drug, Fluoxetine had significant sex- and infection-dependent effects on BDNF production.

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Natural stilbenes have gained significant attention in the scientific community owing to their potential anticancer effects against prostate cancer. We recently reported that Gnetin C, a resveratrol (Res) dimer, demonstrated more potent inhibition of metastasis-associated protein 1/v-ets avian erythroblastosis virus E26 oncogene homolog 2 (MTA1/ETS2) axis in prostate cancer cell lines than other stilbenes. In this study, we investigated in vivo antitumor effects of Gnetin C in two doses (50 and 25 mg/kg, i.

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Background: Changes in cholesterol absorption and cholesterol synthesis may promote dyslipidemia and cardiovascular disease in individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).

Objective: To assess cholesterol synthesis and absorption in lean individuals, obese individuals, and individuals with T2DM.

Methods: We measured lathosterol and lanosterol (markers of cholesterol synthesis) as well as campesterol and β-sitosterol (markers of cholesterol absorption) in the serum of 15 to 26 years old individuals with T2DM (n = 95), as well as their lean (n = 98) and obese (n = 92) controls.

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In patients with sickle cell disease (SCD) and diabetes mellitus (DM), hemoglobin A (HbA ) is unreliable and the American Diabetes Association recommends monitoring long-term glycemia by measuring serum glucose, but use of serum fructosamine (SF), a measurement independent of red cell lifespan, has been reported. SF as a screen for DM in SCD, however, is not standardized and its relationship to serum glucose has not been validated. Further, screening for DM was not adequately addressed in the 2014 National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) guidelines for SCD management.

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Scope: Previous studies have identified potent anticancer activities of polyphenols in preventing prostate cancer. The aim of the current study is to evaluate the chemopreventive potential of grape powder (GP) supplemented diets in genetically predisposed and obesity-provoked prostate cancer.

Methods And Results: Prostate-specific Pten heterozygous (Pten ) transgenic mice are fed low- and high-fat diet (LFD and HFD, respectively) supplemented with 10% GP for 33 weeks, ad libitum.

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Two coupled nanolasers exhibit a mode switching transition, theoretically described by mode beating limit cycle oscillations. Their decay rate is vanishingly small in the thermodynamic limit, i.e.

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Reported herein is the immobilization of -(1-naphthyl)ethylenediamine (NED) on cellulose via an epichlorohydrin (ECH)-based covalent attachment and the implementation of the functionalized cellulose into an ultrasensitive, paper-based device for nitrite detection. The reported functionalization procedure resulted in a 12.9-fold higher functionalization density than the density that results from the previously reported procedures, and the subsequent device allows for nitrite detection limits in synthetic freshwater and real seawater of 0.

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