Publications by authors named "M G Kovar"
The development of stimuli-responsive drug delivery systems enables targeted delivery and environment-controlled drug release, thereby minimizing off-target effects and systemic toxicity. We prepared and studied tailor-made dual-responsive systems (thermo- and pH-) based on synthetic diblock copolymers consisting of a fully hydrophilic block of poly[-(1,3-dihydroxypropyl)methacrylamide] (poly(DHPMA)) and a thermoresponsive block of poly[-(2,2-dimethyl-1,3-dioxan-5-yl)methacrylamide] (poly(DHPMA-acetal)) as drug delivery and smart stimuli-responsive materials. The copolymers were designed for eventual medical application to be fully soluble in aqueous solutions at 25 °C.
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- Multispectral devices have great potential for use in biological, ecological, and agricultural studies by providing key insights into plant structure and chemistry.
- The study compared the affordable PolyPen (PP) leaf spectrometer with the high-end FieldSpec-4 device, evaluating their reliability and sensitivity across various wheat genotypes.
- Although the FieldSpec-4 outperformed the PP in detecting genotypic and seasonal changes, the PP still demonstrated sufficient sensitivity and valuable correlations, indicating it can be effectively used in plant studies with the right parameters.
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- The study investigates the use of endovascular thrombectomy (EVT) for acute stroke treatments, specifically focusing on patients with pre-existing disabilities compared to those without.
- Utilizing national registry data from the Czech Republic, researchers analyzed the rates of EVT, workflow efficiencies, and post-stroke outcomes, defining premorbid disability using the modified Rankin Scale (mRS).
- Findings revealed that patients with premorbid disability were significantly less likely to receive EVT, experienced longer treatment times, and had poorer outcomes, including higher mortality rates and worse functional recovery at three months post-stroke.
Purpose: Patients with high-grade serous ovarian carcinoma (HGSOC) are virtually insensitive to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) employed as standalone therapeutics, at least in part reflecting microenvironmental immunosuppression. Thus, conventional chemotherapeutics and targeted anticancer agents that not only mediate cytotoxic effects but also promote the recruitment of immune effector cells to the HGSOC microenvironment stand out as promising combinatorial partners for ICIs in this oncological indication.
Experimental Design: We harnessed a variety of transcriptomic, spatial, and functional assays to characterize the differential impact of neoadjuvant paclitaxel-carboplatin on the immunological configuration of paired primary and metastatic HGSOC biopsies as compared to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT)-naïve HGSOC samples from five independent patient cohorts.
Progress in cytokine engineering is driving therapeutic translation by overcoming these proteins' limitations as drugs. The IL-2 cytokine is a promising immune stimulant for cancer treatment but is limited by its concurrent activation of both pro-inflammatory immune effector cells and antiinflammatory regulatory T cells, toxicity at high doses, and short serum half-life. One approach to improve the selectivity, safety, and longevity of IL-2 is complexing with anti-IL-2 antibodies that bias the cytokine toward immune effector cell activation.
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