Publications by authors named "M Kratochvil"

Background: Dexamethasone 6 mg in patients with severe COVID-19 has been shown to decrease mortality and morbidity. The effects of higher doses of corticosteroid, that would further increase anti-inflammatory effects, are uncertain. The objective of our study was to assess the effect of 20 mg dexamethasone vs.

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is a major pulmonary pathogen causing chronic pulmonary infections in people with cystic fibrosis (CF). The and lysogenic bacteriophage, Pf phage, is abundant in the airways of many people with CF and has been associated with poor outcomes in a cross-sectional cohort study. Previous studies have identified roles for Pf phage in biofilm formation, specifically forming higher-order birefringent, liquid crystals when in contact with other biopolymers in biofilms.

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Stress exposure during the sensitive period of early development has been shown to program the brain and increases the risk to develop cognitive deficits later in life. We have shown earlier that early-life stress (ES) leads to cognitive decline at an adult age, associated with changes in adult hippocampal neurogenesis and neuroinflammation. In particular, ES has been shown to affect neurogenesis rate and the survival of newborn cells later in life as well as microglia, modulating their response to immune or metabolic challenges later in life.

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Article Synopsis
  • Chronic infections in cystic fibrosis patients lead to high mortality and require antibiotic treatment, but the bacteriophage Pf complicates this due to its role in biofilms and resistance.
  • The study explores how Pf and sputum polymers affect antibiotic diffusion, revealing that tobramycin binds to these compounds, reducing its effectiveness.
  • Mathematical models were created to understand these interactions, suggesting that Pf enhances the binding of antibiotics, which could inform new treatment strategies for improving antibiotic efficacy.
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Background: Computational models in systems biology are becoming more important with the advancement of experimental techniques to query the mechanistic details responsible for leading to phenotypes of interest. In particular, Boolean models are well fit to describe the complexity of signaling networks while being simple enough to scale to a very large number of components. With the advance of Boolean model inference techniques, the field is transforming from an artisanal way of building models of moderate size to a more automatized one, leading to very large models.

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