Publications by authors named "ML Ramirez"

Designing iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs) to effectively combine magnetic hyperthermia (MH) and photothermia (PTT) in one IONP formulation presents a significant challenge to ensure a multimodal therapy allowing the adaptation of the treatment to each patient. Recent research has highlighted the influence of factors such as the size, shape, and amount of defects on both therapeutic approaches. In this study, 20-25 nm spherical IONPs with a spinel composition were synthesized by adapting the protocol of the thermal decomposition method to control the amount of defects.

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Infant cereals are typically the first foods introduced as complementary foods. Cereals used to elaborate complementary foods, such as wheat, maize and rice, are susceptible to mycotoxin contamination. Among mycotoxins, fumonisins have been epidemiologically associated, in humans, with oesophageal cancer, neural tube defects and stunting.

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Core-shell nanocomposites made of iron oxide core (IO NPs) coated with mesoporous silica (MS) shells are promising theranostic agents. While the core is being used as an efficient heating nanoagent under alternating magnetic field (AMF) and near infra-red (NIR) light and as a suitable contrast agent for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the MS shell is particularly relevant to ensure colloidal stability in a biological buffer and to transport a variety of therapeutics. However, a major challenge with such inorganic nanostructures is the design of adjustable silica structures, especially with tunable large pores which would be useful, for instance, for the delivery of large therapeutic biomolecule loading and further sustained release.

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Article Synopsis
  • Latin America features diverse climates that support a variety of agricultural products, essential for food consumption.
  • Fungal species pose a threat to these crops by contaminating them with mycotoxins, which can significantly affect health and productivity.
  • There is limited research on modified mycotoxins in Latin America, with the review aiming to assess potential human exposure risks to these toxins based on available literature.
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Fluids are drugs used in veterinary patients capable of producing beneficial therapeutic or inadvertent harmful effects within the body's intravascular, interstitial, and intracellular fluid spaces. The individualized design of a fluid therapy plan requires careful patient assessment and targeted selection of proper fluid types, administration routes, and rates, along with adjustments during therapy tailored specifically as per the individual patient's fluid requirement and therapeutic response. Personalized fluid prescriptions and vigilant patient monitoring help avoid patient morbidity from body fluid deficiencies, fluid excess, and electrolyte derangements and support better patient outcomes.

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Background: Allogeneic haematopoietic stem-cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) markedly reduces HIV reservoirs, but the mechanisms by which this occurs are only partly understood. In this study, we aimed to describe the dynamics of virological and immunological markers of HIV persistence after allo-HSCT.

Methods: In this prospective observational cohort study, we analysed the viral reservoir and serological dynamics in IciStem cohort participants with HIV who had undergone allo-HSCT and were receiving antiretroviral therapy, ten of whom had received cells from donors with the CCR5Δ32 mutation.

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  • Non-obstructive azoospermia (NOA) is a prevalent and complex issue with varied treatment options and no definitive guidelines, leading to differing management practices internationally.
  • A comprehensive survey with 336 responses from specialists in 49 countries explored current medical and surgical strategies for NOA, analyzing results against existing guidelines and offering expert recommendations.
  • Key findings included diverse approaches to hormonal therapy, significant variation in sperm retrieval success rates, and differing protocols around varicocele repair and follicle-stimulating hormone cutoff levels for sperm retrieval.
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  • * Conducted from July to September 2022, a questionnaire gathered responses from 367 doctors in 49 countries, focusing on how they diagnose NOA through methods like hormone tests and genetic analyses.
  • * The survey identified that while many practices align with guidelines, significant differences in approaches were found, underscoring the need for standardized, evidence-based international guidelines for NOA evaluation.
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is a causal agent of Head Blight in wheat, and it produces both deoxynivalenol (DON) and nivalenol (NIV). Nevertheless, the effect of environmental factors on the growth and mycotoxin production of this species has not been studied so far. The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of environmental factors on the growth and mycotoxin production of strains.

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Functionalized iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs) are increasingly being designed as a theranostic nanoplatform combining specific targeting, diagnosis by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and multimodal therapy by hyperthermia. The effect of the size and the shape of IONPs is of tremendous importance to develop theranostic nanoobjects displaying efficient MRI contrast agents and hyperthermia agent via the combination of magnetic hyperthermia (MH) and/or photothermia (PTT). Another key parameter is that the amount of accumulation of IONPs in cancerous cells is sufficiently high, which often requires the grafting of specific targeting ligands (TLs).

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  • Chickpeas are prone to fungal infections and mycotoxin contamination, which is significant since Argentina exports most of its chickpea production and quality is critical.
  • A study evaluated how varying water activity and temperature affect the growth of fungi and the production of mycotoxins, AOH, AME, and TA, using strains isolated from chickpeas in Argentina.
  • Results showed that maximum fungal growth occurred at high water activity (0.99) and 25 °C, while mycotoxin production varied by strain and depended on specific temperature and water activity conditions, indicating risks during chickpea maturation and storage.
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The World Health Organization recently began developing a "pandemic treaty" in response to the perceived failures of the global COVID-19 response. The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which obligates members to certain global standards in tobacco control, is an example of a global public health agreement that may be used as a model for the pandemic treaty. Several challenges related to the convention, many from the tobacco industry itself, must be addressed if it is to be used as a prototype for a pandemic agreement.

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  • Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a growing global health issue linked to obesity, prompting the need for bariatric surgery as a potential solution.
  • A study in Colombia analyzed the effectiveness of bariatric surgery on MetS among patients treated from 2015 to 2019, comparing pre- and post-surgery conditions.
  • Results showed a significant drop in MetS prevalence from 66.2% to 3.7% after surgery, highlighting the procedure's effectiveness in improving metabolic health in the Colombian population.
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A major challenge in nanomedicine is designing nanoplatforms (NPFs) to selectively target abnormal cells to ensure early diagnosis and targeted therapy. Among developed NPFs, iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs) are good MRI contrast agents and can be used for therapy by hyperthermia and as radio-sensitizing agents. Active targeting is a promising method for selective IONPs accumulation in cancer tissues and is generally performed by using targeting ligands (TL).

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Despite great interest in the use of silica mesoporous nanoparticles (MSNs) in drug delivery little is known on their biological fate. Positron emission tomography (PET) studies of radiolabelled MSNs face a major difficulty due to the degradation of the MSNs during circulation as it is difficult to assign activity values to either the MSNs or their degradation products. Here, a PET study is conducted using two strategies of labelling.

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The degradation of mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) in the biological milieu due to silica hydrolysis plays a fundamental role for the delivery of encapsulated drugs and therapeutics. However, little is known on the evolution of the pore arrangement in the MSNs in biologically relevant conditions. Small Angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) studies were performed on unmodified and PEGylated MSNs with a MCM-48 pore structure and average sizes of 140 nm, exposed to simulated body fluid solution (SBF) at pH 7.

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Bleomycin is an antibiotic that is often used as a chemotherapeutic agent due to its antitumor activities against a variety of malignancies. A feared and often fatal side effect of this drug is a pulmonary injury causing inflammation that can progress to pulmonary fibrosis. Bleomycin damages lung endothelial cells by the production of free radicals that can only occur when it is bound to certain metals in the body.

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  • * Maximum mycelial growth occurred at the highest water activity (0.99) and temperature (30 °C), while aflatoxin production peaked at 0.99 water activity and 25 °C after 5 days for two strains, and at 0.96 after 21 days for the third strain.
  • * The findings help determine conditions that pose a significant risk for aflat
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Paraguay is a non-traditional wheat-producing country in one of the warmest regions in South America. Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) is a critical disease affecting this crop, caused by the species complex (FGSC). A variety of these species produce trichothecenes, including deoxynivalenol (DON) and its acetylated forms (3-ADON and 15-ADON) or nivalenol (NIV).

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Pyroptosis is a mechanism of inflammatory cell death mediated by the activation of the prolytic protein gasdermin D by caspase-1, caspase-4, and caspase-5 in human, and caspase-1 and caspase-11 in mouse. In addition, caspase-1 amplifies inflammation by proteolytic activation of cytokine interleukin-1β (IL-1β). Modern mammals of the order Carnivora lack the caspase-1 catalytic domain but express an unusual version of caspase-4 that can activate both gasdermin D and IL-1β.

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Despite substantial investment and effort by federal agencies and institutions to improve the diversity of the professoriate, progress is excruciatingly slow. One program that aims to enhance faculty diversity is the Institutional Research and Academic Career Development Award (IRACDA) funded by the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of General Medical Sciences. IRACDA supports the training of a diverse cohort of postdoctoral scholars who will seek academic research and teaching careers.

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, a recently formally described novel species, has been identified as an T-2 toxin (T-2), HT-2 toxin (HT-2) and other toxins producer in natural grasses (Poaceae) from Argentina. The major objective of this study was to describe the effect of water activity (a, 0.995, 0.

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The Chaco wetland is among the most biologically diverse regions in Argentina. In collections of fungi from asymptomatic native grasses (Poaceae) from the wetlands, we identified isolates of that were morphologically similar to , but distinct from it by their production of abundant microconidia. All the isolates had identical, or nearly identical, partial sequences of and .

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Among carbohydrate-processing enzymes, Jack bean α-mannosidase (JBα-man) is the glycosidase with the best responsiveness to the multivalent presentation of iminosugar inhitopes. We report, in this work, the preparation of water dispersible gold nanoparticles simultaneously coated with the iminosugar deoxynojirimycin (DNJ) inhitope and simple monosaccharides (β-d-gluco- or α-d-mannosides). The display of DNJ at the gold surface has been modulated (i) by using an amphiphilic linker longer than the aliphatic chain used for the monosaccharides and (ii) by presenting the inhitope, not only in monomeric form, but also in a trimeric fashion through combination of a dendron approach with glyconanotechnology.

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An approach for reducing toxicity and enhancing therapeutic potential of supramolecular polyamine phosphate nanoparticles (PANs) through PEGylation of polyamines before their assembly into nanoparticles is presented here. It is shown that the number of polyethylene glycol (PEG) chains for polyamine largely influence physico-chemical properties of PANs and their biological endpoints. Poly(allylamine hydrochloride) (PAH) are functionalized through carbodiimide chemistry with three ratios of PEG molecules per PAH chain: 0.

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