Publications by authors named "Melissa Ling"

Article Synopsis
  • Traumatic injury is a major global cause of suffering and death, highlighting the need for effective prehospital therapies that balance organ perfusion and blood loss.
  • Current options for damage control resuscitation (DCR) are limited, prompting research into synthetic polymers as injectable therapies that are portable and stable in tough conditions.
  • This study designs and tests a specific polymer, which shows promise by not interfering with blood coagulation and effectively resuscitating rats from severe blood loss, suggesting its potential use in trauma medicine.
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The manufacturing process of chimeric antigen receptor T cell therapies includes isolation systems that provide pure T cells. Current magnetic-activated cell sorting and immunoaffinity chromatography methods produce desired cells with high purity and yield but require expensive equipment and reagents and involve time-consuming incubation steps. Here, we demonstrate that aptamers can be employed in a continuous-flow resin platform for both depletion of monocytes and selection of CD8 T cells from peripheral blood mononuclear cells at low cost with high purity and throughput.

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Aptamers are single-stranded nucleic acids that bind and recognize targets much like antibodies. Recently, aptamers have garnered increased interest due to their unique properties, including inexpensive production, simple chemical modification, and long-term stability. At the same time, aptamers possess similar binding affinity and specificity as their protein counterpart.

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To combat racial/ethnic and socioeconomic health disparities associated with COVID-19 in our surrounding communities, the Cleveland Clinic Community Health & Partnership team developed a comprehensive program focused on connecting and communicating with local officials, faith-based organizations, and individual community members. Since March of 2020, our team has donated resources (e.g.

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Monitoring polymerization events leading to the discovery of new high-molecular weight (MW) impurities is challenging during chemical syntheses of active pharmaceutical ingredients. Employing reversed-phase chromatography (RPC) stationary phases (SPs) in size-exclusion chromatography (SEC) mode could be a potential solution given their high efficiency, sensitivity, and extensive solvent compatibility. However, there is a lack of generalized means for trace polymeric impurities across a wide range of physicochemical properties.

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A persistent trigeminal artery variant (PTAV) is an anomalous vessel that originates from the internal carotid artery and directly supplies the cerebellum without interposition of the basilar artery. This anatomic variant is usually found incidentally on imaging but can rarely have clinical implications. We describe a case of a 74-year-old woman presenting with multiple years of lower jaw pain attributed to trigeminal neuralgia, unresolved with medication.

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Meningiomas are common intracranial tumors that rarely metastasize. We present a highly unusual case of a 42-year-old man with direct seeding of meningioma to the abdominal wall. The patient had a history of multiple operations for a recurrent intracranial meningioma with decompressive craniectomy and preservation of the calvarial bone flap by implantation into the subcutaneous layer of the anterior abdominal wall.

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Background: We aimed to examine the discriminant validity of a brief self-administered cognitive screening test, the Test Your Memory (TYM) and a brief neuropsychological test, the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS), supplemented with executive and language tests (Color Trail Test [CTT] and modified Boston Naming Test [mBNT], respectively), in detecting cognitive impairment (CI) in a one-stop memory clinic in Singapore.

Methods: Ninety patients ≥50 years old with a diagnosis of no cognitive impairment, mild cognitive impairment, and mild Alzheimer disease were recruited from memory clinic. They received the TYM, Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), RBANS, CTT, mBNT, and a gold-standard formal neuropsychological test battery.

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Iodine is crucial for thyroid hormone synthesis and fetal neurodevelopment. Major dietary sources of iodine in the United States are dairy products and iodized salt. Potential consequences of iodine deficiency are goiter, hypothyroidism, cretinism, and impaired cognitive development.

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Objective: To report a rare case of hypophosphatemic rickets (HR) leading to extensive cardiac complications.

Methods: We present the clinical course and autopsy findings of a patient with HR, treated with chronic phosphate-only therapy as a child, who subsequently developed tertiary hyperparathyroidism leading to extensive cardiac calcifications and complications. We also review the literature on the pathophysiology of calcifications from HR.

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Adrenocortical insufficiency may arise through primary failure of the adrenal glands or due to lack of ACTH stimulation as a result of pituitary or hypothalamic dysfunction. Prolonged administration of exogenous steroids will suppress the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, and hence cortisol secretion. We review briefly the causes, investigation, and treatment of adrenal insufficiency, and highlight aspects of particular relevance to patients with adrenal tumors.

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Background. The role of vitamin D in the body's ability to fight influenza and URI's may be dependent on regulation of specific cytokines that participate in the host inflammatory response. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that vitamin D can influence intracellular signaling to regulate the production of cytokines.

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Introduction: The available treatment options for euvolemic and hypervolemic hyponatremia are limited, and consist mainly of fluid restriction, diuresis, or hypertonic solutions. Most of these therapies are neither well tolerated nor totally effective, and many are associated with significant adverse effects. Vasopressin receptor antagonists, also known as vaptans, are a new class of agents that now offer an additional treatment option for hyponatremic patients.

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Background: Indirect evidence suggests that optimal vitamin D status is achieved with a serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] concentration >75 nmol/L.

Objective: We aimed to determine the intake of vitamin D(3) needed to raise serum 25(OH)D to >75 nmol/L.

Design: The design was a 6-mo, prospective, randomized, double-blinded, double-dummy, placebo-controlled study of vitamin D(3) supplementation.

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