Publications by authors named "N Higuita-Castro"
Adipose tissue is crucial for medical applications such as tissue reconstruction, cosmetic procedures, and correcting soft tissue deformities. Significant advances in the use of adipose tissue have been achieved through Coleman's studies in fat grafting, which gained widespread acceptance due to its effectiveness and safety. Despite its benefits, adipose tissue grafting faces several limitations, including high absorption rates due to insufficient support or anchorage, replacement by fibrous tissue, migration from the intended site, and loss of the initial desired morphology post-administration.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTissue nano-transfection of antimicrobial genes drives bacterial biofilm killing in wounds and is potentially mediated by extracellular vesicles.
J Control Release
December 2024
Article Synopsis
- Antibiotic-resistant bacteria, like Staphylococcus aureus, pose a serious health threat, necessitating new treatment strategies against infections.
- The study explored the use of tissue-nanotransfection (TNT) to deliver a gene (CAMP) that enhances the production of an antimicrobial peptide (LL-37) in mice with infected wounds.
- Results showed that TNT treatment effectively reduced bacterial load, improved wound healing indicators, and increased immune response, highlighting its potential as a novel method for treating difficult infections.
Article Synopsis
- * A new device called a "ventilator-on-a-chip" (VOC) has been developed to mimic lung conditions and can measure how mechanical forces, like over-distention and surface tension during reopening, affect lung barrier integrity.
- * The study showed that while over-distention has a recoverable impact on lung barriers, surface tension forces from airway reopening cause more significant and prolonged damage, highlighting the VOC's ability to investigate and monitor VILI in real-time.
Direct nuclear reprogramming has the potential to enable the development of β cell replacement therapies for diabetes that do not require the use of progenitor/stem cell populations. However, despite their promise, current approaches to β cell-directed reprogramming rely heavily on the use of viral vectors. Here we explored the use of extracellular vesicles (EVs) derived from human dermal fibroblasts (HDFs) as novel non-viral carriers of endocrine cell-patterning transcription factors, to transfect and transdifferentiate pancreatic ductal epithelial cells (PDCs) into hormone-expressing cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPainful musculoskeletal disorders such as intervertebral disc (IVD) degeneration associated with chronic low back pain (termed "Discogenic back pain", DBP), are a significant socio-economic burden worldwide and contribute to the growing opioid crisis. Yet there are very few if any successful interventions that can restore the tissue's structure and function while also addressing the symptomatic pain. Here we have developed a novel non-viral gene therapy, using engineered extracellular vesicles (eEVs) to deliver the developmental transcription factor FOXF1 to the degenerated IVD in an in vivo model.
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