Publications by authors named "N-C Lee"

Modulating immune function is a critical strategy in cancer and atherosclerosis treatments. For cancer, boosting or maintaining the immune system is crucial to prevent tumor growth. However, in vascular disease, mitigating immune responses can decrease inflammation and slow atherosclerosis progression.

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Background And Objectives: Accumulating pediatric efficacy and safety data on drug use is inherently challenging yet essential. This study aimed to analyze the frequency and compute the odds of pediatric drug-associated liver injury across age groups (early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence) and therapeutic categories using adverse drug reactions (ADRs) reporting data spanning nearly two decades.

Methods: We analyzed the reports of suspected ADRs occurring in children and adolescents in the Taiwan National Adverse Drug Reaction Reporting System during the period from May 1998 until July 2017.

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Boston Children's Hospital has established a genomic sequencing and analysis research initiative to improve clinical care for pediatric rare disease patients. Through the Children's Rare Disease Collaborative (CRDC), the hospital offers CLIA-grade exome and genome sequencing, along with other sequencing types, to patients enrolled in specialized rare disease research studies. The data, consented for broad research use, are harmonized and analyzed with CRDC-supported variant interpretation tools.

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Neuroinflammation in the central nervous system (CNS), driven largely by resident phagocytes, has been proposed as a significant contributor to disability accumulation in multiple sclerosis (MS) but has not been addressed therapeutically. Bruton's tyrosine kinase (BTK) is expressed in both B-lymphocytes and innate immune cells, including microglia, where its role is poorly understood. BTK inhibition may provide therapeutic benefit within the CNS by targeting adaptive and innate immunity-mediated disease progression in MS.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study focuses on the health challenges faced by clergy in the United Methodist Church (UMC) in North Carolina, revealing that they experience higher rates of various non-communicable diseases (NCDs) compared to the general population.
  • Data from 2008 to 2021 shows persistent issues such as obesity, hypertension, and asthma among UMC clergy, even after adjusting for age, sex, and race.
  • The study highlights the need for further research into the underlying risk factors contributing to these health disparities and the influence of clergy on the health of their communities.
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  • Pancreatic cancer is a challenging disease with a poor outlook and significant symptoms, requiring a collaborative approach in healthcare and research for better patient outcomes.
  • The Canadian National Pancreas Conference (NPC) took place in November 2023, bringing together healthcare providers and researchers to focus on enhancing the prognosis and quality of life for pancreatic cancer patients.
  • The conference covered various topics, including diagnosis, palliative care, and current management strategies, with reviews of the sessions offered in relation to existing research.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged the current paradigm of clinical and community-based disease detection. We present a multimodal wearable sensor system paired with a two-minute, movement-based activity sequence that successfully captures a snapshot of physiological data (including cardiac, respiratory, temperature, and percent oxygen saturation). We conducted a large, multi-site trial of this technology across India from June 2021 to April 2022 amidst the COVID-19 pandemic (Clinical trial registry name: International Validation of Wearable Sensor to Monitor COVID-19 Like Signs and Symptoms; NCT05334680; initial release: 04/15/2022).

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Article Synopsis
  • - SARS-CoV-2 has evolved to evade current monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), emphasizing the need for more resilient treatments that can neutralize various viral strains.
  • - A new human mAb called VIR-7229 has shown the ability to effectively neutralize multiple variants of SARS-CoV-2 and other related viruses, due to its unique targeting of a critical viral region known as the receptor-binding motif (RBM).
  • - VIR-7229 demonstrates a high resistance to the emergence of virus escape mutants, making it a promising candidate for future therapies against evolving coronaviruses.
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Depression and anxiety frequently co-occur with opioid use disorder (OUD) yet are often overlooked in standard OUD treatments. This study evaluated the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary effectiveness of a mobile application designed to address these symptoms in individuals receiving medications for OUD (MOUD). A randomized controlled trial recruited N = 63 adults with OUD who received MOUD and screened positive for moderate depression or generalized anxiety.

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Background: Ischemic stroke (IS) represents a significant health burden globally, necessitating a better understanding of its genetic underpinnings to improve prevention and treatment strategies. Despite advances in IS genetics, studies focusing on the Spanish population and sex-stratified analyses are lacking.

Methods: A case-control genome-wide association study was conducted with 9081 individuals (3493 IS cases and 5588 healthy controls).

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  • Current terminology for MRI findings related to musculoskeletal infections is vague and inconsistent, prompting the need for a new classification system.
  • The study developed the Musculoskeletal Infection Reporting and Data System (MSKI-RADS) to provide a structured scoring method for assessing extremity infections in adult patients based on MRI scans obtained between June 2015 and May 2019.
  • Results showed that MSKI-RADS improved diagnostic accuracy among radiologists, achieving a 65% accuracy rate compared to 55% for traditional diagnoses, establishing it as a reliable tool for standardized communication in identifying and managing these infections.
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Coastal areas conservation strategies often left deeper habitats, such as mesophotic ones, unprotected and exposed to anthropogenic activities. In this context, an approach for including the mesophotic zone inside protection plans is proposed, considering 27 Italian Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) as a model. MPAs were classified considering their bathymetries, exposure to marine heat waves (MHWs), mass mortality events (MMEs) and, using a local ecological knowledge (LEK) approach, the estimated resilience of certain sessile species after MMEs.

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Doping and hybridization with other semiconductors are highly effective ways to address the limitations, including their weak response to visible light and significant recombination of photogenerated carriers. In addition, the assisted carbon on the catalyst surface and the structural design have the advantage of being catalytically active. Herein, visible-light-active N-doped C/NaTiO/TiO hollow spheres (denoted as N-C/NTO/TiO HS) were successfully prepared using a facile two-step method and evaluated for methylene blue (MB) aqueous solution degradation under visible-light irradiation.

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Background: Tobacco use remains a leading cause of preventable morbidity and premature mortality. In December 2019, the federal age of sale for tobacco products increased from 18 to 21 years of age. This study aimed to evaluate the implementation of federal tobacco 21 policies in Pitt County, North Carolina (NC), by conducting multiple purchase attempts for cigarettes.

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Background: This trial aimed to assess the efficacy, acceptability, and safety of a first-trimester screen-and-prevent strategy for preterm preeclampsia in Asia.

Methods: Between August 1, 2019, and February 28, 2022, this multicenter stepped wedge cluster randomized trial included maternity/diagnostic units from 10 regions in Asia. The trial started with a period where all recruiting centers provided routine antenatal care without study-related intervention.

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Leptomeningeal metastases (LM) are increasingly becoming recognized as a treatable, yet generally incurable, complication of advanced cancer. As modern cancer therapeutics have prolonged the lives of patients with metastatic cancer, specifically in patients with parenchymal brain metastases, treatment options, and clinical research protocols for patients with LM from solid tumors have similarly evolved to improve survival within specific populations. Recent expansions in clinical investigation, early diagnosis, and drug development have given rise to new unanswered questions.

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Stopping power is the rate at which a material absorbs the kinetic energy of a charged particle passing through it-one of many properties needed over a wide range of thermodynamic conditions in modeling inertial fusion implosions. First-principles stopping calculations are classically challenging because they involve the dynamics of large electronic systems far from equilibrium, with accuracies that are particularly difficult to constrain and assess in the warm-dense conditions preceding ignition. Here, we describe a protocol for using a fault-tolerant quantum computer to calculate stopping power from a first-quantized representation of the electrons and projectile.

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Efficient photovoltaic devices must be efficient light emitters to reach the thermodynamic efficiency limit. Here, we present a promising prospect of perovskite photovoltaics as bright emitters by harnessing the significant benefits of photon recycling, which can be practically achieved by suppressing interfacial quenching. We have achieved radiative and stable perovskite photovoltaic devices by the design of a multiple quantum well structure with long (∼3 nm) organic spacers with oleylammonium molecules at perovskite top interfaces.

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Purpose To develop a radiomics framework for preoperative MRI-based prediction of isocitrate dehydrogenase () mutation status, a crucial glioma prognostic indicator. Materials and Methods Radiomics features (shape, first-order statistics, and texture) were extracted from the whole tumor or the combination of nonenhancing, necrosis, and edema regions. Segmentation masks were obtained via the federated tumor segmentation tool or the original data source.

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Introduction: Concerns regarding bleeding remain in cold snare polypectomy (CSP) for small pedunculated (0-Ip) polyps. The aim of this study was to compare the risk of CSP and hot snare polypectomy (HSP) for such lesions.

Methods: Data on 0-Ip colorectal polyps ≤10 mm were extracted from a large, pragmatic, randomized trial.

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Based on experimental and computational evidence, phthalocyanine (Pc) compounds in the form of quaternary-bound metal-nitrogen (N) atoms are the most effective catalysts for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). However, the heat treatment process used in their synthesis may compromise the ideal structure, causing the agglomeration of transition metals. To overcome this issue, a novel method is developed for synthesizing iron (Fe) single-atom catalysts with ideal structures supported by thermally exfoliated graphene oxide (GO).

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Background: One of the major determinants of exercise intolerance and limiting symptoms among patients with obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is an elevated intracardiac pressure resulting from left ventricular outflow tract obstruction. Aficamten is an oral selective cardiac myosin inhibitor that reduces left ventricular outflow tract gradients by mitigating cardiac hypercontractility.

Methods: In this phase 3, double-blind trial, we randomly assigned adults with symptomatic obstructive HCM to receive aficamten (starting dose, 5 mg; maximum dose, 20 mg) or placebo for 24 weeks, with dose adjustment based on echocardiography results.

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Organic diazo compounds are versatile reagents in chemical synthesis and would benefit from improved synthetic accessibility, especially for larger scale applications. Here, we report a mild method for the synthesis of diazo compounds from hydrazones using a heterogeneous Fe-N-C catalyst, which has Fe ions dispersed within a graphitic nitrogen-doped carbon support. The reactions proceed readily at room temperature using O (1 atm) as the oxidant.

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