Publications by authors named "OEzem Kalay"

Background: Allergen-specific immunotherapy (AIT) is so far the only disease-modifying therapy for allergy, resulting in a long-lasting tolerance. However, the existing safety concerns and the need for more efficacious alternatives that shorten the duration of treatment have stimulated research into the development of novel alternatives. Some of these novel alternatives involve modifying allergens with molecules that target innate immunomodulatory receptors to suppress the immune activity of immune cells.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

() is a tumor suppressor gene involved in DNA repair and cell cycle regulation. Pathogenic or likely pathogenic (P/LP) variants in are associated with increased cancer risk. Conversely, recent large cohort studies have identified certain variants that, despite being classified as P/LP by in silico analysis, are considered low risk.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Cancer vaccines are a promising strategy to increase tumor-specific immune responses in patients who do not adequately respond to checkpoint inhibitors. Cancer vaccines that contain patient-specific tumor antigens are most effective but also necessitate the production of patient-specific vaccines. This study aims to develop a versatile cancer vaccine format in which patient-specific tumor antigens can be site-specifically conjugated by a proximity-based Sortase A (SrtA)-mediated ligation (PBSL) approach to antibodies that specifically bind to antigen-presenting cells to stimulate immune responses.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • This study investigates risk factors for all-cause mortality and major cardiovascular events in patients undergoing ambulatory blood pressure monitoring, which helps track blood pressure outside of clinical settings.! -
  • The research analyzed data from 1,291 patients, finding that survival rates improved with certain blood pressure patterns and age, while poorer outcomes were associated with smoking and specific blood pressure dips.! -
  • The study emphasizes the importance of diastolic blood pressure dipping and nighttime variability in predicting health outcomes, highlighting the need for personalized treatment approaches in hypertension management.!
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The COVID-19 pandemic, declared by the WHO in March 2020, has led to increased investigation into how SARS-CoV-2 spreads, particularly in indoor settings.
  • Many studies on infection risk have overlooked the evaporation of droplets and are based on static air conditions, while the recommended social distancing is 1.83 m (6 feet).
  • This research used Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to simulate airborne transmission in a hospital examination room, analyzing how different air speeds and droplet sizes affect infection risk and identifying high-risk areas to improve hospital room design.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Tuberculosis, caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is a significant global health issue, and rising drug resistance highlights the urgent need for new treatments.
  • Computer-aided drug design (CADD) is being utilized to create more effective and less toxic drugs for tuberculosis.
  • The study focused on two synthetic peptides, AKVUAM-1 and AKVUAM-2, which were designed to block interactions crucial for M. tuberculosis infection, showing promise without harming normal lung tissue and having varied minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) against different bacterial strains.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Aim: This study investigated the association between gestational age and birth size with pubertal timing, measured as peak height velocity, and adult height.

Methods: This retrospective, population-based study was conducted in Sweden in 2023. A sub-group of the 1974 and 1990 GrowUp Gothenburg cohorts was used (n = 4700, 50% males).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Molecular transport processes in printed polymer droplets hold enormous importance for understanding wetting phenomena and designing systems in applications such as encoding, electronics, photonics, and sensing. This paper studies thickness-dependent dewetting modes that are activated by thermal annealing and driven by interfacial interactions within microscopically confined polymeric features. The printing of poly(2-vinylpyridine) is performed in a regime where coffee-ring effects lead to strong thinning of the central region of the deposit.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background/aim: Despite advancements in valve technology and increased clinical experience, complications related to conduction defects after transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVR) have not improved as rapidly as expected. In this study, we aimed to predict the development of complete atrioventricular (AV) block and bundle branch block during and after the TAVR procedure and to investigate any changes in the cardiac conduction system before and after the procedure using electrophysiological study.

Materials And Methods: A total of 30 patients who were scheduled for TAVR at our cardiovascular council were planned to be included in the study.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Cancer vaccines can be utilized in combination with checkpoint inhibitors to optimally stimulate the anti-tumor immune response. Uptake of vaccine antigen by antigen presenting cells (APCs) is a prerequisite for T cell priming, but often relies on non-specific mechanisms. Here, we have developed a novel vaccination strategy consisting of cancer antigen-containing liposomes conjugated with CD169- or DC-SIGN-specific nanobodies (single domain antibodies) to achieve specific uptake by APCs.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Cancer vaccines have emerged as a potent strategy to improve cancer immunity, with or without the combination of checkpoint blockade. In our investigation, liposomal formulations containing synthetic long peptides and α-Galactosylceramide, along with a DC-SIGN-targeting ligand, Lewis Y (Le), were studied for their anti-tumor potential. The formulated liposomes boosted with anti-CD40 adjuvant demonstrated robust invariant natural killer (iNKT), CD4, and CD8 T-cell activation in vivo.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Bifurcation involvement in chronic total occlusion (CTO) percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is a significant challenge, but this factor hasn't been widely studied or included in existing scoring systems.
  • An analysis of 3,948 CTO-PCI procedures from 92 European centers revealed that 33% of these cases involved bifurcation lesions, which were generally more complex and required more sophisticated devices, resulting in higher radiation and contrast exposure.
  • Despite comparable overall technical success rates between bifurcation and non-bifurcation lesions, bifurcation lesions located within the CTO segment faced significantly lower success rates, making it crucial to consider their presence in future PCI assessments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Accurate identification of germline variants (DNVs) remains a challenging problem despite rapid advances in sequencing technologies as well as methods for the analysis of the data they generate, with putative solutions often involving filters and visual inspection of identified variants. Here, we present a purely informatic method for the identification of DNVs by analyzing short-read genome sequencing data from proband-parent trios. Our method evaluates variant calls generated by three genome sequence analysis pipelines utilizing different algorithms-GATK HaplotypeCaller, DeepTrio and Velsera GRAF-exploring the assumption that a requirement of consensus can serve as an effective filter for high-quality DNVs.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Physically unclonable functions (PUFs) have attracted growing interest for anticounterfeiting and authentication applications. The practical applications require durable PUFs made of robust materials. This study reports a practical strategy to generate extremely robust PUFs by embedding random features onto a substrate.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We report the synthesis of a novel class of metal-complexing peptide-based polymers, which we name HyperMAPs (Hyper-loaded MetAl-complexed Polymers). The controlled solid-phase synthesis of HyperMAPs' scaffold peptide provides our polymer with a well-defined molecular structure that allows for an accurate on-design assembly of a wide variety of metals. The peptide-scaffold features a handle for direct conjugation to antibodies or any other biomolecules by means of a thiol-maleimide-click or aldehyde-oxime reaction, a fluorogenic moiety for biomolecule conjugation tracking, and a well-defined number of functional groups for direct incorporation of metal-chelator complexes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Primary immune deficiencies (PIDs) are rare genetic disorders that result in weakened immune systems, leading to frequent infections and a higher risk of cancer and lymphoproliferative disorders.
  • In a study of 550 pediatric patients with PID, 17 (3.0%) were found to have malignancies or benign lymphoproliferations, with immune dysregulatory diseases being the most common cause.
  • Lymphoma was the most frequently observed malignancy, and Epstein-Barr virus was identified as the most common viral agent involved, emphasizing the need for early diagnosis and ongoing care for affected patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

High entropy oxides (HEOs) offer great potential as catalysts for oxygen electrocatalytic reactions in alkaline environments. Herein, a novel synthesis approach to prepare (FeCrCoMnZn)O high entropy spinel oxide in a vacuum atmosphere, with the primary objective of introducing oxygen vacancies into the crystal structure, is presented. As compared to the air-synthesized counterpart, the (FeCrCoMnZn)O with abundant oxygen vacancies demonstrates a low (better) bifunctional (BI) index of 0.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: House dust mite extract-based allergen immunotherapy (AIT) to treat house dust mite allergy is substantially effective but still presents some safety and efficacy concerns that warrant improvement. Several major allergen-based approaches to increase safety and efficacy of AIT have been proposed. One of them is the use of the group 2 allergen, Der p 2.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Lysinuric protein intolerance (LPI) is a rare, inherited aminoaciduria caused by biallelic pathogenic variants in the amino acid transporter gene (OMIM *603593). Individuals with LPI show extreme variability in their clinical presentation, and LPI is included in the differential diagnosis of several disorders such as urea cycle disorders, lysosomal storage diseases, malabsorption diseases, autoimmune disorders, hemochromatosis, and osteoporosis. The phenotypic variability of LPI and the lack of a specific clinical presentation have caused various misdiagnoses.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The reasons for the etiology of premature ventricular contractions (PVCs) are not specifically known. Many patients are resistant to medical treatment, and a factor that would predict response to medical treatment cannot be identified. This study aims to investigate if a high catecholamine level results in polymorphic PVC.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The secondary sulfonamide derivatives containing benzothiazole scaffold (1-10) were synthesized to determine their inhibition properties on two physiologically essential human carbonic anhydrases isoforms (hCAs, EC, 4.2.1.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Our aim was to investigate the relationship between thiol, which is the main component of the antioxidant system, and coronary collateral circulation (CCC). Our patients consisted of people with stable coronary artery disease (sCAD) and total occlusion in at least one vessel ( = 249). We divided the patients into two groups, good and poor, according to their CCC degree.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The CRP/albumin ratio (CAR), a new inflammatory marker, is associated with adverse outcomes in various cardiovascular diseases. We evaluated the effectiveness of CAR in predicting embolic events in patients diagnosed with infective endocarditis (IE). A total of 145 patients with IE were included in the study and categorized into two groups according to the presence of embolic events.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF