Development of Targeted siRNA Nanocomplexes to Prevent Fibrosis in Experimental Glaucoma Filtration Surgery.

RNAi induced by double-stranded small interfering RNA (siRNA) molecules has attracted great attention as a naturally occurring approach to silence gene expression with high specificity. The myocardin-related transcription factor/serum response factor (MRTF/SRF) pathway is a master regulator of cytoskeletal gene expression and, thus, represents a promising target to prevent fibrosis. A major hurdle to implementing siRNA therapies is the method of delivery, and we have, thus, optimized lipid-peptide-siRNA (LPR) nanoparticles containing MRTF-B siRNAs as a targeted approach to prevent conjunctival fibrosis.

A Social Media mHealth Solution to Address the Needs of Dengue Prevention and Management in Sri Lanka.

Background: Sri Lanka has witnessed a series of dengue epidemics over the past five years, with the western province, home to the political capital of Colombo, bearing more than half of the dengue burden. Existing dengue monitoring prevention programs are exhausted as public health inspectors (PHIs) cope with increasing workloads and paper-based modes of surveillance and education, characterizing a reactive system unable to cope with the enormity of the problem. On the other hand, the unprecedented proliferation and affordability of mobile phones since 2009 and a supportive political climate have thus far remained unexploited for the use of mobile-based interventions for dengue management.

Social media-based civic engagement solutions for dengue prevention in Sri Lanka: results of receptivity assessment.

This article focuses on a novel social media-based system that addresses dengue prevention through an integration of three components: predictive surveillance, civic engagement and health education. The aim was to conduct a potential receptivity assessment of this system among smartphone users in the city of Colombo, the epicenter of the dengue epidemic in the island country of Sri Lanka. Grounded in Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) and using a convenience sampling approach, the cross-sectional survey assessed perceived severity (PSe), perceived susceptibility (PSu), perceived response efficacy (PRE), perceived self-efficacy (PSE) and intention-to-use (IU) among 513 individuals.

Baseline Evaluation of a Participatory Mobile Health Intervention for Dengue Prevention in Sri Lanka.

Challenges posed by infectious disease outbreaks have led to a range of participatory mobile phone-based innovations that use the power of crowdsourcing for disease surveillance. However, the dynamics of participatory behavior by crowds in such interventions have yet to be examined. This article reports results from a baseline evaluation of one such intervention called Mo-Buzz, a mobile-based crowdsource-driven socially mediated system developed to address gaps in dengue surveillance and education in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

A 21st century approach to tackling dengue: Crowdsourced surveillance, predictive mapping and tailored communication.

This paper describes a social media system to prevent dengue in Sri Lanka and potentially in the rest of the South and Southeast Asia regions. The system integrates three concepts of public health prevention that have thus far been implemented only in silos. First, the predictive surveillance component uses a computer simulation to forewarn health authorities and the general public about impending disease outbreaks.