Vesicles: New Advances in the Treatment of Neurodegenerative Diseases.

Neurodegenerative diseases are characterized by brain lesions that limit normal daily activities and represent a major challenge to healthcare systems worldwide, with a significant economic impact. Nanotechnology is the science of manipulating matter at the nanoscale, where materials exhibit unique properties that are significantly different from their larger counterparts. These properties can be exploited for a wide range of applications, including medicine.

A Cross-Sectional Study of Variant Interpretation and Reporting of NGS Data Using Tertiary Analysis Software: Navify Mutation Profiler.

Introduction: Personalized medicine has revolutionized the clinical management of patients with solid tumors. However, the large volumes of molecular data derived from next-generation sequencing (NGS) and the lack of harmonized bioinformatics pipelines drastically impact the clinical management of patients with solid tumors. A possible solution to streamline the molecular interpretation and reporting of NGS data would be to adopt automated data analysis software.

Co-creating a Mpox Elimination Campaign in the WHO European Region: The Central Role of Affected Communities.

Between May 2022 and September 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe engaged in a collaborative effort with affected communities to address the outbreak of mpox in the region. This concerted endeavor led to the development of a risk communication campaign specifically tailored to address the perceptions and needs of the target audience, thereby contributing to the control and the long-term goal of mpox elimination. Various community engagement interventions were implemented, including the establishment of an informal civil society organizations' working group to provide feedback on the WHO mpox campaign, webinars targeting event organizers, and roundtable discussions with country-level responders.

Assessing the parental SES gradient in young Britons' partnership expectations, attitudes and its potential mediators.

A well-documented trend in family demography is that young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds tend to enter their first partnership earlier and forego marriage more often than their advantaged counterparts. Yet, limited research has explored whether there is also an association between parental background and expectations for partnership formation, which are considered important precursors of behaviours. Further, few studies have explored the potential mechanisms mediating these differences.

The Impact of potential 'confounders' on the diagnostic sensitivity of circulating free DNA in management of FIT+ patients: a pilot study.

Cell-free DNA (cfDNA) has long been established as a useful diagnostic and prognostic tool in a variety of clinical settings, ranging from infectious to cardiovascular and neoplastic diseases. However, non-neoplastic diseases can act as confounders impacting on the amount of cfDNA shed in bloodstream and on technical feasibility of tumour derived free circulating nucleic acids selecting patients with cancer. Here, we investigated the potential impact of other pathological processes in the clinical stratification of 637 FIT+ patients.

New Patterns for Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza and Adjustment of Prevention, Control and Surveillance Strategies: The Example of France.

From 2020 up to summer 2023, there was a substantial change in the situation concerning the high pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus in Europe. This change concerned mainly virus circulation within wildlife, both in wild birds and wild mammals. It involved the seasonality of HPAI detections, the species affected, excess mortality events, and the apparent increased level of contamination in wild birds.

Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Testing on Reference Specimens: An Italian Multicenter Experience.

Introduction: Biomarker testing is mandatory for the clinical management of patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Myriads of technical platforms are now available for biomarker analysis with differences in terms of multiplexing capability, analytical sensitivity, and turnaround time (TAT). We evaluated the technical performance of the diagnostic workflows of 24 representative Italian institutions performing molecular tests on a series of artificial reference specimens built to mimic routine diagnostic samples.

How to increase COVID-19 vaccination among a population with persistently suboptimal vaccine uptake? Evidence from the North Macedonia mobile vaccination and public health advice caravan.

Over three years since the first COVID-19 vaccine was approved, many countries still have suboptimal vaccination rates despite holding great amounts of vaccines. Overall, there is little evidence on which policies are more effective to encourage vaccination, particularly in countries where a large share of the population remains unvaccinated. In this study, we examine the effectiveness of a community-based intervention carried out in March 2022 in North Macedonia, a country with a large and persistent share of the population that remains unvaccinated.

SARS-CoV-2 infection as a model to study the effect of cinnamaldehyde as adjuvant therapy for viral pneumonia.

Background: The recent pandemic outbursts, due to SARS-CoV-2, have highlighted once more the central role of the inflammatory process in the propagation of viral infection. The main consequence of COVID-19 is the induction of a diffuse pro-inflammatory state, also defined as a cytokine storm, which affects different organs, but mostly the lungs. We aimed to prove the efficacy of cinnamaldehyde, the active compound of cinnamon, as an anti-inflammatory compound, able to reduce SARS-CoV-2 induced cytokine storm.

The NLRP3 Inflammasome in Neurodegenerative Disorders: Insights from Epileptic Models.

Neuroinflammation represents a dynamic process of defense and protection against the harmful action of infectious agents or other detrimental stimuli in the central nervous system (CNS). However, the uncontrolled regulation of this physiological process is strongly associated with serious dysfunctional neuronal issues linked to the progression of CNS disorders. Moreover, it has been widely demonstrated that neuroinflammation is linked to epilepsy, one of the most prevalent and serious brain disorders worldwide.

Impact of SARS-CoV-2 Infection on the Association Between Laboratory Tests and Severe Outcomes Among Hospitalized Children.

Background: To assist clinicians with identifying children at risk of severe outcomes, we assessed the association between laboratory findings and severe outcomes among severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)-infected children and determined if SARS-CoV-2 test result status modified the associations.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of participants tested for SARS-CoV-2 infection in 41 pediatric emergency departments in 10 countries. Participants were hospitalized, had laboratory testing performed, and completed 14-day follow-up.

Separation and quantification of Tartrazine (E102) and Brilliant Blue FCF (E133) in green colored foods and beverages.

In the present study we investigated the capacities of a panel of 25 solid sorbents represented by layered structures, inorganic oxides and hydroxides, and phyllosilicates, to effectively remove in high yield Tartrazine (E102) and Brilliant Blue FCF (E133) from aqueous solutions, and more notable, green colored food matrices. Quantification of the title compounds have been achieved by HPLC-DAD analyses. Contents of E102 and E133 in real samples were in the range 1.

Impact of COVID-19 and system recovery in delivering healthcare to people with multiple sclerosis: a population-based Study.

Background: COVID-19 pandemic has affected the management of multiple sclerosis (MS).

Objective: To explore the impact of COVID-19 on healthcare delivery to people with MS and the subsequent recovery of the system.

Methods: In this population-based study in the Campania Region (Italy), we included people with MS across pre-COVID-19, lockdown, pre-vaccination, and vaccination periods.

Symmetry Detection in Autistic Adults Benefits from Local Processing in a Contour Integration Task.

Symmetry studies in autism are inconclusive possibly due to different types of stimuli used which depend on either local or global cues. Therefore, this study compared symmetry detection between 20 autistic and 18 non-autistic adults matched on age, IQ, gender and handedness, using contour integration tasks containing open and closed contours that rely more on local or global processing respectively. Results showed that the autistic group performed equally well with both stimuli and outperformed the non-autistic group only for the open contours, possibly due to a different strategy used in detecting symmetry.

Liquid biopsy: A promising tool for driving strategies and predicting failures in patients with classic Hodgkin lymphoma.

Classic Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL) consists of a heterogeneous group of haematological disorders that covers undifferentiated B cell neoplasms originating from germinal centre B cells. The HL molecular characterization still represents an ongoing challenge due to the low fraction of tumour Hodgkin and Reed-Sternberg cells mixed with a plethora of non-tumour haematological cells. In this scenario, next generation sequencing of liquid biopsy samples is emerging as a useful tool in HL patients' management.

Comparing Shape Representations for the Aesthetic Judgment of 3-D Shape Pairs.

Visual aesthetics of 3-D shapes is a fundamental perceptual attribute. In this article, we explore the question of how different shape representations affect the aesthetic judgments of shape pairs. Specifically, we compare human responses to perceptual aesthetics judgments on 3-D shapes in pairs presented in different 3-D shape representation, such as voxels, points, wireframe, and polygon.

Novel insights into the biomolecular mechanism of action of 4'-geranyloxyferulic acid, a colon cancer chemopreventive agent.

In this manuscript the biomolecular mechanism of action of the natural colon cancer chemopreventive agent 4'-geranyloxyferulic acid in cultured Caco-2 cells has been investigated. It was first demonstrated how the application of this phytochemical led to a time- and dose-dependent decrease of cell viability and in parallel to a massive generation of reactive oxygen species and induction of caspases 3 and 9, finally providing apoptosis. This event is accompanied by deep modifications in key pro-apoptotic targets like CD95, DR4 and 5, cytochrome c, Apaf-1, Bcl-2, and Bax.

Building a Chatbot in a Pandemic.

Easy access to evidence-based information on COVID-19 within an infodemic has been a challenging task. Chatbots have been introduced in times of emergency, when human resources are stretched thin and individuals need a user-centered resource. The World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe and UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) Europe and Central Asia came together to build a chatbot, HealthBuddy+, to assist country populations in the region to access accurate COVID-19 information in the local languages, adapted to the country context.

Protection of Mitochondrial Potential and Activity by Oxyprenylated Phenylpropanoids.

A series of five naturally occurring oxyprenylated phenylpropanoids, namely, the coumarins auraptene (7-geranyloxycoumarin) and 7-isopentenyloxycoumarin , and the coumaric acid and ferulic acid derivatives, 4'-isopentenyloxycoumaric acid , boropinic acid , and 4'-geranyloxyferulic acid were tested for their effects on mitochondrial functionality using the organophosphate pesticides glyphosate and chlorpyrifos, and resveratrol, as the reference. While not showing an appreciable in vitro antioxidant activity, and virtually no or a little effect on the viability of non-cancer cell lines BEAS-2B and SHSY-5Y, all phytochemicals exhibited a marked protective effect on mitochondrial potential and activity, with values that were comparable to resveratrol. Auraptene and 7-isopentenyloxycoumarin were seen to be the most effective secondary metabolite to this concern, in particular in being able to completely abolish the decrease of mitochondrial potential induced by increasing concentration of both glyphosate and chlorpyrifos.