Novel Thermosensitive and Mucoadhesive Nasal Hydrogel Containing 5-MeO-DMT Optimized Using Box-Behnken Experimental Design.

We present the development and characterization of a nasal drug delivery system comprised of a thermosensitive mucoadhesive hydrogel based on a mixture of the polymers Poloxamer 407, Poloxamer 188 and Hydroxypropyl-methylcellulose, and the psychedelic drug 5-methoxy-N,-N-dimethyltryptamine. The development relied on a 3 × 3 Box-Behnken experimental design, focusing on optimizing gelification temperature, viscosity and mucoadhesion. The primary objective of this work was to tailor the formulation for efficient nasal drug delivery.

Multiomic Approaches for Cancer Biomarker Discovery in Liquid Biopsies: Advances and Challenges.

Cancer is a complex and heterogeneous disease that poses a significant threat to global health. Early diagnosis and treatment are critical for improving patient outcomes, and the use of liquid biopsies has emerged as a promising approach for cancer detection and monitoring. Traditionally, cancer diagnosis has relied on invasive tissue biopsies, the collection of which can prove challenging for patients and the results of which may not always provide accurate results due to tumor heterogeneity.

Protist-Lactic Acid Bacteria Co-Culture as a Strategy to Bioaccumulate Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids in the Protist sp. T66.

Thraustochytrids are aquatic unicellular protists organisms that represent an important reservoir of a wide range of bioactive compounds, such as essential polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) such as arachidonic acid (ARA), docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), which are involved in the regulation of the immune system. In this study, we explore the use of co-cultures of sp. and bacteria as a biotechnological tool capable of stimulating PUFA bioaccumulation.

Impact of a Novel Social Work Program on Access to Tertiary Care.

Background: In the movement for global health equity, increased research and funding have not yet addressed a shortage of evidence on effectively implementing context-specific interventions; one unmet need is facilitating access to specialty care within the public health sector in Mexico. Compañeros en Salud has been piloting a novel program, called Right to Healthcare (RTHC), to increase access to specialty care for the rural poor in Chiapas, Mexico. The RTHC program incorporates social work, patient navigation, referrals, direct economic support, and accompaniment for patients.

Longitudinal monitoring of tumor response to immune checkpoint inhibitors using noninvasive diffuse reflectance spectroscopy.

Immune checkpoint inhibitors have revolutionized cancer treatment. However, there are currently no methods for noninvasively and nondestructively evaluating tumor response to immune checkpoint inhibitors. We used diffuse reflectance spectroscopy to monitor in vivo tumor microenvironmental changes in response to immune checkpoint inhibitors in a CT26 murine colorectal cancer model.

Pulsed Terahertz Reflection Imaging of tumors in a spontaneous model of breast cancer.

We report the use of reflection-mode terahertz (THz) imaging in a transgenic mouse model of breast cancer. Unlike tumor xenografts that are grown from established cell lines, these tumors were spontaneously generated in the mammary fat pad of mice, and are a better representation of human breast cancer. THz imaging results from 7 tumors that recapitulate the compartmental complexity of breast cancer are presented here.

Label-Free Raman Spectroscopy Reveals Signatures of Radiation Resistance in the Tumor Microenvironment.

Delay in the assessment of tumor response to radiotherapy continues to pose a major challenge to quality of life for patients with nonresponsive tumors. Here, we exploited label-free Raman spectroscopic mapping to elucidate radiation-induced biomolecular changes in tumors and uncovered latent microenvironmental differences between treatment-resistant and -sensitive tumors. We used isogenic radiation-resistant and -sensitive A549 human lung cancer cells and human head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) cell lines (UM-SCC-47 and UM-SCC-22B, respectively) to grow tumor xenografts in athymic nude mice and demonstrated the molecular specificity and quantitative nature of Raman spectroscopic tissue assessments.

Quantitative diffuse reflectance spectroscopy of short-term changes in tumor oxygenation after radiation in a matched model of radiation resistance.

There is a critical need to identify patients with radiation-resistant tumors early after treatment commencement. In this study, we use diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) to investigate changes in vascular oxygenation and total hemoglobin concentration in A549 radiation-sensitive and resistant tumors treated with a clinically relevant dose fraction of 2 Gy. DRS spectra were acquired before, immediately after, 24, and 48 hours after radiation.