Metal Complexes as Antifungals? From a Crowd-Sourced Compound Library to the First Experiments.

There are currently fewer than 10 antifungal drugs in clinical development, but new fungal strains that are resistant to most current antifungals are spreading rapidly across the world. To prevent a second resistance crisis, new classes of antifungal drugs are urgently needed. Metal complexes have proven to be promising candidates for novel antibiotics, but so far, few compounds have been explored for their potential application as antifungal agents.

Guided-mode refraction model for optical fiber sensing of surface crystal growth.

An empirical "guided-mode refraction model" has been invoked to explain the optical attenuation of radiation in an exposed core optical fiber sensor subject to heterogeneous (surface) crystal growth. Based on Fresnel reflectance values at the internal fiber-crystal and crystal-solution interfaces, the model predictions agree with experimental observations of radial loss of radiation from the fiber core through the crystals as well as attenuation of guided radiation as a function of the radiation launch angle into the fiber.

The performance of SolarScan: an automated dermoscopy image analysis instrument for the diagnosis of primary melanoma.

Objective: To describe the diagnostic performance of SolarScan (Polartechnics Ltd, Sydney, Australia), an automated instrument for the diagnosis of primary melanoma.

Design: Images from a data set of 2430 lesions (382 were melanomas; median Breslow thickness, 0.36 mm) were divided into a training set and an independent test set at a ratio of approximately 2:1.