Publications by authors named "R-B Tan"

Background: Covered stent correction for a sinus venosus atrial septal defect (SVASD) was first performed in 2009. This innovative approach was initially viewed as experimental and was reserved for highly selected patients with unusual anatomic variants. In 2016, increasing numbers of procedures began to be performed, and in several centers, it is now offered as a standard of care option alongside surgical repair.

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Background: Neurogenic orthostatic hypotension (nOH) causes pathological falls in standing blood pressure that may or may not be symptomatic. nOH also raises the risk of poor neurological outcomes irrespective of symptom presence, possibly reflecting subclinical cerebral hypoperfusion. Dynamic changes in cerebral blood flow velocity (CBFv) help infer how blood pressure fluctuations influence CBFv and cerebral autoregulation.

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Article Synopsis
  • Severe cytokine release syndrome (sCRS) and immune effector cell-associated neurotoxicity syndrome (ICANS) hinder the use of CAR T-cell therapy, prompting researchers to develop a new CAR (ssCART-19) that incorporates shRNA to target the IL-6 gene.
  • In a study involving 87 patients with relapsed/refractory B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, ssCART-19 demonstrated significantly lower rates of grade ≥3 CRS (14.89%) and ICANS (4.26%) compared to conventional CAR T-cells (cCART-19) which had rates of 37.5% and 15%, respectively.
  • Overall response rates and survival metrics were comparable
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Previous investigations on protein associations with diet quality and obesity still have inconclusive findings, possibly due to how protein intake was expressed. This study aimed to compare how different ways of expressing total protein intake may influence its relationships with diet quality and obesity. Usual protein intake was estimated from the 2011-12 Australian National Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey ( = 7637 adults, ≥19 years), expressed in grams (g/d), percent energy (%EI), and grams per actual kilogram body weight (g/kgBW/d).

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Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is a major health problem, and immediate treatment is essential for improving the chances of survival. The development of technological solutions to detect out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and alert emergency responders is gaining momentum; multiple research consortia are currently developing wearable technology for this purpose. For the responsible design and implementation of this technology, it is necessary to attend to the ethical implications.

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-hydroxycinnamic acid (pHCA) is one of the most abundant naturally occurring hydroxycinnamic acids, a class of chemistries known for their antioxidant properties. In this study, we evaluated the impact of pHCA on different parameters of skin aging in in vitro skin models after HO and UV exposure. These parameters include keratinocyte senescence and differentiation, inflammation, and energy metabolism, as well as the underlying molecular mechanisms.

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Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) is a common malignancy in the hematologic system, and traditional therapy has limited efficacy for people with recurrent/refractory NHL (R/R NHL), especially for patients with diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL). Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy is a novel and effective immunotherapy strategy for R/R hematopoietic malignancies, but relapses can occur due to the loss of CAR-T cells in vivo or the loss of antigen. One strategy to avoid antigen loss after CAR-T cell therapy is to target one more antigen simultaneously.

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A wide variety of electrophilic derivatives of itaconate, the Kreb's cycle-derived metabolite, are immunomodulatory, yet these derivatives have overlapping and sometimes contradictory activities. Therefore, we generated a genetic system to interrogate the immunomodulatory functions of endogenously produced itaconate in human macrophages. Endogenous itaconate is driven by multiple innate signals restraining inflammatory cytokine production.

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  • Plasmodium falciparum's RH5 protein is a promising candidate for a malaria vaccine, and understanding the antibody response during natural infections is crucial for optimizing vaccine efficacy.
  • Researchers found that B cells reacting to RH5 were uncommon, and the IgG responses in malaria-exposed individuals were short-lived despite multiple infections.
  • Some antibodies from malaria-exposed individuals showed strong neutralizing ability and targeted similar sites as the most effective vaccine-induced antibodies, indicating that natural infections might enhance the effectiveness of RH5 vaccines in the future.
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The highly conserved and essential Plasmodium falciparum reticulocyte-binding protein homolog 5 (PfRH5) has emerged as the leading target for vaccines against the disease-causing blood stage of malaria. However, the features of the human vaccine-induced antibody response that confer highly potent inhibition of malaria parasite invasion into red blood cells are not well defined. Here, we characterize 236 human IgG monoclonal antibodies, derived from 15 donors, induced by the most advanced PfRH5 vaccine.

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  • The study investigates the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and Parkinson's disease (PD) using a method called Mendelian randomization to determine if higher genetically predicted BMI is linked to a lower incidence of PD.
  • Researchers analyzed genetic data from large groups of individuals, including over 800,000 for BMI and nearly 29,000 for PD, focusing on factors like age, disease duration, and gender to examine the associations.
  • Results indicated an inverse relationship between genetically predicted BMI and PD, particularly among younger participants and women, suggesting that lower BMI may be associated with a higher risk of developing Parkinson's disease.
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Background: A major obstacle faced by families with rare diseases is obtaining a genetic diagnosis. The average "diagnostic odyssey" lasts over five years and causal variants are identified in under 50%, even when capturing variants genome-wide. To aid in the interpretation and prioritization of the vast number of variants detected, computational methods are proliferating.

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  • CAR-T cells are a special type of treatment for certain blood cancers, but some people can’t use them due to problems like high costs or manufacturing issues.
  • A study tested a new kind of CAR-T cell (called nU-CAR-T19) that seems to work well in patients with hard-to-treat cancers, helping some go into complete remission.
  • This new CAR-T treatment is safe and showed no signs of severe side effects in the patients, which is a positive development for cancer therapy.
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Significance Statement: Reliable prediction tools are needed to personalize treatment in ANCA-associated GN. More than 1500 patients were collated in an international longitudinal study to revise the ANCA kidney risk score. The score showed satisfactory performance, mimicking the original study (Harrell's C=0.

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Background Contrast-enhanced (CE) US has been studied for use in the detection of residual viable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after locoregional therapy, but multicenter data are lacking. Purpose To compare two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) CE US diagnostic performance with that of CE MRI or CT, the current clinical standard, in the detection of residual viable HCC after transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) in a prospective multicenter trial. Materials and Methods Participants aged at least 21 years with US-visible HCC scheduled for TACE were consecutively enrolled at one of three participating academic medical centers from May 2016 to March 2022.

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Recent human decedent model studies and compassionate xenograft use have explored the promise of porcine organs for human transplantation. To proceed to human studies, a clinically ready porcine donor must be engineered and its xenograft successfully tested in nonhuman primates. Here we describe the design, creation and long-term life-supporting function of kidney grafts from a genetically engineered porcine donor transplanted into a cynomolgus monkey model.

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Thermophilic cell factories have remarkably broad potential for industrial applications, but are limited by a lack of genetic manipulation tools and recalcitrance to transformation. Here, we identify a thermophilic type I-B CRISPR-Cas system from Parageobacillus thermoglucosidasius and find it displays highly efficient transcriptional repression or DNA cleavage activity that can be switched by adjusting crRNA length to less than or greater than 26 bp, respectively, without ablating Cas3 nuclease. We then develop an orthogonal tool for genome editing and transcriptional repression using this type I-B system in both thermophile and mesophile hosts.

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Background: Cardiovascular diseases are the main cause of worldwide morbidity and mortality, highlighting the need for new therapeutic strategies. Autophosphorylation and subsequent overactivation of the cardiac stress-responsive enzyme CaMKIIδ (Ca/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase IIδ) serves as a central driver of multiple cardiac disorders.

Methods: To develop a comprehensive therapy for heart failure, we used CRISPR-Cas9 adenine base editing to ablate the autophosphorylation site of CaMKIIδ.

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Globally, over 3.5 billion people are infected with intestinal parasites each year, resulting in over 200,000 deaths. Three of the most common protozoan pathogens that affect the gastrointestinal tract of humans are spp.

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Background: A major obstacle faced by rare disease families is obtaining a genetic diagnosis. The average "diagnostic odyssey" lasts over five years, and causal variants are identified in under 50%. The Rare Genomes Project (RGP) is a direct-to-participant research study on the utility of genome sequencing (GS) for diagnosis and gene discovery.

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Cell state changes in development and disease are controlled by gene regulatory networks, the dynamics of which are difficult to track in real time. In this study, we used an inducible DCM-RNA polymerase subunit b fusion protein which labels active genes and enhancers with a bacterial methylation mark that does not affect gene transcription and is propagated in S-phase. This DCM-RNA polymerase fusion protein enables transcribed genes and active enhancers to be tagged and then examined at later stages of development or differentiation.

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Article Synopsis
  • Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have uncovered several genetic variants linked to Parkinson's disease (PD) in the Chinese population through whole-genome sequencing involving nearly 2,000 cases and 2,500 controls, along with a replication study of over 8,200 cases and 9,400 controls.
  • Researchers identified a new risk variant and confirmed four previously known variants, as well as three notable variants in the LRRK2 gene, all showing strong statistical significance for PD.
  • The study suggests that genetic factors influencing PD are shared across populations, revealing both commonality and differences, and emphasizes the potential of whole-genome sequencing to enhance our understanding of PD's genetic makeup.
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CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing is emerging as a prospective therapy for genomic mutations. However, current editing approaches are directed primarily toward relatively small cohorts of patients with specific mutations. Here, we describe a cardioprotective strategy potentially applicable to a broad range of patients with heart disease.

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Background: Soybeans (Glycine max) are high in proteins and isoflavones, which offer many health benefits. It has been suggested that the fermentation process enhances the nutrients in the soybeans. Organic foods are perceived as better than non-organic foods in terms of health benefits, yet little is known about the difference in the phytochemical content that distinguishes the quality of organic soybeans from non-organic soybeans.

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Mutations in RNA binding motif protein 20 () are a common cause of familial dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). Many mutations cluster within an arginine/serine-rich (RS-rich) domain, which mediates nuclear localization. These mutations induce RBM20 mis-localization to form aberrant ribonucleoprotein (RNP) granules in the cytoplasm of cardiomyocytes and abnormal alternative splicing of cardiac genes, contributing to DCM.

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