Real-Time Sensing with Patterned Plasmonic Substrates and a Compact Imager Chip.

Optical sensing is an important research field due to its proven ability to be extremely sensitive, nondestructive, and applicable to sensing a wide range of chemical, thermal, electric, or magnetic phenomena. Beyond traditional optical sensors that often rely on bulky setups, plasmonic nanostructures can offer many advantages based on their sensitivity, compact form, cost-effectiveness, multiplexing compatibility, and compatibility with many standard semiconductor nanofabrication techniques. In particular, plasmon-enhanced optical transmission through arrays of nanostructured holes has led to the development of a new generation of optical sensors.

Young Adult Tobacco and E-cigarette Use Transitions: Examining Stability Using Multistate Modeling.

Introduction: The objective of this study was to describe tobacco and nicotine product use state transition probabilities among youth and young adults over time.

Methods: A national sample of young adult tobacco product users and nonusers between the ages of 18 and 34 years at baseline was surveyed at 6-month intervals for 3 years. Use and nonuse states were defined as mutually exclusive categories based on self-reported, past 30-day use of the various products.

Direct spectral imaging of plasmonic nanohole arrays for real-time sensing.

Plasmon-enhanced optical transmission through arrays of nano-structured holes has led to the development of a new generation of optical sensors. In this paper, to dramatically simplify the standard optical setups of these sensors, we position the nanoholes, an LED illumination source and a spacer layer directly on top of a CMOS imager chip. Transmitted light diffracts from the nanohole array, spreading into a spectrum over the space of a millimeter to land on the imager as a full spectrum.

Improving Quality and Potency Testing for Umbilical Cord Blood: A New Perspective.

Unlabelled: This article critically reviews current methods to test and characterize umbilical cord blood (UCB) for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. These tests include total nucleated cell (TNC) count, viability, viable CD34-positive content, and the colony-forming unit assay. It is assumed that the data obtained are sufficient to perform a UCB stem cell transplant without actually determining the quality and potency of the stem cells responsible for engraftment.

Detecting primitive hematopoietic stem cells in total nucleated and mononuclear cell fractions from umbilical cord blood segments and units.

Background: Rare hematopoietic stem cell populations are responsible for the transplantation engraftment process. Umbilical cord blood (UCB) is usually processed to the total nucleated cell (TNC), but not to the mononuclear cell (MNC) fraction. TNC counts are used to determine UCB unit storage, release for transplantation and correlation with time to engraftment.

Measuring stem cell circadian rhythm.

Circadian rhythms are biological rhythms that occur within a 24-h time cycle. Sleep is a prime example of a circadian rhythm and with it melatonin production. Stem cell systems also demonstrate circadian rhythms.

Measuring the potency of a stem cell therapeutic.

The potency of a drug is one of the most important parameters of a therapeutic. Besides providing the basis for manufacturing consistency and product stability, the potency can predict product failure or toxicity due to incorrect potency, provide release criteria, and the dose that will ensure that it can be used as intended. Recently, cellular therapeutics, in particular, stem cell therapy products, have being designated as "drugs" by regulatory agencies if they produce a systemic effect in the patient.

Measurement of hematopoietic stem cell proliferation, self-renewal, and expansion potential.

All stem cells exhibit the capacity and ability to proliferate. This is a fundamental property of stem cells, since it is required not only for self-renewal, but also for expansion and the ability for stem cells to engraft in a patient. The capacity or potential for proliferation by stem cells defines their degree of primitives or stemness.

Dynamic placement of plasmonic hotspots for super-resolution surface-enhanced Raman scattering.

In this paper, we demonstrate dynamic placement of locally enhanced plasmonic fields using holographic laser illumination of a silver nanohole array. To visualize these focused "hotspots", the silver surface was coated with various biological samples for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) imaging. Due to the large field enhancements, blinking behavior of the SERS hotspots was observed and processed using a stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy algorithm enabling super-resolution localization of the hotspots to within 10 nm.

Emerging approaches in predictive toxicology.

Predictive toxicology plays an important role in the assessment of toxicity of chemicals and the drug development process. While there are several well-established in vitro and in vivo assays that are suitable for predictive toxicology, recent advances in high-throughput analytical technologies and model systems are expected to have a major impact on the field of predictive toxicology. This commentary provides an overview of the state of the current science and a brief discussion on future perspectives for the field of predictive toxicology for human toxicity.

Development of a novel assay to evaluate the functional potential of umbilical cord blood progenitors.

Background: Although the colony-forming cell (CFC) assay provides the most relevant information regarding the functional potential of progenitors in a unit of umbilical cord blood (UCB), technical challenges associated with this assay have made it difficult to standardize the assay among testing laboratories. The purpose of this study was to assess the reproducibility of a newly developed functional assay (HALO SPC-QC [HALO], HemoGenix, Inc.).

High-throughput in vitro hemotoxicity testing and in vitro cross-platform comparative toxicity.

For decades, hemotoxicity has been considered as simply changes in peripheral blood parameters or morphological changes observed in the bone marrow as a result of drug administration. The effects are actually the result of the drug acting at a much earlier level in the blood-forming system, usually at the level of the lympho-hematopoietic stem cell or its immediate differentiating progeny. To detect these early cellular responses, highly sensitive, non-subjective and fully standardized in vitro high-throughput testing platforms have been developed that detect changes in intracellular ATP concentrations which are directly proportional to and predict the proliferative/cytotoxic response of different cell populations.

Validation and development of a predictive paradigm for hemotoxicology using a multifunctional bioluminescence colony-forming proliferation assay.

The lympho-hematopoietic colony-forming assay has been redesigned into a rapid, nonsubjective and standardized proliferation assay that can measure the effects of compounds on multiple stem and progenitor cell populations from different species simultaneously using a sensitive, high-throughput bioluminescence readout. Eleven reference compounds from the Registry of Cytotoxicity (RC) and eight other compounds, including anticancer drugs, were studied over an 8- to 9-log dose range for their effects on seven cell populations from both human and mouse bone marrow simultaneously. The cell populations studied included a primitive (HPP-SP) and mature (CFC-GEMM) stem cell, three hematopoietic (BFU-E, GM-CFC, Mk-CFC) and two lymphopoietic (T-CFC, B-CFC) populations.

Perspective from the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program.

The Department of Defense (DOD), Breast Cancer Research Program (BCRP) was established in 1993. Since its inception, Congress has appropriated more than 878 million dollars for the BCRP, a unique public-private partnership between the DOD, consumer advocacy, and scientific communities which has funded approximately 1,800 breast cancer research grants. Through this partnership, the BCRP designed a model program for consumer involvement in scientific peer review.

Circadian timing in cancer treatment: the biological foundation for an integrative approach.

Despite the many innovations that have occurred in cancer treatment, the age-specific mortality for most adult tumors has remained stable during the past 30 years. There have been clinically significant improvements in the outcomes of young and middle-aged patients, yet the vast majority of cancer patients are more than 50 years of age, among whom we observe few improvements in clinical outcomes. Clearly, many of today's cytotoxic agents have been shown to be effective in-vitro and in animal model systems; however, few have proved efficacious in dramatically improving survival outcomes in adult cancer.

In vitro hematotoxicity testing in drug development: a review of past, present and future applications.

Conventional hematotoxicity testing usually begins at the preclinical studies stage, and is valuable for monitoring the clinical status of subjects in clinical trials. However, as it is based on mature blood elements and related parameters, and not the cells producing these elements, it is not predictive. All proliferating cell systems, including lympho-hematopoiesis, exhibit a similar organizational structure that includes stem cells and their immediate progeny, the progenitor cells.

Quantitative impact of including consumers in the scientific review of breast cancer research proposals.

Objective: To evaluate the impact of having breast cancer survivors with advocacy experience (consumers) participate as voting members of scientific review panels for proposals on breast cancer research. As major stakeholders, patients and other consumer advocates sought inclusion in all decision-making processes affecting funding of disease-targeted research.

Method: Cross-sectional analysis of assigned proposal scores ranging from 5.

Benefits and drawbacks of including consumer reviewers in the scientific merit review of breast cancer research.

Background: This study assessed participant opinions about inclusion of breast cancer survivors as lay representatives in a scientific and technical merit review of proposals for the 1995 Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program (DOD BCRP).

Methods: The evaluation employed a prepanel and postpanel survey design, which was intended to elicit feedback about attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs toward collaborative consumer and scientist participation in scientific merit review. Qualitative methods were used to describe the consumers' and scientists' responses, to explore the significance of this interaction, and to gain an understanding of the benefits and disadvantages of bringing these participants together.

Assessment of G-CSF stimulated BM hematopoietic stem cells in normal donors.

Background: The clinical use of G-CSF has recently been expanded to include mobilization of stem cells for both autologous and allogeneic transplantation. Most of the published studies have focused on stem cells released into the peripheral blood (PB) after G-CSF treatment. However, little is known about the effects of G-CSF on BM.

The Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program: innovations in the federal funding of biomedical research.

In response to the lobbying efforts of the women's advocacy movement, in 1993 Congress authorized funds for a substantial increase in support of new and promising research aimed at the eradication of breast cancer. This appropriation resulted in a major expansion of the United States Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program. The Office of Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs was established within the United States Army Medical Research and Materiel Command to facilitate the management of the expanded extramural research program.

Silent polymorphisms within the coding region of human sodium/hydrogen exchanger isoform-1 cDNA in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of leukemia patients: A comparison with healthy controls.

We have examined the sequence of the cDNA encoding the sodium/hydrogen exchanger isoform 1 (NHE1), from 23 bases upstream of the start codon to 28 bases downstream of the stop codon. Template was prepared from (1) peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) isolated from 10 healthy unrelated Caucasian volunteers; (2) PBMCs isolated from 6 leukemic patients (acute lymphoblastic leukemia [ALL], n = 3; chronic lymphocytic leukemia [CLL], n = 1; chronic myelogenous leukemia [CML], n = 2); and (3) samples of 4 leukemic cell lines (ALL: CEM, MOLT4; AML: KG1a; CML: K562). NHE1 cDNA in normal PBMCs showed silent polymorphism of nucleotides 112 (N1: T, frequency 0.

Apoptosis of leukemic cells accompanies reduction in intracellular pH after targeted inhibition of the Na(+)/H(+) exchanger.

The Na(+)/H(+) exchanger isoform 1 (NHE1) is primarily responsible for the regulation of intracellular pH (pH(i)). It is a ubiquitous, amiloride-sensitive, growth factor-activatable exchanger whose role has been implicated in cell-cycle regulation, apoptosis, and neoplasia. Here we demonstrate that leukemic cell lines and peripheral blood from primary patient leukemic samples exhibit a constitutively and statistically higher pH(i) than normal hematopoietic tissue.

An ELISA specific for murine erythropoietin.

Murine recombinant erythropoietin (EPO) was purified from an EPO-producing cell line and used for the production of polyclonal monospecific anti-murine EPO antibodies in rabbits. The anti-mouse EPO antibodies were purified by two affinity chromatography procedures. In order to obtain the most sensitive ELISA, different antibody combinations were tested in the ELISA sandwich assay.