Publications by authors named "S B Pickett"

Insufficient sleep (short sleep duration and poor sleep quality) is associated with obesity risk. Emerging adults (ages 18-28 years) have a greater risk of excess weight gain and insufficient sleep, and these risks are higher in Black individuals. Using a measurement burst design, we assessed associations between sleep with energy balance components and obesity marker changes over 6 months in 15 Black emerging adults (12 females; age: 21 ± 2.

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Urban heat mitigation is a pressing concern for cities. Intense urban heat poses a threat to human health and urban sustainability. Tree planting is one of the most widely employed nature-based heat mitigation methods worldwide.

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Proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) regulates plasma low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels by promoting hepatic LDL receptor (LDL-R) degradation. We previously identified and optimized 13-mer cyclic peptides that bind to a novel, induced-fit pocket adjacent to the binding interface of PCSK9 and LDL-R and effectively disrupted the PCSK9/LDL-R protein-protein interaction (PPI) both in vitro and in vivo. However this series of large cyclic peptides required charged groups for function and lacked oral bioavailability in rodents.

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Background: Student wellness is of increasing concern in medical education. Increased rates of burnout, sleep disturbances, and psychological concerns in medical students are well documented. These concerns lead to impacts on current educational goals and may set students on a path for long-term health consequences.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study addresses the challenge of inter-batch variability in untargeted metabolomics for screening inborn errors of metabolism (IEMs) by creating a matrix-matched reference material (RM) using the iterative batch averaging (IBAT) method.
  • - The RM showed significantly lower variability in amino acid concentrations over time compared to conventional specimen pools, making it effective in normalizing data from different batches.
  • - When tested in screening phenylketonuria (PKU) patients, the RM successfully distinguished between PKU patients and controls, demonstrating its potential for improving clinical diagnostic capabilities.
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