Inference of long-range cell-cell force transmission from ECM remodeling fluctuations.

Cells sense, manipulate and respond to their mechanical microenvironment in a plethora of physiological processes, yet the understanding of how cells transmit, receive and interpret environmental cues to communicate with distant cells is severely limited due to lack of tools to quantitatively infer the complex tangle of dynamic cell-cell interactions in complicated environments. We present a computational method to systematically infer and quantify long-range cell-cell force transmission through the extracellular matrix (cell-ECM-cell communication) by correlating ECM remodeling fluctuations in between communicating cells and demonstrating that these fluctuations contain sufficient information to define unique signatures that robustly distinguish between different pairs of communicating cells. We demonstrate our method with finite element simulations and live 3D imaging of fibroblasts and cancer cells embedded in fibrin gels.

Left bundle area pacing: Guiding implant depth by ring measurements.

Background: Criteria for successful left bundle area pacing (LBAP) are in flux and currently guided by lead tip measurements. Lead ring measurements during LBAP have not been well studied.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate dynamics in pacing parameters during successful and unsuccessful lead implant attempts.

Genetika+: precision medicine solutions for mental health.

Genetika+ is developing a precision medicine tool to optimize the treatment of depression by helping physicians find the best drug therapy for their patients. The tool builds on traditional pharmacogenetics, introducing a 'brain-in-a-dish' screening platform for each patient that will overcome the challenge of limited pharmacodynamic knowledge of pharmacogenetics (PGx). In addition to PGx, our platform integrates patient data with innovative blood-derived patient neurons to test all categories of antidepressants and predict the best drug for each patient.

A distinction of three online learning pedagogic paradigms.

Online (web-based) courses emerged at the beginning of the twenty-first century. While this new pedagogic paradigm (PP) holds a promise of better learning and training, it comes with challenges as traditional PPs are not suited to the new settings which highly differ from the physical classroom methods. We studied three online PPs (Synchronous, Asynchronous, and Asynchronous with an audience) and their influence on the students learning process and achievements during an academic mathematics course that was conducted online.