Skin image analysis for detection and quantitative assessment of dermatitis, vitiligo and alopecia areata lesions: a systematic literature review.

Vitiligo, alopecia areata, atopic, and stasis dermatitis are common skin conditions that pose diagnostic and assessment challenges. Skin image analysis is a promising noninvasive approach for objective and automated detection as well as quantitative assessment of skin diseases. This review provides a systematic literature search regarding the analysis of computer vision techniques applied to these benign skin conditions, following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines.

Novel Digital Biomarkers for Fine Motor Skills Assessment in Psoriatic Arthritis: The DaktylAct Touch-based Serious Game Approach.

Psoriatic Arthritis (PsA) is a chronic, inflammatory disease affecting joints, substantially impacting patients' quality of life, with European guidelines for managing PsA emphasizing the importance of assessing hand function. Here, we present a set of novel digital biomarkers (dBMs) derived from a touchscreen-based serious game approach, DaktylAct, intended as a proxy, gamified, objective assessment of hand impairment, with emphasis on fine motor skills, caused by PsA. This is achieved by its design, where the user controls a cannon to aim at and hit targets using two finger pinch-in/out and wrist rotation gestures.

Skeletal muscle reprogramming enhances reinnervation after peripheral nerve injury.

Peripheral Nerve Injuries (PNI) affect more than 20 million Americans and severely impact quality of life by causing long-term disability. PNI is characterized by nerve degeneration distal to the site of nerve injury resulting in long periods of skeletal muscle denervation. During this period, muscle fibers atrophy and frequently become incapable of "accepting" innervation because of the slow speed of axon regeneration post injury.

Microbial green synthesis of luminescent terbium sulfide nanoparticles using E. Coli: a rare earth element detoxification mechanism.

Background: Rare-earth sulfide nanoparticles (NPs) could harness the optical and magnetic features of rare-earth ions for applications in nanotechnology. However, reports of their synthesis are scarce and typically require high temperatures and long synthesis times.

Results: Here we present a biosynthesis of terbium sulfide (TbS) NPs using microorganisms, identifying conditions that allow Escherichia coli to extracellularly produce TbS NPs in aqueous media at 37 °C by controlling cellular sulfur metabolism to produce a high concentration of sulfide ions.

Injectable shear-thinning hydrogels promote oligodendrocyte progenitor cell survival and remyelination in the central nervous system.

Cell therapy for the treatment of demyelinating diseases such as multiple sclerosis is hampered by poor survival of donor oligodendrocyte cell preparations, resulting in limited therapeutic outcomes. Excessive cell death leads to the release of intracellular alloantigens, which likely exacerbate local inflammation and may predispose the graft to eventual rejection. Here, we engineered innovative cell-instructive shear-thinning hydrogels (STHs) with tunable viscoelasticity and bioactivity for minimally invasive delivery of primary human oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (hOPCs) to the brain of a mouse, a model of congenital hypomyelinating disease.