Publications by authors named "Samuel Buck"

Unlabelled: In the wild, are emersed in environments teeming with a veritable menagerie of microorganisms. The cuticular surface serves as a barrier and first point of contact with their microbial environments. In this study, we identify microbes from natural habitats that associate with its cuticle, constituting a simple "skin microbiome.

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Background: Medical educational societies have emphasized the inclusion of marginalized populations, including the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) population, in educational curricula. Lack of inclusion can contribute to health inequality and mistreatment due to unconscious bias. Little didactic time is spent on the care of LGBTQ+ individuals in emergency medicine (EM) curricula.

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We present an innovative automatic control of angular dispersion for high-power laser systems. A novel, to the best of our knowledge, diagnostic has been developed to visualize angular dispersion in ultrashort near-infrared laser pulses for on-shot analysis. The output of a commercial ultrabroadband oscillator was prepared with an arbitrary chromatic dispersion and sent through a compensation system composed of 4° glass wedges in motorized mounts.

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Bacterial nanocellulose (BNC) is a promising dietary fiber with potential as a functional food additive. We evaluated BNC fibers (BNCf) in the Caenorhabditis elegans model to obtain insight into the BNCf's biointeraction with its gastrointestinal tract while reducing the variables of higher complex animals. BNCf were uptaken and excreted by worms without crossing the intestinal barrier, confirming its biosafety regarding survival rate, reproduction, and aging for concentrations up to 34 μg/ml BNCf.

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Article Synopsis
  • Scientists found ways to improve the health benefits of tiny germs in our bodies, called microbiota!
  • They created special types of food for these germs, called precision prebiotics, that help only specific helpful germs to grow!
  • They tested four of these precision prebiotics and saw that they could make the helpful germ MYb11 grow more in worms!
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The composition of the gut microbiome can have a dramatic impact on host physiology throughout the development and the life of the animal. Measuring compositional changes in the microbiome is crucial in identifying the functional relationships between these physiological changes. Caenorhabditis elegans has emerged as a powerful host system to examine the molecular drivers of host-microbiome interactions.

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The microbiome is increasingly receiving attention as an important modulator of host health and disease. However, while numerous mechanisms through which the microbiome influences its host have been identified, there is still a lack of approaches that allow to specifically modulate the abundance of individual microbes or microbial functions of interest. Moreover, current approaches for microbiome manipulation such as fecal transfers often entail a non-specific transfer of entire microbial communities with potentially unwanted side effects.

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  • Chronic high-fat diets (HFD) worsen intestinal diseases and cause sustained tissue damage by accumulating dead neutrophils and dietary lipids.
  • Depleting neutrophils can improve intestinal damage, while macrophages from HFD-fed mice struggle to clear dead neutrophils due to lipid interference.
  • The study shows that this interference impairs production of IL-10, a key molecule for healing, suggesting that HFD contributes to ongoing intestinal damage by disrupting macrophage function.
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The gut microbiota is essential for maintenance and repair of the intestinal epithelial barrier. As shifts in both intestinal epithelial barrier function and microbiota composition are found in inflammatory bowel disease patients, it is critical to understand the role of distinct bacteria in regulating barrier repair. We identified a mouse commensal isolate, GDAR2-2, that protects mice from infection and dextran sulfate sodium-induced colitis.

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Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is the most common chemical threat that organisms face. Here, we show that H2O2 alters the bacterial food preference of Caenorhabditis elegans, enabling the nematodes to find a safe environment with food. H2O2 induces the nematodes to leave food patches of laboratory and microbiome bacteria when those bacterial communities have insufficient H2O2-degrading capacity.

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Article Synopsis
  • Skin-penetrating nematodes like Strongyloides stercoralis infect over 600 million people, with a life cycle comprising both parasitic and free-living generations where they interact with various bacteria.
  • Recent research shows that the microbiome of S. stercoralis's free-living adults contains specific fecal bacteria and that both S. stercoralis and the related Strongyloides ratti respond to bacteria differently depending on their life stages, with free-living adults being attracted to a wider range of bacteria.
  • The study found that while certain bacteria enhance nematode attraction, such as Proteus mirabilis, this bacterium inhibits egg hatching in S. stercoralis, reducing its viability and highlighting the complex
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Article Synopsis
  • Host genetics influence the types of microbiomes that can develop in the gut of the nematode C. elegans, impacting their physiological environments.
  • A model microbiome was created to study how natural genetic variation affects the assembly of distinct microbiomes, linked to immune and metabolic signaling pathways.
  • The research revealed that insulin signaling plays a crucial role in recruiting specific gut bacteria, like the Alphaproteobacteria Ochrobactrum, which is associated with increased growth rates and body size in C. elegans.
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Problem: In March 2020, the novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) became a global pandemic. Medical schools around the United States faced difficult decisions, temporarily suspending hospital-based clerkship rotations for medical students due to potential shortages of personal protective equipment and a need to social distance. This decision created a need for innovative, virtual learning opportunities to support undergraduate medical education.

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The free-living nematode Caenorhabditis elegans remains one of the most robust and flexible genetic systems for interrogating the complexities of animal biology. Targeted genetic manipulations, such as RNA interference (RNAi), CRISPR/Cas9- or array-based transgenesis, all depend on initial delivery of nucleic acids. Delivery of dsRNA by feeding can be effective, but the expression in Escherichia coli is not conducive to experiments intended to remain sterile or with defined microbial communities.

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Introduction: Simulation use in research is often limited by controlling for scenario difficulty when using repeated measures. Our study assesses the feasibility of the Modified Angoff Method to reach expert consensus regarding difficulty of medical simulations. We compared scores with participant physiologic stress.

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Objectives/introduction: The Association of American Medical Colleges suggested that medical students not be involved in direct patient care activities in the United States because of the COVID pandemic. Our objectives are to (1) describe the rapid creation and implementation of a fully online simulation-based pediatric emergency medicine training intervention for medical student learners using existing simulation center staff (faculty, technicians, actors) and resources (simulation technology, scenario files) and (2) report student and faculty feedback on the intervention.

Methods: The sessions involved the use of our existing simulation center faculty, staff, and resources.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study highlights the difficulty in linking microbial community composition to specific effects on host species due to the complexity of microbiomes.
  • Researchers have introduced CeMbio, a simplified and natural microbiota designed to improve the understanding of host-microbiome interactions.
  • CeMbio is a versatile resource that includes culturable strains, diagnostic tools, and computational models to help dissect relevant relationships in nematodes.
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Article Synopsis
  • - The gut microbiome significantly affects the host's biology, impacting health and disease, as well as lifespan and healthspan.
  • - Changes in the size or types of microbes in the gut can alter how the host functions and ages.
  • - A new method is introduced for studying the microbiome in C. elegans, allowing researchers to investigate its effects on aging and other physiological processes.
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The work of Zeevi et al. (2019) in a recent issue of Nature shows that variations in gene content and organization between different strains of the same microbial species are widespread in the human gut microbiota and could be linked to many measures of health.

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Escherichia coli encodes two DNA ligases, ligase A, which is essential under normal laboratory growth conditions, and ligase B, which is not. Here we report potential functions of ligase B. We found that across the entire Enterobacteriaceae family, ligase B is highly conserved in both amino acid identity and synteny with genes associated with oxidative stress.

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The nematode is used as a central model system across biological disciplines. Surprisingly, almost all research with this worm is performed in the absence of its native microbiome, possibly affecting generality of the obtained results. In fact, the microbiome had been unknown until recently.

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Background: The initial acquisition and early development of the intestinal microbiome during infancy are important to human health across the lifespan. Mode of birth, antibiotic administration, environment of care, and nutrition have all been shown to play a role in the assembly of the intestinal microbiome during early life. For preterm infants, who are disproportionately at risk of inflammatory intestinal disease (i.

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Most Caenorhabditis elegans studies have used laboratory Escherichia coli as diet and microbial environment. Here we characterize bacteria of C. elegans' natural habitats of rotting fruits and vegetation to provide greater context for its physiological responses.

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Host-associated microbiomes influence host health. However, it is unclear whether genotypic variations in host organisms influence the microbiome in ways that have adaptive consequences for the host. Here, we show that wild accessions of differ in their ability to associate with the root-associated bacterium , with consequences for plant fitness.

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