Botanical formulation HX110B ameliorates PPE-induced emphysema in mice via regulation of PPAR/RXR signaling pathway.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), an inflammatory lung disease, causes approximately 3 million deaths each year; however, its pathological mechanisms are not fully understood. In this study, we examined whether HX110B, a mixture of Taraxacum officinale, Dioscorea batatas, and Schizonepeta tenuifolia extracts, could suppress porcine pancreatic elastase (PPE)-induced emphysema in mice and its mechanism of action. The therapeutic efficacy of HX110B was tested using a PPE-induced emphysema mouse model and human bronchial epithelial cell line BEAS-2B.

Designing a Placebo Microneedle Stamp: Modeling and Validation in a Clinical Control Trial.

Recently, several clinical studies have been conducted using microneedles (MNs), and various devices have been developed. This study aimed to propose and confirm the feasibility of a placebo control for activating MN clinical research. A 0.

Mesencephalic astrocyte-derived neurotrophic factor promotes axonal regeneration and the motor function recovery after sciatic nerve injury.

Peripheral nerve injuries have common clinical problems that are often accompanied by sensory and motor dysfunction and failure of axonal regeneration. Although various therapeutic approaches have been attempted, full functional recovery and axonal regeneration are rarely achieved in patients. In this study, we investigated the effects of recombinant adeno-associated virus (AAV) of mesencephalic astrocyte-derived neurotrophic factor (AAV-MANF) or placental growth factor (AAV-PlGF) transduced into mesenchymal stem cells (hMSC-MANF and hMSC-PlGF), which were then transplanted using human decellularized nerves (HDN) into sciatic nerve injury model.

The Current Status of Clinical Research Involving Microneedles: A Systematic Review.

In recent years, a number of clinical trials have been published on the efficacy and safety of drug delivery using microneedles (MNs). This review aims to systematically summarize and analyze the current evidence including the clinical effect and safety of MNs. Three electronic databases, including PubMed, were used to search the literature for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and clinical controlled trials (CCTs) that evaluated the therapeutic efficacy of MNs from their inception to 28 June 2018.

A Smartphone Magnetometer-Based Diagnostic Test for Automatic Contact Tracing in Infectious Disease Epidemics.

Smartphone magnetometer readings exhibit high linear correlation when two phones coexist within a short distance. Thus, the detected coexistence can serve as a proxy for close human contact events, and one can conceive using it as a possible automatic tool to modernize the contact tracing in infectious disease epidemics. This paper investigates how good a diagnostic test it would be, by evaluating the discriminative and predictive power of the smartphone magnetometer-based contact detection in multiple measures.