Dupilumab in a 9-week-old with Netherton Syndrome Leads to Deep Symptom Control.

Purpose: Netherton syndrome (NS) is a rare inborn error of immunity (IEI) with an incidence of approximately 1:200,000 and the phenotypic triad of trichorrhexis invaginate (bamboo hair), congenital ichthyosiform erythroderma, and multiple atopic manifestations. Treatment options especially in infants are scarce and generally not licensed.

Methods: Case report of a 9-week-old infant with NS treated with dupilumab off-label.

Correlations between the increase in atmospheric CO and temperature, and the subsequent increase in silica, and groundwater organisms.

Rising atmospheric temperature and CO impact all freshwater systems. In groundwater, one such impact is CO- and temperature-induced weathering, which leads to more intense weathering of silicate rocks. Here, we tested whether the increased CO levels, the weathering, or rather the increasing temperature, impacted on fauna and prokaryotes in the groundwater ecosystem.

Butyrate and propionate are microbial danger signals that activate the NLRP3 inflammasome in human macrophages upon TLR stimulation.

Short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) are immunomodulatory compounds produced by the microbiome through dietary fiber fermentation. Although generally considered beneficial for gut health, patients suffering from inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) display poor tolerance to fiber-rich diets, suggesting that SCFAs may have contrary effects under inflammatory conditions. To investigate this, we examined the effect of SCFAs on human macrophages in the presence of Toll-like receptor (TLR) agonists.

Aufeis thickness and volume estimations from stereo satellite imagery and terrestrial photographs: Evidence from Central Ladakh, India.

Aufeis - a phenomenon associated with permafrost and the cold arid region of Ladakh - serves as a critical water resource for local communities. In several tributaries of the Indus River, aufeis accumulation is enhanced in ice reservoirs (commonly known as "artificial glaciers") to store winter baseflow for crop irrigation during the water-scarce period in spring. This study investigates aufeis thickness and volume across four study sites in the Trans-Himalaya of Central Ladakh: the ice reservoirs of Phuktse and Igoo and the catchments of Gya and Sasoma, where natural aufeis fields occur.

Frankenstein's Monster in the Metaverse: User Interaction With Customized Virtual Agents.

Enabled by the latest achievements in artificial intelligence (AI), computer graphics as well as virtual, augmented, and mixed reality (VR/AR/MR), virtual agents are increasingly resembling humans in both their appearance and intelligent behavior. This results in enormous potential for agents to support users in their daily lives, for example in customer service, healthcare, education or the envisioned all-encompassing metaverse. Today's technology would allow users to customize their conversation partners in the metaverse - as opposed to reality - according to their preferences, potentially improving the user experience.

Care Fragmentation, Social Determinants of Health, and Postoperative Mortality in Older Veterans.

Introduction: Veterans Affairs Surgical Quality Improvement Program (VASQIP) benchmarking algorithms helped the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) reduce postoperative mortality. Despite calls to consider social risk factors, these algorithms do not adjust for social determinants of health (SDoH) or account for services fragmented between the VHA and the private sector. This investigation examines how the addition of SDoH change model performance and quantifies associations between SDoH and 30-d postoperative mortality.

A landscape assessment of CTSA evaluators and their work in the CTSA consortium, 2021 survey findings.

This article presents a landscape assessment of the findings from the 2021 Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) Evaluators Survey. This survey was the most recent iteration of a well established, national, peer-led systematic snapshot of the CTSA evaluators, their skillsets, listed evaluation resources, preferred methods, and identified best practices. Three questions guided our study: who are the CTSA evaluators, what competencies do they share and how is their work used within hubs.

Erratum: Toward standardization, harmonization, and integration of social determinants of health data: A Texas Clinical and Translational Science Award institutions collaboration - CORRIGENDUM.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1017/cts.2024.

Evaluating novel biodegradable polymer matrix fertilizers for nitrogen-efficient agriculture.

Enhanced efficiency fertilizers (EEFs) can reduce nitrogen (N) losses in temperate agriculture but are less effective in the tropics. We aimed to design a new EEF and evaluate their performance in simple-to-complex tests with tropical soils and crops. We melt-extruded urea at different loadings into biodegradable polymer matrix composites using biodegradable polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) or polybutylene adipate-co-terephthalate (PBAT) polymers with urea distributed throughout the pellet.

Epigenetic modulation of myeloid cell functions in HIV and SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Myeloid cells play a vital role in innate immune responses as they recognize and phagocytose pathogens like viruses, present antigens, produce cytokines, recruit other immune cells to combat infections, and contribute to the attenuation of immune responses to restore homeostasis. Signal integration by pathogen recognition receptors enables myeloid cells to adapt their functions by a network of transcription factors and chromatin remodelers. This review provides a brief overview of the subtypes of myeloid cells and the main epigenetic regulation mechanisms.

Differential impact of high-salt levels in vitro and in vivo on macrophage core functions.

The consumption of processed food is on the rise leading to huge intake of excess dietary salt, which strongly correlates with development of hypertension, often leading to cardiovascular diseases such as stroke and heart attack, as well as activation of the immune system. The effect of salt on macrophages is especially interesting as they are able to sense high sodium levels in tissues leading to transcriptional changes. In the skin, macrophages were shown to influence lymphatic vessel growth which, in turn, enables the transport of excess salt and thereby prevents the development of high blood pressure.

Toward standardization, harmonization, and integration of social determinants of health data: A Texas Clinical and Translational Science Award institutions collaboration.

Introduction: The focus on social determinants of health (SDOH) and their impact on health outcomes is evident in U.S. federal actions by Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and Office of National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.

Groundwater is a hidden global keystone ecosystem.

Groundwater is a vital ecosystem of the global water cycle, hosting unique biodiversity and providing essential services to societies. Despite being the largest unfrozen freshwater resource, in a period of depletion by extraction and pollution, groundwater environments have been repeatedly overlooked in global biodiversity conservation agendas. Disregarding the importance of groundwater as an ecosystem ignores its critical role in preserving surface biomes.

Application and challenges of TCR and BCR sequencing to investigate T- and B-cell clonality in elastase-induced experimental murine abdominal aortic aneurysm.

Background: An abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is a life-threatening cardiovascular disease. Although its pathogenesis is still poorly understood, recent evidence suggests that AAA displays autoimmune disease characteristics. Particularly, T cells responding to AAA-related antigens in the aortic wall may contribute to an initial immune response.

NULISA: a proteomic liquid biopsy platform with attomolar sensitivity and high multiplexing.

The blood proteome holds great promise for precision medicine but poses substantial challenges due to the low abundance of most plasma proteins and the vast dynamic range of the plasma proteome. Here we address these challenges with NUcleic acid Linked Immuno-Sandwich Assay (NULISA™), which improves the sensitivity of traditional proximity ligation assays by ~10,000-fold to attomolar level, by suppressing assay background via a dual capture and release mechanism built into oligonucleotide-conjugated antibodies. Highly multiplexed quantification of both low- and high-abundance proteins spanning a wide dynamic range is achieved by attenuating signals from abundant targets with unconjugated antibodies and next-generation sequencing of barcoded reporter DNA.

[Kulturelle Kompetenz in der klinischen Ethik].

Language, cultural identity, values, or migration experiences of patients, relatives and medical professionals have a significant influence on health care. In individual cases, this can lead to the perceptions of moral problems and conflicts, and to requests for clinical ethics support service. What is the role of clinical ethicists in the face of such perceptions? How does a culturally competent clinical ethics support service look like? In the present contribution, this question will be examined on the basis of reflections on the relationship between culture and ethics as well as the discussion about culturally competent medical ethics.