Quantifying the effect of particulate impurities on the ice nucleation behavior of pharmaceutical solutions.

Numerous commercially available biopharmaceuticals are frozen or freeze-dried in vials. The temperature at which ice nucleates and its distribution across vials in a batch is critical to the design of freezing and freeze-drying processes. Here we study experimentally how the level of particulate impurities - a key parameter in pharmaceutical manufacturing - affects the ice nucleation behavior.

Atmospheric-Pressure Cold Plasma Induces Transcriptional Changes in Ex Vivo Human Corneas.

Background: Atmospheric pressure cold plasma (APCP) might be considered a novel tool for tissue disinfection in medicine since the active chemical species produced by low plasma doses, generated by ionizing helium gas in air, induces reactive oxygen species (ROS) that kill microorganisms without substantially affecting human cells.

Objectives: In this study, we evaluated morphological and functional changes in human corneas exposed for 2 minutes (min) to APCP and tested if the antioxidant n-acetyl l-cysteine (NAC) was able to inhibit or prevent damage and cell death.

Results: Immunohistochemistry and western blotting analyses of corneal tissues collected at 6 hours (h) post-APCP treatment demonstrated no morphological tissue changes, but a transient increased expression of OGG1 glycosylase that returned to control levels in 24 h.

Vernal keratoconjunctivitis-like disease in adults.

Purpose: To identify clinical, demographic, immunologic, and health-related quality-of-life data from a cohort of vernal keratoconjunctivitis (VKC) patients with the onset of the disease after puberty (VKC-like disease).

Design: Retrospective, observational case series.

Methods: Forty-nine patients with late-onset VKC-like disease from among 600 consecutive VKC patients.

Disinfection of ocular cells and tissues by atmospheric-pressure cold plasma.

Background: Low temperature plasmas have been proposed in medicine as agents for tissue disinfection and have received increasing attention due to the frequency of bacterial resistance to antibiotics. This study explored whether atmospheric-pressure cold plasma (APCP) generated by a new portable device that ionizes a flow of helium gas can inactivate ocular pathogens without causing significant tissue damage.

Methodology/principal Findings: We tested the APCP effects on cultured Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Candida albicans, Aspergillus fumigatus and Herpes simplex virus-1, ocular cells (conjunctival fibroblasts and keratocytes) and ex-vivo corneas.