Publications by authors named "Veer S"

Background: The potential benefits of incorporating digital technologies into health care are well documented. For example, they can improve access for patients living in remote or underresourced locations. However, despite often having the greatest health needs, people who are older or living in more socially deprived areas may be less likely to have access to these technologies and often lack the skills to use them.

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Transpeptidases are specialized enzymes that have evolved for site-selective modification of peptides and proteins at their backbone termini. Approaches for adapting transpeptidases to catalyze side chain modifications are substantially more restricted, and typically rely on large recognition tags or require specific reaction conditions that are not easily compatible with broader applications. Here we show that the engineered asparaginyl ligase AEP1 catalyzes direct isopeptide ligation by accepting an internal 2,3-diaminopropionic acid (Dap) residue adjacent to Leu, a motif that mimics the canonical N-terminal Gly-Leu substrate.

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Purpose: Electronic patient-reported outcome measures (ePROMs) are increasingly collected routinely in clinical practice and may be prognostic for survival in adults with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in addition to clinical data. This study developed ePROM-enhanced models for predicting 1-year overall survival in patients with advanced NSCLC at the start of immunotherapy.

Methods: This is a single-center study using consecutive patients from a tertiary cancer hospital in England.

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Background: There are avoidable differences (i.e., inequities) in the prevalence and distribution of chronic pain across diverse populations, as well as in access to and outcomes of pain management services.

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  • Cannulation for haemodialysis is necessary but causes anxiety and varies in patient experiences based on individual and clinical traits.
  • The study used interviews with 41 haemodialysis patients to identify key aspects of their needling experiences, resulting in a framework that includes themes like the nature of needling and factors such as the health of the fistula, the needler, and the organizational context.
  • Findings highlight the psychological and relational dynamics of needling, suggesting healthcare professionals can improve patient experiences, ultimately enhancing overall care quality.
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Background: Mobile health devices are increasingly available, presenting exciting opportunities to remotely collect high-frequency, electronic patient-generated health data (ePGHD). This novel data type may provide detailed insights into disease activity outside usual clinical settings. Assessing treatment responses, which can be hampered by the infrequency of appointments and recall bias, is a promising, novel application of ePGHD.

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Background: Management of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) relies on symptoms reported by patients during infrequent outpatient clinic visits. These reports are often incomplete and inaccurate due to poor recall, leading to suboptimal treatment decisions and outcomes. Asking people to track symptoms in-between visits and integrating the data into clinical pathways may improve this.

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  • Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) experience various symptoms like joint pain, fatigue, and mood changes, which can fluctuate in severity, necessitating treatment adjustments.
  • The REMORA2 study tested a smartphone app for symptom tracking, allowing patients to record their daily experiences and share this data with healthcare providers during consultations.
  • Interviews with patients and clinicians revealed that discussing tracked symptoms together led to better pain management decisions and encouraged patients to acknowledge their symptoms, fostering a collaborative approach to treatment.
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  • * A multimodal analgesia approach was utilized, featuring an erector spinae plane block (ESPB) with ropivacaine and clonidine, which successfully minimized intraoperative stress and opioid use.
  • * The procedure went smoothly with stable postoperative recovery, demonstrating ESPB as a safe and effective method for pain management in ARVC patients aligned with Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) guidelines.
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This case report describes the successful management of a 23-year-old male with traumatic aortic aneurysm and dissection, concomitant with bilateral lower limb fractures, highlighting the complexities and challenges of managing such a patient. The patient presented with extensive trauma, including chest pain, cough, and hoarseness of voice, and was diagnosed with a large fusiform aneurysm and dissection of the aorta. A multidisciplinary approach was adopted, and the patient underwent open reduction and internal fixation (ORIF) under combined spinal-epidural anesthesia.

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Kidney services worldwide are increasingly using digital health technologies to deliver care. This includes kidney electronic patient-reported outcome (ePRO) systems: ambulatory digital technologies that enable the capture of PRO data electronically from people with kidney disease remotely and in real time to be shared with their kidney care team. Current kidney ePRO systems commonly aim to support the monitoring and management of symptoms in patients with kidney disease.

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The control of malaria, a disease caused by parasites that kills over half a million people every year, is threatened by the continual emergence and spread of drug resistance. Therefore, new molecules with different mechanisms of action are needed in the antimalarial drug development pipeline. Peptides developed from host defense molecules are gaining traction as anti-infectives due to theood of inducing drug resistance.

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Introduction: Reviews of commercial and publicly available smartphone (mobile) health applications (mHealth app reviews) are being undertaken and published. However, there is variation in the conduct and reporting of mHealth app reviews, with no existing reporting guidelines. Building on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, we aim to develop the Consensus for APP Review Reporting Items (CAPPRRI) guidance, to support the conduct and reporting of mHealth app reviews.

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Background: Social media have shown the potential to support type 1 diabetes self-management by providing informational, emotional, and peer-to-peer support. However, the perceptions of young people and health care professionals' (HCPs) toward the use of social media for type 1 diabetes self-management have not been systematically reviewed.

Objective: The aim of this study is to explore and summarize the experiences and views of young people with type 1 diabetes and their HCPs on using social media for self-management across qualitative findings.

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Transpeptidases are powerful tools for site-specific protein modification, enabling the production of tailored biologics to investigate protein function and aiding the development of next-generation therapeutics and diagnostics. Although protein labelling at the N- or C-terminus is readily accomplished using a range of established transpeptidases, these reactions are generally limited to forming products that are linked by a standard (secondary) amide bond. Here we show that, unlike other widely used transpeptidases, an engineered asparaginyl ligase is able to efficiently synthesise tertiary amide bonds by accepting diverse secondary amine nucleophiles.

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Background: Adolescent and young adult (AYA) survivors of a central nervous system (CNS) tumor represent a vulnerable group who can experience: social isolation, low rates of employment, and achieving independence can be compromised, leading to poorer quality of life compared with survivors of other cancer types. The aim of this study is to develop and evaluate the validity of a needs assessment tool (NAT) for AYA survivors of a CNS tumor.

Methods: Items generated using data from 29 qualitative studies and cognitive interviews ( = 8) produced NAT V1.

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Mechanical phenotyping of tumors, either at an individual cell level or tumor cell population level is gaining traction as a diagnostic tool. However, the extent of diagnostic and prognostic information that can be gained through these measurements is still unclear. In this work, we focus on the heterogeneity in mechanical properties of cells obtained from a single source such as a tissue or tumor as a potential novel biomarker.

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Cyclotides are plant-derived peptides characterized by a head-to-tail cyclic backbone and a cystine knot motif comprised of three disulfide bonds. Formation of this motif via in vitro oxidative folding can be challenging and can result in misfolded isomers with nonnative disulfide connectivities. Here, we investigated the effect of β-turn nucleation on cyclotide oxidative folding.

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Introduction: Many people worldwide suffer from chronic pain. Improving our knowledge on chronic pain prevalence and management requires methods to collect pain self-reports in large populations. Smartphone-based tools could aid data collection by allowing people to use their own device, but the measurement properties of such tools are largely unknown.

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Introduction: Long-term conditions are a major burden on health systems. One way to facilitate more research and better clinical care among patients with long-term conditions is to collect accurate data on their daily symptoms (patient-generated health data) using wearable technologies. Whilst evidence is growing for the use of wearable technologies in single conditions, there is less evidence of the utility of frequent symptom tracking in those who have more than one condition.

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Background: Brain tumors account for 15% of all adolescent and young adult cancers, and survivors are at risk of ongoing late effects that can severely impact their ability to reach independence. Despite follow-up initiatives advocating a personalized approach, survivors continue to experience ongoing sequelae. A better understanding of the survivorship experience is required to ensure services are able to deliver personalized support.

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Purpose: This discussion paper outlines challenges and proposes solutions for successfully implementing prediction models that incorporate patient-reported outcomes (PROs) in cancer practice.

Methods: We organized a full-day multidisciplinary meeting of people with expertise in cancer care delivery, PRO collection, PRO use in prediction modeling, computing, implementation, and decision science. The discussions presented here focused on identifying challenges to the development, implementation and use of prediction models incorporating PROs, and suggesting possible solutions.

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Objectives: To assess the feasibility and implementation, usability, acceptability and efficacy of virtual reality (VR), and augmented reality (AR) smartphone applications for upskilling care home workers in hand hygiene and to explore underlying learning mechanisms.

Materials And Methods: Care homes in Northwest England were recruited. We took a mixed-methods and pre-test and post-test approach by analyzing uptake and completion rates of AR, immersive VR or non-immersive VR training, validated and bespoke questionnaires, observations, videos, and interviews.

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