Publications by authors named "Vuong C"

Obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) are chronic diseases with increasing prevalence, underscoring the urgent need for effective treatment and management strategies. Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs) have emerged as an essential class of drugs for managing both obesity and T2DM, offering additional benefits for cardiovascular and kidney health. GLP-1 RAs work by targeting GLP-1 receptors, mimicking the effects of the natural hormone GLP-1 to regulate blood glucose levels, promote weight loss, and provide potential benefits for cardiovascular health.

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Issue Addressed: Nutrition and physical activity practices in Australian family day care are suboptimal. A web-based tool was co-developed with family day care service providers and educators, health promotion staff and the New South Wales Ministry of Health to promote healthier nutrition and physical activity practices through an existing quality improvement process.

Methods: Formative evaluation was conducted in January-February 2023.

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Grasses are exceptionally productive, yet their hydraulic adaptation is paradoxical. Among C grasses, a high photosynthetic rate (A) may depend on higher vein density (D) and hydraulic conductance (K). However, the higher D of C grasses suggests a hydraulic surplus, given their reduced need for high K resulting from lower stomatal conductance (g).

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Heavy chain-only antibodies have found many applications where conventional heavy-light heterodimeric antibodies are not favorable. Heavy chain-only antibodies with their single antigen-binding domain offer the advantage of a smaller size and higher stability relative to conventional antibodies, and thus, the potential for novel targeting modalities. Domain antibodies have commonly been sourced from camelids with humanization or transgenic rodents expressing heavy chains without light chains, but these host species are all mammalian, limiting their capacity to elicit robust immune responses to conserved mammalian targets.

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Aims: We aimed to investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying the survival of Mycobacterium abscessus when faced with antibiotic combination therapy. By conducting evolution experiments and whole-genome sequencing (WGS), we sought to identify genetic variants associated with stress response mechanisms, with a particular focus on drug survival and resistance.

Methods And Results: We conducted evolution experiments on M.

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Well-tolerated and novel antimalarials that can combat multiple stages of the parasite life cycle are desirable but challenging to discover and develop. Herein, we report results for natural product-inspired novel tambjamine antimalarials. We show that they are potent against liver, asexual erythrocytic, and sexual erythrocytic parasite life cycle stages.

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The risk of severe disease caused by co-infection with SARS-CoV-2 and influenza virus (IAV) raises an annual concern for global public health. Extracellular vesicles (EV) derived from mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) possess anti-inflammatory properties that can attenuate the inflammatory cytokine levels induced by viral infection. However, the effects of MSC-EV treatment on SARS-CoV-2 and IAV co-infection have not been elucidated.

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Malaria has been a deadly enemy of mankind throughout history, affecting over 200 million people annually, along with approximately half a million deaths. Resistance to current therapies is of great concern, and there is a dire need for novel and well-tolerated antimalarials that operate by clinically unexploited mechanisms. We have previously reported that both tambjamines and prodiginines are highly potent novel antiplasmodial agents, but they required rigor optimizations to enhance the oral efficacy, safety, and physicochemical properties.

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Article Synopsis
  • Pro-regenerative lipid mediator 1 (PreM1) enhances healing and regenerative abilities in cells like mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and macrophages, especially for treating third-degree burns.
  • A novel construct combining PreM1, microvascular fragments (MVFs), and a hybrid hydrogel (ACgel1) effectively delivers these components to improve wound healing, vascularization, and collagen formation in mice with 3° burns.
  • The PreM1-MVFs-ACgel1 construct showed the best results, achieving 97% wound closure by day 13 post-burn, making it a promising treatment for severe burns with minimal donor requirements.
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Introduction: The growing problem of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses a significant challenge to public health; This is partly due to the lack of advancements in the development of novel antibiotics and the pressing need for alternative treatment options. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) possess secretory components that enhance the immune response and peptides that disrupt the bacteria constitution. The isolation of various human tissues has facilitated the investigation of the diverse potentials of MSC and their components.

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Article Synopsis
  • * Traditional treatments include topical steroids and calcineurin inhibitors, but new research has opened up additional treatment options targeting different aspects of AD.
  • * The review also discusses how to effectively use multiple treatments simultaneously and introduces a new topical volume calculator to improve long-term management of the disease.
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The function of some genetic variants associated with brain-relevant traits has been explained through colocalization with expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) conducted in bulk postmortem adult brain tissue. However, many brain-trait associated loci have unknown cellular or molecular function. These genetic variants may exert context-specific function on different molecular phenotypes including post-transcriptional changes.

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Issue Addressed: Munch & Move is a New South Wales (NSW) Ministry of Health program offering family day care (FDC) educators training to support children's healthy behaviours. This study examined educators' nutrition, physical activity and screen time practices and relationships between Munch & Move training and professional development (PD) on these practices.

Methods: NSW FDC educators (n = 186) completed an online survey from July 2020-June 2021.

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RNA splicing is highly prevalent in the brain and has strong links to neuropsychiatric disorders; yet, the role of cell type-specific splicing and transcript-isoform diversity during human brain development has not been systematically investigated. In this work, we leveraged single-molecule long-read sequencing to deeply profile the full-length transcriptome of the germinal zone and cortical plate regions of the developing human neocortex at tissue and single-cell resolution. We identified 214,516 distinct isoforms, of which 72.

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Leishmaniasis is a neglected tropical disease that is estimated to afflict over 12 million people. Current drugs for leishmaniasis suffer from serious deficiencies, including toxicity, high cost, modest efficacy, primarily parenteral delivery, and emergence of widespread resistance. We have discovered and developed a natural product-inspired tambjamine chemotype, known to be effective against spp, as a novel class of antileishmanial agents.

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Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is associated with endothelial dysfunction, which results in delayed wound healing. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) play a vital role in supporting endothelial cells (ECs) and promoting wound healing by paracrine effects through their secretome-containing extracellular vesicles. We previously reported the impaired wound healing ability of adipose tissue-derived MSC from T2DM donors; however, whether extracellular vesicles isolated from T2DM adipose tissue-derived MSCs (dEVs) exhibit altered functions in comparison to those derived from healthy donors (nEVs) is still unclear.

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H chain-only Igs are naturally produced in camelids and sharks. Because these Abs lack the L chain, the Ag-binding domain is half the size of a traditional Ab, allowing this type of Ig to bind to targets in novel ways. Consequently, the H chain-only single-domain Ab (sdAb) structure has the potential to increase the repertoire and functional range of an active humoral immune system.

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Introduction: An important impediment to the large-scale adoption of evidence-based school nutrition interventions is the lack of evidence on effective strategies to implement them. This paper describes the protocol for a "Collaborative Network Trial" to support the simultaneous testing of different strategies undertaken by New South Wales Local Health Districts to facilitate the adoption of an effective school-based healthy lunchbox program ('SWAP IT'). The primary objective of this study is to assess the effectiveness of different implementation strategies to increase school adoption of the SWAP across New South Wales Local Health Districts.

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Introduction: SARS-CoV-2 infection increases the risk of worse outcomes in cancer patients, including those with breast cancer. Our previous study reported that the SARS-CoV-2 membrane protein (M-protein) promotes the malignant transformation of triple-negative breast cancer cells (triple-negative BCC).

Methods: In the present study, the effects of M-protein on the ability of extracellular vesicles (EV) derived from triple-negative BCC to regulate the functions of tissue stem cells facilitating the tumor microenvironment were examined.

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SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, triggers symptoms such as sneezing, aches and pain. These symptoms are mediated by a subset of sensory neurons, known as nociceptors, that detect noxious stimuli, densely innervate the airway epithelium, and interact with airway resident epithelial and immune cells. However, the mechanisms by which viral infection activates these neurons to trigger pain and airway reflexes are unknown.

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Introduction: Novel hemoperfusion systems are emerging for the treatment of sepsis. These devices can directly remove pathogens, pathogen-associated molecular patterns, cytokines, and other inflammatory markers from circulation. However, significant safety concerns such as potential antibiotic clearance need to be addressed prior to these devices being used in large clinical studies.

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