Publications by authors named "WA Miller"

Infantile hemangiomas (IH) are a common entity encountered by dermatologists, otolaryngologists, and other surgeons. Oral propranolol is a mainstay of treatment for IH and is well-tolerated, though propranolol-refractory IH and other drug-related adverse events are documented and can limit its usage. There are few in vitro testing systems for putative treatment agents.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Unification of gravity with quantum mechanics is still a terra incognita. Photon polarization measurements offer a unique window for probing the interaction between these two fundamental forces. We have revealed that non-reciprocity in the photon polarization angle can arise by tailoring the quantization axis, which corresponds to the direction of polarizer.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The prognosis of mixed-lineage leukemia (MLL) has remained a significant health concern, especially for infants. The minimal treatments available for this aggressive type of leukemia has been an ongoing problem. Chromosomal translocations of the KMT2A gene are known as MLL, which expresses MLL fusion proteins.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

This review aims to highlight the structures of ADAR proteins that have been crucial in the discernment of their functions and are relevant to future therapeutic development. ADAR proteins can correct or diversify genetic information, underscoring their pivotal contribution to protein diversity and the sophistication of neuronal networks. ADAR proteins have numerous functions in RNA editing independent roles and through the mechanisms of A-I RNA editing that continue to be revealed.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Monkeypox (now Mpox), a zoonotic disease caused by the monkeypox virus (MPXV) is an emerging threat to global health. In the time span of only six months, from May to October 2022, the number of MPXV cases breached 80,000 and many of the outbreaks occurred in locations that had never previously reported MPXV. Currently there are no FDA-approved MPXV-specific vaccines or treatments, therefore, finding drugs to combat MPXV is of utmost importance.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Translation is a key step in control of gene expression, yet most analyses of global responses to a stimulus focus on transcription and the transcriptome. For RNA viruses in particular, which have no DNA-templated transcriptional control, control of viral and host translation is crucial. Here, we describe the method of ribosome profiling (ribo-seq) in plants, applied to virus infection.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Barriers at the system, clinician, and patient level limit access to medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD). The Advancing Pharmacological Treatments for Opioid Use Disorder (ADaPT-OUD) study implemented an external facilitation strategy within the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) aimed at facility-level barriers to improve uptake of MOUD. During ADaPT-OUD, an independent Academic Detailing Services Opioid Agonist Treatment of OUD Campaign was co-occurring and aimed to increase evidence-based practice for OUD at the clinician level.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Adenosine deaminase acting on RNA 2 (ADAR2) is an important enzyme involved in RNA editing processes, particularly in the conversion of adenosine to inosine in RNA molecules. Dysregulation of ADAR2 activity has been implicated in various diseases, including neurological disorders (including schizophrenia), inflammatory disorders, viral infections, and cancers. Therefore, targeting ADAR2 with small molecules presents a promising therapeutic strategy for modulating RNA editing and potentially treating associated pathologies.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Translational efficiency change is an important mechanism for regulating protein synthesis. Experiments with paired ribosome profiling (Ribo-seq) and mRNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) allow the study of translational efficiency by simultaneously quantifying the abundances of total transcripts and those that are being actively translated. Existing methods for Ribo-seq data analysis either ignore the pairing structure in the experimental design or treat the paired samples as fixed effects instead of random effects.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Guidelines strongly recommend trauma-focused therapies to treat posttraumatic stress disorder. Implementation of cognitive processing therapy (CPT) and prolonged exposure (PE) in Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and non-VHA settings began in 2006. We conducted a systematic review of implementation facilitators and challenges and strategies to address barriers.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Altered RNA editing has been linked to several neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and intellectual disability, in addition to depression, schizophrenia, some cancers, viral infections and autoimmune disorders. The human ADAR2 is a potential therapeutic target for managing these various disorders due to its crucial role in adenosine to inosine editing. This study applied consensus scoring to rank potential ADAR2 inhibitors after performing molecular docking with AutoDock Vina and Glide (Maestro), using a library of 35,161 compounds obtained from traditional Chinese medicine.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The Ebola virus (EBOV) is still highly infectious and causes severe hemorrhagic fevers in primates. However, there are no regulatorily approved drugs against the Ebola virus disease (EVD). The highly virulent and lethal nature of EVD highlights the need to develop therapeutic agents.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Cereal yellow dwarf virus (CYDV-RPV) encodes a P0 protein that functions as a viral suppressor of RNA silencing (VSR). The strength of silencing suppression is highly variable among CYDV-RPV isolates. In this study, comparison of the P0 sequences of CYDV-RPV isolates and mutational analysis identified a single C-terminal amino acid that influenced P0 RNA-silencing suppressor activity.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The recent outlook of leishmaniasis as a global public health concern coupled with the reportage of resistance and lack of efficacy of most antileishmanial drugs calls for a concerted effort to find new leads. The study combined and in vitro approaches to identify novel potential synthetic small-molecule inhibitors targeting the sterol methyltransferase (SMT). The SMT enzyme in the ergosterol biosynthetic pathway is required for the parasite's membrane fluidity, distribution of membrane proteins, and control of the cell cycle.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) have demonstrated effectiveness for improving outcomes in chronic pain. These evidence-based psychotherapies (EBPs) remain underutilized in clinical practice, however. To identify research gaps and next steps for improving uptake of EBPs, we conducted a systematic review of patient-, provider-, and system-level barriers and facilitators of their use for chronic pain.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a serious global challenge requiring urgent and permanent therapeutic solutions. These solutions can only be engineered if the patterns and rate of mutations of the virus can be elucidated. Predicting mutations and the structure of proteins based on these mutations have become necessary for early drug and vaccine design purposes in anticipation of future viral mutations.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Viruses pose significant health challenges, leading to issues like respiratory infections, cancer, and neurological impairments, but virology research has developed vaccines and antivirals to mitigate these problems.
  • The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened public scrutiny of virology, especially regarding the safe conduct of research with human pathogens, leading to confusion and misinterpretation about the origins of SARS-CoV-2.
  • This article aims to clarify misconceptions by explaining gain-of-function research, the origins of SARS-CoV-2, and the regulatory frameworks in place, fostering informed discussions and emphasizing the need for balanced, evidence-based dialogue in virology.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Viruses have historically caused serious health issues, including respiratory infections and cancer, leading to significant virology research that resulted in vaccines and antiviral treatments.
  • The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the necessity for careful research on human pathogens, creating both concerns and confusion about the safety of virology work and the origins of SARS-CoV-2.
  • The article aims to clarify misunderstandings by explaining gain-of-function research, exploring the origins of SARS-CoV-2, and discussing regulatory oversight, while advocating for rational and evidence-based discussions to guide policy decisions in virology.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Viruses pose significant health challenges, leading to various issues such as respiratory infections and cancer, prompting virology research to develop vaccines and antiviral treatments over the past 60+ years.
  • The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified focus on virology, bringing up safety concerns about research involving human pathogens and creating public confusion between safe research practices and the origins of SARS-CoV-2.
  • The article aims to clarify these issues by discussing gain-of-function research, the origins of SARS-CoV-2, and current regulatory frameworks, advocating for informed, balanced conversations to support necessary virology research.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Hookworm infection is caused by the blood-feeding hookworm gastrointestinal nematodes. Its harmful effects include anemia and retarded growth and are common in the tropics. A current control method involves the mass drug administration of synthetic drugs, mainly albendazole and mebendazole.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Maize-infecting viruses are known to inflict significant agronomic yield loss throughout the world annually. Identification of known or novel causal agents of disease prior to outbreak is imperative to preserve food security via future crop protection efforts. Toward this goal, a large-scale metagenomic approach utilizing high throughput sequencing (HTS) was employed to identify novel viruses with the potential to contribute to yield loss of graminaceous species, particularly maize, in North America.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We report the sequence of an assembled genome of (BYDV-PAV) from Turkey. This 5,672 nucleotide RNA encodes seven known open reading frames and a possible eighth. This genome from wheat is closely related to BYDV-PAVs in Pakistan, Brazil, and Australia, including one sequenced 34 years ago.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The therapeutic challenges pertaining to leishmaniasis due to reported chemoresistance and toxicity necessitate the need to explore novel pathways to identify plausible inhibitory molecules. 24-sterol methyltransferase (SMT) is vital for the synthesis of ergosterols, the main constituents of cellular membranes. So far, mammals have not been shown to possess SMT or ergosterols, making the pathway a prime candidate for drug discovery.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Yellow dwarf viruses are the most economically important and widespread viruses of cereal crops. Although they share common biological properties such as phloem limitation and obligate aphid transmission, the replication machinery and associated -acting signals of these viruses fall into two unrelated taxa represented by and . Here, we explain the reclassification of these viruses based on their very different genomes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The emergence of drug resistance against the known hookworm drugs namely albendazole and mebendazole and their reduced efficacies necessitate the need for new drugs. Chemically diverse natural products present plausible templates to augment hookworm drug discovery. The present work utilized pharmacoinformatics techniques to predict African natural compounds ZINC95486082, ZINC95486052 and euphohelionon as potential inhibitory molecules of the hookworm β tubulin gene.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF