Machine learning prediction for COVID-19 disease severity at hospital admission.

Importance: Early prognostication of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 who may require mechanical ventilation and have worse outcomes within 30 days of admission is useful for delivering appropriate clinical care and optimizing resource allocation.

Objective: To develop machine learning models to predict COVID-19 severity at the time of the hospital admission based on a single institution data.

Design, Setting, And Participants: We established a retrospective cohort of patients with COVID-19 from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center from May 2020 to March 2022.

Immature Platelet Fraction as a Biomarker for Disease Severity in Pediatric Respiratory Coronavirus Disease 2019.

In this retrospective single-institution cohort study of 113 hospitalized pediatric patients with respiratory coronavirus disease 2019, those admitted to the intensive care unit or requiring mechanical ventilation had significantly higher immature platelet fractions than those who did not require intensive care unit-level care or ventilation. Immature platelet fraction may be an accessible biomarker for disease severity in pediatric respiratory coronavirus disease 2019.

Poly (methyl vinyl ether-co-maleic acid) - Pectin based hydrogel-forming systems: Gel, film, and microneedles.

Cross-linking of natural and synthetic polymers is widely explored to achieve the desired material properties (mechanical strength, drug loading capacity, swelling and erosion rates). However, the potential of polymers produced by crosslinking poly (methyl vinyl ether-co-maleic acid) (PMVE/MA) and pectin (PE) in pharmaceutics is mainly unexplored so far. We have investigated the effect of various esterification conditions and pectin content on the physicochemical properties.

Lack of a synergistic effect of arginine-glutamic acid on the physical stability of spray-dried bovine serum albumin.

Improving the physical stability of spray-dried proteins is essential for enabling pulmonary delivery of biotherapeutics as a noninvasive alternative to injections. Recently, a novel combination of two amino acids - l-arginine (l-Arg) and l-glutamic acid (l-Glu), has been reported to have synergistic protein-stabilizing effects on various protein solutions. Using spray-dried bovine serum albumin (BSA) reconstituted in solution as a model protein, we investigated the synergistic effect of these amino acids on the physical stability of proteins.

Global kinetic analysis of seeded BSA aggregation.

Accelerated aggregation studies were conducted around the melting temperature (Tm) to elucidate the kinetics of seeded BSA aggregation. Aggregation was tracked by SEC-HPLC and intrinsic fluorescence spectroscopy. Time evolution of monomer, dimer and soluble aggregate concentrations were globally analysed to reliably deduce mechanistic details pertinent to the process.

Novel use of pectin as a microneedle base.

Hydrocolloid pectin formulation was utilized as a novel base for fabricating biodegradable micro-needle (MN) arrays. The pectin MNs were, on average, found to be 897.71 ± 3.

Characterization of polymeric microneedle arrays for transdermal drug delivery.

Microfabrication of dissolvable, swellable, and biodegradable polymeric microneedle arrays (MNs) were extensively investigated based in a nano sensitive fabrication style known as micromilling that is then combined with conventional micromolding technique. The aim of this study was to describe the polymer selection, and optimize formulation compounding parameters for various polymeric MNs. Inverse replication of micromilled master MNs reproduced with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), where solid out of plane polymeric MNs were subsequently assembled, and physicochemically characterized.

Sodium alginate microneedle arrays mediate the transdermal delivery of bovine serum albumin.

Background: The "poke and release" strategy for the delivery of macromolecules using polymeric microneedle (MN) is of great importance because it eliminates microneedle reuse, the risks of biohazardous sharps and cross contamination, and it requires no special disposal mechanism. The main objective of this study was the determination of the stability and delivery of bovine serum albumin (BSA) that was transported across human skin via sodium alginate (SA) microneedle arrays (MNs) and SA needle free patches using two different analytical methods.

Methodology And Findings: The capability of two analytical methods, the bicinchoninic acid (BCA) assay and sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE), to precisely detect and quantify BSA within different types of polymeric MNs was assessed.

WITHDRAWN: Microfabrication of dissolvable, swellable, and biodegradable polymeric microneedle arrays.

This article has been withdrawn at the request of the authors. The Publisher apologizes for any inconvenience this may cause. The full Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal can be found at http://www.

Design, optimization and characterisation of polymeric microneedle arrays prepared by a novel laser-based micromoulding technique.

Purpose: Design and evaluation of a novel laser-based method for micromoulding of microneedle arrays from polymeric materials under ambient conditions. The aim of this study was to optimise polymeric composition and assess the performance of microneedle devices that possess different geometries.

Methods: A range of microneedle geometries was engineered into silicone micromoulds, and their physicochemical features were subsequently characterised.

Microporation techniques for enhanced delivery of therapeutic agents.

Perhaps the greatest barrier to development of the field of transmembrane drug delivery is that only a limited number of drugs are amenable to administration by this route. The highly lipophilic nature and barrier function of the uppermost layer of the skin, the stratum corneum, for example, restricts the permeation of hydrophilic, high molecular weight and charged compounds into the systemic circulation. Other membranes in the human body can also present significant barriers to drug permeation.