Electrochemical Determination of Interaction between SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein and Specific Antibodies.

The serologic diagnosis of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and the evaluation of vaccination effectiveness are identified by the presence of antibodies specific to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). In this paper, we present the electrochemical-based biosensing technique for the detection of antibodies specific to the SARS-CoV-2 proteins. Recombinant SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins (rSpike) were immobilised on the surface of a gold electrode modified by a self-assembled monolayer (SAM).

Multimodal Approach of Optical Coherence Tomography and Raman Spectroscopy Can Improve Differentiating Benign and Malignant Skin Tumors in Animal Patients.

As in humans, cancer is one of the leading causes of companion animal mortality. Up to 30% of all canine and feline neoplasms appear on the skin or directly under it. There are only a few available studies that have investigated pet tumors by biophotonics techniques.

MXene-Assisted Ablation of Cells with a Pulsed Near-Infrared Laser.

Innovative therapies are urgently needed to combat cancer. Thermal ablation of tumor cells is a promising minimally invasive treatment option. Infrared light can penetrate human tissues and reach superficial malignancies.

Impact of Electrospinning Parameters and Post-Treatment Method on Antibacterial and Antibiofilm Activity of Chitosan Nanofibers.

Chitosan, a natural biopolymer, is an ideal candidate to prepare biomaterials capable of preventing microbial infections due to its antibacterial properties. Electrospinning is a versatile method ideally suited to process biopolymers with minimal impact on their physicochemical properties. However, fabrication parameters and post-processing routine can affect biological activity and, therefore, must be well adjusted.

Multi-Class CNN for Classification of Multispectral and Autofluorescence Skin Lesion Clinical Images.

In this work, we propose to use an artificial neural network to classify limited data of clinical multispectral and autofluorescence images of skin lesions. Although the amount of data is limited, the deep convolutional neural network classification of skin lesions using a multi-modal image set is studied and proposed for the first time. The unique dataset consists of spectral reflectance images acquired under 526 nm, 663 nm, 964 nm, and autofluorescence images under 405 nm LED excitation.

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The quick spreading of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, initiating the global pandemic with a significant impact on economics and health, highlighted an urgent need for effective and sustainable restriction mechanisms of pathogenic microorganisms. UV-C radiation, causing inactivation of many viruses and bacteria, is one of the tools for disinfection of different surfaces, liquids, and air; however, mainly mercury 254 nm line is commonly used for it. In this paper, we report our results of the experiments with newly elaborated special type polychromatic non-mercury UV light sources, having spectral lines in the spectral region from 190 nm to 280 nm.

Association of Leukocyte Adhesion and Rolling in Skin With Patient Outcomes After Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation Using Noninvasive Reflectance Confocal Videomicroscopy.

Importance: Hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) is a potential cure for hematologic cancer but is associated with a risk of relapse and death. Dynamic biomarkers to predict relapse and inform treatment decisions after HCT are a major unmet clinical need.

Objective: To identify a quantitative characteristic of leukocyte-endothelial interactions after HCT and test its associations with patient outcomes.

Skin chromophore mapping by smartphone RGB camera under spectral band and spectral line illumination.

Significance: Multispectral imaging enables mapping of chromophore content changes in skin neoplasms, which helps to diagnose a pathology. Different types of light sources can be used for the imaging. Design of laser-based illuminators is more complicated and, consequently, they are more expensive than LED-based illuminators.

In Vivo reflectance confocal microscopy of cutaneous acute graft-versus-host disease: concordance with histopathology and interobserver reproducibility of a glossary with representative images.

Background: The reliability to non-invasively identify features of inflammatory dermatoses by reflectance confocal microscopy (RCM) remains unknown. Lack of formal training among RCM readers can result in inconsistent assessments, limiting clinical utility. Specific consensus terminology with representative images is necessary to ensure consistent feature-level interpretation among RCM readers.

Electrochemically Deposited Molecularly Imprinted Polymer-Based Sensors.

This review is dedicated to the development of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) and the application of MIPs in sensor design. MIP-based biological recognition parts can replace receptors or antibodies, which are rather expensive. Conducting polymers show unique properties that are applicable in sensor design.

Multi-Path U-Net Architecture for Cell and Colony-Forming Unit Image Segmentation.

U-Net is the most cited and widely-used deep learning model for biomedical image segmentation. In this paper, we propose a new enhanced version of a ubiquitous U-Net architecture, which improves upon the original one in terms of generalization capabilities, while addressing several immanent shortcomings, such as constrained resolution and non-resilient receptive fields of the main pathway. Our novel multi-path architecture introduces a notion of an individual receptive field pathway, which is merged with other pathways at the bottom-most layer by concatenation and subsequent application of Layer Normalization and Spatial Dropout, which can improve generalization performance for small datasets.

Evaluation of native canine skin color by smartphone-based dermatoscopy.

Background: Human skin color, predominantly determined by the chromophores of melanin, hemoglobin, and exogenous carotenoids, is often measured to serve various medical and cosmetic applications. Although colorimetry has been used to evaluate the skin erythema in allergic dogs, the native canine skin color remains unknown.

Methods: We measured the skin color in 101 healthy dogs using a calibrated optical system with a smartphone and a mobile dermatoscope DermLite DL1.

Biosensors for the Determination of SARS-CoV-2 Virus and Diagnosis of COVID-19 Infection.

Monitoring and tracking infection is required in order to reduce the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), induced by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). To achieve this goal, the development and deployment of quick, accurate, and sensitive diagnostic methods are necessary. The determination of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is performed by biosensing devices, which vary according to detection methods and the biomarkers which are inducing/providing an analytical signal.

Multispectral Imaging Algorithm Predicts Breslow Thickness of Melanoma.

Breslow thickness is a major prognostic factor for melanoma. It is based on histopathological evaluation, and thus it is not available to aid clinical decision making at the time of the initial melanoma diagnosis. In this work, we assessed the efficacy of multispectral imaging (MSI) to predict Breslow thickness and developed a classification algorithm to determine optimal safety margins of the melanoma excision.

MXenes-A New Class of Two-Dimensional Materials: Structure, Properties and Potential Applications.

A new class of two-dimensional nanomaterials, MXenes, which are carbides/nitrides/carbonitrides of transition and refractory metals, has been critically analyzed. Since the synthesis of the first family member in 2011 by Yury Gogotsi and colleagues, MXenes have quickly become attractive for a variety of research fields due to their exceptional properties. Despite the fact that this new family of 2D materials was discovered only about ten years ago, the number of scientific publications related to MXene almost doubles every year.

Nonlinear Absorption and Refraction of Picosecond and Femtosecond Pulses in HgTe Quantum Dot Films.

We report measurements of the saturated intensities, saturable absorption, and nonlinear refraction in 70-nm thick films containing 4 nm HgTe quantum dots. We demonstrate strong nonlinear refraction and saturable absorption in the thin films using tunable picosecond and femtosecond pulses. Studies were carried out using tunable laser pulses in the range of 400-1100 nm.

Study of ergocalciferol and cholecalciferol (Vitamin D): Modeled optical properties and optical detection using absorption and Raman spectroscopy.

The task of assembling and calculating spectrally significant lines of Vitamin D2 and D3 is related to a wider goal of establishing if it is possible to develop non-invasive optical sensors for these substances present at concentrations on the order of tens of nmol/L. Such a non-invasive in vivo sensor would be helpful for medical considerations, among others, related to multiple sclerosis prevention, reduced risk of mortality in D3-treated acute in-patients admitted with COVID 19, systemic infection, acute respiratory tract infections, including epidemic influenza, community-acquired pneumonia at concentrations <50nmol/L(<20ng/mL), dental health (90-100nmol/L) of 25(OH) D, general health and others. Currently, to determine the concentration of these substances, it is necessary to draw a sample from a vein in ambulatory settings and analyse the sample with the gold standard of mass spectroscopy or immunoassay.

Whispering Gallery Mode Resonator Temperature Compensation and Refractive Index Sensing in Glucose Droplets.

Among the different types of photonic sensor devices, optical whispering gallery mode resonators (WGMRs) have attracted interest due to their high level of sensitivity, small size, and ability to perform real-time temperature measurements. Here we demonstrate the applicability of temperature measurements using WGMR in both air and liquid environments. We also show that WGMR allowed measurements of the refractive index variations in an evaporating glucose-water solution droplet.

Beer-Lambert law for optical tissue diagnostics: current state of the art and the main limitations.

Significance: Beer-Lambert law (BLL) is a widely used tool for contact and remote determination of absorber concentration in various media, including living tissues. Originally proposed in the 18th century as a simple exponential expression, it has survived numerous modifications and updates. The basic assumptions of this law may not be fulfilled in real measurement conditions.

How Accurate Are Veterinary Clinicians Employing Flexicult Vet for Identification and Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing of Urinary Bacteria?

Antibiotics are frequently used for treating urinary tract infections (UTI) in dogs and cats. UTI often requires time-consuming and expensive antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST). Alternatively, clinicians can employ Flexicult Vet, an affordable chromogenic agar with added antibiotics for in-clinic AST.

Azimuthal modulation of electromagnetically induced grating using structured light.

We propose a theoretical scheme for creating a two-dimensional Electromagnetically Induced Grating in a three-level [Formula: see text]-type atomic system interacting with a weak probe field and two simultaneous position-dependent coupling fields-a two dimensional standing wave and an optical vortex beam. Upon derivation of the Maxwell wave equation, describing the dynamic response of the probe light in the atomic medium, we perform numerical calculations of the amplitude, phase modulations and Fraunhofer diffraction pattern of the probe field under different system parameters. We show that due to the azimuthal modulation of the Laguerre-Gaussian field, a two-dimensional asymmetric grating is observed, giving an increase of the zeroth and high orders of diffraction, thus transferring the probe energy to the high orders of direction.

Application of Polydopamine Functionalized Zinc Oxide for Glucose Biosensor Design.

Zinc oxide (ZnO) nanostructures are widely used in optical sensors and biosensors. Functionalization of these nanostructures with polymers enables optical properties of ZnO to be tailored. Polydopamine (PDA) is a highly biocompatible polymer, which can be used as a versatile coating suitable for application in sensor and biosensor design.

Microvascular blood flow changes of the abductor pollicis brevis muscle during sustained static exercise.

A practical assessment of the general health and microvascular function of the palm muscle, abductor pollicis brevis (APB), is important for the diagnosis of different conditions. In this study, we have developed a protocol and a probe to study microvascular blood flow using near-infrared diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS) in APB during and after thumb abduction at 55% of maximum voluntary contraction (MVC). Near-infrared time resolved spectroscopy (TRS) was also used to characterize the baseline optical and hemodynamic properties.