We present a demonstration of high-pressure grazing-incidence small-angle neutron scattering for soft matter thin films. The results suggest changes in water reorganization at different pressures.

Grazing-incidence small-angle neutron scattering (GISANS) under pressure (HP-GISANS) at the solid (Si)–liquid (D2O) interface is demonstrated for the pressure-induced lateral morphological characterization of the nanostructure in thin (<100 nm) soft matter films. We demonstrate feasibility by investigating a hydrophobic {poly[(2,2,3,3,4,4,5,5-octafluoro)pentyl methacrylate]} (POFPMA)–hydrophilic {poly[2-(dimethylamino)ethyl methacrylate]} (PDMAEMA) brush mixture of strong incompatibility between the homopolymers, anchored on Si, at T = 45°C for two pressures, P = 1 bar and P = 800 bar. Our GISANS results reveal nanostructural rearrangements with increasing P, underlining P-induced effects in tethered polymer brush layers swollen with bulk solvent.

This comes after the country’s largest IT services firm Tata Consultancy Services found senior executives breaching corporate code of conduct to give preferential treatment to some recruiters. The incident was discovered following a whistle-blower complaint. Initial reports suggested that TCS had blacklisted three staffing firms identified during an investigation.

Dr Aluvihare

Video 1 Preview Image Caption

Dr. Gharavi, Local Los Angeles Surgeon, Named Best Coronary Artery Bypass Graft Surgeon in California

A new technique for skin grafts involves an adhesive made of tiny needles that was inspired by a parasitic worm's behavior.

A method for perfusing a biocompatible material graft with a perfusion liquid includes the steps of: introducing the graft (100) in a perfusion chamber (2), arranging a transfer chamber (3) partly filled with the perfusion liquid (101), coupling in a tight manner the perfusion chamber (2) and the transfer chamber (3) for establishing a fluid communication between them, lowering the pressure in the transfer chamber (3) for transferring therein part of the air existing in the perfusion chamber (2), increasing the pressure within the transfer chamber (3) for injecting in the perfusion chamber (2) the perfusion liquid (101) existing in the transfer chamber (3). A perfusion kit includes a perfusion chamber (2) apt to contain a graft (100) to be perfused with a liquid (101) and a transfer chamber (3) apt to contain a liquid (101) to be perfused, the perfusion chamber (2) being connectable in a tight manner with the transfer chamber (3) for allowing a fluid exchange between the two chambers (2, 3) and inhibiting a fluid exchange between the two chambers (2, 3) and the external environment.

A method is disclosed for preparing a soft tissue site, and augmenting the soft tissue site, such as the breast(s), scar, depression, or other defect, of a subject through use of devices that exert a distractive force on the breast(s) and grafting of autologous fat tissue such as domes with sealing rims for surrounding each of the soft tissue site and a regulated pump. The method for preparing the soft tissue site, and enhancing fat graft results, entails application of the distracting force to the targeted soft tissue site at least intermittently for some period of time and preferably several weeks prior to the graft procedure. A related aspect of the invention includes following the preparation steps by transfer of fat from other areas of the subject to the subject's soft tissue site, and then reapplication of the distractive force to the soft tissue site that received the autologous fat graft. Alternatively, fat from genetically related sources may be used, and the fat may be further processed prior to injection. Substantial soft tissue augmentation, high rates of graft survival and negligible graft necrosis (data demonstrating 80% survival and only 20% necrosis is presented) or calcification result from the practice of these methods.

A skin graft applicator with a handle member and a roller member is described for use in applying a skin graft to a patient. The skin graft applicator has a manipulator pad for positioning the skin graft, and a roller member for forcing air and fluid from underneath the skin graft ensuring the proper bond between graft and tissue.

The present invention is directed to a PLA-graft-lignin polymers and copolymers and methods of making the same. As the lignocellulosic biorefining industry emerges as a viable fuels technology, the availability of the assortment of lignins will also expand. The use of lignins as a copolymer is one area where lignin may be utilized.

A vascular bypass graft having a primary member and a secondary member is disclosed. The secondary member extends from a distal second end of the primary member and has a common fluid pathway there between. The secondary member may have a flared or diffused proximal first end that facilitates low pressure fluid return and may be integrally formed with the primary member. An adjustable or fixed stenosis is provided in the secondary member which allows the fluid flow through the vascular bypass graft to be modified. The stenosis may be adjusted either manually or by way of a controller. The primary member is surgically connected to a patient's vascular system to provide an alternate route for blood flow around a vascular occlusion. The secondary member is surgically connected to another point in the vascular system to allow continuous circulation of blood through the graft thereby preventing clotting and graft failure.

A stent graft (1) including a tubular wall (3) with at least one fenestration (40) including a peripheral (37) reinforcement around at least part of the fenestration. There can also be a tubular extension (15). The side arm includes a stent (19) and a cover (17) and extends from and is in fluid communication with the fenestration and the stent graft. The stent may be a self expanding stent. The ring and/or tubular extension provides better support and sealing for an extension arm. The fenestration (40) can be circular or if towards the ends of the stent graft may be in the form of a U-shape (50) with an open end.

An apparatus for anchoring at least two graft ligaments within a longitudinal bone tunnel includes a longitudinal sleeve having at least two ligament-contacting surfaces located in lateral opposition to a sleeve inner lumen. The sleeve is configured for at least partial insertion into the bone tunnel with each graft ligament positioned laterally adjacent a different ligament-contacting surface and at least partially located between the bone tunnel and the sleeve. An actuating member has proximal and distal actuating member ends. An asymmetrically offset profile is defined by the sleeve and/or the actuating member. The asymmetrically offset profile has engagement thresholds. The actuating member is inserted into the sleeve to cause frictional engagement of each graft ligament with both the bone tunnel and at least one ligament-contacting surface, the frictional engagement of each graft ligament being temporally spaced apart from the frictional engagement of at least one other graft ligament.

An implantable graft device is disclosed. The device comprises a graft body forming a lumen defining a longitudinal axis and comprising proximal and distal ends. The graft body comprises a woven fabric having warp yarns aligned in a first direction and weft yarns aligned in a second direction. The weft yarns are woven with the warp yarns. A portion of the warp yarns along the longitudinal axis of the graft body are not interwoven with the weft yarns, defining floating yarns having loops aligned in one of the first direction and the second direction. The device further comprises an expandable stent disposed circumferentially about the longitudinal axis and received through the loops of the floating yarns to attach the stent to the graft body.

An implantable graft device having treated yarn is disclosed. The device comprises a graft body forming a lumen defining a longitudinal axis and comprising proximal and distal ends. The graft body comprises a woven fabric having warp yarns aligned in a first direction and a weft yarns aligned in a second direction. At least one of the weft yarns and the warp yarns has an agent applied thereto defining treated yarns of the graft body.

Branched braided stent or graft devices and processes for fabrication of the devices are disclosed in which a trunk portion and two hinge leg portions are fabricated in one piece braided from a single plurality of filaments, whereby the legs contain the full plurality of filaments and the trunk portion contains a subset of the same plurality of filaments. The fabrication process involves braiding the hinged legs on a mandrel while retaining loops of filament between the hinged leg portions for subsequent braiding of the trunk portion of the stent or graft.

The invention provides methods and compositions for improving the characteristics of paper substrates. The method involves adding to a paper substrate an NCC-polymer. NCC-polymers have unique chemical properties which result in improvements in wet strength, dry strength and drainage retention properties of the paper substrates.

Magnetic vascular grafts and methods for their use are provided herein.

Spencer Connelly, 11, was supposed to have his third round of skin graft surgery within 90 days. But he's been waiting 15 months as Tasmania's elective surgery waiting list blows out.

Professor Quentin Grafton says government should halt subsidies for irrigation efficiency projects

Police have charged a NSW man with murder after what witnesses described as a furious chase during which shots were fired before one of the cars rolled and burst into flames.

Four children who took a family member's car from Gracemere near Rockhampton on Saturday night have been found safe in Grafton in northern NSW.

On the day Grafton's water fluoridation fight reached fever pitch, one man was stabbed with a tomato stake; another struck by a stock whip. At some point, a pistol was drawn. But how did it get to this point?

Police find four children under the age of 14 who took a Nissan Patrol from Gracemere in central Queensland and embarked on a joyride to Grafton in northern New South Wales.

They were Australia's worst bus-crash tragedies and they happened within weeks of each other on the Pacific Highway. Fifty-six people were killed and 63 injured and 30 years on the pain still lingers for many.

(University of Helsinki) Mutations in white blood cells can contribute to abnormal immune profile after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.

Numerous recent works highlight the limited utility of established tumor cell lines in recapitulating the heterogeneity of tumors in patients. More realistic preclinical cancer models are thought to be provided by transplantable, patient-derived tumor xenografts (PDX). Inter- and intra-tumor heterogeneity of PDX, however, present several challenges in developing optimal quantitative pipelines to assess response to therapy. The objective of this work was to develop and optimize image metrics of FDG-PET to assess response to combination docetaxel/carboplatin therapy in a co-clinical trial involving triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) PDX. We characterize the reproducibility of SUV metrics to assess response to therapy and optimize a preclinical PERCIST (µPERCIST) paradigm to complement clinical standards. Considerations in this effort included variability in tumor growth rate and tumor size; solid tumor vs. tumor heterogeneity and necrotic phenotype; and optimal selection of tumor slice versus whole tumor. A test-retest protocol was implemented to optimize the reproducibility of FDG-PET SUV thresholds, SUVpeak metrics, and µPERCIST parameters. In assessing response to therapy, FDG-PET imaging was performed at baseline and +4 days following therapy. The reproducibility, accuracy, variability, and performance of imaging metrics to assess response to therapy were determined. We defined an index—"Quantitative Response Assessment Score (QRAS)"—to integrate parameters of prediction and precision, and thus aid in selecting optimal image metrics of response to therapy. Our data suggests that a threshold value of 25% (SUV25) of SUVmax was highly reproducible (<9% variability). Concordance and reproducibility of µPERCIST were maximized at α=0.7 and β=2.8 and exhibited high correlation to SUV25 measures of tumor uptake. QRAS scores favor SUV25 followed by SUVP14 as optimal metrics of response to therapy. Additional studies are warranted to fully characterize the utility of SUV25 and µPERCIST SUVP14 as image metrics of response to therapy across a wide range of therapeutic regiments and PDX models.

The prediction of metastatic properties from molecular analyses still poses a major challenge. Here we aimed at the classification of metastasis-related cell properties by proteome profiling making use of cutaneous and brain-metastasizing variants from single melanomas sharing the same genetic ancestry. Previous experiments demonstrated that cultured cells derived from these xenografted variants maintain a stable phenotype associated with a differential metastatic behavior: The brain metastasizing variants produce more spontaneous micro-metastases than the corresponding cutaneous variants. Four corresponding pairs of cutaneous and metastatic cells were obtained from four individual patients, resulting in eight cell-lines presently investigated. Label free proteome profiling revealed significant differences between corresponding pairs of cutaneous and cerebellar metastases from the same patient. Indeed, each brain metastasizing variant expressed several apparently metastasis-associated proteomic alterations as compared with the corresponding cutaneous variant. Among the differentially expressed proteins we identified cell adhesion molecules, immune regulators, epithelial to mesenchymal transition markers, stem cell markers, redox regulators and cytokines. Similar results were observed regarding eicosanoids, considered relevant for metastasis, such as PGE2 and 12-HETE. Multiparametric morphological analysis of cells also revealed no characteristic alterations associated with the cutaneous and brain metastasis variants. However, no correct classification regarding metastatic potential was yet possible with the present data. We thus concluded that molecular profiling is able to classify cells according to known functional categories but is not yet able to predict relevant cell properties emerging from networks consisting of many interconnected molecules. The presently observed broad diversity of molecular patterns, irrespective of restricting to one tumor type and two main classes of metastasis, highlights the important need to develop meta-analysis strategies to predict cell properties from molecular profiling data. Such base knowledge will greatly support future individualized precision medicine approaches.

Islet transplantation is an emerging therapy for type 1 diabetes (T1D) and hypoglycaemic unawareness. However, a key challenge for islet transplantation is cellular rejection and the requirement for long-term immunosuppression. In this study we established a diabetic-humanized NOD-scidIL2R^null(NSG) mouse model of T cell mediated human islet-allograft rejection and developed a therapeutic regimen of low-dose recombinant human interleukin2(IL-2) combined with low-dose rapamycin to prolong graft survival. NSG-mice that had received renal-subcapsular human islet-allografts and were transfused with 1x10⁷ of human-spleen-mononuclear-cells (hSPMCs), reconstituted human CD45⁺ cells that were predominantly CD3⁺ T cells and rejected their grafts with a median survival time of 27 days. IL-2 alone (0.3x10⁶ IU/m² or 1x10⁶ IU/m²), or rapamycin alone (0.5-1mg/kg) for 3 weeks did not prolong survival. However, the combination of rapamycin with IL-2 for 3 weeks significantly prolonged human islet-allograft survival. Graft survival was associated with expansion of CD4⁺CD25⁺FOXP3⁺ Tregs and enhanced TGF-β production by CD4⁺ T cells. CD8⁺ T cells showed reduced IFN- production and reduced expression of perforin-1. The combination of IL-2 and rapamycin has the potential to inhibit human islet-allograft rejection by expanding CD4⁺FOXP3⁺ Tregs in vivo and supressing effector cell function, and could be the basis of effective tolerance-based regimens.

Fibroblast activation protein (FAP), which promotes tumor growth and progression, is overexpressed in cancer-associated fibroblasts of many human epithelial cancers. Because of its low expression in normal organs, FAP is an excellent target for theranostics. In this study, we used radionuclides with relatively long half-lives, ⁶⁴Cu (half-life, 12.7 h) and ²²⁵Ac (half-life, 10 d), to label FAP inhibitors (FAPIs) in mice with human pancreatic cancer xenografts. Methods: Male nude mice (body weight, 22.5 ± 1.2 g) were subcutaneously injected with human pancreatic cancer cells (PANC-1, n = 12; MIA PaCa-2, n = 8). Tumor xenograft mice were investigated after the intravenous injection of ⁶⁴Cu-FAPI-04 (7.21 ± 0.46 MBq) by dynamic and delayed PET scans (2.5 h after injection). Static scans 1 h after the injection of ⁶⁸Ga-FAPI-04 (3.6 ± 1.4 MBq) were also acquired for comparisons using the same cohort of mice (n = 8). Immunohistochemical staining was performed to confirm FAP expression in tumor xenografts using an FAP-α-antibody. For radioligand therapy, ²²⁵Ac-FAPI-04 (34 kBq) was injected into PANC-1 xenograft mice (n = 6). Tumor size was monitored and compared with that of control mice (n = 6). Results: Dynamic imaging of ⁶⁴Cu-FAPI-04 showed rapid clearance through the kidneys and slow washout from tumors. Delayed PET imaging of ⁶⁴Cu-FAPI-04 showed mild uptake in tumors and relatively high uptake in the liver and intestine. Accumulation levels in the tumor or normal organs were significantly higher for ⁶⁴Cu-FAPI-04 than for ⁶⁸Ga-FAPI-04, except in the heart, and excretion in the urine was higher for ⁶⁸Ga-FAPI-04 than for ⁶⁴Cu-FAPI-04. Immunohistochemical staining revealed abundant FAP expression in the stroma of xenografts. ²²⁵Ac-FAPI-04 injection showed significant tumor growth suppression in the PANC-1 xenograft mice, compared with the control mice, without a significant change in body weight. Conclusion: This proof-of-concept study showed that ⁶⁴Cu-FAPI-04 and ²²⁵Ac-FAPI-04 could be used in theranostics for the treatment of FAP-expressing pancreatic cancer. α-therapy targeting FAP in the cancer stroma is effective and will contribute to the development of a new treatment strategy.

London : printed by W. Wilson, for E. Brewster, and George Sawbridge, at the Bible on Ludgate-Hill, neere Fleet-bridge, 1653.

Vital Kamerhe to answer questions on his role in the misappropriation of public funds.

Police beat anti-corruption protesters with batons and fired volleys of tear gas to disperse them in Kenya's capital on Thursday, Reuters witnesses said.

Title: Fish Oil Doesn't Cut Failure Rate of Hemodialysis Grafts
Category: Health News
Created: 5/1/2012 6:05:00 PM
Last Editorial Review: 5/2/2012 12:00:00 AM

IMMUNOLOGY AND INFLAMMATION Correction for “Treg-mediated prolonged survival of skin allografts without immunosuppression,” by Nina Pilat, Mario Wiletel, Anna M. Weijler, Romy Steiner, Benedikt Mahr, Joanna Warren, Theresa M. Corpuz, Thomas Wekerle, Kylie E. Webster, and Jonathan Sprent, which was first published June 13, 2019; 10.1073/pnas.1903165116 (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci....

Despite substantial progress in treatment of T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL), mortality remains relatively high, mainly due to primary or acquired resistance to chemotherapy. Further improvements in survival demand better understanding of T-ALL biology and development of new therapeutic strategies. The Notch pathway has been involved in the pathogenesis of this disease and various therapeutic strategies are currently under development, including selective targeting of NOTCH receptors by inhibitory antibodies. We previously demonstrated that the NOTCH1-specific neutralizing antibody OMP52M51 prolongs survival in TALL patient-derived xenografts bearing NOTCH1/FBW7 mutations. However, acquired resistance to OMP52M51 eventually developed and we used patient-derived xenografts models to investigate this phenomenon. Multi-level molecular characterization of T-ALL cells resistant to NOTCH1 blockade and serial transplantation experiments uncovered heterogeneous types of resistance, not previously reported with other Notch inhibitors. In one model, resistance appeared after 156 days of treatment, it was stable and associated with loss of Notch inhibition, reduced mutational load and acquired NOTCH1 mutations potentially affecting the stability of the heterodimerization domain. Conversely, in another model resistance developed after only 43 days of treatment despite persistent down-regulation of Notch signaling and it was accompanied by modulation of lipid metabolism and reduced surface expression of NOTCH1. Our findings shed light on heterogeneous mechanisms adopted by the tumor to evade NOTCH1 blockade and support clinical implementation of antibody-based target therapy for Notch-addicted tumors.