Nanostructured Biomaterials for Tissue Engineered Bone Tissue Reconstruction

Bone tissue engineering strategies are emerging as attractive alternatives to autografts and allografts in bone tissue reconstruction, in particular thanks to their association with nanotechnologies. Nanostructured biomaterials, indeed, mimic the extracellular matrix (ECM) of the natural bone, creating an artificial microenvironment that promotes cell adhesion, proliferation and differentiation. At the same time, the possibility to easily isolate mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) from different adult tissues together with their multi-lineage differentiation potential makes them an interesting tool in the field of bone tissue engineering. This review gives an overview of the most promising nanostructured biomaterials, used alone or in combination with MSCs, which could in future be employed as bone substitutes. Recent works indicate that composite scaffolds made of ceramics/metals or ceramics/polymers are undoubtedly more effective than the single counterparts in terms of osteoconductivity, osteogenicity and osteoinductivity. A better understanding of the interactions between MSCs and nanostructured biomaterials will surely contribute to the progress of bone tissue engineering

Rare variants in NR2F2 cause congenital heart defects in humans

Congenital heart defects (CHDs) are the most common birth defect worldwide and are a leading cause of neonatal mortality. Nonsyndromic atrioventricular septal defects (AVSDs) are an important subtype of CHDs for which the genetic architecture is poorly understood. We performed exome sequencing in 13 parent-offspring trios and 112 unrelated individuals with nonsyndromic AVSDs and identified five rare missense variants (two of which arose de novo) in the highly conserved gene NR2F2, a very significant enrichment (p = 7.7 × 10?7) compared to 5,194 control subjects. We identified three additional CHD-affected families with other variants in NR2F2 including a de novo balanced chromosomal translocation, a de novo substitution disrupting a splice donor site, and a 3 bp duplication that cosegregated in a multiplex family. NR2F2 encodes a pleiotropic developmental transcription factor, and decreased dosage of NR2F2 in mice has been shown to result in abnormal development of atrioventricular septa. Via luciferase assays, we showed that all six coding sequence variants observed in individuals significantly alter the activity of NR2F2 on target promoters

Greening the operating room

Climate change will affect most populations in the next decades and put the health of billions of people at risk. Health care facilities represent a significant source of pollution around the world and contribute to environmental changes. To address this topic, we performed a review of the available literature on tactics to reduce operating room (OR) waste and the potential of these strategies to impact the environment. A literature search was performed querying PubMed, Web of Science, and Science Direct. No comparative data were found; most were opinion papers, white papers, and case studies. For this reason, we proceeded with a narrative review, which provides an overview of the evidence on this topic and identifies areas for future research. This systematic review summarizes the available literature on the 5 “Rs” of waste management: reduction, reusing, recycling, rethinking, and renewable energies. Surgery has a unique opportunity to transition to more environmentally-friendly operating room strategies, which may help decrease waste and lessen the impact of climate change. •Surgical waste is contributing to landfill mass and climate change.•Strategies such as repurposing and anesthetic gas reclaiming are potential strategies to address surgical waste.•Donation of unused or repurposed surgical supplies may help global surgery efforts while decreasing surgical waste

EIC Physics from An All-Silicon Tracking Detector

The proposed electron-ion collider has a rich physics program to study the internal structure of protons and heavy nuclei. This program will impose strict requirements on detector design. This paper explores how these requirements can be satisfied using an all-silicon tracking detector, by consideration of three representative probes: heavy flavor hadrons, jets, and exclusive vector mesons.Comment: 48 pages, 55 figure