Alicante-Winter Immunology Symposium in Health (A-Wish) and the Boulle-SEI awards: A collaboration between the Spanish Society for immunology, the University of Alicante and the Jean Boulle Group to honor the Balmis Expedition

• This introduction for the first Alicante-Winter Immunology Symposium in Health (A-WISH) and the Boulle-SEI Awards, seeks to promote the efforts of Spanish scientists in the advancement of the study of immunology, infectious diseases and vaccinology, and also to disseminate the development of novel approaches in diagnosis and therapeutics of diseases that involve the immune system. • On December 16th and 17th 2021 the Spanish Society of Immunology (SEI) and the University of Alicante (UA) joined forces to organize the first A-WISH (https://a-wish.org). • In this first symposium, researchers shared their expertise to address strategies for the COVID-19 response and pandemic preparedness

Arduino-based low-cost device for the measurement of detonation times in blasting caps

The use of equipment such as oscilloscopes, high-speed cameras or acoustic sensors is quite common to measure detonation times from surface connectors and detonators. However, these solutions are expensive and, sometimes, not adequate to use in field conditions, such as mining or civil works. In this regard, a low-cost portable device is designed and tested using the Arduino platform, achieving a simple, robust and precise system to carry out field measurements. This study describes the characteristics and working principles of the designed device, as well as the verifications carried out to check the accuracy of the Arduino ceramic oscillator. Additionally, a field test was carried out using 100 actual detonators and surface connectors to verify the correct operation of the designed equipment. We have designed a device, and a methodology, to measure detonation instants with a minimum accuracy of 0.1 ms, being sufficient to carry out subsequent studies of detonation time dispersion for non-electric detonators.Peer ReviewedObjectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::9 - Indústria, Innovació i InfraestructuraPostprint (published version

Design and evaluation of an antenna applicator for a microwave colonoscopy system

© 2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes,creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.This paper presents a design of a compact antenna applicator for a microwave colonoscopy system. Although colonoscopy is the most effective method for colorectal cancer detection, it suffers from important visualization restrictions that limit its performance. We recently reported that the contrast between healthy mucosa and cancer was 30%-100% for the relative permittivity and conductivity, respectively, at 8 GHz, and the complex permittivity increased proportionally to the degeneration rate of polyps (cancer precursors). The applicator is designed as a compact cylindrical array of eight antennas attached at the tip of a conventional colonoscope. The design presented here is a proof-of-concept applicator composed by one transmitting and one receiving cavity-backed U-shaped slot antenna elements fed by an L-shaped microstrip line. The antennas are low profile and present a high isolation at 8 GHz. The antenna performance is assessed with simulations and experimentally with a phantom composed by different liquids.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Dielectric properties of colon polyps, cancer, and normal mucosa: Ex vivo measurements from 0.5 to 20 GHz

This is the accepted version of the following article: Guardiola, M. , Buitrago, S. , Fernández‐Esparrach, G. , O'Callaghan, J. M., Romeu, J. , Cuatrecasas, M. , Córdova, H. , González Ballester, M. Á. and Camara, O. (2018), Dielectric properties of colon polyps, cancer, and normal mucosa: Ex vivo measurements from 0.5 to 20 GHz. Med. Phys., 45: 3768-3782. doi:10.1002/mp.13016, which has been published in final form at https://aapm.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/mp.13016. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with the Wiley Self-Archiving Policy [http://olabout.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-820227.html].Colorectal cancer is highly preventable by detecting and removing polyps, which are the precursors. 20 Currently, the most accurate test is colonoscopy, but still misses 22% of polyps due to visualization limitations. In this paper we preliminary assess the potential of microwave imaging and dielectric properties (e.g. complex permittivity) as a complementary method for detecting polyps and cancer tissue in the colon. The dielectric properties of biological tissues have been used in a wide variety of applications, including safety assessment of wireless technologies and design of medical diagnostic or therapeutic techniques 25 (microwave imaging, hyperthermia and ablation). The main purpose of this work is to measure the complex permittivity of different types of colon polyps, cancer and normal mucosa in ex vivo human samples to study if the dielectric properties are appropriate for classification purposes.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Control of Therapeutic Levels of Anticoagulation and Associated Factors: A Prospective Cohort Study

Teràpia anticoagulant; Vitamin K; Estudis de cohortsTerapia anticoagulante; Vitamin K; Estudios de cohortesAnticoagulant therapy; Vitamin K; Cohort StudiesMaintaining therapeutic levels of anticoagulation is essential to avoid health complications in people who take vitamin K antagonists. This study aimed to analyze the influence of people’s characteristics and the presence of changes in their lives in the control of therapeutic levels of anticoagulation. A longitudinal multicenter study with a 1-year follow-up of a cohort of 199 people receiving anticoagulant therapy was performed. The effect of biological, clinical, social, lifestyle, and changes in life on the international normalized ratio (INR) was analyzed. During the follow-up, 46.7% of participants presented good INR control. At baseline, a diagnosis of atrial fibrillation (P = .00), the lack of comorbidities (P = .03), absence of depression (P = .04), and not following a pharmacological treatment with hypoglycemia drugs (P = .01) were associated with good INR control. During the follow-up, the variable of making changes to the usual diet was associated with poor INR control (P = .05). In the binary multiple regression model, factors associated with poor control were taking hypoglycemia drugs (P = .02) and the presence of depression (P = .04), and only the diagnosis of atrial fibrillation was associated with good control (P = .03). People with a diagnosis of atrial fibrillation had good INR control. Having comorbidities, suffering depression, taking hypoglycemia drugs, and making changes to the diet have a negative effect on INR control

Blunted autonomic reactivity to mental stress in depression quantified by nonlinear cardiorespiratory coupling indices

In this study, differences in autonomic reactivity to mental stress between Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) patients and healthy control (HC) subjects are assessed by nonlinear cardiorespiratory coupling indices derived from the Real Wavelet Biphase. The degree and strength of Quadratic Phase Coupling (QPC) between interacting oscillations of Heart Rate Variability (HRV) and respiration are quantified before, during and after the execution of acognitive task. Results show that the QPC strength and QPC degree between the respiration and the respiratory sinus arrhythmia component of HRV were lower in HC compared to MDD during stress, suggesting that the parasympathetic branch was less inhibited in MDD patients. During recovery, only in HC group, this degree of QPC increased, while the respiratory rate was reduced, compared to the basal stage. The degree of QPC between the respiration and components of HRV in the low frequency band ([0.04, 0.15] Hz) increased in HC during stress, compared to the basal stage, while remained unchanged in MDD patients. These results imply that depression is associated with blunted autonomic reactivity to mental stres

In silico optimization of left atrial appendage Occluder implantation using interactive and modeling tools

Altres ajuts: This work was supported by the Retos I+D Programme (DPI2015-71640-R).According to clinical studies, around one third of patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) will suffer a stroke during their lifetime. Between 70 and 90% of these strokes are caused by thrombus formed in the left atrial appendage. In patients with contraindications to oral anticoagulants, a left atrial appendage occluder (LAAO) is often implanted to prevent blood flow entering in the LAA. A limited range of LAAO devices is available, with different designs and sizes. Together with the heterogeneity of LAA morphology, these factors make LAAO success dependent on clinician's experience. A sub-optimal LAAO implantation can generate thrombi outside the device, eventually leading to stroke if not treated. The aim of this study was to develop clinician-friendly tools based on biophysical models to optimize LAAO device therapies. A web-based 3D interactive virtual implantation platform, so-called VIDAA, was created to select the most appropriate LAAO configurations (type of device, size, landing zone) for a given patient-specific LAA morphology. An initial LAAO configuration is proposed in VIDAA, automatically computed from LAA shape features (centreline, diameters). The most promising LAAO settings and LAA geometries were exported from VIDAA to build volumetric meshes and run Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations to assess blood flow patterns after implantation. Risk of thrombus formation was estimated from the simulated hemodynamics with an index combining information from blood flow velocity and complexity. The combination of the VIDAA platform with in silico indices allowed to identify the LAAO configurations associated to a lower risk of thrombus formation; device positioning was key to the creation of regions with turbulent flows after implantation. Our results demonstrate the potential for optimizing LAAO therapy settings during pre-implant planning based on modeling tools and contribute to reduce the risk of thrombus formation after treatment

Dielectric properties of colon polyps, cancer and normal mucosa: ex vivo measurements from 0.5 to 20 GHz

Purpose: Colorectal cancer is highly preventable by detecting and removing polyps, which are the precursors. Currently, the most accurate test is colonoscopy, but still misses 22% of polyps due to visualization limitations. In this paper, we preliminary assess the potential of microwave imaging and dielectric properties (e.g., complex permittivity) as a complementary method for detecting polyps and cancer tissue in the colon. The dielectric properties of biological tissues have been used in a wide variety of applications, including safety assessment of wireless technologies and design of medical diagnostic or therapeutic techniques (microwave imaging, hyperthermia, and ablation). The main purpose of this work is to measure the complex permittivity of different types of colon polyps, cancer, and normal mucosa in ex vivo human samples to study if the dielectric properties are appropriate for classification purposes. Methods: The complex permittivity of freshly excised healthy colon tissue, cancer, and histological samples of different types of polyps from 23 patients was characterized using an open-ended coaxial probe between 0.5 and 20 GHz. The obtained measurements were classified into five tissue groups before applying a data reduction step with a frequency dispersive single-pole Debye model. The classification was finally compared with pathological analysis of tissue samples, which is the gold standard. Results: The complex permittivity progressively increases as the tissue degenerates from normal to cancer. When comparing to the gold-standard histological tissue analysis, the sensitivity and specificity of the proposed method is the following: 100% and 95% for cancer diagnosis; 91% and 62% for adenomas with high-grade dysplasia; 100% and 61% for adenomas with low-grade dysplasia; and 100% and 74% for hyperplastic polyps, respectively. In addition, complex permittivity measurements were independent of the lesion shape and size, which is also an interesting property comparing to current colonoscopy techniques. Conclusions: The contrast in complex permittivities between normal and abnormal colon tissues presented here for the first time demonstrate the potential of these measurements for tissue classification. It also opens the door to the development of a microwave endoscopic device to complement the outcomes of colonoscopy with functional tissue informatio

Development of Potent Cellular and Humoral Immune Responses in Long-Term Hemodialysis Patients After 1273-mRNA SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination

Long-term hemodialysis (HD) patients are considered vulnerable and at high-risk of developing severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection due to their immunocompromised condition. Since COVID-19 associated mortality rates are higher in HD patients, vaccination is critical to protect them. The response towards vaccination against COVID-19 in HD patients is still uncertain and, in particular the cellular immune response is not fully understood. We monitored the humoral and cellular immune responses by analysis of the serological responses and Spike-specific cellular immunity in COVID-19-recovered and naïve HD patients in a longitudinal study shortly after vaccination to determine the protective effects of 1273-mRNA vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 in these high-risk patients. In naïve HD patients, the cellular immune response measured by IL-2 and IFN-ɣ secretion needed a second vaccine dose to significantly increase, with a similar pattern for the humoral response. In contrast, COVID-19 recovered HD patients developed a potent and rapid cellular and humoral immune response after the first vaccine dose. Interestingly, when comparing COVID-19 recovered healthy volunteers (HV), previously vaccinated with BNT162b2 vaccine to HD patients vaccinated with 1273-mRNA, these exhibited a more robust immune response that is maintained longitudinally. Our results indicate that HD patients develop strong cellular and humoral immune responses to 1273-mRNA vaccination and argue in favor of personalized immune monitoring studies in HD patients, especially if COVID-19 pre-exposed, to adapt COVID-19 vaccination protocols for this immunocompromised population.Funding was obtained from Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) RICORS program to RICORS2040 (RD21/0005/0001), FEDER funds; Acción Estratégica en Salud Intramural (AESI), Instituto de Salud Carlos III, grant number AESI PI21CIII_00022 to PP and Healthstar-plus -REACT-UE Grant through Segovia Arana Research Institute Puerta de Hierro Majadahonda-IDIPHIM. JO is a member of VACCELERATE (European Corona Vaccine Trial Accelerator Platform) Network, which aims to facilitate and accelerate the design and implementation of COVID-19 phase 2 and 3 vaccine trials. JO is a member of the INsTRuCT under the MSC grant agreement Nº860003 (Innovative Training in Myeloid Regulatory Cell Therapy) Consortium, a network of European scientists from academia and industry focused on developing innovative immunotherapies.S