Exploring the Effect of Trauma Care Simulation on Undergraduate Critical Care Nursing Students’ Attitude at A College of Nursing, in Jeddah- An Intervention Study

Background: Patient safety has become a priority and pre-requisite for the provision for effective quality care. Simulation is seen as one method to ensure patient safety as this method allows for the attainment of skills and promotes the transference of these skills into safe clinical practice.Method: A pretest posttest research design was used. 34 Female critical care students were conveniently sampled from the College of Nursing, Jeddah, at the King Saud bin Abdul-Aziz University for Health Sciences. Data collection occurred in three phases: first phase pre simulation phase which included administering the KIDSIM Attitudes Questionnaire; second phase was the simulation on a trauma patient with hypovolemic shock; third phase was administering the KIDSIM Attitudes Questionnaire and Simulation Design Scale. Results: The majority of the students have positive attitudes in both pre and post simulation practice in relation to the relevance of simulation (with Mean + SD 4.3 + 0.6 pre & 4.4 + 0.5 post) with no significant difference between pre and post simulation practice. Approximately two thirds of students were able to able to care for a trauma patients with hypovolemic shock. Student’s feedback about the simulation practice highlights that the majority of students provided positive feedback regarding the simulation session attended.Discussion: One of the significant finding related to leadership provided during simulation was to ask non- response team members to leave when they are distracting. In addition, the results of this study revealed that within a team context, the roles on non- leading members of the team are just as important for good team functioning as the role of the leader.Limitations and recommendations: Limitations include space triangulation with a small sample size. Recommendations for future research propose qualitative studies to address the phenenomon at hand especially within a Saudi Arabian context. Keywords: Critical care students, simulation, trauma care, trauma care simulation

Immunomodulatory effects of food

There is a strong consensus that nutrition plays a role in modulating immune function and that the immune system needs adequate supply of nutrients to function properly. The complexity of the immune system supports this idea because its optimal functioning involves a variety of biological activities including cell division and proliferation, energy metabolism, and production of proteins. The micronutrients most often cited as being important to immune function include vitamins A, C, E, and B6, folate, iron, zinc, and selenium. Other nutrients mentioned as playing a role in immune function include beta-carotene (a precursor to vitamin A), vitamin B12, and vitamin D. On the other hand, over-activation of the immune system can lead to detrimental effects such as chronic inflammation or autoimmune diseases. In persons with allergies, a normally harmless material can be mistaken as an antigen. Some individuals develop an exaggerated immune response to food through developing food allergy which may be IgE mediated, non-IgE mediated, or mixed. This review will highlight the interaction between the immune system and some foods and food components in terms of modulation of immune functions by a variety of mechanisms.Egypt J Pediatr Allergy Immunol 2011;9(1):3-1

Low cost detection of hepatitis C virus RNA in HCV infected patients by SYBR Green I real-time PCR

The prevalence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) is highest in Egypt compared to other countries. Nucleic acid amplification test (NAT) allows detection of HCV early during the course of infection. Unfortunately, NAT is more expensive than ELISA, thus its routine use as a screening tool for blood products or in clinical practice is quite limited. The aim of this study was to compare two common RT-PCR methods, TaqMan probe technique and SYBR Green method in quantitative detection of HCV RNA for diagnosis and follow up of HCV patients. Among the recruited 220 HCV patients, 154 (70%) were HCV-RNA positive by both the techniques, while 24 (10.9%) were negative by both techniques. On the other hand, 40 (18.2%) cases were HCV RNA positive only by SYBR Green technique, and 2 (0.9%) only by TaqMan probe technique. Forty (20.4%) of the 196 chronic HCV cases were HCV-RNA positive by SYBR Green but negative by TaqMan probe technique.Conclusion: This method is useful for rapid qualitative detection of HCV infection and particularly suitable for routine diagnostic applications.Keywords: HCV, PCR, SYBR Green 1, TaqMan probe, Viral loa

Anomoeodus aegypticus n. sp. (Pisces, †Pycnodontiformes) from the late Cretaceous of the Dakhla Formation, Western Desert, Egypt

EnBased on a single right prearticular bone section with partial dentition collected from the lower part of the Beris member, Dakhla Formation (Egypt), dated to the Maastrichtian, the authors describe a new Pycnodont, Anomoeodus aegypticus. The planktonic foraminiferal assemblages indicate deposition in a marginal marine environment with open marine influx. The dental apparatus demonstrates the characteristic disposition of the teeth, which are typically semi-spherical, kidney-shaped and elliptical, as seen for the genus Anomoeodus. The new species is primarily characterised by the largest teeth not being those of the medial row (located near the symphysis; as seen for all Anomoeodus), but those of the primary lateral row.ItBasandosi su un osso pre-articolare destro frammentario, con dentatura parziale, raccolto dalla parte inferiore dei cosiddetti "strati di Beris" della Formazione di Dakhla (Egitto), datata al Maastrichtiano, gli autori descrivono il picnodonte Anomoeodus aegypticus n. sp. Il fossile è stato trovato in associazione con un'ampia varietà di vertebrati marini (mosasauri, plesiosauri, tartarughe marine, coccodrilli, denti di squalo, ossa e denti di pesci) e occasionali resti vegetali. Le associazioni di foraminiferi planctonici indicano la deposizione in un ambiente marino marginale, con afflusso sporadico dal mare aperto. L'apparato dentario descritto mostra la caratteristica disposizione dei denti, che sono peraltro tipicamente semisferici, allungati, reniformi, come si vede tipicamente nel genere Anomoeodus. La nuova specie è caratterizzata dal fatto che i denti di dimensioni maggiori non appartengono alla fila mediale (localizzati in prossimità della sinfisi), come avviene in tutti gli Anomoeodus, ma appartengono alla fila laterale primaria. Ulteriori caratteri sono: (i) I denti di maggiori dimensioni appartengono alla serie primaria laterale; (ii) assenza di diastema; (iii) bassissimo numero di serie dentarie preartcolari (tre); (iv) basso numero di elementi dentari per ciascuna serie prearticolare; (v) le due serie laterali (la primaria e la secondaria) formano fra loro un angolo diedro aperto buccalmente; (vi) la superfice occlusale è concava nei denti di entrambe le serie laterali (primaria e secondaria), convessa in quella dei denti della serie mediale. Anomoeodus aegypticus n. sp. ha le sue maggiori affinità anatomiche con Anomoeodus "specie B" descritto da Cooper and Mantill (2020) nel Cretaceo superiore del Marocco, che – pertanto – cade nella sinonimia della nuova specie Anomoeodus aegypticus

Bacteriophages to control multi-drug resistant enterococcus faecalis infection of dental root canals

© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Phage therapy is an alternative treatment to antibiotics that can overcome multi-drug resistant bacteria. In this study, we aimed to isolate and characterize lytic bacteriophages targeted against Enterococcus faecalis isolated from root canal infections obtained from clinics at the Faculty of Dentistry, Ismalia, Egypt. Bacteriophage, vB_ZEFP, was isolated from concentrated wastewater collected from hospital sewage. Morphological and genomic analysis revealed that the phage belongs to the Podoviridae family with a linear double-stranded DNA genome, consisting of 18,454, with a G + C content of 32.8%. Host range analysis revealed the phage could infect 10 of 13 E. faecalis isolates exhibiting a range of antibiotic resistances recovered from infected root canals with efficiency of plating values above 0.5. One-step growth curves of this phage showed that it has a burst size of 110 PFU per infected cell, with a latent period of 10 min. The lytic activity of this phage against E. faecalis biofilms showed that the phage was able to control the growth of E. faecalis in vitro. Phage vB_ZEFP could also prevent ex-vivo E. faecalis root canal infection. These results suggest that phage vB_ZEFP has potential for application in phage therapy and specifically in the prevention of infection after root canal treatment

The Pediatric Allergy and Immunology Unit of Ain Shams University in times of SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: approach and challenges

The Pediatric Allergy and Immunology (PAI) Unit of Ain Shams University, founded in 1988 by Professor Yehia El-Gamal and currently headed by Professor Shereen Reda, is a tertiary referral center for pediatric allergy, primary immunodeficiency, and rheumatology patients in Egypt. It serves more than 1300 patients with different immunological disorders, with an outpatient and inpatient sections and investigational laboratory. With the widespread of the SARS-CoV-2 and its declaration as a "pandemic", and owing to the heterogeneity of the different disorders managed and followed up in the unit, several measures have been taken in order to provide the necessary services for the patients. This service should maintain a rational balance between the need to mitigate the virus spread and to provide the optimum care for those who get infected, when in the meantime keep their original disease morbidity and mortality to the minimum. These measures were taken by the members of the PAI unit with the help of the head management team of Children’s Hospital, Ain Shams University and were subjected to continuous modification based on the evolving situation, emerging information, problems faced and the availability of human and medical resources

Insect Cell Expression and Purification of Recombinant SARS-COV-2 Spike Proteins That Demonstrate ACE2 Binding

The COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection has led to socio-economic shutdowns and the loss of over 5 million lives worldwide. There is a need for the identification of therapeutic targets to treat COVID-19. SARS-CoV-2 spike is a target of interest for the development of therapeutic targets. We developed a robust SARS-CoV-2 S spike expression and purification protocol from insect cells and studied four recombinant SARS-CoV-2 spike protein constructs based on the original SARS-CoV-2 sequence using a baculovirus expression system: a spike protein receptor-binding domain that includes the SD1 domain (RBD) coupled to a fluorescent tag (S-RBD-eGFP), spike ectodomain coupled to a fluorescent tag (S-Ecto-eGFP), spike ectodomain with six proline mutations and a foldon domain (S-Ecto-HexaPro(+F)), and spike ectodomain with six proline mutations without the foldon domain (S-Ecto-HexaPro(-F)). We tested the yield of purified protein expressed from the insect cell lines Spodoptera frugiperda (Sf9) and Trichoplusia ni (Tni) and compared it to previous research using mammalian cell lines to determine changes in protein yield. We demonstrated quick and inexpensive production of functional glycosylated spike protein of high purity capable of recognizing and binding to the angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor. To further confirm functionality, we demonstrate binding of eGFP fused construct of the spike ectodomain (S-Ecto-eGFP) to surface ACE2 receptors on lung epithelial cells by flow cytometry analysis and show that it can be decreased by means of receptor manipulation (blockade or downregulation)