The uncertain meaning of ANCA positivity in IgG4-related disease

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Conference report: Biocuration 2021 Virtual Conference.

The International Society for Biocuration (ISB) aims to promote the field of biocuration and provide a community forum for information exchange and networking. Over the past 14 years, the ISB has hosted annual international conferences, entirely dedicated to the field of biocuration, that rotate between regions across the world. These meetings bring together biocurators from various roles, including database curators, bioinformaticians, ontology developers and students. Due to the ongoing global pandemic, the 14th Annual ISB Biocuration Conference (ISB2021) was held virtually in the form of four sessions and one workshop over the course of the year. Each of the four virtual sessions included panel discussions covering (i) The Future of Biocuration, (ii) Career paths and projections in Biocuration, (iii) Addressing Implicit or Unconscious Bias: Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and (iv) Strategic planning. Here we report on highlights from the virtual conference and share some of the ideas and future goals of the ISB. Database URL:https://www.biocuration.org/14th-annual-biocuration-conference-virtual/

Additive Manufacturing of Poly(Methyl Methacrylate) Biomedical Implants with Dual-Scale Porosity

The development of bone permanent implants with a porous structure favoring their integration with the surrounding tissues is emerging as an attractive field of application of additive manufacturing (AM). This article reports on the investigation of the suitability of a hybrid AM technique, that is, computer-aided wet-spinning (CAWS), to fabricate novel poly(methyl meth- acrylate) (PMMA) constructs as porous implant prototypes. The optimization of the processing parameters to fabricate PMMA samples with a predefined internal porous structure and different external shapes is described. The study demonstrates that tailoring post-processing conditions represents a powerful tool to optimize samples macroscopic aspect, micromorphology, and mechanical properties. In particular, the possibility of obtaining a dual-scale porosity through the integration of the macroporous structure determined by the material lay-down pattern with a submicrometric porosity resulting from the phase inversion process governing polymer solidification, together with the possibility of purifying the employed commercial material from residual monomer during coagulation in ethanol, are reported as note- worthy advantages of CAWS over other AM techniques. A natural progression of this work is the development of relevant complex anatomical prototypes with tailored porosity by processing digital data obtained from computer tomography imaging of bone defects