Impact of COVID-19 on a Free Clinic Patient Population

The Robert R. Frank Student Run Free Clinic at WSUSOM, surveyed patients to determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on its patient population. The study examined any challenges faced in food, financial status, transportation, and healthcare. A Qualtrics survey was administered with ethnicity, age, and gender as controls, while testing patient responses to social factors using the Likert scale. The survey was targeted to a portion of the clinic’s patient pool (n=33) over a span of three months and responses were analyzed using SPSS 26 regression analysis, ANOVA, and paired sample T-tests. Significant responses were across demographics, categories of impact, and pre/post COVID-19. Results show that access to fresh foods was severely impacted by COVID-19 (t = -3.19, p\u3c 0.05). Linear regression models show a correlation between difficulty accessing healthcare and medications, before and after COVID-19, indicating that the pandemic may have exacerbated pre-existing barriers to treatment (correlation = 0.810). Financial status has been the most affected with many patients indicating changes in employment or income status. 55% of the participants noted a greater use of savings or retirement money to make ends meet. A moderate correlation (0.471) was found between the use of public transportation prior to the pandemic and transportation barriers during the pandemic. We have decided to compile resources to address the needs based on the study results. Future research includes a longitudinal, follow-up survey to gauge any changes. Limitations include the study sample size and participation bias among the patient population

Control of inducible gene expression links cohesin to hematopoietic progenitor self-renewal and differentiation.

Cohesin is important for 3D genome organization. Nevertheless, even the complete removal of cohesin has surprisingly little impact on steady-state gene transcription and enhancer activity. Here we show that cohesin is required for the core transcriptional response of primary macrophages to microbial signals, and for inducible enhancer activity that underpins inflammatory gene expression. Consistent with a role for inflammatory signals in promoting myeloid differentiation of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HPSCs), cohesin mutations in HSPCs led to reduced inflammatory gene expression and increased resistance to differentiation-inducing inflammatory stimuli. These findings uncover an unexpected dependence of inducible gene expression on cohesin, link cohesin with myeloid differentiation, and may help explain the prevalence of cohesin mutations in human acute myeloid leukemia

Search for top quark decays t → qH with H → γγ using the ATLAS detector

A search is performed for flavour-changing neutral currents in the decay of a top quark to an up-type (c, u) quark and a Higgs boson, where the Higgs boson decays to two photons. The proton-proton collision data set used corresponds to 4.7 fb-1 at √ = 7TeV and 20.3fb-1 at √ = 8TeV collected by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. Top quark pair events are searched for in which one top quark decays to qH and the other decays to bW. Both the hadronic and the leptonic decay modes of the W boson are used. No significant signal is observed and an upper limit is set on the t → qH branching ratio of 0.79 at the 95% confidence level. The corresponding limit on the tqH coupling combination λtcH 2 + λtuH 2 is 0.17