Distal Limb Pressure Device

Lymphedema is a medical condition associated with venous insufficiency that causes swelling in the distal limbs, generally starting at the ankles. Lymphedema affects roughly 4 million Americans today and can be caused by a number of factors, including injury, aging, diabetes, and pregnancy. The severity of lymphedema is classified into four stages, and the more severe the stage, the higher risk of experiencing additional side effects including infections, skin ulcers, and reduced locomotion capabilities in the afflicted limb. Depending on the severity of lymphedema, various treatment options are available, including exercise, elevation, and compression for lower stages and surgery or diuretics for more severe stages. Current compression methods directed towards alleviating the symptoms of lymphedema include compression stockings and inflatable trousers. While compression stockings allow the user to be mobile, they are difficult to put on and take off, and the constant pressure application can cause skin ulcers and intertrigo, or rashes. On the other hand, inflatable trousers provide sequential or alternating pressure, which reduces the risk of developing ulcers; however, they require immobilization of the user. Therefore, the scope of this project was to design and develop a wearable and mobile device that could supply sufficient sequential pressure to the leg. The team opted to use airbags as the medium to apply the required pressure

Identification of 12 new susceptibility loci for different histotypes of epithelial ovarian cancer

To identify common alleles associated with different histotypes of epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC), we pooled data from multiple genome-wide genotyping projects totaling 25,509 EOC cases and 40,941 controls. We identified nine new susceptibility loci for different EOC histotypes: six for serous EOC histotypes (3q28, 4q32.3, 8q21.11, 10q24.33, 18q11.2 and 22q12.1), two for mucinous EOC (3q22.3 and 9q31.1) and one for endometrioid EOC (5q12.3). We then performed meta-analysis on the results for high-grade serous ovarian cancer with the results from analysis of 31,448 BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers, including 3,887 mutation carriers with EOC. This identified three additional susceptibility loci at 2q13, 8q24.1 and 12q24.31. Integrated analyses of genes and regulatory biofeatures at each locus predicted candidate susceptibility genes, including OBFC1, a new candidate susceptibility gene for low-grade and borderline serous EOC