Allogeneic versus Autologous: ethical issues in umbilical cord blood use

OBJECTIVE. To analyse some ethical issues involved in umbilical cord blood (UCB) collection, storage and use. MATERIALS AND METHODS. Ethical issues were addressed in the light of the wellknown fundamental ethical principles for biomedicine: beneficence/non maleficence, respect for autonomy and justice. Specific issues that have been debated concerning the clinical utility of autologous use compared with allogeneic use for transplantation, the validity of informed consent, especially in private UCB banking, and finally the controversial question of private UCB banking for-profit compared to public UCB banking non-profit. RESULTS. Our ethical analysis has highlighted that the allogeneic UCB use for transplantation, compared to autologous UCB use, seems to fulfil the principle of beneficence/non maleficence as it provides “logistic” and clinical benefits and it decreases risks; the acquisition of informed consent requires some counselling, particularly for autologous collection; finally, public UCB banking seems to fulfil the criteria for justice more than private ones. CONCLUSION. Present and future therapeutic UCB possibilities for treating a wide variety of diseases need to increase the number of UCB units available. For this purpose, a “gift” culture and a “solidarity chain” between donors and recipients are requested. Moreover, in recent years, a further and emerging model of bank seems usable, i.e. “hybrid” banking

Parental Quality of Life and Involvement in Intervention for Children or Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Systematic Review

Previous research has examined several parental, child-related, and contextual factors associated with parental quality of life (QoL) among parents with a child or an adolescent with autism spectrum disorders (ASD); however, no systematic review has examined the relationship between parental QoL and parental involvement in intervention. To fill this gap, a systematic review was conducted using four electronic databases and checked reference lists of retrieved studies. Records were included in the systematic review if they presented original data, assessed parental QoL, and involvement in intervention for children or adolescents with ASD, were published in peer-reviewed journals between 2000 and 2020, and were written in English. Among the 96 screened full-texts, 17 articles met the eligibility criteria. The selected studies included over 2000 parents of children or adolescents with ASD. Three categories of parental involvement (i.e., none, indirect, direct) were identified, which varied across studies, although most had direct parental involvement. The results from this review show that increased parental involvement in the intervention for children or adolescents with ASD may be one way to promote their QoL. However, further research specifically focused on parental involvement during the intervention for children and adolescents with ASD is warranted

Targeting the autosomal Ceratitis capitata transformer gene using Cas9 or dCas9 to masculinize XX individuals without inducing mutations

Background: Females of the Mediterranean fruit fly Ceratitis capitata (Medfly) are major agricultural pests, as they lay eggs into the fruit crops of hundreds of plant species. In Medfly, female sex determination is based on the activation of Cctransformer (Cctra). A maternal contribution of Cctra is required to activate Cctra itself in the XX embryos and to start and epigenetically maintain a Cctra positive feedback loop, by female-specific alternative splicing, leading to female development. In XY embryos, the male determining Maleness-on-the-Y gene (MoY) blocks this activation and Cctra produces male-specific transcripts encoding truncated CcTRA isoforms and male differentiation occurs. Results: With the aim of inducing frameshift mutations in the first coding exon to disrupt both female-specific and shorter male-specific CcTRA open reading frames (ORF), we injected Cas9 ribonucleoproteins (Cas9 and single guide RNA, sgRNA) in embryos. As this approach leads to mostly monoallelic mutations, masculinization was expected only in G1 XX individuals carrying biallelic mutations, following crosses of G0 injected individuals. Surprisingly, these injections into XX-only embryos led to G0 adults that included not only XX females but also 50% of reverted fertile XX males. The G0 XX males expressed male-specific Cctra transcripts, suggesting full masculinization. Interestingly, out of six G0 XX males, four displayed the Cctra wild type sequence. This finding suggests that masculinization by Cas9-sgRNA injections was independent from its mutagenic activity. In line with this observation, embryonic targeting of Cctra in XX embryos by a dead Cas9 (enzymatically inactive, dCas9) also favoured a male-specific splicing of Cctra, in both embryos and adults. Conclusions: Our data suggest that the establishment of Cctra female-specific autoregulation during the early embryogenesis has been repressed in XX embryos by the transient binding of the Cas9-sgRNA on the first exon of the Cctra gene. This hypothesis is supported by the observation that the shift of Cctra splicing from female to male mode is induced also by dCas9. Collectively, the present findings corroborate the idea that a transient embryonic inactivation of Cctra is sufficient for male sex determination

Factive Scientific Understanding Without Accurate Representation

This paper analyzes two ways idealized biological models produce factive scientific understanding. I then argue that models can provide factive scientific understanding of a phenomenon without providing an accurate representation of the (difference-making) features of their real-world target system(s). My analysis of these cases also suggests that the debate over scientific realism needs to investigate the factive scientific understanding produced by scientists’ use of idealized models rather than the accuracy of scientific models themselves

Loneliness in children and adolescents with Learning Disabilities: A review

The aim of the present review was to summarize the studies that have investigated loneliness in children with learning disabilities. A systematic review of the published studies has made it possible to select eleven articles. The review showed that most of the children with Learning Disabilities report higher levels of loneliness than their peers and that this increases during the transition from childhood to adolescence. Despite the relevance of this experience in these age groups, research on the topic is still scarce, is limited to a one-dimensional view of the construct and is almost absent in the Italian context

The “Body Image Control in Photos questionnaire” (BICP): A new tool for the analysis of self presentation of body image on Facebook during adolescence

Introduction. Research on self-presentation in social networks has neglected the selection and management of photographs posted on people’s profiles. The aim of the present study is to build and validate a new tool to investigate body image control behavior in photos posted on Facebook. Methods. A questionnaire was built and administered to 478 Italian adolescents (219 females and 259 males), aged from 12 to 19 years old. Psychometric properties were investigated; explorative and confirmative factor analyses were carried out. Results. The questionnaire presented good psychometric properties: Section I and Section II showed a good internal reliability. The five factors that emerged from the explorative factorial analysis, verified by the confirmative factor analysis, evidenced a good internal reliability. Conclusions. These factors describe important dimensions of the selection process and management of photos to post on Facebook, such as correcting and improving your body image. Therefore the proposed instrument would be useful to better understand the process of mentalization of the body

Presentazione dell’immagine corporea su Facebook: un’indagine sui nuovi supporti all’Io adolescente

Lo studio indaga la relazione tra la selezione e l’editing delle fotografie postate su Facebook e l’immagine corporea in adolescenza. A 588 ragazzi (M = 296 e F = 292) tra i 12 e i 19 anni (M = 15,8; DS = 1,9) sono stati somministrati il Pubertal Developmental Scale (Petersen et al.,1988), il Body Esteem Scale (Mendelson, Mendelson e White, 2001) e un questionario sull’editing fotografico costruito ad hoc. I dati rilevano, soprattutto per le ragazze, una correlazione inversa tra editing dell’immagine fotografica, stima del proprio corpo, età e percezione dello sviluppo puberale. Per tutti il disagio derivante dal vedere un proprio difetto fisico su Facebook è negativamente correlato con la stima del proprio corpo. I dati evidenziano che la selezione e l’editing delle foto postate su Facebook hanno, per le ragazze con una più bassa stima del corpo, lo scopo di mostrare una migliore immagine corporea. Lo studio suggerisce delle riflessioni sul ruolo dei social network nei processi di accettazione del nuovo corpo e di costruzione dell’identità in adolescenza