An Exploration of Art Therapy Services Offered to University Community Members During Transition

This qualitative case study examined art therapy services offered by Loyola Marymount University\u27s Helen B. Landgarten Art Therapy Clinic to university students and staff amidst the transition back to in-person services during the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this study was to explore the efficacy of interventions and clinical themes that emerged as a result of the services offered to members of the university as they transitioned back to in-person services. Two focus groups were held to gather data from participants and facilitators of the workshops. The analysis of this data led researchers to find that the art therapy services resulted in decreased stress and created a sense of community support amongst both participants and facilitators. In addition, the researchers found other emergent clinical themes that were illuminated in the data collected from both focus groups. The findings from this study are supported by literature that aligns with the outcomes from the workshops: being effective in managing stress and building community support

“No Wash” Albumin-Dextran Dilution for Double-Unit Cord Blood Transplantation is Safe with High Rates of Sustained Donor Engraftment

AbstractWashing cord blood (CB) grafts involves product manipulation and may result in cell loss. We investigated double-unit CB transplantation (CBT) using red blood cell (RBC)–depleted units diluted with albumin-dextran in patients with hematologic malignancies. One-hundred thirty-six patients (median age, 43 years; range, 4 to 71; median weight, 69 kilograms (kg); range, 24 to 111) underwent transplantation with a 4/6 to 6/6 HLA-matched graft. Patients ≤ 20 kg were excluded, as they only received washed units. Units were diluted a median of 8 fold to a median volume of 200 mL/unit. The median infused total nucleated cell doses were 2.7 (larger unit) and 2.0 (smaller unit) x 107/kg, respectively, and the median post-thaw recovery was 86%. Units were infused consecutively (median, 45 minutes/unit). While only 17 patients (13%) had no infusion reactions, reactions in the remaining 119 patients were almost exclusively mild-moderate (by CTCAE v4 criteria 12 grade 1, 43 grade 2, 63 grade 3) with only 1 patient (< 1%) having a severe (grade 4) reaction. Moreover, most were easily treated. Grade 2 to 3 hypertension was the most common in 101 (74%) patients. The cumulative incidence of sustained donor-derived neutrophil engraftment was high: 95% in myeloablative and 94% in nonmyeloablative CBT recipients. With appropriate supportive care, double-unit CBT with RBC-depleted grafts infused after albumin-dextran dilution is safe with high rates of engraftment in patients > 20 kg

Durability and extent of protection of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies among patients with COVID-19 in Metro Manila, Philippines

IntroductionInformation on the magnitude and durability of humoral immunity against COVID-19 among specific populations can guide policies on vaccination, return from isolation and physical distancing measures. The study determined the durability of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies after an initial infection among Filipinos in Metro Manila, Philippines, and the extent of protection SARS-CoV-2 antibodies confer against reinfection.MethodsWe conducted a cohort study to monitor the antibody levels of patients diagnosed with COVID-19. Receptor-binding domain (RBD)-specific antibodies were measured at Days 21, 90, 180, 270 and 360. Antibody levels were reported as geometric mean titers (GMT) with geometric standard deviation (GSD). Differences in GMT were tested using Friedman test and Kruskal Wallis test, with Bonferroni multiple comparisons procedure. Adjusted hazard ratios on the development of probable reinfection were estimated using Cox proportional models.ResultsThere were 307 study participants included in the study, with 13 dropouts. Study participants received SARS-CoV-2 vaccines at varying times, with 278 participants (90.5%) fully vaccinated by the end of study. The GMT of the study cohort increased over time, from 19.7 U/mL (GSD 11) at Day 21; to 284.5 U/mL (GSD 9.6) at Day 90; 1,061 U/mL (GSD 5.3) at Day 180; 2,003 U/mL (GSD 6.7) at Day 270; and 8,403 U/mL (GSD 3.1) at Day 360. The increase was statistically significant from Day 21 to Day 90 (p&lt;0.0001), Day 90 to Day 180 (p=0.0005), and Day 270 to Day 360 (p&lt;0.0001). Participants with more severe initial infection demonstrated significantly higher antibody levels compared to those with milder infection at Day 21. Sixty-four patients had probable COVID-19 reinfection (incidence of 20.8%, 95% CI 16.4, 25.8%). The GMT of these 64 patients was 411.8 U/mL (GSD 6.9) prior to the occurrence of the probable reinfection. Majority (87.5%) were fully vaccinated. Antibody titers significantly affected the risk of developing reinfection, with adjusted hazard ratio of 0.994, 95% CI 0.992-0.996, p&lt;0.001.ConclusionAntibody levels against SARS-CoV-2 increased over a one-year follow-up. Higher antibody levels were observed among those with more severe initial infection and those vaccinated. Higher antibody levels are associated with a lower risk of probable reinfection

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Desired Learning Behaviors in Online Education: Measuring Student Perceptions and Practices in the OMSCS Program

Presented on September 18, 2018 - 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. in the Klaus Advanced Computing Building, Room 2405, Georgia Tech.Marissa Gonzales is with the School of Interactive Computing and the Design & Intelligence Lab at Georgia Tech.Runtime: 54:55 minutesAs online education continues to grow in popularity, so too do educators’ concerns about the challenges facing asynchronous learning environments. The Georgia Tech OMSCS program addresses the concerns of the education research community by offering new approaches to student feedback, encouraging student interaction and community discussion, and introducing new technologies and interventions to promote student engagement. Some courses in the OMSCS program, like the popular Knowledge-Based Artificial Intelligence (KBAI) course, were designed to enhance the student learning experience and support the development of desirable learning behaviors by adopting efficacious methods of instruction. Over the last year and a half, my research in the Design & Intelligence lab with Dr. Ashok Goel has focused on exploring various methods for evaluating courses in the OMSCS program. In our research, we examine student perceptions and practices towards identifying specific behaviors that influence student academic performance. We are evaluating the utility of new technology, such as the Virtual Teaching Assist (vTA) Jill Watson, in providing timely and context-specific feedback to students who ask questions in online discussion forums. Additionally, we are beginning to examine the impact of the vTA on student perceptions of teacher immediacy. Finally, we are exploring the use of a popular theoretical framework, the community of inquiry framework, to investigate types of peer interactions in online discussion forums to identify behavioral patterns that correlate with increased academic performance

Blocking Behavior in Brass Players: Connections Between Fluency in Speech and Music

Many professional brass musicians deal with an under-studied performance issue with no official term. Some labels are the Valsalva maneuver, musical stuttering, blocking, or task-specific dystonia. When a brass musician attempts to play, their core may tighten up, airflow stops in the larynx or oral cavity, and the note gets “stuck.” A similar physical reaction is seen when people stutter in speech. The goal of this study was to determine how similar blocking in brass musicians and speech stuttering are in four areas: physical symptoms, emotional connections, onset descriptions, and environments that can cause fluency or disfluency. A survey was sent out to brass players via Facebook and email. A qualitative analysis on the 33 total responses was completed to compare descriptions of brass blocking with known information on speech stuttering. There appeared to be a connection between the two problems, which may lead to future research and potential transfer of treatment methods

Enhancing the Therapeutic Capacity of the MSC Secretome Using Engineered Biomaterials

Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) are under broad investigation to catalyze tissue regeneration and treat numerous diseases, and cell-based approaches are a promising alternative to high concentrations of recombinant growth factors. Despite robust lineage-specific differentiation potential in vitro, MSC function in vivo is largely attributed to their potent secretome composed of a complex mixture of reparative growth factors (GFs). GF secretion is markedly increased when MSCs are formed into spheroids. However, MSC spheroids alone are insufficient to induce robust bone regeneration compared to BMP-2 delivery, often delivered in supraphysiological concentrations. We hypothesize that the regenerative potential of MSC spheroids could be enhanced through 1) synergistic coupling with a complementary cell secretome and 2) engineering GF-sequestering materials for entrapment. Considering the established synergistic relationship between muscle and bone, we first hypothesized that the MSC secretome could enhance the bioactivity of myokines secreted by myoblasts by increasing the concentration and diversity of endogenous GFs present for bone regeneration. We found that the osteogenic potential and GF concentration of conditioned media increased when exposed to myoblasts. When delivered into a rat critical-sized femoral defect using an alginate hydrogel, we observed increased bone formation in defects treated with conditioned media compared to the delivery of MSCs alone. As expected and in agreement with other studies, the majority of GF in our platform eluted within 24 hours, limiting the therapeutic effect of the scaffolds and motivating the critical need for engineered scaffolds that retain bioactive components from the system. We next modified alginate hydrogels with sulfate groups to sequester heparin-binding GFs secreted from MSCs to enhance the potency and availability of the MSC secretome. We confirmed that sulfated alginate hydrogels sequestered a mixture of endogenous biomolecules secreted by entrapped MSCs, thereby prolonging the therapeutic effect of MSC spheroids for tissue regeneration. We further confirmed these growth factors remain bioactive, both indirectly by stimulating limited endothelial cell tubulogenesis from conditioned media and directly by measuring enhanced myoblast infiltration. We further investigated this platform in vivo by implanting it in a rat muscle crush injury. We found the combination of spheroids and sulfated alginate limited early fibrotic response and stimulated neuromuscular junction formation. This platform has the potential to significantly enhance current cellular tissue engineering approaches as well as become a model for investigating growth factor sequestration for other applications

Enhancing the Therapeutic Capacity of the MSC Secretome Using Engineered Biomaterials

Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) are under broad investigation to catalyze tissue regeneration and treat numerous diseases, and cell-based approaches are a promising alternative to high concentrations of recombinant growth factors. Despite robust lineage-specific differentiation potential in vitro, MSC function in vivo is largely attributed to their potent secretome composed of a complex mixture of reparative growth factors (GFs). GF secretion is markedly increased when MSCs are formed into spheroids. However, MSC spheroids alone are insufficient to induce robust bone regeneration compared to BMP-2 delivery, often delivered in supraphysiological concentrations. We hypothesize that the regenerative potential of MSC spheroids could be enhanced through 1) synergistic coupling with a complementary cell secretome and 2) engineering GF-sequestering materials for entrapment. Considering the established synergistic relationship between muscle and bone, we first hypothesized that the MSC secretome could enhance the bioactivity of myokines secreted by myoblasts by increasing the concentration and diversity of endogenous GFs present for bone regeneration. We found that the osteogenic potential and GF concentration of conditioned media increased when exposed to myoblasts. When delivered into a rat critical-sized femoral defect using an alginate hydrogel, we observed increased bone formation in defects treated with conditioned media compared to the delivery of MSCs alone. As expected and in agreement with other studies, the majority of GF in our platform eluted within 24 hours, limiting the therapeutic effect of the scaffolds and motivating the critical need for engineered scaffolds that retain bioactive components from the system. We next modified alginate hydrogels with sulfate groups to sequester heparin-binding GFs secreted from MSCs to enhance the potency and availability of the MSC secretome. We confirmed that sulfated alginate hydrogels sequestered a mixture of endogenous biomolecules secreted by entrapped MSCs, thereby prolonging the therapeutic effect of MSC spheroids for tissue regeneration. We further confirmed these growth factors remain bioactive, both indirectly by stimulating limited endothelial cell tubulogenesis from conditioned media and directly by measuring enhanced myoblast infiltration. We further investigated this platform in vivo by implanting it in a rat muscle crush injury. We found the combination of spheroids and sulfated alginate limited early fibrotic response and stimulated neuromuscular junction formation. This platform has the potential to significantly enhance current cellular tissue engineering approaches as well as become a model for investigating growth factor sequestration for other applications