Stop the Bleed Education Implementation in Allegheny County High Schools

Objective: To understand the implementation and perceived barriers to offering Stop the Bleed training to students in Allegheny County high schools. Study Design: Stop the Bleed training is not mandatory in Pennsylvania high schools. A multiple-choice survey was distributed to the principals of Allegheny County high schools investigating school demographics, participation in Stop the Bleed training, funding, implementation barriers, and bleeding control kits. Results: Twenty-one schools responded (22%) with the majority of high schools having 100-500 students and 25-50 staff and faculty members. 62% of responding schools were aware of the Stop the Bleed campaign but only two high schools had successfully implemented training into their curriculum. Time commitment, cost, and availability of training equipment were ranked as the most common perceived barriers to implementation. Stop the Bleed kits were placed in 43% of responding high schools. Three schools reported having bleeding emergencies where a bleeding control kit could have been used in the last 10 years. Conclusions: Little progress has been made to implement Stop the Bleed training programs into Allegheny County high schools. Many schools that responded were unaware of the program, so increased education to improve awareness may be needed. Among the schools who were aware of the program, majority had not implemented due to a number of barriers

Nanomedicine platform for targeting activated neutrophils and neutrophil–platelet complexes using an α1-antitrypsin-derived peptide motif

Targeted drug delivery to disease-associated activated neutrophils can provide novel therapeutic opportunities while avoiding systemic effects on immune functions. We created a nanomedicine platform that uniquely utilizes an α1-antitrypsin-derived peptide to confer binding specificity to neutrophil elastase on activated neutrophils. Surface decoration with this peptide enabled specific anchorage of nanoparticles to activated neutrophils and platelet-neutrophil aggregates, in vitro and in vivo. Nanoparticle delivery of a model drug, hydroxychloroquine, demonstrated significant reduction of neutrophil activities in vitro and a therapeutic effect on murine venous thrombosis in vivo. This innovative approach of cell-specific and activation-state-specific targeting can be applied to several neutrophil-driven pathologies