Towards transforming community eye care: an observational study and time-series analysis of optometrists' prescribing for eye disorders

Objectives: This study aimed to provide evidence on the therapeutic prescribing activity by community optometrists in Scotland and to determine its impact on workload in general practice and ophthalmology clinics. Study design: Scottish administrative healthcare data for a 53-month period (November 2013–April 2018) were used to analyse non-medical prescribing practice by optometrists. Methods: Using interrupted time-series regression (Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average), we assessed the impact of optometrist prescribing on ophthalmology outpatient attendances and general practice prescribing for eye disorders. Results: A total of 54,246 items were prescribed by 205 optometrists over the study period. Since the commencement of data recording, optometrist prescribing activity increased steadily from a baseline of zero to 1.2% of all ophthalmic items prescribed. Neither the monthly number of items prescribed nor the size of optometric workforce were associated with a reduction in ophthalmology outpatient appointments over time. Conclusions: Optometrists increasingly contribute to community ophthalmic prescribing in Scotland, releasing capacity and lessening general practice, but not secondary care workload. There appears to be an underutilisation of optometrists related to the management of dry eye, which represents an opportunity to release further capacity

Inducible and constitutive promoters for genetic systems in Sulfolobus acidocaldarius

Central to genetic work in any organism are the availability of a range of inducible and constitutive promoters. In this work we studied several promoters for use in the hyperthermophilic archaeon Sulfolobus acidocaldarius. The promoters were tested with the aid of an E. coli–Sulfolobus shuttle vector in reporter gene experiments. As the most suitable inducible promoter a maltose inducible promoter was identified. It comprises 266 bp of the sequence upstream of the gene coding for the maltose/maltotriose binding protein (mbp, Saci_1165). Induction is feasible with either maltose or dextrin at concentrations of 0.2–0.4%. The highest increase in expression (up to 17-fold) was observed in late exponential and stationary phase around 30–50 h after addition of dextrin. Whereas in the presence of glucose and xylose higher basal activity and reduced inducibility with maltose is observed, sucrose can be used in the growth medium additionally without affecting the basal activity or the inducibility. The minimal promoter region necessary could be narrowed down to 169 bp of the upstream sequence. The ABCE1 protein from S. solfataricus was successfully expressed under control of the inducible promoter with the shuttle vector pC and purified from the S. acidocaldarius culture with a yield of about 1 mg L−1 culture. In addition we also determined the promoter strength of several constitutive promoters

“Hot standards” for the thermoacidophilic archaeon Sulfolobus solfataricus

Within the archaea, the thermoacidophilic crenarchaeote Sulfolobus solfataricus has become an important model organism for physiology and biochemistry, comparative and functional genomics, as well as, more recently also for systems biology approaches. Within the Sulfolobus Systems Biology (“SulfoSYS”)-project the effect of changing growth temperatures on a metabolic network is investigated at the systems level by integrating genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, metabolomic and enzymatic information for production of a silicon cell-model. The network under investigation is the central carbohydrate metabolism. The generation of high-quality quantitative data, which is critical for the investigation of biological systems and the successful integration of the different datasets, derived for example from high-throughput approaches (e.g., transcriptome or proteome analyses), requires the application and compliance of uniform standard protocols, e.g., for growth and handling of the organism as well as the “–omics” approaches. Here, we report on the establishment and implementation of standard operating procedures for the different wet-lab and in silico techniques that are applied within the SulfoSYS-project and that we believe can be useful for future projects on Sulfolobus or (hyper)thermophiles in general. Beside established techniques, it includes new methodologies like strain surveillance, the improved identification of membrane proteins and the application of crenarchaeal metabolomics

Combless broadband terahertz generation with conventional laser diodes

We present a novel technique to generate a continuous, combless broadband Terahertz spectrum with conventional low-cost laser diodes. A standard time-domain spectroscopy system using photoconductive antennas is pumped by the output of two tunable diode lasers. Using fine tuning for one laser and fine and coarse tuning for the second laser, difference frequency generation results in a continuous broadband THz spectrum. Fast coarse-tuning is achieved by a simple spatial light modulator introduced in an external cavity. The results are compared to multi-mode operation for THz generation

Non-contact multilayer thickness measurements with reflection-mode terahertz time-domain spectroscopy

Terahertz waves penetrate nonconductive coatings and are reflected at the boundary layers between different refraction indices. This creates new potential for quality control when added to established nondestructive testing techniques such as ultrasonic or x-ray

COVID-19 : ensuring safe clinical teaching at university optometry schools

202102 bcwhNot applicableSelf-fundedPublished12 month

Patient-reported severity of dry eye and quality of life in diabetes

Md Kaosar Yazdani-Ibn-Taz,1 Myint Myint Han,1 Sven Jonuscheit,1 Andrew Collier,1,2 Jane E Nally,1 Suzanne Hagan1 1School of Health and Life Sciences, Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU), Glasgow G4 0BA, UK; 2Diabetes Day Centre, University Hospital Ayr, Ayr KA6 6DX, UK Purpose: The purpose of the study was to assess the relationship between patient-reported severity of dry eye disease (DED), quality of life (QoL), presence of diabetic retinopathy (DR) and length of disease duration in people with type 1 diabetes mellitus (DM1) and type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2).Patients and methods: A survey of 152 people (110 with and 42 without diabetes). All participants completed the Ocular Surface Disease Index (OSDI) and Dry Eye-related Quality of Life Score (DEQS) questionnaires.Results: Forty-four percent of all diabetic subjects reported dry eye symptoms, compared to 29% in the control group. Patients with DM2 reported dry eye symptoms more frequently than those with DM1 (55% and 27% respectively, P=0.001). Dry eye severity was linked to a significant deterioration in QoL in both types of diabetes (DM1, r=0.609 and P=0.036; DM2, r=0.417 and P=0.011). Irrespective of DR, the presence of DED was significantly higher in DM2 compared to DM1 (with DR, P=0.011; without DR, P=0.018).Conclusion: Dry eye symptoms are associated with reduced QoL and are more common in people with DM2 than in DM1, irrespective of DR status. Routine clinical screening for severe DED could potentially allow for a timely and more effective treatment and could contribute to mitigating the dry eye-associated reduction in QoL in those with DM2. Keywords: ocular surface, dry eye, symptoms, retinopath

Terahertz time domain spectroscopy for nondestructive testing and sensing applications

Terahertz spectroscopy and imaging using innovative photonic THz sources and detectors have turned out to be very useful techniques for applications in nondestructive testing and sensing. Typical examples of THz imaging and spectroscopy are presented

Production of Recombinant and Tagged Proteins in the Hyperthermophilic Archaeon Sulfolobus solfataricus

Many systems are available for the production of recombinant proteins in bacterial and eukaryotic model organisms, which allow us to study proteins in their native hosts and to identify protein-protein interaction partners. In contrast, only a few transformation systems have been developed for archaea, and no system for high-level gene expression existed for hyperthermophilic organisms. Recently, a virus-based shuttle vector with a reporter gene was developed for the crenarchaeote Sulfolobus solfataricus, a model organism of hyperthermophilic archaea that grows optimally at 80°C (M. Jonuscheit, E. Martusewitsch, K. M. Stedman, and C. Schleper, Mol. Microbiol. 48:1241-1252, 2003). Here we have refined this system for high-level gene expression in S. solfataricus with the help of two different promoters, the heat-inducible promoter of the major chaperonin, thermophilic factor 55, and the arabinose-inducible promoter of the arabinose-binding protein AraS. Functional expression of heterologous and homologous genes was demonstrated, including production of the cytoplasmic sulfur oxygenase reductase from Acidianus ambivalens, an Fe-S protein of the ABC class from S. solfataricus, and two membrane-associated ATPases potentially involved in the secretion of proteins. Single-step purification of the proteins was obtained via fused His or Strep tags. To our knowledge, these are the first examples of the application of an expression vector system to produce large amounts of recombinant and also tagged proteins in a hyperthermophilic archaeon