Establishment of “surgical training and research center” using fresh cadavers in Tokushima Hospital

Tokushima University Hospital founded “Clinical Anatomy Education and Research Center” on August, １st, ２０１４. This center was established according to “Guidelines for Autopsy in Clinical Medicine Education and Research”. Fresh cadavers still have the same stiffness or viscosity as biological bodies. Surgical training using fresh cadavers is the nearest simulation of the surgical procedures such as color of fatty tissue, muscle, artery, vessel or nerves. Although shortening of the surgical learning curve should be obtained outside the operation room, sufficient training using the plastic model or an animal could not be provided. Surgical training, especially minimally invasive surgery, using fresh cadaver can provide useful way to obtain a skill for surgeon

最先端手術への教育とクリニカルアナトミーラボ

Recently, endoscopic surgery is the most common procedurein the field of thoracic surgery. The newestthoracic surgeryapproaches are the video-assisted thoracic surgery（VATS）, the one-port video-assisted thoracic surgery, and the robotic surgery. The individual advantages and disadvantages of these procedures have been discussed. VATS covers a field of view of the surgical field from the leg to the head. The basic method in performing VATS is that the surgeon operates on the abdominal area of the patient and the assistant expands the surgical field from the patient’s back. It is currently the standard surgical procedure. The advantage of one-port VATS is the one port itself and its cosmetic advantages and pain reduction. The advantage of robotic surgery is that it has a clear three-dimensional enlarged field of view and can be performed using the delicate moving robotic arm. However, a good surgical training system should be established for the familiarization of these procedures. The clinical anatomy laboratory is the most efficient surgical training in addition to dry and wet lab training. Our institution has fresh-frozen cadavers, which are rare in Japan. The participating thoracic surgeons underwent training for VATS lobectomy, subxiphoid extended thymectomy, and pleurectomy decortication. This training is beneficial for educational and clinical purposes. In the future, we must obtain consistent surgical education before and after graduation using fresh-frozen cadavers. At the same time, a good organ model for training is also necessary. The surgeon has to cooperate with anatomy doctors for the development of a good surgical organ model. For the development of future surgical medicine, surgical training programs should be implemented

The whole blood transcriptional regulation landscape in 465 COVID-19 infected samples from Japan COVID-19 Task Force

「コロナ制圧タスクフォース」COVID-19患者由来の血液細胞における遺伝子発現の網羅的解析 --重症度に応じた遺伝子発現の変化には、ヒトゲノム配列の個人差が影響する--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-08-23.Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a recently-emerged infectious disease that has caused millions of deaths, where comprehensive understanding of disease mechanisms is still unestablished. In particular, studies of gene expression dynamics and regulation landscape in COVID-19 infected individuals are limited. Here, we report on a thorough analysis of whole blood RNA-seq data from 465 genotyped samples from the Japan COVID-19 Task Force, including 359 severe and 106 non-severe COVID-19 cases. We discover 1169 putative causal expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) including 34 possible colocalizations with biobank fine-mapping results of hematopoietic traits in a Japanese population, 1549 putative causal splice QTLs (sQTLs; e.g. two independent sQTLs at TOR1AIP1), as well as biologically interpretable trans-eQTL examples (e.g., REST and STING1), all fine-mapped at single variant resolution. We perform differential gene expression analysis to elucidate 198 genes with increased expression in severe COVID-19 cases and enriched for innate immune-related functions. Finally, we evaluate the limited but non-zero effect of COVID-19 phenotype on eQTL discovery, and highlight the presence of COVID-19 severity-interaction eQTLs (ieQTLs; e.g., CLEC4C and MYBL2). Our study provides a comprehensive catalog of whole blood regulatory variants in Japanese, as well as a reference for transcriptional landscapes in response to COVID-19 infection

DOCK2 is involved in the host genetics and biology of severe COVID-19

「コロナ制圧タスクフォース」COVID-19疾患感受性遺伝子DOCK2の重症化機序を解明 --アジア最大のバイオレポジトリーでCOVID-19の治療標的を発見--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-08-10.Identifying the host genetic factors underlying severe COVID-19 is an emerging challenge. Here we conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) involving 2, 393 cases of COVID-19 in a cohort of Japanese individuals collected during the initial waves of the pandemic, with 3, 289 unaffected controls. We identified a variant on chromosome 5 at 5q35 (rs60200309-A), close to the dedicator of cytokinesis 2 gene (DOCK2), which was associated with severe COVID-19 in patients less than 65 years of age. This risk allele was prevalent in East Asian individuals but rare in Europeans, highlighting the value of genome-wide association studies in non-European populations. RNA-sequencing analysis of 473 bulk peripheral blood samples identified decreased expression of DOCK2 associated with the risk allele in these younger patients. DOCK2 expression was suppressed in patients with severe cases of COVID-19. Single-cell RNA-sequencing analysis (n = 61 individuals) identified cell-type-specific downregulation of DOCK2 and a COVID-19-specific decreasing effect of the risk allele on DOCK2 expression in non-classical monocytes. Immunohistochemistry of lung specimens from patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia showed suppressed DOCK2 expression. Moreover, inhibition of DOCK2 function with CPYPP increased the severity of pneumonia in a Syrian hamster model of SARS-CoV-2 infection, characterized by weight loss, lung oedema, enhanced viral loads, impaired macrophage recruitment and dysregulated type I interferon responses. We conclude that DOCK2 has an important role in the host immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection and the development of severe COVID-19, and could be further explored as a potential biomarker and/or therapeutic target

Relatório de estágio em farmácia comunitária

Relatório de estágio realizado no âmbito do Mestrado Integrado em Ciências Farmacêuticas, apresentado à Faculdade de Farmácia da Universidade de Coimbr

Engineering Evaluation of Tactile Warmth for Wood

Wood is a prospective resource from viewpoint of sustainable development. The engineering evaluation of tactile warmth is treated as a good point of wood. The relationship of the contact surface temperature and the thermal effusivity is derived from the theoretical analysis of heat transfer phenomenon and proposed as measures to evaluate the tactile warmth. The measures review some knowledge on tactile warmth of wood. It is found that the sensory warmth of wood has a high and positive linear correlation with the logarithm of the contact surface temperature and that the material with a lower thermal effusivity feels warmer than the material with a higher one. The relationship explains rationally why each wood has large difference of sensory warmth in spite of their small difference of material properties. The relationship also explains the reason why wood has good tactile warmth regardless of the season, which is different from metals

Regulation of Mesothelial Cell Fate during Development and Human Diseases

Mesothelial cells (MCs) play a classic role in maintaining homeostasis in pleural, peritoneal, and pericardial cavities. MCs work as lubricants to reduce friction between organs, as regulators of fluid transport, and as regulators of defense mechanisms in inflammation. MCs can differentiate into various cells, exhibiting epithelial and mesenchymal characteristics. MCs have a high potential for differentiation during the embryonic period when tissue development is active, and this potential decreases through adulthood. The expression of the Wilms’ tumor suppressor gene (Wt1), one of the MC markers, decreased uniformly and significantly from the embryonic period to adulthood, suggesting that it plays a major role in the differentiation potential of MCs. Wt1 deletion from the embryonic period results in embryonic lethality in mice, and even Wt1 knockout in adulthood leads to death with rapid organ atrophy. These findings suggest that MCs expressing Wt1 have high differentiation potential and contribute to the formation and maintenance of various tissues from the embryonic period to adulthood. Because of these properties, MCs dynamically transform their characteristics in the tumor microenvironment as cancer-associated MCs. This review focuses on the relationship between the differentiation potential of MCs and Wt1, including recent reports using lineage tracing using the Cre-loxP system

Improvement of image quality and assessment of respiratory motion for hepatocellular carcinoma with portal vein tumor thrombosis using contrast-enhanced four-dimensional dual-energy computed tomography.

To assess the objective and subjective image quality, and respiratory motion of hepatocellular carcinoma with portal vein tumor thrombosis (PVTT) using the contrast-enhanced four-dimensional dual-energy computed tomography (CE-4D-DECT). For twelve patients, the virtual monochromatic image (VMI) derived from the CE-4D-DECT with the highest contrast to noise ratio (CNR) was determined as the optimal VMI (O-VMI). To assess the objective and subjective image quality, the CNR and five-point score of the O-VMI were compared to those of the standard VMI at 77 keV (S-VMI). The respiratory motion of the PVTT and diaphragm was measured based on the exhale and inhale phase images. The VMI at 60 keV yielded the highest CNR (4.8 ± 1.4) which was significantly higher (p = 0.02) than that in the S-VMI (3.8 ± 1.2). The overall image quality (4.0 ± 0.6 vs 3.1 ± 0.5) and tumor conspicuity (3.8 ± 0.8 vs 2.8 ± 0.6) of the O-VMI determined by three radiation oncologists was significantly higher (p < 0.01) than that of the S-VMI. The diaphragm motion in the L-R (3.3 ± 2.5 vs 1.2 ± 1.1 mm), A-P (6.7 ± 4.0 vs 1.6 ± 1.3mm) and 3D (8.8 ± 3.5 vs 13.1 ± 4.9 mm) directions were significantly larger (p < 0.05) compared to the tumor motion. The improvement of objective and subjective image quality was achieved in the O-VMI. Because the respiratory motion of the diaphragm was larger than that of the PVTT, we need to be pay attention for localizing target in radiotherapy