Plasmid Injection and Application of Electric Pulses Alter Endogenous mRNA and Protein Expression in B16.F10 Mouse Melanomas

The application of electric pulses to tissues causes cell membrane destabilization, allowing exogenous molecules to enter the cells. This delivery technique can be used for plasmid gene therapy. Reporter gene expression after plasmid delivery with eight representative published protocols was compared in B16.F10 mouse melanoma tumors. This expression varied significantly based on the pulse parameters utilized for delivery. To observe the possible influence of plasmid injection and/or pulse application on endogenous gene expression, levels of stress-related mRNAs 4 and 24 h after delivery were determined by PCR array. Increases in mRNA levels for several inflammatory chemokines and cytokines were observed in response to plasmid injection, electric pulses alone or the combination. This upregulation was confirmed by individual real-time reverse transcription TaqMan PCR assays. Proteins were extracted at the same time points from identically treated tumors and inflammatory protein levels were assayed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and by a custom multiplex bead array. Increases in inflammatory protein levels generally paralleled mRNA levels. Some differences were observed, which may have been due to differing expression kinetics. The observed upregulated expression of these cytokines and chemokines may aid or inhibit the therapeutic effectiveness of immune-based cancer gene therapies

Conceptual Unification of Gravity and Quanta

We present a model unifying general relativity and quantum mechanics. The model is based on the (noncommutative) algebra \mbox{{\cal A}} on the groupoid \Gamma = E \times G where E is the total space of the frame bundle over spacetime, and G the Lorentz group. The differential geometry, based on derivations of \mbox{{\cal A}}, is constructed. The eigenvalue equation for the Einstein operator plays the role of the generalized Einstein's equation. The algebra \mbox{{\cal A}}, when suitably represented in a bundle of Hilbert spaces, is a von Neumann algebra \mathcal{M} of random operators representing the quantum sector of the model. The Tomita-Takesaki theorem allows us to define the dynamics of random operators which depends on the state \phi . The same state defines the noncommutative probability measure (in the sense of Voiculescu's free probability theory). Moreover, the state \phi satisfies the Kubo-Martin-Schwinger (KMS) condition, and can be interpreted as describing a generalized equilibrium state. By suitably averaging elements of the algebra \mbox{{\cal A}}, one recovers the standard geometry of spacetime. We show that any act of measurement, performed at a given spacetime point, makes the model to collapse to the standard quantum mechanics (on the group G). As an example we compute the noncommutative version of the closed Friedman world model. Generalized eigenvalues of the Einstein operator produce the correct components of the energy-momentum tensor. Dynamics of random operators does not ``feel'' singularities.Comment: 28 LaTex pages. Substantially enlarged version. Improved definition of generalized Einstein's field equation

The use of multispectral sensing techniques to detect ponderosa pine trees under stress from insect or pathogenic organisms

Application of multispectral sensors to detect insect and disease infestation of ponderosa pine tree

Semileptonic Decays of Heavy Mesons with the Fat Clover Action

We are studying a variety of semileptonic decays of heavy-light mesons in an effort to improve the determination of the heavy-quark Standard-Model CKM matrix elements. Our fermion action is a novel, improved ``fat'' clover action that promises to reduce problems with exceptional configurations. Dynamical sea quarks are included in a mixed approach, i.e. we use staggered sea quarks and fat-clover valence quarks. Here we report preliminary results.Comment: LATTICE99(heavyqk) - 3p, 4 Postscript fig

Electrically Mediated Plasmid DNA Delivery to Hepatocellular Carcinomas in Vivo

Gene therapy by direct delivery of plasmid DNA has several advantages over viral gene transfer, but plasmid delivery is less efficient. In vivo electroporation has been used to enhance delivery of chemotherapeutic agents to tumors in both animal and human studies. Recently, this delivery technique has been extended to large molecules such as plasmid DNA. Here, the successful delivery of plasmids encoding reporter genes to rat hepatocellular carcinomas by in vivo electroporation is demonstrated

The equation of state with nonzero chemical potential for 2+1 flavors

We present results for the QCD equation of state with nonzero chemical potential using the Taylor expansion method with terms up to sixth order in the expansion. Our calculations are performed on asqtad 2+1 quark flavor lattices at $N_t=4$.Comment: Talk given at the XXV International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, July 30-4 August 2007, Regensburg, German

The locality of the fourth root of staggered fermion determinant in the interacting case

The fourth root approximation in LQCD simulations with dynamical staggered fermions requires justification. We test its validity numerically in the interacting theory in a renormalization group framework.Comment: 6 pages, Talk presented at Lattice 2005 (Machines and Algorithms