Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR): A critical overview on the most promising applications of molecular scissors in oral medicine

The scientific community is continuously working to translate the novel biomedical techniques into effective medical treatments. CRISPR-Cas9 system (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats-9), commonly known as the “molecular scissor”, represents a recently developed biotechnology able to improve the quality and the efficacy of traditional treatments, related to several human diseases, such as chronic diseases, neurodegenerative pathologies and, interestingly, oral diseases. Of course, dental medicine has notably increased the use of biotechnologies to ensure modern and conservative approaches: in this landscape, the use of CRISPR-Cas9 system may speed and personalize the traditional therapies, ensuring a good predictability of clinical results. The aim of this critical overview is to provide evidence on CRISPR efficacy, taking into specific account its applications in oral medicine

Minimally invasive (flapless) crown lengthening by erbium: YAG laser in aesthetic zone

Crown lengthening is a surgical procedure aimed at exposure of a larger tooth surface by gingivectomy alone or with cortical bone remodelling for aesthetic purposes in the anterior zone of the maxilla or for reconstruction of teeth affected by subgingival caries. We report two cases of crown lengthening in the anterior maxilla for aesthetic purposes by gingival and bone re-contouring performed by erbium-doped yttrium aluminium garnet (erbium:YAG) laser. As highlighted in this report, the erbium:YAG laser-assisted crown lengthening is less invasive and also leads to faster clinical outcomes in contrast to the conventional surgical technique by scalpel incision, flap elevation and osteoplastic

A Case of Osteonecrosis of the Jaw in a Patient with Crohn's Disease Treated with Infliximab

Background: Medication-related osteonecrosis of the jaw (MRONJ) is a severe adverse drug reaction, occurring in patients undergoing treatments with antiresorptive or antiangiogenic agents, such as bisphosphonates, denosumab, or bevacizumab, for different oncologic and non-oncologic diseases. The aim of this study was to report a case of MRONJ in a patient taking infliximab, an anti-TNF-alpha antibody used to treat Crohn's disease, rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis, ankylosing spondylitis, psoriatic arthritis, and plaque psoriasis. Case Report: A 49-year-old female patient affected by Crohn's disease, who had been undergoing 250 mg intravenous infliximab every six weeks for 12 years, with no history of antiresorptive or antiangiogenic agent administration, came to our attention for post-surgical MRONJ, associated with a wide cutaneous necrotic area of her anterior mandible. Following antibiotic cycles, the patient underwent surgical treatment with wide bone resection and debridement of necrotic tissues; after prolonged follow-up (16 months), the patient completely healed without signs of recurrence. Conclusions: Prevention of MRONJ by dental check-up before and during treatments with antiresorptive treatments (bisphosphonates or denosumab) is a well-established procedure. Although further studies are required to confirm the role of infliximab in MRONJ, based on the results of this study, we propose that patients who are going to be treated with infliximab should also undergo dental check-up before starting therapy, to possibly avoid MRONJ onset

Risk-based bridge scour management:a survey

Scour is one of the major causes of bridge failure worldwide and results in significant economic losses through disruption to operation. This phenomenon naturally affects bridges with underwater foundations and is exacerbated during high river and/or turbulent flows (e.g. due to extreme events). When scour reaches the bottom or undermines shallow foundations it is likely to trigger various damage mechanisms that may in-fluence the safety of the structure and force asset managers to reduce traffic capacity. Currently, assessing risk of scour is a heuristic process, heavily reliant on qualitative approaches and expert opinion (e.g. visual inspections). These types of assessments typically suffer from insufficient knowledge of influencing factors (e.g. hydraulic parameters) and the requirement to rely on several assumptions (e.g. foundation depth). As a result, current scour assessment and bridge management practices do not provide reliable solutions for ad-dressing the potential risk of bridge failures. In this paper, cross-cutting needs and challenges related to the development of decision support tools for scour-risk management are highlighted and some preliminary re-sults of a literature survey are reported. The review has been performed with several objectives: (i) identify-ing scour-risk indicators describing hydrodynamic actions and the asset condition; (ii) defining indirect and direct consequences needed to assess the risks associated to different decision alternatives related to scour management; and (iii) identifying existing approaches to scour inspections and monitoring as support tools for informed decisions. The results of this survey will serve as a base for future research aimed to develop an informed decision support tool to manage scour risk at both the bridge and at the network level

Sampling protein motion and solvent effect during ligand binding.

An exhaustive description of the molecular recognition mechanism between a ligand and its biological target is of great value because it provides the opportunity for an exogenous control of the related process. Very often this aim can be pursued using high resolution structures of the complex in combination with inexpensive computational protocols such as docking algorithms. Unfortunately, in many other cases a number of factors, like protein flexibility or solvent effects, increase the degree of complexity of ligand/protein interaction and these standard techniques are no longer sufficient to describe the binding event. We have experienced and tested these limits in the present study in which we have developed and revealed the mechanism of binding of a new series of potent inhibitors of Adenosine Deaminase. We have first performed a large number of docking calculations, which unfortunately failed to yield reliable results due to the dynamical character of the enzyme and the complex role of the solvent. Thus, we have stepped up the computational strategy using a protocol based on metadynamics. Our approach has allowed dealing with protein motion and solvation during ligand binding and finally identifying the lowest energy binding modes of the most potent compound of the series, 4-decyl-pyrazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidin-7-one

The main phenolic compounds responsible for the antioxidant capacity of sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) pulp

The antioxidant capacity of sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) pulp extracts is strictly related to the phenolic content, starting from the fact that the higher content of phenolic compounds corresponds to the higher antioxidant indexes. This work aims to assess which compounds characterized three cultivars, namely Ferrovia, Sweetheart, and Lapins grown in Southern Italy and mainly influenced the antioxidant capacity of their extracts. HPLC–MS/MS analyses were conducted to identify and quantify 17 flavonoids and 25 hydroxicinnamates derivatives. A significant influence of cultivar was revealed from one-way MANOVA (p < 0.05). Furthermore, the extracts were tested for their radical scavenging activity (DPPH and ABTS assays) and reducing power using the Folin–Ciocalteau method. Lapins and Sweetheart extracts, richer in phenolic compounds, returned the highest reducing power and radical scavenging capacity. Finally, a Factorial Analysis was applied to the collected data allowing reliable correlations between phenolics and antioxidant indexes

Towards Empathetic Social Robots: Investigating the Interplay between Facial Expressions and Brain Activity

The pursuit of creating empathetic social robots that can understand and respond to human emotions is a critical challenge in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence. Social robots, designed to interact with humans in various settings, from healthcare to customer service, require a sophisticated understanding of human emotional states to resonate and effectively assist truly. Our research contributes to this ambitious goal by exploring the relationship between natural facial expressions and brain activity in these human-robot interactions, as captured by electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. This paper presents our initial steps towards this attempt. We want to find which areas in the participant user’s brain are most activated and how these activations correlate with facial expressions. Understanding these correlations is essential for developing social robots that recognize and empathize with various human emotions. Our approach combines neuroscience and computer science, offering a novel perspective in the quest to enhance the emotional intelligence of social robots. We share some preliminary results on a new multimodal dataset that we are developing, providing valuable insights into the potential of our work to improve the personalization and emotional depth of social robot interactions

A minimally invasive technique for short spiral implant insertion with contextual crestal sinus lifting in the atrophic maxilla: A preliminary report

The most recently reported techniques for the rehabilitation of the atrophic posterior maxilla are increasingly less invasive, as they are generally oriented to avoid sinus floor elevation with lateral access. The authors describe a mini-invasive surgical technique for short spiral implant insertion for the prosthetic rehabilitation of the atrophic posterior maxilla, which could be considered a combination of several previously described techniques based on the under-preparation of the implant site to improve fixture primary stability and crestal approach to the sinus floor elevation without heterologous bone graft. Eighty short spiral implants were inserted in the molar area of the maxilla in patients with 4.5–6 mm of alveolar bone, measured on pre-operative computed tomography. The surgical technique involved careful drilling for the preparation of implant sites at differentiated depths, allowing bone dislocation in the apical direction, traumatic crestal sinus membrane elevation, and insertion of an implant (with spiral morphology) longer than pre-operative measurements. Prostheses were all single crowns. In all cases, a spiral implant 2–4 mm longer than the residual bone was placed. Only two implants were lost due to peri-implantitis but subsequently replaced and followed-up. Bone loss values around the implants after three months (at the re-opening) ranged from 0 to 0.6 mm, (median value: 0.1 mm), while after two years, the same values ranged from 0.4 to 1.3 mm (median value: 0.7 mm). Clinical post-operative complications did not occur. After ten years, no implant has been lost. Overall, the described protocol seems to show good results in terms of predictability and patient compliance

LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT, MONITORING AND ASSESSMENT FOR SAFE LARGE-SCALE INFRASTRUCTURES: CHALLENGES AND NEEDS

Many European infrastructures dating back to ’50 and ’60 of the last century like bridges and viaducts are approaching the end of their design lifetime. In most European countries costs related to maintenance of infrastructures reach a quite high percentage of the construction budget and additional costs in terms of traffic delay are due to downtime related to the inspection and maintenance interventions. In the last 30 years, the rate of deterioration of these infrastructures has increased due to increased traffic loads, climate change related events and man-made hazards. A sustainable approach to infrastructures management over their lifecycle plays a key role in reducing the impact of mobility on safety (over 50 000 fatalities in EU per year) and the impact of greenhouse gases emission related to fossil fuels. The events related to the recent collapse of the Morandi bridge in Italy tragically highlighted the sheer need to improve resilience of aging transport infrastructures, in order to increase the safety for people and goods and to reduce losses of functionality and the related consequences. In this focus Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is one of the key strategies with a great potential to provide a new approach to performance assessment and maintenance over the life cycle for an efficient, safe, resilient and sustainable management of the infrastructures. In this paper research efforts, needs and challenges in terms of performance monitoring, assessment and standardization are described and discussed.The networking support of COST Action TU1402 on ‘Quantifying the Value of Structural Health Monitoring’ and of COST Action TU1406 on ‘Quality specifications for roadway bridges, standardization at a European level (BridgeSpec)

Childhood obesity: An overview of laboratory medicine, exercise and microbiome

In the last few years, a significant increase of childhood obesity incidence unequally distributed within countries and population groups has been observed, thus representing an important public health problem associated with several health and social consequences. Obese children have more than a 50% probability of becoming obese adults, and to develop pathologies typical of obese adults, that include type 2-diabetes, dyslipidemia and hypertension. Also environmental factors, such as reduced physical activity and increased sedentary activities, may also result in increased caloric intake and/or decreased caloric expenditure. In the present review, we aimed to identify and describe a specific panel of parameters in order to evaluate and characterize the childhood obesity status useful in setting up a preventive diagnostic approach directed at improving health-related behaviors and identifying predisposing risk factors. An early identification of risk factors for childhood obesity could definitely help in setting up adequate and specific clinical treatments