Beyond the eidetics of living beings: contingency, plasticity, individuality

Saving living phenomena means saving their contingency, their plasticity, their indi-viduality. A fruitful dialogue between metaphysics, phenomenology and morphology can be of help to investigate the ontological question of form, giving us the possibility to investigate the question of form and its epistemological significance providing a revision of that eidetic approach which instead is in danger of losing the sense of the continuous plastic morphogenesis of living beings

Large-scale proteomic identification of S100 proteins in breast cancer tissues

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Attempts to reduce morbidity and mortality in breast cancer is based on efforts to identify novel biomarkers to support prognosis and therapeutic choices. The present study has focussed on S100 proteins as a potentially promising group of markers in cancer development and progression. One reason of interest in this family of proteins is because the majority of the S100 genes are clustered on a region of human chromosome 1q21 that is prone to genomic rearrangements. Moreover, there is increasing evidence that S100 proteins are often up-regulated in many cancers, including breast, and this is frequently associated with tumour progression.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Samples of breast cancer tissues were obtained during surgical intervention, according to the bioethical recommendations, and cryo-preserved until used. Tissue extracts were submitted to proteomic preparations for 2D-IPG. Protein identification was performed by N-terminal sequencing and/or peptide mass finger printing.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The majority of the detected S100 proteins were absent, or present at very low levels, in the non-tumoral tissues adjacent to the primary tumor. This finding strengthens the role of S100 proteins as putative biomarkers. The proteomic screening of 100 cryo-preserved breast cancer tissues showed that some proteins were ubiquitously expressed in almost all patients while others appeared more sporadic. Most, if not all, of the detected S100 members appeared reciprocally correlated. Finally, from the perspective of biomarkers establishment, a promising finding was the observation that patients which developed distant metastases after a three year follow-up showed a general tendency of higher S100 protein expression, compared to the disease-free group.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This article reports for the first time the comparative proteomic screening of several S100 protein members among a large group of breast cancer patients. The results obtained strongly support the hypothesis that a significant deregulation of multiple S100 protein members is associated with breast cancer progression, and suggest that these proteins might act as potential prognostic factors for patient stratification. We propose that this may offer a significant contribution to the knowledge and clinical applications of the S100 protein family to breast cancer.</p

Neutralizing antibodies to Omicron after the fourth SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine dose in immunocompromised patients highlight the need of additional boosters

IntroductionImmunocompromised patients have been shown to have an impaired immune response to COVID-19 vaccines.MethodsHere we compared the B-cell, T-cell and neutralizing antibody response to WT and Omicron BA.2 SARS-CoV-2 virus after the fourth dose of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in patients with hematological malignancies (HM, n=71), solid tumors (ST, n=39) and immune-rheumatological (IR, n=25) diseases. The humoral and T-cell responses to SARS-CoV-2 vaccination were analyzed by quantifying the anti-RBD antibodies, their neutralization activity and the IFN-γ released after spike specific stimulation.ResultsWe show that the T-cell response is similarly boosted by the fourth dose across the different subgroups, while the antibody response is improved only in patients not receiving B-cell targeted therapies, independent on the pathology. However, 9% of patients with anti-RBD antibodies did not have neutralizing antibodies to either virus variants, while an additional 5.7% did not have neutralizing antibodies to Omicron BA.2, making these patients particularly vulnerable to SARS-CoV-2 infection. The increment of neutralizing antibodies was very similar towards Omicron BA.2 and WT virus after the third or fourth dose of vaccine, suggesting that there is no preferential skewing towards either virus variant with the booster dose. The only limited step is the amount of antibodies that are elicited after vaccination, thus increasing the probability of developing neutralizing antibodies to both variants of virus.DiscussionThese data support the recommendation of additional booster doses in frail patients to enhance the development of a B-cell response directed against Omicron and/or to enhance the T-cell response in patients treated with anti-CD20

L'ombra di Salamanca. Lo statuto trascendentale della metafisica in Lowe, Armstrong e van Inwagen

Contemporary analytic metaphysics insists on the transcendental status which has always characterized metaphysics since its Aristotelian origin. As soon as metaphysics has to declare its topic, it also has to expound the conditions of possibility of its own knowledge. Hence, metaphysics is at the same time a “meta-metaphysics”. Following such a classic proceeding, contemporary analytic metaphysics promotes a strong recovery of Aristotle’s ontology (Lowe, Armstrong), but it seems to be also very close to the Suarezian turn by an author like van Inwagen

Recensione a L. Tengelyi, Erfahrung und Ausdruck. Phaenomenologie im Umbruch bei Husserl und seinen Nachfolgern, "Giornale di metafisica" 2/2009

recensione al testo di Tengelyi dedicato all'analisi fenomenologica dell'esperienza come donazione di senso e formazione di sens

Crepe ontologiche della comunità

Referring to the so-called Böckenförde’s “dilemma” and following Guglielminetti’s analysis, the ontological inhomogeneity of community is presented as the condition for the existence of community itself. It marks an ontological drama which calls upon both the subject and the community as poles of an inalienable and responsible relationship. Thus, the model of community as an ontologically compact reality has to be replaced by a different paradigm according to which community is characterized by ontological splits which are necessarily unavoidable in order to meet the constant tensions menacing the empirical existence of the “communitary being”