Religion and Innovation in Europe: Implications for Product Life-Cycle Management

This paper analyzes the relationship between religion and innovation in Europe. To the best knowledge of the authors, no paper has been published about the association of religion with innovation and innovative products and services, at an individual level, for all the countries that belong to the European Union. This is the main goal of our paper. The results show that the orientation of innovativeness depends on religion. This study contains a segmentation of the main religions in Europe, taking into account their innovative profile. Connecting the characteristics of the religious segments found and the innovations life-cycle concept, companies have a tool to manage different innovations’ evolutive stages taking into consideration the religion of their customers. The European policy-makers, still dominated by a traditional innovation approach, gain a demand-side perspective to improve citizen’s innovativeness awareness and acceptance. Finally, religiosity does not seem to have a very strong relationship with attitudes towards innovation once we control for religious affiliation

Melatonin as an adjuvant to antiangiogenic cancer treatments

Melatonin is a hormone with different functions, antitumor actions being one of the most studied. Among its antitumor mechanisms is its ability to inhibit angiogenesis. Melatonin shows antiangiogenic effects in several types of tumors. Combination of melatonin and chemotherapeutic agents have a synergistic effect inhibiting angiogenesis. One of the undesirable effects of chemotherapy is the induction of pro-angiogenic factors, whilst the addition of melatonin is able to overcome these undesirable effects. This protective effect of the pineal hormone against angiogenesis might be one of the mechanisms underlying its anticancer effect, explaining, at least in part, why melatonin administration increases the sensitivity of tumors to the inhibitory effects exerted by ordinary chemotherapeutic agents. Melatonin has the ability to turn cancer totally resistant to chemotherapeutic agents into a more sensitive chemotherapy state. Definitely, melatonin regulates the expression and/or activity of many factors involved in angiogenesis which levels are affected (either positively or negatively) by chemotherapeutic agents. In addition, the pineal hormone has been proposed as a radiosensitizer, increasing the oncostatic effects of radiation on tumor cells. This review serves as a synopsis of the interaction between melatonin and angiogenesis, and we will outline some antiangiogenic mechanisms through which melatonin sensitizes cancer cells to treatments, such as radiotherapy or chemotherapy.Funding: The present study was funded by grants from the Spanish Economy and Competitiveness Ministry (SAF2016-77103-P), from University of Cantabria (Proyectos Puente 2020), and from Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Valdecilla (IDIVAL) (APG/12)

Melatonin as a Radio-Sensitizer in Cancer

Radiotherapy is one of the treatments of choice in many types of cancer. Adjuvant treatments to radiotherapy try, on one hand, to enhance the response of tumor cells to radiation and, on the other hand, to reduce the side effects to normal cells. Radiosensitizers are agents that increase the effect of radiation in tumor cells by trying not to increase side effects in normal tissues. Melatonin is a hormone produced mainly by the pineal gland which has an important role in the regulation of cancer growth, especially in hormone-dependent mammary tumors. Different studies have showed that melatonin administered with radiotherapy is able to enhance its therapeutic effects and can protect normal cells against side effects of this treatment. Several mechanisms are involved in the radiosensitization induced by melatonin: increase of reactive oxygen species production, modulation of proteins involved in estrogen biosynthesis, impairment of tumor cells to DNA repair, modulation of angiogenesis, abolition of inflammation, induction of apoptosis, stimulation of preadipocytes differentiation and modulation of metabolism. At this moment, there are very few clinical trials that study the therapeutic usefulness to associate melatonin and radiotherapy in humans. All findings point to melatonin as an effective adjuvant molecule to radiotherapy in cancer treatment

Single neuron electroporation in manipulating and measuring the central nervous system

The development and application of single neuron electroporation largely advanced the use of traditional genetics in investigations of the central nervous system. This quick and accurate manipulation of the brain at individual neuron level allowed the gain and loss of functional analyses of different genes and/or proteins. This manuscript reviewed the development of the technique and discussed some technical aspects in practical manipulations. Then the manuscript summarized the potential applications with this technique. Last but not least, the technique showed prospective future when combined with other modern methods in neuroscience research

Melatonin modulation of radiation-induced molecular changes in MCF-7 human breast cancer cells

Radiation therapy is an important component of cancer treatment scheduled for cancer patients, although it can cause numerous deleterious effects. The use of adjuvant molecules aims to limit the damage in normal surrounding tissues and to enhance the effects of radiation therapy either killing tumor cells or slowing down their growth. Melatonin, an indoleamine released by the pineal gland, behaves as a radiosensitizer in breast cancer since it enhances the therapeutic effects of ionizing radiation and mitigates side effects on normal cells. However, the molecular mechanisms through which melatonin modulates the molecular changes triggered by radiotherapy remain mostly unknown. Here we report that melatonin potentiated the antiproliferative effect of radiation in MCF-7 cells. Treatment with ionizing radiation induced changes in expression of many genes. Out of a total of twenty-five genes altered by radiation, melatonin potentiated changes in thirteen of them, whereas reverted the effect in another ten cases. Among them, melatonin elevated the levels of PTEN and NME1, whereas counteracted the induction by radiation of SNAI2, ERBB2, AKT, SERPINE1, SFN, PLAU, ATM and N3RC1. We also analyzed the expression of several microRNAs and found that melatonin enhanced the effect of radiation on the levels of miR-20a, miR-19a, miR-93, miR-20b, miR-29a. Rather surprisingly, radiation induced miR-17, miR-141 and miR-15a but melatonin treatment prior to radiation counteracted this stimulatory effect. Radiation alone enhanced the expression of the cancer suppressor miR-34a, and melatonin strongly stimulated this effect. Melatonin further enhanced the radiationmediated inhibition of Akt. Finally, in an in vivo assay, melatonin restrained new vascularization in combination with ionizing radiation. Our results confirm that melatonin blocks many of the undesirable effects of ionizing radiation in MCF-7 cells and enhances changes that lead to optimed treatment resultsAcknowledgments: The present study was funded by grants from the Spanish Economy and Competitiveness Ministry (SAF2016-77103-P), from Universidad de Cantabria (Proyectos Puente 2020) with the participation of the Consejería de Universidades, Igualdad, Cultura y Deporte del Gobierno de Cantabria, and from Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Valdecilla (IDIVAL) (APG/12)

Global Vaccine Hesitancy Segmentation: A Cross-European Approach

Vaccine-preventable diseases are global mainly in a globalized world that is characterized by a continuous movement of people and goods across countries. Vaccine hesitancy, the reluctance or refusal to vaccinate despite the availability of vaccines, is rising worldwide. What if the problem of vaccine hesitancy could be most effectively managed when treated globally rather than on a national or regional basis? What if a global vaccine-hesitant segment exists and the differences among countries are not so significant? Based on the Global Marketing Strategy paradigm, this paper shows that seven different cross-European segments exist based on the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors collected in 28 European countries. These pan-European segments are differentiable (people in those segments have similar characteristics that are visibly dissimilar from the ones in other segments) and actionable (organizations would be able to propose interventions to the hesitant segments based on their profiles). With segmentation being the starting point of many public health intervention strategies for avoiding vaccine-hesitancy, the results recommend moderating the full-adaptation strategy that follows the "context matters" principle suggested by several political and public health international organizations. Embracing a more standardized strategy will allow the development of better services and strategies that support and enable desirable vaccination behaviors