High performance glucose/O2 biofuel cell: effect of utilizing purified laccase with anthracene-modified multi-walled carbon nanotubes

pre-printLaccase, a blue multicopper oxidoreductase enzyme, is a robust enzyme that catalyzes the reduction of oxygen to water and has been shown previously to perform improved direct electron transfer in a biocathode when mixed with anthracene-modified multi-walled carbon nanotubes. Previous cathode construction used crude laccase enzyme isolated as a brown cell extract powder containing both active and inactive proteins. Purification of this enzyme, yielding a blue solution, resulted in greatly improved enzyme activity and removed insulating protein that competed for docking space in this cathodic system. Cyclic voltammetry of the purified biocathodes showed a background subtracted limiting current density of 1.84 (±0.05) mA/cm2 in a stationary air-saturated system. Galvanostatic and potentiostatic stability experiments show that the biocathode maintains up to 75% and 80% of the original voltage and current respectively over 24 hours of constant operation. Inclusion of the biocathode in a glucose/O2 biofuel cell using a mediated glucose oxidase (GOx) anode produced maximum current and power densities of 1.28 (±0.18) mA/cm2 and 281 (±50) μW/cm2 at 25◦C and 1.80 (±0.06) mA/cm2 and 381 (±33) μW/cm2 at 37◦C, respectively. Enzymatic efficiency of this glucose/O2 enzymatic fuel cell is among the highest reported for a glucose/O2 enzymatic fuel cell

Zinc Dyshomeostasis In Salmonella-Infected Immune Competent Primary Macrophage Impacts Infection Outcome

Zinc is an essential micronutrient for mammalian cells and their bacterial pathogens. Intracellular pathogens such as Salmonella sp. colonize macrophages to form systemic infections and must acquire enough Zn2+&nbsp;to survive and replicate within their host cell. The interface of this infection is defined largely by a tug of war for Zn2+. Macrophages that have been activated by phagocytosis of a pathogen shift their intracellular zinc pool through upregulation of a zinc importer that sequesters zinc from the extracellular milieu. Using tools developed in the Palmer lab, we quantified the cytosolic labile zinc concentration in primary immune competent macrophages infected with the intracellular pathogen Salmonella Typhimurium and show that it increases over the course of the infection. We measured an increase in the expression of the zinc importer Zip14, and show that the ability of these macrophages to control bacterial replication and clear the intracellular pathogen is altered due to changes in the availability of zinc in the media. Zinc reduction in the media correlates with the expression of the spliced Xbp1 isoform, a marker for ER stress, indicating that the zinc adequacy is important for resistance to ER stress during infection.</p

It doesn’t hurt to ask: Question-asking increases liking.

Conversation is a fundamental human experience, one that is necessary to pursue intrapersonal and interpersonal goals across myriad contexts, relationships, and modes of communication. In the current research, we isolate the role of an understudied conversational behavior: question-asking. Across three studies of live dyadic conversations, we identify a robust and consistent relationship between question-asking and liking: people who ask more questions are better liked by their conversation partners. When people are instructed to ask more questions, they are perceived as higher in responsiveness, an interpersonal construct that captures listening, understanding, validation, and care. We measure responsiveness with an attitudinal measure from previous research as well as a novel behavioral measure: the number of follow-up questions one asks. In both cases, responsiveness explains the effect of question-asking on liking. In addition to analyzing live get-to-know-you conversations online, we also studied face-to-face speed-dating conversations. We find that speed daters who ask more questions during their dates are more likely to elicit agreement for second dates from their partners, a behavioral indicator of liking. We trained a natural language processing algorithm as a “follow-up question detector” that we applied to our speed-dating data (and can be applied to any text data to more deeply understand question-asking dynamics). The follow-up question rate established by the algorithm explained why question-asking led to speed-dating success. We also find that, despite the persistent and beneficial effects of asking questions, people do not anticipate that question-asking increases interpersonal liking

Death from mantle cell lymphoma limits sequential therapy, particularly after first relapse: Patterns of care and outcomes in a series from Australia and the United Kingdom

Mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) is a B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma characterised by a heterogeneous clinical course. Patients can often receive sequential treatments, yet these typically yield diminishing periods of disease control, raising questions about optimal therapy sequencing. Novel agents, such as chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies and bispecific antibodies, show promise in relapsed MCL, but are often reserved for later treatment lines, which may underserve patients with aggressive disease phenotypes who die early in the treatment journey. To assess the problem of patient attrition from lymphoma-related death limiting sequential treatment, we performed a multicentre retrospective cohort analysis of 389 patients treated at Australian and UK centres over a 10-year period. Deaths from MCL increased after each treatment line, with 7%, 23% and 26% of patients dying from uncontrolled MCL after first, second and third lines respectively. Patients with older age at diagnosis and early relapse after induction therapy were at particular risk of death after second-line treatment. This limitation of sequential treatment by lymphoma-related death provides support for the trial of novel therapies in earlier treatment lines, particularly in high-risk patient populations

Prisoners’ Families’ Research: Developments, Debates and Directions

After many years of relative obscurity, research on prisoners’ families has gained significant momentum. It has expanded from case-oriented descriptive analyses of family experiences to longitudinal studies of child and family development and even macro analyses of the effects on communities in societies of mass incarceration. Now the field engages multi-disciplinary and international interest although it arguably still remains on the periphery of mainstream criminological, psychological and sociological research agendas. This chapter discusses developments in prisoners’ families’ research and its positioning in academia and practice. It does not aim to provide an all-encompassing review of the literature rather it will offer some reflections on how and why the field has developed as it has and on its future directions. The chapter is divided into three parts. The first discusses reasons for the historically small body of research on prisoners’ families and for the growth in research interest over the past two decades. The second analyses patterns and shifts in the focus of research studies and considers how the field has been shaped by intersecting disciplinary interests of psychology, sociology, criminology and socio-legal studies. The final part reflects on substantive and ethical issues that are likely to shape the direction of prisoners’ families’ research in the future

American Gut: an Open Platform for Citizen Science Microbiome Research

McDonald D, Hyde E, Debelius JW, et al. American Gut: an Open Platform for Citizen Science Microbiome Research. mSystems. 2018;3(3):e00031-18

Riociguat treatment in patients with chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension: Final safety data from the EXPERT registry

Objective: The soluble guanylate cyclase stimulator riociguat is approved for the treatment of adult patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and inoperable or persistent/recurrent chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) following Phase

Targeted Agents in the Treatment of Indolent B-Cell Non-Hodgkin Lymphomas

Targeted therapies continue to change the landscape of lymphoma treatment, resulting in improved therapy options and patient outcomes. Numerous agents are now approved for use in the indolent lymphomas and many others under development demonstrate significant promise. In this article, we review the landscape of targeted agents that apply to the indolent lymphomas, predominantly follicular lymphoma, lymphoplasmacytic lymphoma/Waldenstrom macroglobulinaemia and marginal zone lymphoma. The review covers small molecule inhibitors, immunomodulators and targeted immunotherapies, as well as presenting emerging and promising combination therapies