Nano-enabled biosensing systems for intelligent healthcare: towards COVID-19 management

Biosensors are emerging as efficient (sensitive and selective) and affordable analytical diagnostic tools for early-stage disease detection, as required for personalized health wellness management. Low-level detection of a targeted disease biomarker (pM level) has emerged extremely useful to evaluate the progression of disease under therapy. Such collected bioinformatics and its multi-aspects-oriented analytics is in demand to explore the effectiveness of a prescribed treatment, optimize therapy, and correlate biomarker level with disease pathogenesis. Owing to nanotechnology-enabled advancements in sensing unit fabrication, device integration, interfacing, packaging, and sensing performance at point-of-care (POC) has rendered diagnostics according to the requirements of disease management and patient disease profile i.e. in a personalized manner. Efforts are continuously being made to promote the state of art biosensing technology as a next-generation non-invasive disease diagnostics methodology. Keeping this in view, this progressive opinion article describes personalized health care management related analytical tools which can provide access to better health for everyone, with overreaching aim to manage healthy tomorrow timely. Considering accomplishments and predictions, such affordable intelligent diagnostics tools are urgently required to manage COVID-19 pandemic, a life-threatening respiratory infectious disease, where a rapid, selective and sensitive detection of human beta severe acute respiratory system coronavirus (SARS-COoV-2) protein is the key factor

INTRA BODY COMMUNICATION

ABSTRAC

An Attribute-Based Encryption Method Using Outsourced Decryption and Hierarchical Access Structure, Journal of Telecommunications and Information Technology, 2022, nr 2

Cloud computing is being rapidly adopted by many organizations from different domains and large amounts of data is stored in the cloud. In order to ensure data security, the attribute-based access control mechanism has been emerging recently as a fine-grained access control model that grants access based on the data user’s attributes. In this model, the data owner builds the access policy using the attributes of the data users and access to the data is granted only if the requirements of such an access policy are satisfied. Ciphertext policy-based attribute-based encryption (CPABE) is one of the most widely used methods for providing encrypted access control. Complex, time consuming and costly paring operations are the major issue with the CPABE method. Hence, another efficient method is needed to reduce the data user’s overhead while decrypting data. This paper presents an efficient method consisting in outsourcing decryption operations to a third-party server, so that complex operations may be performed by that machine with only some simple calculations left on the data user’s side. The concept of a hierarchical access structure is also integrated with the traditional CPABE technique. The hierarchical approach enables the data owner to encrypt multiple data using a single common hierarchical access structure. This allows the user to decrypt only the relevant part of ciphertext, depending on which fragment of the hierarchical access structure is satisfied. The paper evaluates also the performance of the proposed model in terms of time and storage cost

Design and Development of Saline Monitoring System Using Load cell

As the world population grows, the need for health care increases. In recent years, progress in medical care has been rapid due to the advancements in the field of sensors, microcontrollers and computers. A major reason for this is the combination of the two important disciplines namely medicine and engineering.                      This paper describes the development of an automatic saline monitoring system using a low cost indigenously developed load cell and GSM (Global system for mobile communication) modem. This enables the doctor or nurse on duty to monitor the saline flow rate from a distance. The Atmel16microcontroller is used for providing co-ordination action.                       Load cell which acts as a weight sensor , used to sense the weight of the bottle.  The detection of saline drop rate is quite faithful. Message about the status of the bottle is transmitted through GSM technology to a distant mobile cell for future actions as well as displayed on LCD display

Thyroid dysfunction in human immuno-deficiency virus infected patients: a non-randomized, cross-sectional, single-center study

Background: Increasing prevalence of thyroid dysfunction has been reported in human immuno-deficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients. However, there is insufficient evidence to recommend routine thyroid screening of asymptomatic individuals. Hence, this study was undertaken in an attempt to resolve these issues. Objectives of this non-randomized, cross-sectional, single-center study was to study thyroid function in HIV positive patients at various stages of disease. Methods: This single-center study was carried out at Al-Ameen Medical College Hospital and Government District Hospital Bijapur, Karnataka, India from December 2020 to December 2022. The final selected study population included newly diagnosed adult and adolescent (17-60 years) HIV+ patients was composed of 100 participants of either gender. Patients were interviewed and enrolled in the study after examining in detail according to the proforma and then by taking their written consent and explaining the purpose of the study. The thyroid hormone assays (S. TSH, FT3 and FT4) were done by chemiluminescence immuno assay (CLIA) using ADVIA Centaur-equipment. Results: Overall mean age was 36 years (range in years: 17–66 years) and 66 patients (66%) were males. Male: female ratio of 1.94:1 was recorded. In the 50 patients having acquired immuno-deficiency virus (AIDS), FT3 levels ranged from 0.230 to 4.0 picogram/ml with a mean of 2.131+0.9826 picogram/ml. In 50 patients having AIDS, the FT4 levels ranged from 0.30 to 1.90 nanogram/dI with a mean 1.179±0.4484 nanogram/dl. Conclusions: All forms of thyroid dysfunction were observed

Magnetically modified sugarcane bagasse biochar as cadmium removal agent in water

Heavy metals are hazardous to health at certain levels. Currently, heavy metals are removed by physicochemical treatments, such as adsorption, flotation, and electrochemical deposition, and also biological treatments, such as algal biofilm reactor and anaerobic ammonium oxidation. In this study, magnetic biochar was produced to enhance the effectiveness and performance of the adsorbent for heavy metal removal. This study aimed to synthesise high-performance magnetic biochar, to determine the optimum parameters and conditions for high yield of magnetic biochar and high removal of cadmium (Cd2+) from aqueous solution, and to determine the adsorption kinetics and isotherms for Cd2+ removal. Nickel oxide (NiO)-impregnated sugarcane bagasse was subjected to slow pyrolysis to produce magnetic biochar. The impregnated metal, pyrolysis temperature, and pyrolysis time were varied to determine the optimum parameters and conditions to produce high-performance magnetic biochar. The removal of Cd2+ from aqueous solution and batch adsorption study were conducted. The synthesised magnetic biochar was characterised using field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). The adsorption data agreed well with the pseudo-second-order model and followed the Langmuir isotherm model. This study achieved 88.47% removal efficiency of Cd2+ from aqueous solution. Thus, the removal of this heavy metal as a human carcinogen reduces the hazardous effects on human health and reduces the toxicity in the environment

HIV-1 assembly in macrophages

The molecular mechanisms involved in the assembly of newly synthesized Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) particles are poorly understood. Most of the work on HIV-1 assembly has been performed in T cells in which viral particle budding and assembly take place at the plasma membrane. In contrast, few studies have been performed on macrophages, the other major target of HIV-1. Infected macrophages represent a viral reservoir and probably play a key role in HIV-1 physiopathology. Indeed macrophages retain infectious particles for long periods of time, keeping them protected from anti-viral immune response or drug treatments. Here, we present an overview of what is known about HIV-1 assembly in macrophages as compared to T lymphocytes or cell lines

The Scaffolding Protein Dlg1 Is a Negative Regulator of Cell-Free Virus Infectivity but Not of Cell-to-Cell HIV-1 Transmission in T Cells

Background: Cell-to-cell virus transmission of Human immunodeficiency virus type-1 (HIV-1) is predominantly mediated by cellular structures such as the virological synapse (VS). The VS formed between an HIV-1-infected T cell and a target T cell shares features with the immunological synapse (IS). We have previously identified the human homologue of the Drosophila Discs Large (Dlg1) protein as a new cellular partner for the HIV-1 Gag protein and a negative regulator of HIV-1 infectivity. Dlg1, a scaffolding protein plays a key role in clustering protein complexes in the plasma membrane at cellular contacts. It is implicated in IS formation and T cell signaling, but its role in HIV-1 cell-to-cell transmission was not studied before. Methodology/Principal Findings: Kinetics of HIV-1 infection in Dlg1-depleted Jurkat T cells show that Dlg1 modulates the replication of HIV-1. Single-cycle infectivity tests show that this modulation does not take place during early steps of the HIV-1 life cycle. Immunofluorescence studies of Dlg1-depleted Jurkat T cells show that while Dlg1 depletion affects IS formation, it does not affect HIV-1-induced VS formation. Co-culture assays and quantitative cell-to-cell HIV-1 transfer analyses show that Dlg1 depletion does not modify transfer of HIV-1 material from infected to target T cells, or HIV-1 transmission leading to productive infection via cell contact. Dlg1 depletion results in increased virus yield and infectivity of the viral particles produced. Particles with increased infectivity present an increase in their cholesterol content and during the first hours of T cell infection these particles induce higher accumulation of total HIV-1 DNA

Nef Decreases HIV-1 Sensitivity to Neutralizing Antibodies that Target the Membrane-proximal External Region of TMgp41

Primate lentivirus nef is required for sustained virus replication in vivo and accelerated progression to AIDS. While exploring the mechanism by which Nef increases the infectivity of cell-free virions, we investigated a functional link between Nef and Env. Since we failed to detect an effect of Nef on the quantity of virion-associated Env, we searched for qualitative changes by examining whether Nef alters HIV-1 sensitivity to agents that target distinct features of Env. Nef conferred as much as 50-fold resistance to 2F5 and 4E10, two potent neutralizing monoclonal antibodies (nAbs) that target the membrane proximal external region (MPER) of TMgp41. In contrast, Nef had no effect on HIV-1 neutralization by MPER-specific nAb Z13e1, by the peptide inhibitor T20, nor by a panel of nAbs and other reagents targeting gp120. Resistance to neutralization by 2F5 and 4E10 was observed with Nef from a diverse range of HIV-1 and SIV isolates, as well as with HIV-1 virions bearing Env from CCR5- and CXCR4-tropic viruses, clade B and C viruses, or primary isolates. Functional analysis of a panel of Nef mutants revealed that this activity requires Nef myristoylation but that it is genetically separable from other Nef functions such as the ability to enhance virus infectivity and to downregulate CD4. Glycosylated-Gag from MoMLV substituted for Nef in conferring resistance to 2F5 and 4E10, indicating that this activity is conserved in a retrovirus that does not encode Nef. Given the reported membrane-dependence of MPER-recognition by 2F5 and 4E10, in contrast to the membrane-independence of Z13e1, the data here is consistent with a model in which Nef alters MPER recognition in the context of the virion membrane. Indeed, Nef and Glycosylated-Gag decreased the efficiency of virion capture by 2F5 and 4E10, but not by other nAbs. These studies demonstrate that Nef protects lentiviruses from one of the most broadly-acting classes of neutralizing antibodies. This newly discovered activity for Nef has important implications for anti-HIV-1 immunity and AIDS pathogenesis

The Role of Purported Mucoprotectants in Dealing with Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Functional Diarrhea, and Other Chronic Diarrheal Disorders in Adults

Chronic diarrhea is a frequent presenting symptom, both in primary care medicine and in specialized gastroenterology units. It is estimated that more than 5% of the global population suffers from chronic diarrhea. and that about 40% of these subjects are older than 60 years. The clinician is frequently faced with the need to decide which is the best therapeutic approach for these patients. While the origin of chronic diarrhea is diverse, impairment of intestinal barrier function, dysbiosis. and mucosal micro-inflammation are being increasingly recognized as underlying phenomena characterizing a variety of chronic diarrheal diseases. In addition to current pharmacological therapies, there is growing interest in alternative products such as mucoprotectants, which form a mucoadhesive film over the epithelium to reduce and protect against the development of altered intestinal permeability, dysbiosis, and mucosal micro-inflammation. This manuscript focuses on chronic diarrhea in adults, and we will review recent evidence on the ability of these natural compounds to improve symptoms associated with chronic diarrhea and to exert protective effects for the intestinal barrier