Prescription pattern in ischemic heart disease inpatients at B. P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences: a cross sectional study

Background: Drug utilization pattern studies seek to screen, evaluate and suggest appropriate modifications in prescription practices. It would help to make patient care rational and cost effective. Objective was to analyze the drug prescribing pattern for treatment of ischemic heart disease (IHD). Methods: A prospective cross-sectional observational study was conducted in patients of IHD admitted in intensive coronary care unit and medicine ward for the period of six months. Data were collected in preformed case record form. The data were analyzed for drug use indicators, demographic parameters, morbidities, pattern of drug use using Microsoft excel 2010. Results: A total of 145 patients were enrolled out of that 89 (61.38%) were males. The mean age was 60.01±12.71 years and majority (26.89%) belonged to age group of 61-70 years. A total of 1208 drugs were prescribed in 145 patients. Most frequently prescribed drugs were antiplatelet group of drugs 100% encounters, followed by hypo-lipidemics (98.62%). Average number of drugs per encounter was 8.33 and percentage of drugs prescribed by generic name was 5.04%.  Conclusions: IHD was more common in males than females. The most commonly prescribed drug classes were anti-platelet drugs followed by hypolipidemic agents

Studies on Nisin Production by Isolated Lactobacillus Species in Aqueous Two-phase System

Isolated lactobacillus sp.(from cheese whey) was examined for its ability to produce bacteriocin like nisin in submerged fermentation and aqueous two-phase system(ATPS) at pH 6.5, 30.C for 18 h fermentation using M17S medium with 5%(v/v) inoculum and the nisin yields were obtained 4500 IU/ml and 20216 IU/ml where as biomass yield obtained 19.55 mg/ml and 31.88 mg/ml respectively.The maximum yield of nisin (24800 IU/ml) and biomass (22.49 mg/ml) were obtained in ATPS (28% PEG 6000 and 4% MgSO4.7H20 with 5-times concentrated M17 medium containing 0.5% lactose as carbon source) under similar conditions

GENETIC POLYMORPHISM OF MILK PROTEINS IN BARBARI GOATS

Milk samples of 178 Barbari goats, maintained at the Central Institute for Research on Goats, Makhdoom, Mathura, Uttar Pradesh, India, were analyzed to study the genetic polymorphisms of milk proteins in this breed. The genetic variants in milk samples were detected by sodium dodecyl sulphate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS – PAGE) method. The electrophoretic pattern revealed the milk sample of Barbari goats contained four major casein variants, i.e., αS1- casein, αS2 - casein, β-Cn, and κ-Cn and two whey proteins, viz., β- lactoglobulin and α- lactalbumin. Three αS1- casein alleles viz. αS1- CnA, αS1- CnB and αS1-CnF were identified in this study. The predominant allele of αS1- casein was αS1-Cn B, with a frequency of 0.565, whereas the frequencies of αS1-Cn A allele was 0.329. Very low frequency (0.073) of the αS1-CnF variant occurred in the milk of this breed. The frequency of null allele (i.e., absent of this particular allele in the population) for this locus (αS1-Cno) was 0.034. The αS2-locus showed two variants namely A and B and the frequencies of these variants were 0.531 and 0.469, respectively. Two genetic variants (A and B) were also observed in the κ-casein locus having the frequencies of 0.708 and 0.292, respectively. No polymorphism was observed at β- casein locus in our study. The electrophoretic pattern of β- lactoglobulin showed the presence of two genetic variants at β-lactoglobulin (β-LG) locus (viz., A and B) and the gene frequency of β-LG A and β-LG B was 0.910 and 0.090, respectively. Regarding the α-lactalbumin locus, two genetic variants of α-lactalbumin (α -LA) viz., A and B were identified in this breed. The gene frequency of predominant allele i.e, α-LA A allele was 0.966 whereas, the frequency of rare allele i.e., α-LA B was 0.034, respectively

Revisiting the clinical trial history and regulatory mechanisms in Nepal in the context of COVID-19 pandemic

Presence of Nepal in global clinical trials has been visibly negligible despite the history of conducting large scaled randomized controlled trial on Hepatitis E vaccine decades ago. Majority of the problem is attributed to the lack of collaborative work, financial and human resource constrains. COVID-19 pandemics seems to have triggered urgency among the authorities of Nepal leading to a substantial increase in the number of clinical trials in collaboration with national and international organizations/institutions. Immediately after detection of the first COVID-19 case on 13 January 2020, the Ethical Review Board (ERB) of NHRC received several research proposals, subsequently leading to the approval of the first clinical trial for COVID-19 on 01 July 2020 to investigate potential of traditional Ayurveda based medicine for COVID treatment. Soon, number of other clinical trial proposals received approval and implemented in the country, however budgetary allocation from the Government of Nepal (GON) was prioritized for COVID-19 outrage management and vaccination coverage only. Collaborations with various international institutions played a significant role in the successful implementation of large-scale clinical trials in the country and further laid the path for future. In this review paper we present the recent developments in clinical trials in Nepal, budgetary allocation from the government and the mechanisms in place for regulation of clinical research in the country along with challenges and way forward

Tuning Molecular Weights of <i>Bombyx mori (B. mori)</i> Silk Sericin to Modify Its Assembly Structures and Materials Formation

<i>Bombyx mori (B. mori)</i> silk sericin is a protein with features desirable as a biomaterial, such as increased hydrophilicity and biodegradation, as well as resistance to oxidation, bacteria, and ultraviolet light. In contrast to other widely studied <i>B. mori</i> silk proteins such as fibroin, sericin is still unexplored as a building block for fabricating biomaterial, and thus a facile technique of processing it into a material is needed. Here, electrospinning technology was used to fabricate it into biomaterials from two forms of <i>B. mori</i> silk sericin with different molecular weights, one is a low (12.0 kDa) molecular sericin (LS) form and another is a high (66.0 kDa) molecular weight sericin (HS) form. Circular dichroism (CD) spectra showed that LS in hexafluoroacetone (HFA) solvent adopted a predominantly random coil conformation, whereas HS tended to form a β-sheet structure along with a large content of random coils. In addition, LS and HS in HFA solvent were found to form cylinder-like smaller nanoparticles and larger irregular aggregates before electrospinning, respectively. As a result, biomaterials based on microparticles and nanofibers were successfully fabricated by electrospinning of LS and HS dissolved in HFA, respectively. The cell viability and differentiation assay indicated that nanofibers and microparticles improved cell adhesion, growth, and differentiation, proving that the scaffolds electrospun from sericin are biocompatible regardless of its molecular weight. The microparticles, not common in electrospinning of silk proteins reported previously, were found to promote the osteogenic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells in comparison to the nanofibers. This study suggested that molecular weight of sericin mediates its secondary structure and assembly structure, which in turn leads to a control of final morphology of the electrospun materials. The microparticles and nanofibers of sericin can be potentially used as building blocks for fabricating the scaffolds for tissue engineering