Virtual libraries of tissue and clinical samples: potential role of a 3-D microscope.

Our international innovative teaching group from different European Universities (De Montfort University, DMU, UK; and the Spanish University of Alcalá, University Miguel Hernández and University of San Pablo CEU), in conjunction with practicing biomedical scientists in the National Health Service (UK) and biomedical researchers, are developing two complete e-learning packages for teaching and learning medical parasitology, named DMU e-Parasitology (accessible at: http://parasitology.dmu.ac.uk), and biology and chemistry, named DMU e-Biology (accessible at: http://parasitology.dmu.ac.uk/ebiology/index.htm), respectively. Both packages will include a virtual microscope with a complete library of digitised tissue images, clinical slides and cell culture slides/mini-videos for enhancing the teaching and learning of a myriad of techniques applicable to health science undergraduate and postgraduate students. Thus, these packages include detecting human parasites, by becoming familiar with their infective structures and/or organs (e.g. eggs, cysts) and/or explore pathogenic tissues stained with traditional (e.g. haematoxylin & eosin) or more modern (e.g. immunohistochemistry) techniques. The Virtual Microscope (VM) module in the DMU e-Parasitology package is almost completed (accessible at: http://parasitology.dmu.ac.uk/learn/microscope.htm) and contains a section for the three major groups of human-pathogenic parasites (Peña-Fernández et al., 2018) [1]. Digitised slides are provided with the functionality of a microscope by using the gadget Zoomify®, and we consider that they can enhance learning, as previous studies reported in the literature have reported similar sensitivity and specificity rates for identification of parasites for both digitised and real slides. The DMU e-Biology’s VM, currently in development, will provide healthy and pathological tissue samples from a range of mammalian tissues and organs. This communication will provide a description of both virtual libraries and the process of developing them. In conjunction, we will use a three-dimensional (3D) super-resolution microscopy, 3D Cell Explorer (Nanolive, Lausanne, Switzerland), to incorporate potential 3D microscopic photographs/short videos of cells to provide students with information about the spatial arrangement and morphologies of cells that are essential for life

Interventions to enhance the teaching of toxicology at a UK University

Following the recent communication from the European Societies of Toxicology (EUROTOX) advising that toxicology training and expertise is being eroded in the European Union, we have reviewed the teaching status of this subject in all the bioscience undergraduate courses offered at De Montfort University (DMU, UK). The courses reviewed were: Biomedical Science, Health and Wellbeing in Society, Speech and Language Therapy, Medical Science, Pharmaceutical and Cosmetic Science, Forensic Science and Pharmacy. None of these courses dedicate a complete module to the study of toxicology although they teach some aspects of toxicology following the subject-specific threshold standards described by the UK Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education. Similar results are found in other UK Universities, although a comprehensive study on the status of toxicology teaching is needed. We have not found any undergraduate courses currently offered in the UK that contained the word “toxicology” in their title. These results are in agreement with EUROTOX, which indicated that toxicology has been generally integrated into other bioscience disciplines and is mainly offered as part of a taught postgraduate degree programme in Europe. Owing to these observations, our teaching group is performing different strategies to enhance the teaching of toxicology at DMU as we consider that the learning of this science is critically important to enable future health professionals to protect human health. These strategies included the development of specialised teaching/workshop sessions in toxicology that can be easily included in any undergraduate bioscience module. Thus, during 2016/17 we collected comprehensive feedback (during an Erasmus+ mobility grant for academics) from human health students about their views on the teaching of toxicology and one of the specialised workshops in a programme that does not offer a module in toxicology (BMedSci Medical Science, DMU) and one that does (MPharm. Pharmacy, University of San Pablo CEU, Spain). A high proportion of the students consulted requested more teaching of toxicology or the introduction of more specialised toxicology in their programmes. Thus, 85% of second year BMedSci students indicated that they would like to receive more toxicology training. Also, 42.9% (57.1% neither agree nor disagree) of fourth year MPharm. students suggested the incorporation of specialised environmental toxicology workshops within their course and all of them considered the environmental toxicology training relevant to their general toxicology module. Other strategies implemented include the enhancement of research in toxicology in our university by offering final projects on these topics to undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as completion of PhDs. Finally, DMU has recently recruited two toxicologists as academic staff, allowing us to promote the teaching/research of toxicology as well as exploring the possibility of developing postgraduate content for the teaching of toxicology. More efforts should be considered to enhance the teaching of this subject in any bioscience programme, as the current status of toxicology in the UK has been eroded

Non-perturbative renormalisation and running of BSM four-quark operators in Nf=2 QCD

We perform a non-perturbative study of the scale-dependent renormalisation factors of a complete set of dimension-six four-fermion operators without power subtractions. The renormalisation-group (RG) running is determined in the continuum limit for a specific Schrödinger Functional (SF) renormalisation scheme in the framework of lattice QCD with two dynamical flavours (Nf= 2). The theory is regularised on a lattice with a plaquette Wilson action and O(a)-improved Wilson fermions. For one of these operators, the computation had been performed in Dimopoulos et al. (JHEP 0805, 065 (2008). arXiv:0712.2429); the present work completes the study for the rest of the operator basis, on the same simulations (configuration ensembles). The related weak matrix elements arise in several operator product expansions; in Δ F= 2 transitions they contain the QCD long-distance effects, including contributions from beyond-Standard Model (BSM) processes. Some of these operators mix under renormalisation and their RG-running is governed by anomalous dimension matrices. In Papinutto et al. (Eur Phys J C 77(6), 376 (2017). arXiv:1612.06461) the RG formalism for the operator basis has been worked out in full generality and the anomalous dimension matrix has been calculated in NLO perturbation theory. Here the discussion is extended to the matrix step-scaling functions, which are used in finite-size recursive techniques. We rely on these matrix-SSFs to obtain non-perturbative estimates of the operator anomalous dimensions for scales ranging from O(Λ QCD) to O(MW)

Safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and exploratory efficacy of the novel enzyme replacement therapy avalglucosidase alfa (neoGAA) in treatment-naïve and alglucosidase alfa-treated patients with late-onset Pompe disease: A phase 1, open-label, multicenter, multinational, ascending dose study

This multicenter/multinational, open-label, ascending-dose study (NCT01898364) evaluated safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and exploratory efficacy of repeat-dose avalglucosidase alfa (neoGAA), a second-generation, recombinant acid α-glucosidase replacement therapy, in late-onset Pompe disease (LOPD). Patients ≥18 years, alglucosidase alfa naïve (Naïve) or previously receiving alglucosidase alfa for ≥9 months (Switch), with baseline FVC ≥50% predicted and independently ambulatory, received every-other-week avalglucosidase alfa 5, 10, or 20 mg/kg over 24 weeks. 9/10 Naïve and 12/14 Switch patients completed the study. Avalglucosidase alfa was well-tolerated; no deaths/life-threatening serious adverse events (SAEs). One Naïve patient withdrew for study drug-related SAEs (respiratory distress/chest discomfort). Infusion-associated reactions (IARs) affected 8 patients. Most treatment-emergent AEs/IARs were non-serious with mild-to-moderate intensity. At screening, 5 Switch patients tested positive for anti-avalglucosidase alfa antibodies; on-treatment, 2 Switch and 9 Naïve patients seroconverted. Post-infusion, avalglucosidase alfa plasma concentrations declined monoexponentially (

Long-term Stellar Variability in the Galactic Centre Region

© 2019 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.We report the detection of variable stars within a 11.5' x 11.5' region near the Galactic centre (GC) that includes the Arches and Quintuplet clusters, as revealed by the VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea (VVV) survey. There are 353 sources that show Ks-band variability, of which the large majority (81%) correspond to red giant stars, mostly in the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) phase. We analyze a population of 52 red giants with long-term trends that cannot be classified into the typical pulsating star categories. Distances and extinctions are calculated for 9 Mira variables, and we discuss the impact of the chosen extinction law on the derived distances. We also report the presence of 48 new identified young stellar object (YSO) candidates in the region.Peer reviewe