The effect of a seven-week exercise program on golf swing performance and musculoskeletal measures

As most golf exercise studies have shown improved golf performance as a result of two or three sessions per week, the present study investigated the effects of a supervised exercise session performed once a week for seven weeks on golf swing variables and musculoskeletal screening measures. Professional Golfers Association of Australia International Golf Institute student golfers (n ¼ 43) with a mean standard deviation handicap of 8.6 8.3 participated in the study. Each golfer performed 10 musculoskeletal tests and a standardised 60-shot golf performance test (TrackMan, Vedbaek, Denmark) on separate days before and after the seven-week program. Significant improvements in a number of musculoskeletal tests (i.e. left leg bridging (6.6%), thoracic extension (62.5%), right thoracic rotation (23.3%), and right (20.8%) and left single leg squat (29.1%)) were observed (all p 0.024); however, no significant differences were observed for any golf swing variables. Future research investigating different training protocols may help to determine whether the type or frequency of training has the greatest influence on golf swing performance

Accurate and precise viral quantification for rapid vaccine development in- process production monitoring using Radiance® Laser Force Cytology\u3csup\u3eTM

The biopharmaceutical world is evolving rapidly, bringing with it the need for technologies to support this fast-paced and changing environment. Trends in biomanufacturing are moving towards shortened development cycles as companies balance increased productivity requirements with the goal of reducing costs while at the same time ensuring production consistencies are met and batch out of specification (OOS) and failure events are minimized. LumaCyte’s Radiance® instrument using Laser Force Cytology™ (LFC), a combination of advanced optics and microfluidics to rapidly analyze single cells based upon their intrinsic biochemical and biophysical cellular properties and without the need for antibodies or labels. Subtle cellular changes can be precisely captured with Radiance’s automated workflow enabling new capabilities for measuring real-time product quality attributes to support R&D, process development and manufacturing needs across the biopharmaceutical industry. In this poster, LumaCyte demonstrates how tedious infectivity assays such as plaque and TCID50 can be replaced by Radiance’s rapid viral infectivity quantification assay to provide significant shorter time to result (TTR), reduced labor, and improved data quality and consistency. In addition, the bioproduction of vaccines, viral vectors or VLPs can be monitored in real-time, enabling rapid optimization of key processes and increasing process knowledge. As a result, product yield can be increased using the same inputs and the likelihood of OOS events can be reduced. Radiance applications in oncolytic virus research and neutralization assays are presented as well. Overall, LFC delivers faster TTR and improved data quality for vaccine analytics from R&D to manufacturing

Laser force cytology for rapid quantification of viral infectivity

The quantification of viral infectivity is an integral step at multiple stages in the process of virally producing recombinant protein, studying the mechanism of viral infection, and developing vaccines. Accurate measurements of infectivity allow for consistent infection and expansion, maximum yield, and assurance that time or environmental conditions have not degraded product quality. Traditional methods to assess infectivity, including the end-point dilution assay (TCID50) and viral plaque assay, are slow, labor intensive, and can vary depending upon the skill and experience of the user. Application of Laser Force Cytology (LFC) for the rapid detection and quantification of viral infection will be presented and discussed for several viral systems in the context of improving the development and production of vaccines. LumaCyte’s Radiance™ instrument is an automated cell analyzer and sorter that measures the optical force, size, shape, and deformability and captures images of single cells. By measuring the intrinsic properties of single cells, cellular changes due to viral infection can be rapidly and objectively quantitated. LFC is very sensitive to agents that perturb cellular structures or change biochemical composition. High quality viral infectivity measurements can be made in a fraction of the time, labor, and cost of traditional assays such as plaque or endpoint dilution. For in-process automated bioreactor monitoring, infectivity can be measured by Radiance in near real-time throughout the process, allowing critical feedback control and optimization. The measurement speed and data quality of LFC / Radiance serve to enhance vaccine development, process optimization/scale-up, and manufacturing to ultimately improve the delivery of vaccines to patients

Degradation and forgone removals increase the carbon impact of intact forest loss by 626%

Intact tropical forests, free from substantial anthropogenic influence, store and sequester large amounts of atmospheric carbon but are currently neglected in international climate policy. We show that between 2000 and 2013, direct clearance of intact tropical forest areas accounted for 3.2% of gross carbon emissions from all deforestation across the pantropics. However, full carbon accounting requires the consideration of forgone carbon sequestration, selective logging, edge effects, and defaunation. When these factors were considered, the net carbon impact resulting from intact tropical forest loss between 2000 and 2013 increased by a factor of 6 (626%), from 0.34 (0.37 to 0.21) to 2.12 (2.85 to 1.00) petagrams of carbon (equivalent to approximately 2 years of global land use change emissions). The climate mitigation value of conserving the 549 million ha of tropical forest that remains intact is therefore significant but will soon dwindle if their rate of loss continues to accelerate

Rise and shine: The use of polychromatic short-wavelength-enriched light to mitigate sleep inertia at night following awakening from slow-wave sleep

Sleep inertia is the brief period of performance impairment and reduced alertness experienced after waking, especially from slow-wave sleep. We assessed the efficacy of polychromatic short-wavelength-enriched light to improve vigilant attention, alertness and mood immediately after waking from slow-wave sleep at night. Twelve participants (six female, 23.3 ± 4.2 years) maintained an actigraphy-confirmed sleep schedule of 8.5 hr for 5 nights, and 5 hr for 1 night prior to an overnight laboratory visit. In the laboratory, participants were awakened from slow-wave sleep, and immediately exposed to either dim, red ambient light (control) or polychromatic short-wavelength-enriched light (light) for 1 hr in a randomized crossover design. They completed a 5-min Psychomotor Vigilance Task, the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale, and Visual Analogue Scales of mood at 2, 17, 32 and 47 min after waking. Following this testing period, lights were turned off and participants returned to sleep. They were awakened from their subsequent slow-wave sleep period and received the opposite condition. Compared with the control condition, participants exposed to light had fewer Psychomotor Vigilance Task lapses (χ2[1] = 5.285, p = 0.022), reported feeling more alert (Karolinska Sleepiness Scale: F1,77 = 4.955, p = 0.029; Visual Analogue Scalealert: F1,77 = 8.226, p = 0.005), and reported improved mood (Visual Analogue Scalecheerful: F1,77 = 8.615, p = 0.004). There was no significant difference in sleep-onset latency between conditions following the testing period (t10 = 1.024, p = 0.330). Our results suggest that exposure to polychromatic short-wavelength-enriched light immediately after waking from slow-wave sleep at night may help improve vigilant attention, subjective alertness, and mood. Future studies should explore the potential mechanisms of this countermeasure and its efficacy in real-world environments

Orientia tsutsugamushi ankyrin repeat-containing protein family members are Type 1 secretion system substrates that traffic to the host cell endoplasmic reticulum

Scrub typhus is an understudied, potentially fatal infection that threatens one billion persons in the Asia-Pacific region. How the causative obligate intracellular bacterium, Orientia tsutsugamushi, facilitates its intracellular survival and pathogenesis is poorly understood. Many intracellular bacterial pathogens utilize the Type 1 (T1SS) or Type 4 secretion system (T4SS) to translocate ankyrin repeat-containing proteins (Anks) that traffic to distinct subcellular locations and modulate host cell processes. The O. tsutsugamushi genome encodes one of the largest known bacterial Ank repertoires plus T1SS and T4SS components. Whether these potential virulence factors are expressed during infection, how the Anks are potentially secreted, and to where they localize in the host cell are not known. We determined that O. tsutsugamushi transcriptionally expresses 20 unique ank genes as well as genes for both T1SS and T4SS during infection of mammalian host cells. Examination of the Anks’ C-termini revealed that the majority of them resemble T1SS substrates. Escherichia coli expressing a functional T1SS was able to secrete chimeric hemolysin proteins bearing the C-termini of 19 of 20 O. tsutsugamushi Anks in an HlyBD-dependent manner. Thus, O. tsutsugamushi Anks C-termini are T1SS-compatible. Conversely, Coxiella burnetii could not secrete heterologously expressed Anks in a T4SS-dependent manner. Analysis of the subcellular distribution patterns of 20 ectopically expressed Anks revealed that, while 6 remained cytosolic or trafficked to the nucleus, 14 localized to, and in some cases, altered the morphology of the endoplasmic reticulum. This study identifies O. tsutsugamushi Anks as T1SS substrates and indicates that many display a tropism for the host cell secretory pathway