La Universidad ante la rueca de la violencia

«El pasado jueves pude sentir de cerca la potente onda expansiva que provocó el atentado terrorista en la Universidad de Navarra. Los cristales de mi despacho saltaron hechos trizas. Era la sexta vez que pasaba por una experiencia semejante. El miedo superficial se atempera, porque a todo se acostumbra uno. Pero la indignación crece, porque la brutalidad de la violencia se hace cada vez más notoria. Y uno se pregunta: ¿por qué? y ¿hasta cuándo?» Lo cuenta el profesor Alejandro Llano, de esa Universidad

Efficient Laser Performance Of Ndgdlif4: A New Laser Crystal

Laser action of Nd3+ doped GdLiF4 (GLF) has been demonstrated for both pulsed and cw laser pumped operation. A slope efficiency of 60% was obtained in either manner of operation. The spectroscopic properties and laser performance of Nd:GLF are very similar to those of Nd:YLF. GLF, on the other hand, can be doped with much higher Nd3+ concentration

A tactile model of the night summer northern sky for the teaching of astronomy to the BVI

Astroaccesible is an outreach project hosted by the Instituto de Astrof\'{\i}sica de Andaluc\'{\i}a - CSIC aimed at the teaching and popularisation of the astronomy among all publics independently of their capabilities and abilities, paying special attention to the collective of blind and visually impaired (BVI). Among the different strategies and resources using in our project, we have developed new 3D models representing in relief some of the stars, constellations and deep sky objects that can be observed during night from the Northern hemisphere in spring and summer. These models can be used by BVI to transmit to them the spatial configuration of the sky during night, but can be also used as an additional resource for all kind of publics to complement their sensorial experience. We also describe additional resources based on sounds that can also be employed to get deeper into this multisensorial experience. Finally, we summarize some of the activities and the context in which this new material has been used in the last 2 years.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures. To appear as proceeding of the 15th Scientific Meeting of the Spanish Astronomical Societ

Structural identifiability of dynamic systems biology models

22 páginas, 5 figuras, 2 tablas.-- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.A powerful way of gaining insight into biological systems is by creating a nonlinear differential equation model, which usually contains many unknown parameters. Such a model is called structurally identifiable if it is possible to determine the values of its parameters from measurements of the model outputs. Structural identifiability is a prerequisite for parameter estimation, and should be assessed before exploiting a model. However, this analysis is seldom performed due to the high computational cost involved in the necessary symbolic calculations, which quickly becomes prohibitive as the problem size increases. In this paper we show how to analyse the structural identifiability of a very general class of nonlinear models by extending methods originally developed for studying observability. We present results about models whose identifiability had not been previously determined, report unidentifiabilities that had not been found before, and show how to modify those unidentifiable models to make them identifiable. This method helps prevent problems caused by lack of identifiability analysis, which can compromise the success of tasks such as experiment design, parameter estimation, and model-based optimization. The procedure is called STRIKE-GOLDD (STRuctural Identifiability taKen as Extended-Generalized Observability with Lie Derivatives and Decomposition), and it is implemented in a MATLAB toolbox which is available as open source software. The broad applicability of this approach facilitates the analysis of the increasingly complex models used in systems biology and other areasAFV acknowledges funding from the Galician government (Xunta de Galiza, Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria http://www.edu.xunta.es/portal/taxonomy/term/206) through the I2C postdoctoral program, fellowship ED481B2014/133-0. AB and AFV were partially supported by grant DPI2013-47100-C2-2-P from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO). AFV acknowledges additional funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 686282 (CanPathPro). AP was partially supported through EPSRC projects EP/M002454/1 and EP/J012041/1.Peer reviewe

Recombinant vaccines in 2022 : a perspective from the cell factory

The last big outbreaks of Ebola fever in Africa, the thousands of avian influenza outbreaks across Europe, Asia, North America and Africa, the emergence of monkeypox virus in Europe and specially the COVID-19 pandemics have globally stressed the need for efficient, cost-effective vaccines against infectious diseases. Ideally, they should be based on transversal technologies of wide applicability. In this context, and pushed by the above-mentioned epidemiological needs, new and highly sophisticated DNA-or RNA-based vaccination strategies have been recently developed and applied at large-scale. Being very promising and effective, they still need to be assessed regarding the level of conferred long-term protection. Despite these fast-developing approaches, subunit vaccines, based on recombinant proteins obtained by conventional genetic engineering, still show a wide spectrum of interesting potentialities and an important margin for further development. In the 80's, the first vaccination attempts with recombinant vaccines consisted in single structural proteins from viral pathogens, administered as soluble plain versions. In contrast, more complex formulations of recombinant antigens with particular geometries are progressively generated and explored in an attempt to mimic the multifaceted set of stimuli offered to the immune system by replicating pathogens. The diversity of recombinant antimicrobial vaccines and vaccine prototypes is revised here considering the cell factory types, through relevant examples of prototypes under development as well as already approved products

Probing the Biosafety of Implantable Artificial Secretory Granules for the Sustained Release of Bioactive Proteins

Altres ajuts: acords transformatius de la UABAmong bio-inspired protein materials, secretory protein microparticles are of clinical interest as self-contained, slow protein delivery platforms that mimic secretory granules of the human endocrine system, in which the protein is both the drug and the scaffold. Upon subcutaneous injection, their progressive disintegration results in the sustained release of the building block polypeptides, which reach the bloodstream for systemic distribution and subsequent biological effects. Such entities are easily fabricated in vitro by Zn-assisted cross-molecular coordination of histidine residues. Using cationic Zn for the assembly of selected pure protein species and in the absence of any heterologous holding material, these granules are expected to be nontoxic and therefore adequate for different clinical uses. However, such presumed biosafety has not been so far confirmed and the potential protein dosage threshold not probed yet. By selecting the receptor binding domain (RBD) from the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spike protein as a model protein and using a mouse lab model, we have explored the toxicity of RBD-made secretory granules at increasing doses up to ∼100 mg/kg of animal weight. By monitoring body weight and biochemical blood markers and through the histological scrutiny of main tissues and organs, we have not observed systemic toxicity. Otherwise, the bioavailability of the material was demonstrated by the induction of specific antibody responses. The presented data confirm the intrinsic biosafety of artificial secretory granules made by recombinant proteins and prompt their further clinical development as self-contained and dynamic protein reservoirs

Resistencia a la insulina y Enfermedad de Alzheimer prodrómica en la Comunidad de La Rioja: primeras impresiones

Trabajo presentado en la XLIII Reunión de la Sociedad de Neurología del País Vasco, celebrada en Vitoria (España), el 6 de mayo de 202

Trade openness, income levels, and economic growth: the case of developing countries, 1970–2009.

This paper attempts to investigate the extent to which trade openness has had an impact on the levels of income and rates of growth in a sample of 115 developing countries for the period 1970–2009. Additionally, to assess whether there is an income level threshold for a country to benefit from international trade, the sample is broken down into three mutually exclusive groups of countries: low-income, lower middle-income, and upper middleincome countries. The main novelty of the paper lies on the use, on the one hand, of a new and better trade openness measure and, on the other hand, of non-stationary heterogeneous panel cointegration techniques to cope with the problem of cross-sectional dependence. The results show a positive bidirectional relationship between trade openness and income level in the long run, thus suggesting that trade openness is both a cause and a consequence of the level of income. The results for the short run, that is, the link between openness growth and economic growth, go in the same direction

Resposta in vitro de Células Gliossarcoma 9L após Terapia Fotodinâmica utilizando Imagem de Bioluminescência

Objetivos: O presente estudo tem o objetivo de demonstrar os resultados iniciais da utilização da técnica de imagem de bioluminescência como método de monitoramento do tratamento de células de gliossarcoma de rato 9L após Terapia Fotodinâmica (TFD) utilizando o ácido aminolevulínico (ALA) como agente fotossensibilizante. Métodos: Para o presente estudo, células 9L foram transfectadas com um plasmídeo contendo o gene da luciferase, permitindo que essa linhagem celular produzisse a proteína luciferase, um dos substratos necessários para a reação de bioluminescência. No presente estudo, a TFD foi realizada utilizando diferentes doses de luz e de ácido aminolevulínico. Para validar a técnica de imagem de bioluminescência como método para o monitoramento da resposta de células tumorais e para a verificação da correlação entre o sinal luminoso e o grau de morte celular após TFD, foi utilizado o ensaio de viabilidade celular com Sulforodamina B (SRB). Resultados: Os resultados deste trabalho mostram alta correlação entre o número de células e o sinal de bioluminescência (R2 = 0,996). Os ensaios de viabilidade celular utilizando a técnica SRB, mostraram excelente correlação entre o número relativo de células sobreviventes após TFD e o sinal de bioluminescência, mostrando que a técnica de imagem de bioluminescência pode ser utilizada para o monitoramento da resposta tumoral após o tratamento de células tumorais com TFD. Os resultados do tratamento das células com terapia fotodinâmica mostram que a taxa de indução de morte celular varia de acordo com a dose de luz e fotossensibilizante empregada durante o tratamento. Nesse sentido, doses maiores de TFD resultaram em níveis mais elevados de indução de morte celular, com efeitos mais prolongados observados através do sinal bioluminescente decorridos 48 horas após a TFD. Conclusão: Este estudo demonstra que a técnica de imagem de bioluminescência pode ser utilizada para o estudo dos efeitos da terapia fotodinâmica em células tumorais. Trabalhos em animais estão em andamento no presente momento para validar a técnica de imagem de bioluminescência após TFD in vivo