MICROFLUIDIC LIVE-IMAGING WITH CELLVIEWER TECHNOLOGY TO PERFORM BIOTECHNOLOGICAL TASKS

Cells grown in a monolayer tend to flatten in the lower part of the plate adhering to and spreading in the horizontal plane without expanding in the vertical dimension. The result is that cells grown in 2D have a forced apex-basal polarity. Microfluidic Live-Imaging with CellViewer technology is an ideal solution to observe the maintenance of a cell in excellent health, trying to bridge the gap between the 2D and 3D model. In this work we propose to test the system on a single isolated Jurkat cell in the microfluidic cartridge and record the timelapse for 4 hours. After adaptive autofocus, when sliding inside the cartridge chamber, the single cell is tracked under the action of the optics and the 3D rotation was experimentally successfully achieved. Then a single cell viability assessment was used using MitoGreen-dye a fluorescence marker selectively permeable to live cells. ImageJ software was used to: calculate the diameter of a single cell, create fluorescence intensity graphs along a straight line passing through the cell, visualize spatial fluorescence intensity distribution in 3D

A bioinspired humanoid foot mechanism

© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This paper introduces an innovative robotic foot design inspired by the functionality and the anatomy of the human foot. Most humanoid robots are characterized by flat, rigid feet with limited mobility, which cannot emulate the physical behavior of the foot-ground interaction. The proposed foot mechanism consists of three main bodies, to represent the heel, plant, and toes, connected by compliant joints for improved balancing and impact absorption. The functional requirements were extracted from medical literature, and were acquired through a motion capture system, and the proposed design was validated with a numerical simulation

Safety of Rotavirus Vaccination in Preterm Infants Admitted in Neonatal Intensive Care Units in Sicily, Italy: A Multicenter Observational Study

Rotavirus (RV) is among the most common vaccine-preventable diseases in children under five years of age. Despite the severity of rotavirus pathology in early childhood, rotavirus vaccination for children admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), who are often born preterm and with various previous illnesses, is not performed. This multicenter, 3-year project aims to evaluate the safety of RV vaccine administration within the six main neonatal intensive care units of the Sicilian Region to preterm infants. Methods: Monovalent live attenuated anti-RV vaccination (RV1) was administered from April 2018 to December 2019 to preterm infants with gestational age ≥ 28 weeks. Vaccine administrations were performed in both inpatient and outpatient hospital settings as a post discharge follow-up (NICU setting) starting at 6 weeks of age according to the official immunization schedule. Any adverse events (expected, unexpected, and serious) were monitored from vaccine administration up to 14 days (first assessment) and 28 days (second assessment) after each of the two scheduled vaccine doses. Results: At the end of December 2019, 449 preterm infants were vaccinated with both doses of rotavirus vaccine within the six participating Sicilian NICUs. Mean gestational age in weeks was 33.1 (±3.8 SD) and the first dose of RV vaccine was administered at 55 days (±12.9 SD) on average. The mean weight at the first dose was 3388 (SD ± 903) grams. Only 0.6% and 0.2% of infants reported abdominal colic and fever above 38.5 ◦C in the 14 days after the first dose, respectively. Overall, 1.9% EAEs were observed at 14 days and 0.4% at 28 days after the first/second dose administration. Conclusions: Data obtained from this study confirm the safety of the monovalent rotavirus vaccine even in preterm infants with gestational age ≥ 28 weeks, presenting an opportunity to improve the vaccination offer both in Sicily and in Italy by protecting the most fragile infants who are more at risk of contracting severe rotavirus gastroenteritis and nosocomial RV infection

How future surgery will benefit from SARS-COV-2-related measures: a SPIGC survey conveying the perspective of Italian surgeons

COVID-19 negatively affected surgical activity, but the potential benefits resulting from adopted measures remain unclear. The aim of this study was to evaluate the change in surgical activity and potential benefit from COVID-19 measures in perspective of Italian surgeons on behalf of SPIGC. A nationwide online survey on surgical practice before, during, and after COVID-19 pandemic was conducted in March-April 2022 (NCT:05323851). Effects of COVID-19 hospital-related measures on surgical patients' management and personal professional development across surgical specialties were explored. Data on demographics, pre-operative/peri-operative/post-operative management, and professional development were collected. Outcomes were matched with the corresponding volume. Four hundred and seventy-three respondents were included in final analysis across 14 surgical specialties. Since SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, application of telematic consultations (4.1% vs. 21.6%; p < 0.0001) and diagnostic evaluations (16.4% vs. 42.2%; p < 0.0001) increased. Elective surgical activities significantly reduced and surgeons opted more frequently for conservative management with a possible indication for elective (26.3% vs. 35.7%; p < 0.0001) or urgent (20.4% vs. 38.5%; p < 0.0001) surgery. All new COVID-related measures are perceived to be maintained in the future. Surgeons' personal education online increased from 12.6% (pre-COVID) to 86.6% (post-COVID; p < 0.0001). Online educational activities are considered a beneficial effect from COVID pandemic (56.4%). COVID-19 had a great impact on surgical specialties, with significant reduction of operation volume. However, some forced changes turned out to be benefits. Isolation measures pushed the use of telemedicine and telemetric devices for outpatient practice and favored communication for educational purposes and surgeon-patient/family communication. From the Italian surgeons' perspective, COVID-related measures will continue to influence future surgical clinical practice

Automatic Photo-Cross-Linking System for Robotic-Based In Situ Bioprinting

This work reports the design and validation of an innovative automatic photo-cross-linking device for robotic-based in situ bioprinting. Photo-cross-linking is the most promising polymerization technique when considering biomaterial deposition directly inside a physiological environment, typical of the in situ bioprinting approach. The photo-cross-linking device was designed for the IMAGObot platform, a 5-degree-of-freedom robot re-engineered for in situ bioprinting applications. The system consists of a syringe pump extrusion module equipped with eight light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with a 405 nm wavelength. The hardware and software of the robot were purposely designed to manage the LEDs switching on and off during printing. To minimize the light exposure of the needle, thus avoiding its clogging, only the LEDs opposite the printing direction are switched on to irradiate the newly deposited filament. Moreover, the LED system can be adjusted in height to modulate substrate exposure. Different scaffolds were bioprinted using a GelMA-based hydrogel, varying the printing speed and light distance from the bed, and were characterized in terms of swelling and mechanical properties, proving the robustness of the photo-cross-linking system in various configurations. The system was finally validated onto anthropomorphic phantoms (i.e., a human humerus head and a human hand with defects) featuring complex nonplanar surfaces. The designed system was successfully used to fill these anatomical defects, thus resulting in a promising solution for in situ bioprinting applications