Sickness In Humans Research Articles

Study on the prevalence of trematode cercariae infection in freshwater snails in Manipur, India.

Freshwater snails act as first intermediate carriers for numerous trematodes, which can induce sickness in both humans and animals. In Manipur, various species of freshwater snails have been discovered to harbor trematode infections. In this study, we aimed to assess the prevalence of different varieties of freshwater snail species serving as the primary, intermediate hosts for various trematodes in endemic areas of paragonimiasis, a disease caused by Paragonimus trematodes found in two separate regions, Luwangsangbam matai in the Imphal East district and Moreh in the Tengnoupal district of Manipur province. These areas are known to be endemic for human paragonimiasis. We examined 4074 snails, including Bortia costula, Filopaludina bengalensis, Paludomous pustulosa,Indoplanorbis exustus using the shedding and crushing method. Our findings revealed that 43(1.05%) snails were positive for different trematode cercariae. Specifically, Bortia costula was infected with Fasciola spp, and unidentified cercariae, while Filopaludina bengalensis and Paludomous pustulosa harboured Gymnacephalous and Echinostomous cercariae. Interestingly, Indoplanorbis exustus did not show any infection with trematode cercariae. A strong association was found between these types of snail species and cercarial infection. Furthermore, statistical analysis did not demonstrate a significant correlation between the geographical location and cercarial infection among snail species. Our study provides the current status of the prevalence of trematode cercarial infection in these snails, offering insights into disease transmission dynamics and the role of snails in paragonimiasis epidemiology.

Forecasting deep learning-based risk assessment of vector-borne diseases using hybrid methodology.

Dengue fever is rapidly becoming Malaysia's most pressing health concern, as the reported cases have nearly doubled over the past decade. Without efficacious antiviral medications, vector control remains the primary strategy for battling dengue, while the recently introduced tetravalent immunization is being evaluated. The most significant and dangerous risk increasing recently is vector-borne illnesses. These illnesses induce significant human sickness and are transmitted by blood-feeding arthropods such as fleas, parasites, and mosquitos. A thorough grasp of various factors is necessary to improve prediction accuracy and typically generate inaccurate and unstable predictions, as well as machine learning (ML) models, weather-driven mechanisms, and numerical time series. In this research, we propose a novel method for forecasting vector-borne disease risk using Radial Basis Function Networks (RBFNs) and the Darts Game Optimizer (DGO) algorithm. The proposed approach entails training the RBFNs with historical disease data and enhancing their parameters with the DGO algorithm. To prepare the RBFNs, we used a massive dataset of vector-borne disease incidences, climate variables, and geographical data. The DGO algorithm proficiently searches the RBFN parameter space, fine-tuning the model's architecture to increase forecast accuracy. RBFN-DGO provides a potential method for predicting vector-borne disease risk. This study advances predictive demonstrating in public health by shedding light on effectively controlling vector-borne diseases to protect human populations. We conducted extensive testing to evaluate the performance of the proposed method to standard optimization methods and alternative forecasting methods. According to the findings, the RBFN-DGO model beats others in terms of accuracy and robustness in predicting the likelihood of vector-borne illness occurrences.

Depolymerization of SUMO chains induces slender to stumpy differentiation in T. brucei bloodstream parasites.

Trypanosoma brucei are protozoan parasites that cause sleeping sickness in humans and nagana in cattle. Inside the mammalian host, a quorum sensing-like mechanism coordinates its differentiation from a slender replicative form into a quiescent stumpy form, limiting growth and activating metabolic pathways that are beneficial to the parasite in the insect host. The post-translational modification of proteins with the Small Ubiquitin-like MOdifier (SUMO) enables dynamic regulation of cellular metabolism. SUMO can be conjugated to its targets as a monomer but can also form oligomeric chains. Here, we have investigated the role of SUMO chains in T. brucei by abolishing the ability of SUMO to polymerize. We have found that parasites able to conjugate only SUMO monomers are primed for differentiation. This was demonstrated for monomorphic lines that are normally unable to produce stumpy forms in response to quorum sensing signaling in mice, and also for pleomorphic cell lines in which stumpy cells were observed at unusually low parasitemia levels. SUMO chain mutants showed a stumpy compatible transcriptional profile and better competence to differentiate into procyclics. Our study indicates that SUMO depolymerization may represent a coordinated signal triggered during stumpy activation program.

Modelled impact of Tiny Targets on the distribution and abundance of riverine tsetse.

The insecticide-treated baits known as Tiny Targets are one of the cheapest means of controlling riverine species of tsetse flies, the vectors of the trypanosomes that cause sleeping sickness in humans. Models of the efficacy of these targets deployed near rivers are potentially useful in planning control campaigns and highlighting the principles involved. To evaluate the potential of models, we produced a simple non-seasonal model of the births, deaths, mobility and aging of tsetse, and we programmed it to simulate the impact of seven years of target use against the tsetse, Glossina fuscipes fuscipes, in the riverine habitats of NW Uganda. Particular attention was given to demonstrating that the model could explain three matters of interest: (i) good control can be achieved despite the degradation of targets, (ii) local elimination of tsetse is impossible if invasion sources are not tackled, and (iii) with invasion and target degradation it is difficult to detect any effect of control on the age structure of the tsetse population. Despite its simplifications, the model can assist planning and teaching, but allowance should be made for any complications due to seasonality and management challenges associated with greater scale.

Radioreparative Effect of Diode Laser on Leukopoiesis Recovery: A Pilot Study.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of laser therapy on leukopoiesis recovery after irradiation with ionizing radiation. A dose of ionizing radiation was used that induced the hematological form of radiation sickness, reducing the number of blood cells. Subsequently, mice were treated with non-ionizing laser radiation. Based on the examination of the peripheral blood, the study found that laser therapy significantly impacted the number of eosinophils and basophils two weeks after irradiation. Laser therapy also led to the faster reparation of the lymphocyte lineage of white blood cells (WBCs). The research showed that the examined therapeutic laser had a long-term radioreparative effect on gamma-irradiated mice, improving the absolute counts of different lines of WBCs. The results of this study could have implications for the treatment of radiation sickness in humans.

Advancing age grading techniques for Glossina morsitans morsitans, vectors of African trypanosomiasis, through mid-infrared spectroscopy and machine learning.

Tsetse are the insects responsible for transmitting African trypanosomes, which cause sleeping sickness in humans and animal trypanosomiasis in wildlife and livestock. Knowing the age of these flies is important when assessing the effectiveness of vector control programs and modelling disease risk. Current methods to assess fly age are, however, labour-intensive, slow, and often inaccurate as skilled personnel are in short supply. Mid-infrared spectroscopy (MIRS), a fast and cost-effective tool to accurately estimate several biological traits of insects, offers a promising alternative. This is achieved by characterising the biochemical composition of the insect cuticle using infrared light coupled with machine-learning (ML) algorithms to estimate the traits of interest. We tested the performance of MIRS in estimating tsetse sex and age for the first-time using spectra obtained from their cuticle. We used 541 insectary-reared Glossina m. morsitans of two different age groups for males (5 and 7 weeks) and three age groups for females (3 days, 5 weeks, and 7 weeks). Spectra were collected from the head, thorax, and abdomen of each sample. ML models differentiated between male and female flies with a 96% accuracy and predicted the age group with 94% and 87% accuracy for males and females, respectively. The key infrared regions important for discriminating sex and age classification were characteristic of lipid and protein content. Our results support the use of MIRS as a rapid and accurate way to identify tsetse sex and age with minimal pre-processing. Further validation using wild-caught tsetse could pave the way for this technique to be implemented as a routine surveillance tool in vector control programmes.

Campylobacteriosis: A rising threat in foodborne illnesses.

Campylobacteriosis is a foodborne illness that is contracted by eating contaminated food, particularly animal products like meat from diseased animals or corpses tainted with harmful germs. The epidemiology of campylobacteriosis varies significantly between low-, middle-, and high-income countries. Campylobacter has a complicated and poorly known survival strategy for getting past host barriers and causing sickness in humans. The adaptability of Campylobacter to unfavorable environments and the host's immune system seems to be one of the most crucial elements of intestinal colonization. A Campylobacter infection may result in fever, nausea, vomiting, and mild to severe bloody diarrhea in humans. Effective and rapid diagnosis of Campylobacter species infections in animal hosts is essential for both individual treatment and disease management at the farm level. According to the most recent meta-analysis research, the main risk factor for campylobacteriosis is travel, which is followed by eating undercooked chicken, being exposed to the environment, and coming into close contact with livestock. Campylobacter jejuni, and occasionally Campylobacter coli, are the primary causes of Campylobacter gastroenteritis, the most significant Campylobacter infection in humans for public health. The best antibiotic medications for eradicating and decreasing Campylobacter in feces are erythromycin, clarithromycin, or azithromycin. The best strategy to reduce the number of human infections caused by Campylobacter is to restrict the amount of contamination of the poultry flock and its products, even if the majority of infections are contracted through handling or ingestion of chicken.

LncRNA and Protein Expression Profiles Reveal Heart Adaptation to High-Altitude Hypoxia in Tibetan Sheep.

The Tibetan sheep has an intricate mechanism of adaptation to low oxygen levels, which is influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. The heart plays a crucial role in the adaptation of Tibetan sheep to hypoxia. In the present study, we utilized transcriptomic and proteomic technologies to comprehensively analyze and identify the long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), genes, proteins, pathways, and gene ontology (GO) terms associated with hypoxic adaptation in Tibetan sheep at three different altitudes (2500 m, 3500 m, and 4500 m). By integrating the differentially expressed (DE) lncRNA target genes, differentially expressed proteins (DEPs), and differentially expressed genes (DEGs), we were able to identify and characterize the mechanisms underlying hypoxic adaptation in Tibetan sheep. Through this integration, we identified 41 shared genes/proteins, and functional enrichment analyses revealed their close association with lipid metabolism, glycolysis/gluconeogenesis, and angiogenesis. Additionally, significant enrichment was observed in important pathways such as the PPAR signaling pathway, glycolysis/gluconeogenesis, the oxoacid metabolic process, and angiogenesis. Furthermore, the co-expression network of lncRNAs and mRNAs demonstrated that lncRNAs (MSTRG.4748.1, ENSOART00020025894, and ENSOART00020036371) may play a pivotal role in the adaptation of Tibetan sheep to the hypoxic conditions of the plateau. In conclusion, this study expands the existing database of lncRNAs and proteins in Tibetan sheep, and these findings may serve as a reference for the prevention of altitude sickness in humans.

Anthelmintic efficacy evaluation and mechanism of N-methylbenzo[d]oxazol-2-amine

Parasitic roundworms cause significant sickness and mortality in animals and humans. In livestock, these nematodes have severe economic impact and result in losses in food production on a global scale. None of the currently available drugs ideally suit all treatment circumstances, and the development of drug-resistant nematode strains has become a challenge to control the infection. There is an urgent need to develop novel anthelmintic compounds. According to our previous report, N-methylbenzo[d]oxazol-2-amine (1) showed anthelmintic activity and lowest cytotoxicity. In this study, in vivo anthelmintic properties were evaluated using Trichinella spiralis infected mice. Toxicity was evaluated using the rats and mode of action using molecular docking and metabolomics approaches. The in vivo results demonstrate that a dose of 250 mg/kg reduced the T. spiralis abundance in the digestive tract by 49%. The 250 mg/kg Albendazole was served as control. The relatively low acute toxicity was categorized into chemical category 5, with an LD50 greater than 2000 mg/kg body. Molecular docking analysis showed the T. spiralis tubulin beta chain and glutamate-gated channels might not be the main targets of compound 1. Metabolomics analysis was used to explain the effects of compound 1 on the T. spiralis adult worm. The results demonstrated that compound 1 significantly up-regulated the metabolism of purine, pyrimidine and down-regulated sphingolipid metabolism. In conclusion, compound 1 could be a potential molecule for anthelmintic development. The bioavailability, pharmacokinetics, and absorption of this compound should be studied further to provide information for its future efficacy improvement.

У истоков изучения патогенеза лучевой болезни

On June 29, 1946, on the initiative of E.I. Smirnov and A.I. Burnazyan, a radiation laboratory was organized in order to study the effect of radiation on the human body and develop possible means of treating and protecting humans from the effects of the radiation factor. 2 years later (1948), the Institute of Biophysics of the USSR Ministry of Health was created on its basis – one of the world’s largest scientific centers, where the formation and development of research in the field of radiobiology and radiation medicine, radiopharmaceuticals, and radiation hygiene took place. One of the first employees, future academician, chief immunologist of the country R.V. Petrov called them “Pioneers in the search for the prevention and treatment of radiation injury.” “It was morally easy for us,” wrote Rem Viktorovich, “we created not destructive, but life-saving means. The radiation state was revered for its aerobatics.” Specialists of the Institute of Biophysics made a significant contribution to the study of the pathogenesis and clinical picture of radiation sickness in animals and humans, the development of the fundamentals for the creation and synthesis of radioprotective drugs, means for the prevention and treatment of radiation injuries and their consequences, drugs that promote the accelerated removal of radioactive substances from the body, the development of diagnostic and therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals , as well as personal protective equipment.

Machine Intelligence Based Assessment of Nutritional Olfactory Features for Controlling Health Hazards Using Electronic Nose

Purpose: Purpose of this research is to carry out a machine learning intelligence based innovative method to determine quality of food which may be hazards to health if consumed by humans. This article detects human sickness by sensing nutrition that causes smells. Theoretical framework: In developing nations, people just focus on basic need of food rather than focusing on the quality and the nutritional values of food which are exhibiting hazards impact of unhealthy food on the lives of people. Many people are suffering from diabetics, cancers, cardiac problem, liver problems and stomach related health issues which are originated due to consumption of bad food. Consumers are satisfied with food quality, and more individuals are assessing it. Method/design/approach: As a methodology, an electronic nose uses chemical sensors to identify complicated odors. Standard technologies can detect gases from households, industries, and explosive materials. It cannot fulfill freshness requirements. Electronic noses, computer vision, and other sensory approaches may imitate human olfactory, taste, visual, and sensory qualities, both pleasantly and unpleasantly. Neural networks organize innovative artificial/mechanical intelligence systems to interpret fragrance recordings for human brain recognition. Inspired by human brain processing, we offer optimized feedback, centroid clustering, and self-organizing maps for machine learning systems to identify smell data. This work proposes a simulation technique based on benchmark datasets to achieve high type accuracy, precision, and recall for diverse scented records where additional information may be artificially/mechanically found. The centroid SOM research of olfaction involves investigating more physiologically and nutritionally feasible methods for mapping, understanding, and interpreting massive scent datasets for real-world applications. Results and conclusion: In all analyzed result and conclusion, the accuracy, precision, and recall of the clustering centroid with optimized feedback SOM are superior to the existing clustering approach. By simulating the data on different set of test and train data it has observed that Proposed (Cluster Centroid with SOM ) method is effective than the existing (Centroid) method. For example, 10% of test data existing method has 67.55% of accuracy and proposed method has 86.75% which is shown in result and conclusion section in details. Research implications: The research makes an effective contribution by demonstrating the potential and the need to adopt sustainable practices in the management of contemporary companies. Originality/value: The results and conclusion obtained in this research are unprecedented, innovative and relevant to the medico health community to avoid health diseases, in the context of reliability in social community suggest eating a fresh and pleasant food to avoid health diseases.

<i>Invitro</i> Antitrypanosomal activity of fractions of ethanol extract from <i>Terminalia cattapa</i> leaf against <i>Trypanosomal Brucei Brucei</i>

Trypanosomiasis is a tropical disease threatening human and animal health. Trypanosoma brucei brucei is unicellular parasites transmitted by the bite of tsetse fly and is the causative agent of sleeping sickness in humans and related diseases in animals. Over 25% of our common medicines contains some compounds obtained from plants. This research work is aimed at evaluating the invitro activity of fractionated ethanol extract of Terminalia cattapa leaf against Trypanosoma brucei brucei. Crude extract was obtained by cold maceration using absolute ethanol, followed by partial purification of the extract using column chromatography techniques. The test was performed in triplicates using a 96 well microtitre plate. Light microscope was used to view the parasite motility at magnification of × 400. Treatment with varying concentrations of pooled fractions F1, F2 and F3 (100, 50 and 25 mg/ml) resulted in reduction of number of motile parasites compared to the negative control loaded with parasites. In conclusion, fractions (F2 ans F3) from ethanol extracts of Terminalia cattapa leaf have anti-trypanosoma activities against Trypanosoma brucei brucei in a dose depended manner with F3 being the most potent..

Energy metabolic mechanisms for high altitude sickness: Downregulation of glycolysis and upregulation of the lactic acid/amino acid-pyruvate-TCA pathways and fatty acid oxidation

Hypobaric hypoxia is often associated with the plateau environment and can lead to altitude sickness or death. The underlying cause is a lack of oxygen, which limits energy metabolism and leads to a compensatory stress response. Although glycolysis is commonly accepted as the primary energy source during clinical hypoxia, our preliminary experiments suggest that hypobaric hypoxia may depress glycolysis. To provide a more comprehensive understanding of energy metabolism under short-term hypobaric hypoxia, we exposed mice to a simulated altitude of 5000 m for 6 or 12 h. After the exposure, we collected blood and liver tissues to quantify the substrates, enzymes, and metabolites involved in glycolysis, lactic acid metabolism, the tricarboxylic acid cycle (TCA), and fatty acid β-oxidation. We also performed transcriptome and enzymatic activity analyses of the liver. Our results show that 6 h of hypoxic exposure significantly increased blood glucose, decreased lactic acid and triglyceride concentrations, and altered liver enzyme activities of mice exposed to hypoxia. The key enzymes in the glycolytic, TCA, and fatty acid β-oxidation pathways were primarily affected. Specifically, the activities of key glycolytic enzymes, such as glucokinase, decreased significantly, while the activities of enzymes in the TCA cycle, such as isocitrate dehydrogenase, increased significantly. Lactate dehydrogenase, pyruvate carboxylase, and alanine aminotransferase were upregulated. These changes were partially restored when the exposure time was extended to 12 h, except for further downregulation of phosphofructokinase and glucokinase. This study demonstrates that acute high altitude hypoxia upregulated the lactic acid/amino acid-pyruvate-TCA pathways and fatty acid oxidation, but downregulated glycolysis in the liver of mice. The results obtained in this study provide a theoretical framework for understanding the mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis of high-altitude sickness in humans. Additionally, these findings have potential implications for the development of prevention and treatment strategies for altitude sickness.

THE STATE OF SAFETY AND QUALITY OF HONEYBEE BY-PRODUCTS: A REVIEW

Bee honey has been regarded as a prized and esteemed natural substance by humans since antiquity. The historical significance of bee products lies in their recognized medicinal properties, which have been appreciated for centuries. The utilization of bee products, such as honey, bee venom, beeswax, royal jelly, propolis, bee-collected pollen, and bee bread, as natural medicines is on the rise. This is due to the fact that they contain a high number of bioactive compounds, possess beneficial health properties, and are known for their effective healing capabilities. Apiarian products are highly recommended as nutritional supplements for human consumption. Fresh honey, in particular, has been traditionally used to treat various ailments such as eye disorders, throat infections, TB, hepatitis, and ulcers. Additionally, it is easily digested, making it an ideal dietary option for the elderly, especially for wound healing. It increases sperm production, and mental wellness, and is used in cosmetics. Old bees honey is employed to cure nausea, diarrhea obesity, and diabetes, and to preserve fruits and meats. Bee-derived honey is widely renowned for its exceptional properties that lend themselves well to cosmetic formulations. As a result, it is a popular ingredient in various beauty products such as facial cleansers, skin moisturizers, hair conditioners, and acne treatments, among others. Bees honey is one of nature’s greatest products, with a wide range of medicinal purposes. The honey quality or safety could be changed. Honey, owing to its innate properties and the meticulous control measures employed during production, contains only a limited variety and quantity of germs. The detection of certain microbes in honey is a concern during post-harvest processing, as some of them have the potential to cause sickness in humans, especially under certain conditions.

Approaches for the Detection of Escherichia coli in Wastewater: A Short Review

AbstractEscherichia coli is a harmful pathogenic bacterial species causing serious intestinal sickness in humans. This bacterium has been linked to contaminated epidemics that have led to significant mortality and morbidity across the world. E. coli, like most other waterborne infections, is tricky to discover effectively in the water supply. Therefore, there is a demand for advanced E. coli detection methods that can sensitively and rapidly detect these pathogens. This review reveals several approaches used for the detection of E. coli bacteria using conventional methods such as multiple tube fermentation and membrane filtration techniques. The emerging approaches give quite accurate and speedy identification despite the necessity for culturing; nevertheless, they lack precision and necessitate extra lab testing. Because analytical techniques such as GC‐DMS lack specificity, the invention of a sensing device that is simple to use, compact, extremely sensitive, and specific has proven essential in identifying incredibly low concentrations of harmful E. coli in drinking water.

Feeding frequency and its associated effects on the production and survival rate of Glossina fuscipes fuscipes

Tsetse flies are large blood-sucking flies of the genus Glossina, which are exclusively found in Africa. They are important vectors of Trypanosomes, which cause sleeping sickness in humans and African Animal Trypanosomosis (AAT) in livestock. Due to the lack of effective vaccines to control this disease, vector control has been an ideal strategy. There are many vector control methods developed so far. Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) is one of such method which depends on the mass production of male flies in the laboratory, sterilization, and release of these flies in the target area. The study was conducted to evaluate the effect of different feeding frequencies on the production and survival rate of Glossina fuscipes fuscipes to identify the best feeding frequency that could optimize the production and minimize the cost of production in a massrearing insectary facility at Kaliti Tsetse Fly Mass Rearing and Irradiation Centre, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Three experimental groups were established based on feeding frequency regimes. The first group was fed three times per week, the second four times per week, and the third group five times per week. Parameters that are routinely used for assessing colony performance such as; survival rate, fecundity, pupae per initial females (PPIF), and pupal quality were evaluated for each treatment group and statistical comparisons were made between the groups. The results revealed that feeding frequency had a crucial effect on fly production and survival. The lowest results for all parameters were obtained in flies fed three times per week and relatively the best results were obtained in the four-times-per-week feeding regime. Therefore, we recommend a further study on aspects that are not addressed in this study, such as emergency rate and progeny quality, to apply the four times per week feeding regime as it will have a positive economic impact that could enable more resources to be re-injected into the insectary compared to five or more feeding regimes which are currently in use in the study site.

Healthy-unhealthy animal detection using semi-supervised generative adversarial network.

Animal illness is a disturbance in an animal's natural condition that disrupts or changes critical functions. Concern over animal illnesses stretches back to the earliest human interactions with animals and is mirrored in early religious and magical beliefs. Animals have long been recognized as disease carriers. Man has most likely been bitten, stung, kicked, and gored by animals for as long as he has been alive; also, early man fell ill or died after consuming the flesh of deceased animals. Man has recently learned that numerous invertebrates are capable of transferring disease-causing pathogens from man to man or from other vertebrates to man. These animals, which function as hosts, agents, and carriers of disease, play a significant role in the transmission and perpetuation of human sickness. Thus, there is a need to detect unhealthy animals from a whole group of animals. In this study, a deep learning-based method is used to detect or separate out healthy-unhealthy animals. As the dataset contains a smaller number of images, an image augmentation-based method is used prior to feed the data in the deep learning network. Flipping, scale-up, sale-down and orientation is applied in the combination of one to four to increase the number of images as well as to make the system robust from these variations. One fuzzy-based brightness correction method is proposed to correct the brightness of the image. Lastly, semi-supervised generative adversarial network (SGAN) is used to detect the healthy-unhealthy animal images. As per our knowledge, this is the first article which is prepared to detect healthy-unhealthy animal images. The outcome of the method is tested on augmented COCO dataset and achieved 91% accuracy which is showing the efficacy of the method. A novel two-fold animal healthy-unhealthy detection system is proposed in this study. The result gives 91.4% accuracy of the model and detects the health of the animals in the pictures accurately. Thus, the system improved the literature on healthy-unhealthy animal detection techniques. The proposed approach may effortlessly be utilized in many computer vision systems that could be confused by the existence of a healthy-unhealthy animal.

Advances and Challenges in Stem Cell Culture

In recent years, stem cell therapy has become a very promising and complex scientific research topic. In the body, stem cells have the capacity to differentiate into a wide variety of cell types. They are capable to regenerate body system. Adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells are the two primary categories of stem cells. Through cell- replacement therapies, stem cell-based therapies can give the opportunity to replace lost, damaged, or old cells in order to regenerate or repair tissues and organs. Additionally, using genetically altered stem cells as delivery systems holds enormous potential for treating inherited genetic flaws and delivering therapeutic chemicals to specifically injured tissues and organs. The ensuing integration of science and medicine made possible by more research will enable the therapeutic application of ES cell technology. In the end, such a program might present a remarkable new weapon in the fight against human sickness.

Ag/Cu-Chitosan Composite Improves Laundry Hygiene and Reduces Silver Emission in Washing Machines.

Textiles can be contaminated with pathogens during household laundering, potentially leading to human sickness. In this work, chitosan (CTS) was used as a substrate to prepare Ag/Cu-CTS composite, which was applied in laundering and showed a remarkable antibacterial effect on Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus. The mechanical strength of Ag/Cu-CTS composite beads was higher than 400 MPa. The Ag/Cu-CTS composite were further characterized by scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectroscopy. This composite had a strong inhibitory effect on several laundry pathogens, such as Acinetobacter sp., Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Candida albicans. Using a standard laundering program and 15 g of Ag/Cu-CTS composite beads, the antibacterial rates reached 99.9%, and no silver emission was detected, thereby satisfying the Chinese requirement for washing machines. After 160 runs of laundering tests, this composite still has an excellent antibacterial effect. For the first time, chitosan is successfully applied as an antibacterial material on household electric appliances.

Drugging the Undruggable Trypanosoma brucei Monothiol Glutaredoxin 1.

Trypanosoma brucei is a species of kinetoplastid causing sleeping sickness in humans and nagana in cows and horses. One of the peculiarities of this species of parasites is represented by their redox metabolism. One of the proteins involved in this redox machinery is the monothiol glutaredoxin 1 (1CGrx1) which is characterized by a unique disordered N-terminal extension exclusively conserved in trypanosomatids and other organisms. This region modulates the binding profile of the glutathione/trypanothione binding site, one of the functional regions of 1CGrx1. No endogenous ligands are known to bind this protein which does not present well-shaped binding sites, making it target particularly challenging to target. With the aim of targeting this peculiar system, we carried out two different screenings: (i) a fragment-based lead discovery campaign directed to the N-terminal as well as to the canonical binding site of 1CGrx1; (ii) a structure-based virtual screening directed to the 1CGrx1 canonical binding site. Here we report a small molecule that binds at the glutathione binding site in which the binding mode of the molecule was deeply investigated by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR). This compound represents an important step in the attempt to develop a novel strategy to interfere with the peculiar Trypanosoma Brucei redox system, making it possible to shed light on the perturbation of this biochemical machinery and eventually to novel therapeutic possibilities.