Project description:Broadening the concept of suffering in dementia to five types of suffering including suffering of family caregivers as proposed by Terman et al., may help raise awareness on a need to relieve suffering when living with dementia and adopt a holistic approach. However, as objective criteria in advance care plans for severe enough suffering to stop assisted feeding or other life-sustaining treatment in people with advanced dementia, these still need interpretation in the context of, for example, available treatment, and change in coping. New is the proposal to broaden severe enough suffering to suffering of family, including "bi-directional empathic suffering." We believe this creates new dilemmas regarding responsibility and may increase feelings of guilt. Quantifying suffering by adding up moderate suffering could further complicate matters. Therefore, we argue that a health care professional should guide the process and assume responsibility over current decisions to follow a person's previous wishes.
Project description:In spite of its broad host range, adenovirus type 5 (Ad5) transduces a number of clinically relevant tissues and cell types inefficiently, mostly because of low expression of the coxsackievirus-adenovirus receptor (CAR). To improve gene transfer to such cells, we modified the Ad5 fiber knob to recognize novel receptors. We expressed a functional Ad5 fiber knob domain on the capsid of phage lambda and employed this display system to construct a large collection of ligands in the HI loop of the Ad5 knob. Panning this library on the CAR-negative mouse fibroblast cell line NIH 3T3 resulted in the identification of three clones with increased binding to these cells. Adenoviruses incorporating these ligands in the fiber gene transduced NIH 3T3 cells 2 or 3 orders of magnitude better than the parent vector. The same nonnative tropism was revealed in other cell types, independently of CAR expression. These Ad5 derivatives proved capable of transducing mouse and human primary immature dendritic cells with up to 100-fold increased efficiency.
Project description:Quantitative mass spectrometry has transformed proteomics by allowing the simultaneous quantification of thousands of proteins. To boost statistical power, it is necessary to increase sample sizes by combining patient-derived data from various institutions. However, this practice raises significant privacy concerns. We created this dataset comtaining 30 healthy donors and 30 patients suffering from focal segmental glomerulosclerosis - a rare kidney disease - and distributed them to three independent proteomics centers. This distributed data were used as a proof of concept to introduce FedProt - the first privacy-preserving tool for collaborative differential protein abundance analysis of distributed data.
Project description:Background/Objectives: Sleep disturbance is often observed in the context of chronic pain. We hypothesize that, by providing an immersive Virtual Reality (VR) experience with a serious game to chronic pain patients an hour before bedtime, attention can be diverted from the pain condition, consequently leading to improved sleep quality. The aim is to evaluate the efficacy of VR compared to usual care in reducing the number of awakenings during the night and increasing sleep efficiency in patients suffering from painful diabetic polyneuropathy (PDPN). Methods: Eight patients with PDPN were randomized to either two weeks of VR or two weeks of usual care, followed by a cross-over. The primary outcome measurements were sleep efficiency and number of awakenings during the night. As secondary outcomes, self-reported sleep quality, insomnia, pain catastrophizing, anxiety, depression, pain intensity, side effects and impression of change were evaluated. Results: Data of seven patients were analysed. Actigraphy data, self-reported sleep quality, insomnia, pain catastrophizing, anxiety, depression and pain intensity scores did not differ between usual care and VR. As for impression of change, more patients improved after VR compared to usual care (V = 21, p = 0.03). Conclusions: A 2-week period of pain neuroscience education through VR did not result in increased sleep efficiency or fewer awakenings compared to usual care in patients with PDPN. These pilot results indicate that patients subjectively experience an improvement, yet this is not substantiated by either self-reported or objective measurements.
Project description:Chimeric antigen receptor-modified T (CAR-T) cells have shown impressive results against relapsed/refractory B cell malignancies. However, the traditional manufacture of CAR-T cells requires leukapheresis to isolate large amounts of peripheral blood T cells, thus making some patients ineligible for the procedure. We developed a simple method for CAR-T cell preparation requiring small volumes of peripheral blood. First, CD3+ T cells isolated from 50 mL peripheral blood from patients (B-cell malignancies) were stimulated with immobilized anti-CD3/RetroNectin in 6-well plates and then transduced with CAR-expressing lentiviral vector. After 4 d, the T cells were transferred to culture bags for large-scale CAR-T cell expansion. In vitro and animal experiments were performed to evaluate the activity of the manufactured CAR-T cells. Finally, 29 patients with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) and 9 patients with B-cell lymphoma were treated with the CAR-T cells. The CAR-T cells were expanded to 1-3 × 108 cells in 8-10 d and successfully killed B cell-derived malignant tumor cells in vitro and in vivo. For patients with B-ALL, the complete remission rate was 93% 1 month after CAR-T cell infusion; after 12 months, the overall survival (OS) and leukemia-free survival rates were 69% and 31%, respectively. For patients with lymphoma, the objective response rate (including complete and partial remission) was 78% 2 months after CAR-T cell infusion, and after 12 months, the OS and progression-free survival rates were 71% and 43%, respectively. Cytokine-release syndrome (CRS) occurred in 65.51% and 55.56% of patients with B-ALL and B-cell lymphoma, respectively; severe CRS developed in 20.69% of patients with B-ALL and in no patients with lymphoma. Our novel method can generate sufficient numbers of CAR-T cells for clinical use from 50-100 mL peripheral blood, thus providing an alternative means of CAR-T cell generation for patients ineligible for leukapheresis.