Preliminary Development of a Magnetically Assisted Test Strip (MATS) Cartridge and Fluorescent DNA Aptamer-Magnetic Bead Quantum Dot Sandwich Assays for Multiplexed Food Safety Applications

Preliminary development of a simple mesofluidic multi-channel plastic cartridge with underlying external magnet to drag DNA aptamer-coated paramagnetic beads through fluids in the channels while developing a sandwich assay with quantum dot-conjugated reporter aptamers is described. 

This approach is superior to traditional lateral flow test strips in several ways including: 1) the ability to control the speed of lateral flow inthe channel versus conventional nitrocellulose analytical membranes with fixed wicking times. 2) The use of aptamers for potentially greater affinity and consistency from batch-to-batch versus comparable antibodies. 3) Superior fluorescence efficiency and intensity provided by quantum dots versus conventional fluorescent dyes and 4) the ability to multiplex based on the various colored emissions of different sized quantum dots when excited with a single ultra violet source. Development of the system from concept to prototype is described along with illustration of sensitive system performance for several food safety-related targets. The system is also clearly adaptable to rapid multiplex detection and sensitive quantitation of clinical biomarkers, drugs, environmental, veterinary or other target analytes.

Evaluating the Impact of Different Factors on Voxel-Based Classification Methods of ADNI Structural MRI Brain Images

In this work we introduce the use of penalized logistic regression (PLR) to the problem of classification of MRI images and automatic detection of Alzheimer’s disease. Classification of sMRI is approached as a large scale regularization problem which uses voxels as input features. 

We evaluate how differences in sMRI pre-processing steps such as smoothing, normalization, and template selection affect the performance of high dimensional classification methods. In addition, we compared the relative performance of PLR to a different approach based on support vector machines. To study these questions we used data from the Alzheimer Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI). 

New Insights on the Cardiovascular Inflammation due to Multi Layered Plaque Accumulation

Cellular functions such as the maintenance of homoeostasis are regulated by shear forces sensed by endothelial cells. The endothelial cells sense local changes by absorbing the stress and produces signals that either transduce chemical responses or transmit the same to regulate the cellular activity. Certain parts of our body are prone to plaque phenotype and they rupture due to plaque accumulation. The blood cells that are smaller in size under the normal conditions grow in size to block the blood flow through the arteries. Severe stenosis and the local particle concentration leads to high cardio vascular inflammation.

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Solid-phase Immuno Radio Metric Assay (IRMA) of 25-hydroxy Vitamin D and Displacement from Serum Binding Proteins for Resource-limited Settings

The development of a solid-phase immune radiometric assay to satisfy the pressing need for a simple yet effective method for measuring 25-hydroxyvitamin D[25(OH)D] in a serum and thus more suited to routine use in clinical biochemical laboratories. The aim of this study was not to compare our home made with commercially available method but tested for general assay performance, including homemade polyclonal antibody specificity. Methods: We used our home made radioiodine (125I)-based IRMA kit for the detection of 25(OH)D. 

It is based upon, non-competitive displacement agents which enable effective separation of vitamin D metabolites from binding proteins to enable the amount of vitamin D metabolites to be measured, without competing with the proteins or requiring its solvent extraction from the serum.Our package called: “cgea 25(OH)D-irma” is analytically, all qualities we expect from a good medical test kit, with a precision of coefficients below 13%as well as intra-series that in inter-series and inter-batch accuracy with a linearity estimated at 0.8ng/ml and good stability of the radio labeled trace(60 days). Conclusion: Simplification of the methods for extraction and separation has been a key feature in the improvement of assays for vitamin D in Democratic Republic of Congo. 

Enhancing Visual Evoked Potentials Detection with Use of Computational Intelligence Tools

The analysis of evoked potentials (EPs) in the electroencephalogram (EEG) is usually inspected visually and demands subjective interpretation of the results. This paper aims at combining an statistical criterion based on the magnitude square multiple coherence (MSMC) estimate with computational intelligence methods in order to estimate the EPs detection rate (DR) using only portions of the frequency spectrum. 

Thus, networks were used to predict the DR in EEG signals of 15 normal subjects during stroboscopic stimulation. The algorithms were designed to receive the spectral information of two, four or six EEG derivations as the input and DR as the output. Our best result shows that the artificial neural networks can estimate DR with correlation coefficient of 0.97 compared with MSMC, even when a reduced amount of spectral information from the data is available.

Old Wine in a New Bottle: Harnessing the Therapeutic Properties of Emodin Derivatives

Studies involving mechanism of emodin, an herbal extract, has revealed its potential as anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and anti-cancer agent. Emodin has been shown to successfully induce apoptosis, down-regulate cancer inducing genes, proving it to be a therapeutically significant pharmacophore. 

Modification of emodin and synthesis of various derivatives have successfully increased efficacy of the molecule in regulating various cellular pathway like MAPK signaling pathway, NF-κβsignaling pathway, ROS mediated pathways and apoptotic pathways. With the advent of various, anti-bacterial properties of emodin may come in rescue to combat emerging drug resistant microbial and parasitic strains. Different emodin derivatives, including the recently reported haloemodin, which inhibits bacterial topoisomerases, can be designed to generate future drugs against resistant pathogens.