446 research outputs found
Cardiotoxicity of Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors in Philadelphia-Positive Leukemia Patients
No full textIn the past twenty years, tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) have substantially changed the therapeutic landscape and the clinical outcome of several cancers, including Philadelphia-chromosome positive chronic myeloid leukemia and acute lymphoblastic leukemia, chronic eosinophilic syndromes, gastrointestinal stromal tumors, and others. Despite the obvious advantages offered in terms of efficacy and the overall safety profile, this new class of agents presents novel side effects, sometimes different from those induced by conventional chemotherapy. Among others, the potential cardiac toxicity, characterized by possible arrhythmias and the highest rates of cardiac ischemic disease and heart failure, were predominantly investigated. In this article, the authors review the most significant evidence in this regard, highlighting the overall benefit of TKI usage and the need for careful monitoring, especially in elderly patients
Giovanni Muzio e il progetto per il "Villaggio SAFFA" a Pontenuovo di Magenta (MI), 1954-1962
No full textBetween the 1950s and the 1960s the Società Italiana Fabbriche Fiammiferi e Affini (SAFFA) entrusted the Milanese architect Giovanni Muzio (1893-1982) with the design of some public buildings intended for the working community of the industrial settlement of Pontenuovo di Magenta, in the province of Milan. The initiative, materialized in a small company town, offered Muzio the opportunity to look at similar episodes in Northern Europe, making the village of Pontenuovo an emblematic case of reception of the design culture of Germany, Scandinavia, and the Baltic regions in the Italian context. Through the analysis of archival sources and unpublished documents, the contribution focuses on the genesis of the settlement and on Muzio’s architectures, highlighting the links with possible Nordic and Germanic models and drawing attention to the condition of decay and abandonment in which the settlement has been lying since 2005, when SAFFA ceased its activity
Development and test of large size GEM detectors
No full textWe discuss the main operating features of GEM detectors, optimized for use as trackers in a high radiation environment. The construction, tests and performances of large prototypes for the COMPASS experiment are also described, as well as the results of an exposure to very high intensity beams. (11 refs)
A direct, real-time, size-resolved analytical strategy to follow drug loading and release from biocompatible gold nanoparticles
No full textBackground: Analytical methods for the characterization of nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems often rely on the quantification of unbound drug to provide information on drug loading and delivery, but fail to account for system complexity, address the state of the releasing system, or simulate the physiological environment. There is a clear need for new analytical methods capable of following the entire process of drug loading, stability and release under physiological conditions, based on multi-parametric analytical platforms. Asymmetric flow field-flow fractionation (AF4) can be used to size sort and isolate nanoparticles for further analysis or characterization by online, uncorrelated techniques. Results: We propose AF4 coupled with online multiple detectors to investigate the model drug delivery system consisting of albumin (BSA)-coated gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) loaded with curcumin (CUR). A maximum loading efficiency of 88.9 % is achieved by optimizing various experimental parameters. The absorbance ratio of nanocarriers at 401 nm and 530 nm was successfully proposed as an index for evaluating drug loading (full load was 0.77 ± 0.01) and release from the carrier surface. At 37 °C, Au-BSA-CUR exhibits rapid drug release, achieving 34.8 % total release. This process is accompanied by swift degradation and efficient diffusion of the drug into the surrounding reservoir (∼30 %). The appearance of new absorbance peaks in fractograms (curcumin aggregation) at lower temperatures (20 or 30 °C) indicates the special properties of hydrophobic drugs, which are monitored by the AF4 platform for the first time. Significance: The tailored strategy employed in our investigation provided detailed, real-time, in situ analysis, making it a powerful tool for designing and optimizing drug delivery systems, providing insight into both loading and release mechanisms, assessing nanoparticle stability, and tolerating saline media. These results suggest that AF4-DAD-MALS is a more reliable and insightful technique for studying the stability, loading efficiency, and release dynamics of nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems
Congenitally corrected transposition of the great arteries in an 83-year-old asymptomatic patient: Description and literature review
No full textWe describe the case of an 83-year-old asymptomatic man followed in our centre. Transoesophageal echocardiography disclosed congenitally corrected transposition of great arteries (CCTGA) with no associated anomalies and only mild aortic regurgitation. Cardiac MR confirmed the diagnosis and revealed preserved systemic ventricle systolic function with a normal perfusional pathway. This report is a demonstration that CCTGA without associated anomalies can reach older life in an asymptomatic condition. This is the oldest asymptomatic living patient with CCTGA ever described
Con gli occhi di D’Annunzio e Berenson: I viaggi paralleli di Anne MacDonell e Carlo Placci nell’Italia di mezzo
No full textAll'inizio del Novecento l'Abruzzo fu la meta di due viaggi paralleli, ma del tutto diversi: uno fu compiuto da Anne MacDonell, scrittrice e traduttrice inglese di vaglia, l'altro coinvolse Carlo Placci, mondano intellettuale e giornalista di fama internazionale. Entrambi lasciarono memoria scritta di quelle esperienze: la prima con un dettagliato resoconto odeporico pubblicato come volume illustrato nel 1908, il secondo con un ben più breve racconto che apparve inizialmente su «Il Marzocco» l’8 luglio 1906 e fu poi incluso due anni dopo nella raccolta In Automobile (1908). Partendo dai punti in comune tra l’autrice e lo scrittore – cronologia e luoghi descritti, contesto e riferimenti culturali a loro disposizione – il contributo intende offrire una prima riflessione su come gli evidenti fattori di diversità tra MacDonell e Placci abbiano influenzato i rispettivi racconti
Field-Flow Fractionation in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology
No full text: Field-flow fractionation (FFF) is a family of single-phase separative techniques exploited to gently separate and characterize nano- and microsystems in suspension. These techniques cover an extremely wide dynamic range and are able to separate analytes in an interval between a few nm to 100 μm size-wise (over 15 orders of magnitude mass-wise). They are flexible in terms of mobile phase and can separate the analytes in native conditions, preserving their original structures/properties as much as possible. Molecular biology is the branch of biology that studies the molecular basis of biological activity, while biotechnology deals with the technological applications of biology. The areas where biotechnologies are required include industrial, agri-food, environmental, and pharmaceutical. Many species of biological interest belong to the operational range of FFF techniques, and their application to the analysis of such samples has steadily grown in the last 30 years. This work aims to summarize the main features, milestones, and results provided by the application of FFF in the field of molecular biology and biotechnology, with a focus on the years from 2000 to 2022. After a theoretical background overview of FFF and its methodologies, the results are reported based on the nature of the samples analyzed
Emerging Microfluidic Tools for Simultaneous Exosomes and Cargo Biosensing in Liquid Biopsy: New Integrated Miniaturized FFF-Assisted Approach for Colon Cancer Diagnosis
No full textThe early-stage diagnosis of cancer is a crucial clinical need. The inadequacies of surgery tissue biopsy have prompted a transition to a less invasive profiling of molecular biomarkers from biofluids, known as liquid biopsy. Exosomes are phospholipid bilayer vesicles present in many biofluids with a biologically active cargo, being responsible for cell-to-cell communication in biological systems. An increase in their excretion and changes in their cargo are potential diagnostic biomarkers for an array of diseases, including cancer, and they constitute a promising analyte for liquid biopsy. The number of exosomes released, the morphological properties, the membrane composition, and their content are highly related to the physiological and pathological states. The main analytical challenge to establishing liquid biopsy in clinical practice is the development of biosensors able to detect intact exosomes concentration and simultaneously analyze specific membrane biomarkers and those contained in their cargo. Before analysis, exosomes also need to be isolated from biological fluids. Microfluidic systems can address several issues present in conventional methods (i.e., ultracentrifugation, size-exclusion chromatography, ultrafiltration, and immunoaffinity capture), which are time-consuming and require a relatively high amount of sample; in addition, they can be easily integrated with biosensing systems. A critical review of emerging microfluidic-based devices for integrated biosensing approaches and following the major analytical need for accurate diagnostics is presented here. The design of a new miniaturized biosensing system is also reported. A device based on hollow-fiber flow field-flow fractionation followed by luminescence-based immunoassay is applied to isolate intact exosomes and characterize their cargo as a proof of concept for colon cancer diagnosis
Muon capture in gaseous hydrogen
No full textAn experiment to measure the muon nuclear capture rate in ultrapure gaseous hydrogen (8 atm, 293 K) has been performed using a special target in which a system of gas proportional counters, working with the pure hydrogen of the target itself, were operating. Neutrons from the capture reactions were detected using a scintillator-counter technique, and the gamma-ray background was eliminated by pulse-shape discrimination. The working conditions ensured that the captures were taking place in the mu-p atomic systems in a singlet total-spin state. The experimental result is Lambda_expt = (651 +- 57) 1/sec, which has to be compared with the theoretical rate Lambda_s,theor = (626 +- 26) 1/sec. From the experimental capture rate, and within the framework of the currently accepted theory, we have obtained for the induced pseudoscalar coupling constant g_p = (-7.3 +- 3.7) g_v. The results of the present experiment are analyzed, together with the results obtained from stopping negative muons in liquid hydrogen
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