100,158 research outputs found
Joshua Davis: Author of Spare Parts
No full textCitation: K-State First (2016). Joshua Davis: Author of Spare Parts [Flier]. Manhattan, Kansas: K-State First.Flyer advertising Joshua Davis's author talk at Kansas State University
Ruth Altmann, age nine, skiing in Austria
No full textPhoto of Ruth Altmann as a girl, skiing in Austria. She became Ruth Rogers-Altmann, a fashion designer and avid skier who frequently visited Alta, Uta
Ruth Altmann, circa early 1940s.
No full textPhoto of Ruth Rogers-Altmann skiing in the 1940s, possibly at Alta, Uta
Steven Johnson Author Talk Poster
No full textK-State Book NetworkA poster advertising an author talk by Steven Johnson at Kansas State University on September 3, 2014. Steven Johnson's book "The Ghost Map" was the 2014-2015 common book
Soft nanocarrier development as a versatile approach to brain delivery and targeting
No full textThe blood–brain barrier (BBB) is a selective system of endothelial cells, joined through the tight junctions, that protect and maintain the homeostasis of the Central Nervous System (CNS). Only small molecule or drugs, with high lipid solubility and a lower molecular mass under 400–500 Da, can cross the BBB in pharmacologically significant amounts, limiting the uptake of most therapeutic agents into the brain.
Currently, the management of neurological with aggressive and invasive techniques (surgery, see Appendix 3), achieves higher therapeutic effect compared to conventional delivery methods, such as systemic administration via intravenous injection or oral administration. However invasive techniques achieve less compliance.
This has led to the development of vogue treatments such as nose-to-brain technologies (see Appendix 2), FUS-induced BBB opening, fusion protein chaperones, stem cells, gene therapy, use of natural compounds and neuroprotectants, in order to increase the neuroavailability of various advanced drug delivery systems. These strategies provide promising alternatives that are able to ameliorate the treatment of brain disease.
At this purpose, several nanocarriers ranging from the more established systems, e.g. polymeric nanoparticles, liposomes, niosomes and micelles to the newer systems, e.g. nanoemulsions, micro and nano-bubbles, nanosuspensions and nanogels, have been studied for the delivery of therapeutics to CNS. Many of the proposed nanomedicines can be effectively transported across various in vitro and in vivo BBB models by endocytosis and/or transcytosis, and demonstrated early preclinical
success for the management of CNS conditions such as brain tumours, HIV encephalopathy, neurodegenerative disease and acute ischemic stroke. Future development of CNS nanomedicines need to focus on increasing their drug-trafficking performance and specificity for brain tissue using novel targeting moieties, improving their BBB permeability and reducing their neurotoxicity.
Targeted drug delivery is a means of concentrating drugs at a specific site relative to other parts of the body. It spares the rest of the body from toxic effects of the drug and it is also a potential means of improving therapeutic index.
This Ph.D. thesis focused on the study of the formulation of different nanocarriers for brain delivery
by two different administration routes: (1) Focused Ultrasound-mediated drug delivery, a technique that offer a unique non-invasive avenue to deliver drugs to the brain through transient opening of the BBB by using of ultrasound in combination with gas-filled bubbles. Our laboratory developed new carriers, the “Bubblesomes”®, able to combine the characteristics of a drug carrier and a contrast agent (theranostic system). When focused ultrasound is applied in presence of drug loaded nanobubbles intravenously administered, inertial cavitation is induced, due to the rapid expansion and violent collapsing of bubbles. This can cause the temporal and fully reversible opening of BBB due to the enhanced endothelial porosity and vascular permeability phenomenon called sonoporation, resulting in an increased drug uptake.
(2) Intranasal drug delivery, a non-invasive route to reach directly the brain, circumvent the BBB, from the nose along the olfactory and trigeminal nerve pathways. These nerve pathways initiate in the nasal cavity at olfactory neuroepithelium and terminate in the brain
Alf Engen and Ruth Rogers-Altmann, 1991.
No full textPhoto of Alf Engen with Ruth Rogers-Altmann at Alta, circa 1990-1991
Alf Engen and Ruth Altmann enjoying a day of skiing at Alta, 1990.
No full textPhoto of Alf Engen with Ruth Rogers Altmann at Alta, circa 1990-1991. Rogers-Altmann was a fashion designer and lifelong skiing enthusiast who frequently visited Alta, Uta
Disturbance of cerebral function in people exposed to drinking water contaminated with aluminium sulphate: retrospective study of the Camelford water incident
No full textObjective: To establish whether people exposed to drinking water contaminated with 20 tonnes of aluminium sulphate in the Camelford area of Cornwall in the south west of England in July 1988 had suffered organic brain damage as opposed to psychological trauma only.
Design: Retrospective study of affected people.
Participants: 55 affected people and 15 siblings nearest in age to one of the group but who had not been exposed to the contaminated water were studied.
Main outcome measures: Various clinical and psychological tests to determine medical condition and anxiety levels in affected people. Assessment of premorbid IQ (pFSIQ) with the national adult reading test, a computerised battery of psychomotor testing, and measurement of the difference in latencies between the flash and pattern visual evoked potentials in all participants.
Results: The mean (SE) pFSIQ was above average at 114.4 (1.1). The most sensitive of the psychomotor tests for organic brain disease was the symbol digit coding (SDC) test (normal score 100, abnormal less than 85). Participants performed less well on this test (54.5 (6.0)) than expected from their pFSIQ (Pless than 0.0001) and a little less poorly on the averaged less discriminating tests within the battery (86.1 (2.5), Pless than 0.0001). In a comparison with the 15 sibling pairs (affected people's age 41.0 (3.3) years vsibling age of 42.7 (3.1) years (P=0.36) the exposed people had similar pFSIQ (114.7 (2.1)) to their siblings (116.3 (2.1), (P=0.59) but performed badly on the symbol digit coding test (51.8 (16.6)) v(87.5 (4.9) for siblings, P=0.03). The flash-pattern differences in exposed people were greater than in 42 unrelated control subjects of similar age (27.33 (1.64) ms v18.57 (1.47) ms, P=0.0002). The 15 unexposed siblings had significantly better flash-pattern differences than their affected siblings (13.4 (2.4) ms v29.6 (2.9) ms, P=0.0002). No effect of anxiety could be shown on these measurements from the analysis of the anxiety scores of exposed people.
Conclusion: People who were exposed to the contaminated water at Camelford suffered considerable damage to cerebral function, which was not related to anxiety. Follow up studies would be required to determine the longer term prognosis for affected individuals
Falcarinol is a covalent cannabinoid CB1 receptor antagonist and induces pro-allergic effects in skin
No full textThe skin irritant polyyne falcarinol (panaxynol, carotatoxin) is found in carrots, parsley, celery, and in the medicinal plant Panax ginseng. In our ongoing search for new cannabinoid (CB) receptor ligands we have isolated falcarinol from the endemic Sardinian plant Seseli praecox. We show that falcarinol exhibits binding affinity to both human CB receptors but selectively alkylates the anandamide binding site in the CB(1) receptor (K(i)=594nM), acting as covalent inverse agonist in CB(1) receptor-transfected CHO cells. Given the inherent instability of purified falcarinol we repeatedly isolated this compound for biological characterization and one new polyyne was characterized. In human HaCaT keratinocytes falcarinol increased the expression of the pro-allergic chemokines IL-8 and CCL2/MCP-1 in a CB(1) receptor-dependent manner. Moreover, falcarinol inhibited the effects of anandamide on TNF-alpha stimulated keratinocytes. In vivo, falcarinol strongly aggravated histamine-induced oedema reactions in skin prick tests. Both effects were also obtained with the CB(1) receptor inverse agonist rimonabant, thus indicating the potential role of the CB(1) receptor in skin immunopharmacology. Our data suggest anti-allergic effects of anandamide and that falcarinol-associated dermatitis is due to antagonism of the CB(1) receptor in keratinocytes, leading to increased chemokine expression and aggravation of histamine action
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