Combining immune cell and viral therapy for the treatment of cancer

A variety of viral-based and immune cell therapies have been proposed for use in the treatment of cancer. One possible approach to improve the effectiveness of these biological agents may be to combine them such that we can take advantage of natural immune cell-pathogen relationships. Here we discuss these potential approaches with particular emphasis on the use of immune cells as carrier vehicles to deliver viral therapies to the tumor. Received 15 December 2006; received after revision 28 January 2007; accepted 5 March 2007     

The cold case: Are rhinoviruses perfectly adapted pathogens?

Rhinoviruses, which cause common cold, belong to the Picornaviridae family, small non-enveloped viruses (diameter 15-30 nm) containing a single-stranded RNA genome (about 7 kb). Over 100 different rhinoviral serotypes have been identified thus far, establishing rhinoviruses as the most diverse group of Picornaviridae. Based on receptor binding properties, rhinoviruses are divided into two classes: the major group binding to intracellular adhesion molecule-1 and the minor group binding to the very low density lipoprotein receptors. Interactions between virus and the receptor molecules cause a conformational change in the capsid, which is a prerequisite for viral uptake. Rhinoviruses trigger a chemokine response upon infection that may lead to exacerbation of the symptoms of common cold, i.e. asthma and inflammation. The following review aims to summarize the knowledge about rhinoviral infections and discusses therapeutical approaches against this almost perfectly adapted pathogen.     

激光治疗肿瘤的计算研究

根据激光治疗肿瘤的机理建立了激光治疗肿瘤的理论计算模型,并应用有限元计算方法对双光纤照射椭球形肿瘤组织的模型进行了定量计算研究;研究结果表明,对于长轴为2.0 cm、短轴为1.2 cm的实心椭球形肿瘤体,将2个直径为0.4 mm的球状光纤对称放置在主轴上相距0.8~1.0 cm的范围内,可以使光动力学的效果和热疗的效果同时达到最佳值。     

无意识概念在精神医学中的演变

随着精神医学的发展,无意识概念的内涵及其在精神医学中所扮演的角色也不断演变.回顾历史,这种演变大致经历了三个阶段:精神分析理论诞生前,无意识就已作为精神疾病的病因而受到关注;随着精神分析理论的提出,无意识则开始主要地被视作精神疾病治疗的要点.50年代起,神经生物学取得巨大进展,精神病学家又在此基础上为我们揭示了一种作为心智活动的背景和素材的无意识,就对无意识本身的分析而言,这个时期的理论较此前有了更深入的发展.     

Revisiting Targeted Factors

This paper proposes new methods for ‘targeting’ factors estimated from a big dataset. We suggest that forecasts of economic variables can be improved by tuning factor estimates: (i) so that they are both more relevant for a specific target variable; and (ii) so that variables with considerable idiosyncratic noise are down‐weighted prior to factor estimation. Existing targeted factor methodologies are limited to estimating the factors with only one of these two objectives in mind. We therefore combine these ideas by providing new weighted principal components analysis (PCA) procedures and a targeted generalized PCA (TGPCA) procedure. These methods offer a flexible combination of both types of targeting that is new to the literature. We illustrate this empirically by forecasting a range of US macroeconomic variables, finding that our combined approach yields important improvements over competing methods, consistently surviving elimination in the model confidence set procedure. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

甲地孕酮改善晚期肿瘤患者生活质量的疗效观察

目的:观察国产甲地孕酮改善晚期肿瘤患者生活质量的疗效.方法:110例晚期肿瘤患者分为两组,治疗组60例,常规化疗同时口服甲地孕酮,对照组50例仅行常规化疗,观察两组治疗前后生活质量的变化.结果:治疗组食欲改善占80%,体重增加占70%,生活质量指数评分提高占65%.平均生存时间延长,超过6月占55%,明显优于对照组(P＜0.01),化疗后胃肠道反应及白细胞降低明显低于对照组(P＜0.05).结论:甲地孕酮能明显改善晚期肿瘤恶液质状况、提高生活质量、减少化疗后的不良反应发生率,未见明显毒副作用.     

铋基纳米材料在肿瘤诊治和抗菌中的应用进展

随着纳米技术的快速发展,纳米材料作为新型生物材料在生物医学领域表现出独特的优势,受到研究人员的广泛关注。铋基纳米材料因其良好的生物相容性和优异的光学等物理化学特性,在肿瘤诊治和抗菌等生物医学领域的应用已被广泛研究和报道,并展现出广阔的应用前景。简要综述了生物医用铋基纳米材料在计算机断层扫描成像、光声成像等生物成像和光动力治疗、放射治疗、光热治疗等肿瘤治疗以及抗菌中的研究进展,希望为铋基纳米材料在生物医学领域中的应用提供帮助。     

Anti-amyloidogenic therapies: strategies for prevention and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease

Deposition of amyloid β-protein (Aβ) in the brain is an early and invariant neuropathological feature of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The current search for anti-AD drugs is mainly focused on modification of the process of accumulation of Aβ in the brain. Here, we review four anti-amyloidogenic strategies: (i) reduction of Aβ production, which has mainly been approached with secretase inhibition, (ii) promotion of the Aβ degrading catabolic pathway, including an Aβ degrading enzyme, neprilysin, (iii) immunotherapy for Aβ and (iv) inhibition of Aβ aggregation. We have reported that AD patients have a favorable molecular environment for Aβ aggregation and that various compounds, such as polyphenols, interfere with Aβ aggregation and destabilize preformed Aβ fibrils. Received 21 December 2005; received after revision 14 February 2006; accepted 29 March 2006