Browsing by Issue Date, starting with "2024-06-07"
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- Impact of adverse childhood experiences in young adults and adults: a systematic literature reviewPublication . Silva, Candy; Moreira, Patrícia; Moreira, Diana Sá; Rafael, Filipa; Rodrigues, Anabela; Leite, Ângela; Lopes, Sílvia; Moreira, DianaBackground: Investigations have shown the different impacts that ACEs have on an individual’s adult life, on both physical and mental health, but they have not yet shown the issue of the influence of ACEs on adults and young adults. Objective/Participants and Setting: This systematic review, performed according to the PRISMA norms and guidelines, intended to understand the most frequent outcomes of adverse childhood experiences in the life of young adults and adults. Methods: Studies were identified through multiple literature search databases at EBSCOhost, Web of Science, and PubMed April 2023, and a total of 279 studies, published between 1999 and 2002, were excluded, 256 because of multiple factors: being duplicates, showing statistical analysis with correlations only, being systematic reviews or case studies, comprising individuals under the age of 18, and not meeting the intended theme; ultimately, we selected for the review a total of 23 studies. Results and Conclusions: The impacts of the various articles are subdivided into three main themes: antisocial and criminal behaviour; sexual Behaviour and intimate partner violence; and attachment, quality of life, and therapeutic alliance.
- Building an adverse outcome pathway network for COVID-19Publication . Nymark, Penny; Clerbaux, Laure Alix; Amorim, Maria João; Andronis, Christos; Bernardi, Francesca de; Bezemer, Gillina F. G.; Coecke, Sandra; Gavins, Felicity N. E.; Jacobson, Daniel; Lekka, Eftychia; Margiotta-Casaluci, Luigi; Martens, Marvin; Mayasich, Sally A.; Mortensen, Holly M.; Kim, Young Jun; Sachana, Magdalini; Tanabe, Shihori; Virvilis, Vassilis; Edwards, Stephen W.; Halappanavar, SabinaThe COVID-19 pandemic generated large amounts of data on the disease pathogenesis leading to a need for organizing the vast knowledge in a succinct manner. Between April 2020 and February 2023, the CIAO consortium exploited the Adverse Outcome Pathway (AOP) framework to comprehensively gather and systematically organize published scientific literature on COVID-19 pathology. The project considered 24 pathways relevant for COVID-19 by identifying essential key events (KEs) leading to 19 adverse outcomes observed in patients. While an individual AOP defines causally linked perturbed KEs towards an outcome, building an AOP network visually reflect the interrelatedness of the various pathways and outcomes. In this study, 17 of those COVID-19 AOPs were selected based on quality criteria to computationally derive an AOP network. This primary network highlighted the need to consider tissue specificity and helped to identify missing or redundant elements which were then manually implemented in the final network. Such a network enabled visualization of the complex interactions of the KEs leading to the various outcomes of the multifaceted COVID-19 and confirmed the central role of the inflammatory response in the disease. In addition, this study disclosed the importance of terminology harmonization and of tissue/organ specificity for network building. Furthermore the unequal completeness and quality of information contained in the AOPs highlighted the need for tighter implementation of the FAIR principles to improve AOP findability, accessibility, interoperability and re-usability. Finally, the study underlined that describing KEs specific to SARS-CoV-2 replication and discriminating physiological from pathological inflammation is necessary but requires adaptations to the framework. Hence, based on the challenges encountered, we proposed recommendations relevant for ongoing and future AOP-aligned consortia aiming to build computationally biologically meaningful AOP networks in the context of, but not limited to, viral diseases.
- Multilevel skin tissue engineering : from particulate systems to 3D functional constructsPublication . Veiga, Anabela Alves; Oliveira, Ana Leite de Almeida Monteiro de; Freitas, Filipa Juliana Fernandes Castro; Rocha, Fernando Alberto Nogueira daSkin tissue engineering (TE) is an interdisciplinary field dedicated to the development of functional constructs that can be used to re-establish, maintain, or improve the condition of injured tissue or to mimic healthy tissue. The skin-TE market is experiencing significant growth: according to Future Market Insights, a leading provider of custom and syndicated market research reports, in 2021 the global market was valued at 2.01 billion dollars and is expected to reach 4.13 billion by 2029 at an annual growth rate of 9.6%. The improvement of healthcare practices, the high technological advances, and the awareness of the need for patient-specific treatment options are some of the main market-boosting factors. The response of the scientific community to the quest for skin TE products translates into a creative landscape of multilevel and cutting-edge approaches, specific to different needs. These include 1- dimensional (1D) particles: for superficial wounds or to further incorporate in 3D matrices to improve their biological or mechanical properties; 2D gels: that can promote healing and prevent infections of superficial wounds and serve as building blocks for constructing more complex structures; and 3D constructs, namely: 3D hydrogels or 3D bioprinted structures to promote wound healing and hybrid 3D hydrogel/scaffold constructs to develop in vitro skin models. Particulate systems are characterized by a high surface area-to-volume ratio which enhances the probability of penetration and bio-interaction at the wound area. With the right particle composition, it is possible to stimulate proliferation and cell-to-cell signaling. Among these, calcium-based particles can play an important role in the healing and regeneration of skin. Calcium is essential in regulating many skin functions, including keratinocyte differentiation, skin barrier formation, and permeability barrier homeostasis. In this context, calcium phosphates (CaPs) are the most well-established source of calcium in biomedicine. They can be precipitated in mild conditions, allowing for conjugation with different molecules and polymers of interest to create bioactive hybrid formulations. CaPs and CaP/composite particles are commonly synthesized in stirred batch reactors with low micro-mixing efficiency, resulting in heterogeneous materials with a broad range of physicochemical characteristics. In that regard, oscillatory flow mixing has emerged as an alternative technology to operate under continuous mode, allowing a uniform distribution of the reaction parameters such as concentration and temperature, and leading to a product with more uniform characteristics. In this work, new CaP-based nanoparticles have been produced in continuous mode using an innovative modular oscillatory flow plate reactor (MOFPR), which allowed to obtain highly controlled and homogeneous particles with high production rates. Sericin (SS), a silk water-soluble protein with high regenerative potential and still underexplored for biomedical applications, has been co-precipitated with CaP to create new bioactive hybrid systems for tissue wound healing and regeneration. When faced with more complex needs, multi-dimensional structures can more accurately replicate the architecture and microenvironment of native tissues. In that regard, SS and silk fibroin (SF) are natural polymers that display excellent biocompatibility, versatility, and tunable properties, which outperform many natural and synthetic biomaterials. While SF has been extensively characterized in the literature, there are still several gaps in our understanding of SS. The absence of efficient extraction protocols for obtaining a “ready-to-use” SS raw material with preserved intrinsic characteristics has motivated the quest for developing a new standardized processing methodology to lay the foundation for creating 2D gels and 3D constructs including 1) crosslinked hydrogels as platforms for different skin-TE applications, 2) human skin equivalents (HSE) functionalized with CaP-based particles and 3) a bioprinted structure in which SS was used as a bioink that can produce patient-specific materials.