凑型准分子激光器的发展及其在医学中的应用

由于在绝缘材料和气体放电技术方面的进展,处于紫外波段的准分子激光器已经在工业、科学研究,特别是医学等领域成为主要应用工具.在本文中,我们将介绍新颖紧凑型准分子激光器在医学中的应用.此外,在文章中对紧凑型准分子激光器所采用的关键技术,诸如固态开关、电晕预电离和金属/陶瓷腔等技术进行了详细的讨论.     

准分子激光眼科治疗机中激光器控制实现

准分子激光眼科治疗机可以用来进行近视、远视、散光等屈光不正的矫正手术。其中激光器的控制为手术提供能量稳定的激光脉冲,是对手术安全性、可靠性的重要保证。本文简述了一准分子激光眼科治疗机的整体组成部分,并详细描述了激光器的控制部分:计算机与激光器的通信控制、激光发射停止控制、充换气流程控制。目前,这种准分子激光治疗机已经应用于临床,并取得了良好的效果。     

准分子激光的医学应用

由于准分子激光对生物组织作用的独特机理─光化学分解作用,解决了许多临床治疗难题。近年来,难分子激光在激光医学中得到较广泛的应用。医用准分子激光种类主要有XeCl,308nm;ArF,193nm;KrF,248nm。本文介绍了准分子激光在医学中的几种典型应用。     

XeCl准分子激光对少根根霉的生物学效应和脂肪酶活性的相关性

利用XeCl准分子紫外激光照射少根根霉孢囊孢子,研究其生物学效应。在照射功率为2.0 kV,2.5kV和2.7 kV,脉冲次数为35-135的范围内,其致死曲线在85脉冲次数处形成高峰,在110脉冲次数处形成低谷,构成一个“峰形”曲线;与紫外灯UV致死曲线有较大的差别。通过琼脂平板分离、固态发酵,从中筛选到8株脂肪酶活力提高幅度10%以上的菌株,其中以突变株LB-5的酶活力最高,达66.4 IU/g干基,较出发菌株酶活提高了55.1%。讨论了激光照射功率、脉冲次数和致死率与根霉脂肪酶活力之间的关系。     

角黄素及其在医学中的应用

角黄素是一种非维生素A源的酮式类胡萝卜素,具有抗氧化,免疫促进及增强细胞间隙连接通讯等多种生物学活性.大量的流行病学调查,组织培养,动物试验及人体干预试验表明,角黄素对多种癌症具有预防和治疗的功效.此外,角黄素还能够提高免疫力,保护皮肤和骨骼健康.目前市场上供应的角黄素产品主要通过有机化学合成制得.然而,天然角黄素容易吸收并且不涉及化学工艺而更受消费者欢迎.近年来,越来越多的产角黄素微生物菌株被分离和纯化,使得天然角黄素有进一步扩大应用的潜力和发展前景.从发酵培养的细菌中提取角黄素具有菌体繁殖速度快,生产周期短,发酵工艺较为成熟等优势,进行高细胞密度生产比较容易.因此,国外各国均把利用微生物发酵技术合成天然角黄素作为主攻方向,进行天然角黄素的研究与开发.在此,就角黄素的理化性质、医学应用、天然角黄素研究与开发的最新研究进展进行阐述和讨论,为我国角黄素的开发研究提供参考.     

系统生物学研究及其在医学中的应用

目前,系统生物学研究已初显端倪。生物学正从分子生物学走向系统生物学,由精细的分解研究转向系统的整体研究,由还原论的研究方法过渡到系统论的研究方法。简要论述了系统生物学的产生背景、结构和内容、研究思路和方法、与医学的关系等,重点介绍系统生物学的内容和研究方法,以及在疾病治疗和药物开发中的研究进展。     

转基因动物及其在医学中的应用

转基因动物是通过将外源目的基因导入受精卵或早期胚胎细胞中,使其稳定地整合到受体的基因组中,并得到表达的动物。这一技术已用来在哺乳动物的乳汁中生产贵重的治疗用蛋白,生产供人类移植用的器官,制造人类跗疾病的动物模型。其前景十分广阔。     

小波变换及其在医学图像处理中的应用

医学图像的好坏直接影响着医生对病情的诊断和治疗,因此利用数字图像处理等技术对医学图像进行有效的处理,已成为医学图像处理研究和开发的一大热点。小波变换是对傅里叶变换的继承和发展,在医学影像领域有着广泛的应用前景。本文介绍了二维离散小渡变换的一般形式,在图像分解与重构的基础上．系统地阐述了利用小小组变换的时频域特性与多分辨分析对医学图像进行去噪、增强以及边缘提取等深层次的处理,有效的改善图像质量。     

等离子体医学及其在肿瘤治疗中的应用

大气压冷等离子体是近年来学术界兴起的新研究领域,由于其在大气压下产生,气体温度低、粒子活性高,在众多领域尤其是生物医学方面的应用引起了人们广泛的关注.等离子体医学是一个革新的、新兴的交叉学科研究领域,结合了等离子体物理学、化学、生命科学和临床医学等.本文首先介绍了大气压冷等离子体的产生及其粒子成分,与液体和生物组织的相互作用,并介绍了大气压冷等离子体在生物医学领域的一些主要应用,如杀菌消毒、凝血、牙科应用、伤口愈合及皮肤病治疗等方面.同时,重点介绍大气压冷等离子体在肿瘤治疗方面的研究进展.大气压冷等离子体可有效诱导肿瘤细胞死亡、抑制增殖及迁徙、诱导肿瘤细胞分化并抑制干细胞潜能,同时能提高化疗药物敏感性,在肿瘤治疗领域具有很好的应用前景.     

小波理论及其在医学信号处理中的应用

小波理论在最近几年发展极其迅速,它在不同领域中已取得了成功的应用．本文讨论小波和小波变换的性质,并借以小波理论是局部分析的有力工具,对一小段上医学信号的异常信息,可以很灵敏地通过小波系数反映出来．在医学信号处理中小波理论还能够被用作多功能滤波器．     

308准分子激光联合他克莫司软膏治疗对白癜风患儿血清免疫球蛋白和IL-17、IL-22的影响

目的:探讨308准分子激光联合他克莫司软膏治疗儿童白癜风的疗效及对血清免疫球蛋白和白介素-17(IL-17)、白介素-22(IL-22)的影响。方法:选取2016年2月~2018年7月期间我院收治的127例白癜风患儿,根据随机数字表法将患儿分为对照组(n=63)和研究组(n=64),对照组患儿给予他克莫司软膏治疗,研究组在对照组的基础上给予308准分子激光治疗,比较两组患儿临床疗效、起效时间、免疫球蛋白、IL-17、IL-22水平,观察两组不良反应发生情况。结果:研究组患儿临床总有效率高于对照组,起效时间短于对照组(P<0.05)。两组患儿治疗后免疫球蛋白A(Ig A)、免疫球蛋白G(Ig G)、免疫球蛋白M(Ig M)均下降,且研究组低于对照组(P<0.05)。两组患儿治疗后血清IL-17、IL-22水平均下降,且研究组低于对照组(P<0.05)。两组不良反应发生率对比无统计学差异(P>0.05)。结论:308准分子激光联合他克莫司软膏治疗白癜风患儿疗效确切,可有效改善血清免疫球蛋白和IL-17、IL-22水平,具有一定的临床应用价值。     

Rapid,controllable, one‐pot and room‐temperature aqueous synthesis of ZnO:Cu nanoparticles by pulsed UV laser and its application for photocatalytic degradation of methyl orange

Zinc oxide (ZnO) and ZnO:Cu nanoparticles (NPs) were synthesized using a rapid, controllable, one‐pot and room‐temperature pulsed UV‐laser assisted method. UV‐laser irradiation was used as an effective energy source in order to gain better control over the NPs size and morphology in aqueous media. Parameters effective in laser assisted synthesis of NPs such as irradiation time and laser shot repetition rate were optimized. Photoluminescence (PL) spectra of ZnO NPs showed a broad emission with two trap state peaks located at 442 and 485 nm related to electronic transition from zinc interstitial level (I_Zn) to zinc vacancy level (V_Zn) and electronic transition from conduction band to the oxygen vacancy level (V_O), respectively. For ZnO:Cu NPs, trap state emissions disappeared completely and a copper (Cu)‐related emission appeared. PL intensity of Cu‐related emission increased with the increase in concentration of Cu²⁺, so that for molar ratio of Cu:Zn 2%, optimal value of PL intensity was obtained. The photocatalytic activity of Cu‐doped ZnO revealed 50 and 100% increasement than that of undoped NPs under UV and visible irradiation, respectively. The enhanced photocatalytic activity could be attributed to smaller crystal size, as well as creation of impurity acceptor levels (T₂) inside the ZnO energy band gap.     

Compact Cell Settlers for Perfusion Cultures of Microbial (and Mammalian) Cells

As microbial secretory expression systems have become well developed for microbial yeast cells, such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Pichia pastoris, it is advantageous to develop high cell density continuous perfusion cultures of microbial yeast cells to retain the live and productive yeast cells inside the perfusion bioreactor while removing the dead cells and cell debris along with the secreted product protein in the harvest stream. While the previously demonstrated inclined or lamellar settlers can be used for such perfusion bioreactors for microbial cells, the size and footprint requirements of such inefficiently scaled up devices can be quite large in comparison to the bioreactor size. Faced with this constraint, we have now developed novel, patent‐pending compact cell settlers that can be used more efficiently with microbial perfusion bioreactors to achieve high cell densities and bioreactor productivities. Reproducible results from numerous month‐long perfusion culture experiments using these devices attached to the 5 L perfusion bioreactor demonstrate very high cell densities due to substantial sedimentation of the larger live yeast cells which are returned to the bioreactor, while the harvest stream from the top of these cell settlers is a significantly clarified liquid, containing less than 30% and more typically less than 10% of the bioreactor cell concentration. Size of cells in the harvest is smaller than that of the cells in the bioreactor. Accumulated protein collected from the harvest and rate of protein accumulation is significantly (> 6x) higher than the protein produced in repeated fed‐batch cultures over the same culture duration. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog., 33:913–922, 2017     

Construction and Characterization of External Cavity Diode Lasers for Atomic Physics

Since their development in the late 1980s, cheap, reliable external cavity diode lasers (ECDLs) have replaced complex and expensive traditional dye and Titanium Sapphire lasers as the workhorse laser of atomic physics labs^1,2. Their versatility and prolific use throughout atomic physics in applications such as absorption spectroscopy and laser cooling^1,2 makes it imperative for incoming students to gain a firm practical understanding of these lasers. This publication builds upon the seminal work by Wieman³, updating components, and providing a video tutorial. The setup, frequency locking and performance characterization of an ECDL will be described. Discussion of component selection and proper mounting of both diodes and gratings, the factors affecting mode selection within the cavity, proper alignment for optimal external feedback, optics setup for coarse and fine frequency sensitive measurements, a brief overview of laser locking techniques, and laser linewidth measurements are included.     

Birds after dark: an efficient and inexpensive system for making long‐range observations at night

ABSTRACT The ability of investigators to study the behavior of animals at night is often limited by the difficulties of making observations in the dark, particularly at a distance. Indirect techniques, such as radio tracking, generally produce limited behavioral data, and most night‐viewing equipment tends to be both inefficient for making long‐range observations and expensive. We describe a long‐range night‐vision system consisting of a camcorder and infrared laser illuminators. We tested the performance of this system by comparing our ability to quantify the foraging behavior of shorebirds during the day and at night. Distance thresholds for detecting ingestion of prey and for identifying them were similar during the day and night for all species. At night, we were able to quantify all foraging parameters for all species at distances up to 59 m, and to count pecks and steps at distances greater than 200 m for some species. The observation system we describe can be further improved by using camcorders with higher optical zooms or more powerful infrared laser illuminators. Because of its efficiency and relatively low cost, this system has the potential for being useful in many other applications that require long‐range observations of animals at night.     

Triple-FRET Technique for Energy Transfer Between Conjugated Polymer and TAMRA Dye with Possible Applications in Medical Diagnostics

Three-component Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) has been used to obtain efficient FRET between the cationic conjugated polymer (CCP) as donor and 5-carboxy tetramethylrhodamine (TAMRA) dye as acceptor, by using an intermediate donor, fluorescein. In spite of the fact that there is enough overlap between the emission spectra of CCP and absorption spectra of TAMRA, the efficiency of FRET between CCP and TAMRA is poor. The reason for this is that while the Förster critical distance is not very sensitive to the overlap, the FRET efficiency is extremely sensitive to it. However, it is observed that the FRET efficiency between CCP and TAMRA improves considerably when fluorescein is introduced in the solution. The triple FRET so obtained can be used for deoxyribonucleic acid sequence detection in medical diagnostics because the fluorescence emission from TAMRA is pH-insensitive.     

New Tricks for Old Guys: Recent Developments in the Chemistry,Biochemistry, Applications and Exploitation of Selected Species from the Lamiaceae Family

Lamiaceae is one of the largest families of flowering plants comprising about 250 genera and over 7,000 species. Most of the plants of this family are aromatic and therefore important source of essential oils. Lamiaceae are widely used as culinary herbs and reported as medicinal plants in several folk traditions. In the Mediterranean area oregano, sage, rosemary, thyme and lavender stand out for geographical diffusion and variety of uses. The aim of this review is to provide recent data dealing with the phytochemical and pharmacological studies, and the more recent applications of the essential oils and the non‐volatile phytocomplexes. This literature survey suggests how the deeper understanding of biomolecular processes in the health and food sectors as per as pest control bioremediation of cultural heritage, or interaction with human microbiome, fields, leads to the rediscovery and new potential applications of well‐known plants.     

Metabolite induction via microorganism co-culture: A potential way to enhance chemical diversity for drug discovery

Microorganisms have a long track record as important sources of novel bioactive natural products, particularly in the field of drug discovery. While microbes have been shown to biosynthesize a wide array of molecules, recent advances in genome sequencing have revealed that such organisms have the potential to yield even more structurally diverse secondary metabolites. Thus, many microbial gene clusters may be silent under standard laboratory growth conditions. In the last ten years, several methods have been developed to aid in the activation of these cryptic biosynthetic pathways. In addition to the techniques that demand prior knowledge of the genome sequences of the studied microorganisms, several genome sequence-independent tools have been developed. One of these approaches is microorganism co-culture, involving the cultivation of two or more microorganisms in the same confined environment. Microorganism co-culture is inspired by the natural microbe communities that are omnipresent in nature. Within these communities, microbes interact through signaling or defense molecules. Such compounds, produced dynamically, are of potential interest as new leads for drug discovery. Microorganism co-culture can be achieved in either solid or liquid media and has recently been used increasingly extensively to study natural interactions and discover new bioactive metabolites. Because of the complexity of microbial extracts, advanced analytical methods (e.g., mass spectrometry methods and metabolomics) are key for the successful detection and identification of co-culture-induced metabolites.