Abstract:Upon excitation with different wavelengths of light, biological tissues emit distinct but related autofluorescence signals. We used nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) to simultaneously decompose coregistered hyperspectral emission data from human retinal pigment epithelium/Bruch's membrane specimens illuminated with 436 and 480 nm light. NMF analysis was initialized with Gaussian mixture model fits and constrained to provide identical abundance images for the two excitation wavelengths. Spectra recovered this way were smoother than those obtained separately; fluorophore abundances more clearly localized within tissue compartments. These studies provide evidence that leveraging multiple coregistered hyperspectral emission data sets is preferential for identifying biologically relevant fluorophore information.
Hereditary angioedema (HAE) is rare disorder caused by a SERPING1 gene mutation that triggers severe swelling of the skin and upper airway. Treatment options for HAE with deficient and dysfunctional C1-inhibitor are expanding to include small-molecule drugs that inhibit protein interactions in the kallikrein-kinin system. Discovered by BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, BCX7353 is a synthetic, once-daily, small molecule drug that can be taken as an oral capsule to treat HAE attacks and for prophylaxis. This article will summarize recent and current BCX7353 clinical trials. Overall, results indicate BCX7353 is a promising form of therapy with a rapid 1 h onset of action, long duration of action, and acceptable tolerance.
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