Advanced stage glioma is the most aggressive form of malignant brain tumors with a short survival time. Real-time pathology assisted, or image guided surgical procedures that eliminate tumors promise to improve the clinical outcome and prolong the lives of patients. Our work is focused on the development of a rapid and sensitive assay for intraoperative diagnostics of glioma and identification of optical markers essential for differentiation between tumors and healthy brain tissues. We utilized fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM) of endogenous fluorophores related to metabolism of the glioma from freshly excised brains tissues. Macroscopic time-resolved fluorescence images of three intracranial animal glioma models and surgical samples of patients’ glioblastoma together with the white matter have been collected. Several established and new algorithms were applied to identify the imaging markers of the tumors. We found that fluorescence lifetime parameters characteristic of the glioma provided background for differentiation between the tumors and intact brain tissues. All three rat tumor models demonstrated substantial differences between the malignant and normal tissue. Similarly, tumors from patients demonstrated statistically significant differences from the peritumoral white matter without infiltration. While the data and the analysis presented in this paper are preliminary and further investigation with a larger number of samples is required, the proposed approach based on the macroscopic FLIM has a high potential for diagnostics of glioma and evaluation of the surgical margins of gliomas.

Short‐wave infrared hyperspectral imaging is applied to diagnose and monitor a case of allergic contact dermatitis (ACD) due to poison ivy exposure in one subject. This approach directly demonstrates increased tissue fluid content in ACD lesional skin with a spectral signature that matches the spectral signature of intradermally injected normal saline. The best contrast between the affected and unaffected skin is achieved through a selection of specific wavelengths at 1070, 1340 and 1605 nm and combining them in a pseudo‐red‐green‐blue color space. An image derived from these wavelengths normalized to unaffected skin defines a “tissue fluid index” that may aid in the quantitative diagnosis and monitoring of ACD. Further clinical testing of this promising approach towards disease detection and monitoring with tissue fluid content quantification is warranted.

No abstract

Molecular docking is a Molecular modelling technique that is used to predict the interaction between two molecules such as drugs, enzymes or proteins. It predicts the structure of the interacting molecules using computational modelling. The objective is to obtain plausible three-dimensional structures of the molecules under study. The candidates produced by docking are ranked by various methods to identify the most likely naturally occurring structure. This review encompasses the various types of docking models and the mechanism of docking, drug design types and available docking software.

Acute graft versus host disease (aGVHD), one of the most common and potentially deadly complications of hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT), is often difficult to diagnose with traditional clinical and histopathologic examination. Through five quantitative parameters extracted from noninvasive reflectance confocal microscopy videos, we compared the differences in upper dermal microvasculature of patients post-HCT with skin aGVHD (N¼10) and with no organ aGVHD (post-HCT controls, N¼10). We used a clinical reflectance confocal microscope, the Vivascope 1500 (Caliber I.D., Rochester, NY), to image volar forearm and upper chest blood vessels. Patients were similarly distributed in terms of gender, age, days post-HCT, and underlying disease. We found an increased number of "paused" or temporarily stopping leukocytes (median of 2 vs. 1) in aGVHD patients compared to post-HCT controls. Although the size of paused leukocytes was similar (median of 8 mm), the time of leukocytes being paused (median of 4 vs. 2 seconds) was higher in aGVHD compared to post-HCT controls. Interestingly, we found no difference in the blood vessel size (median of 9 mm) or density (median of 3 blood vessels) among both groups. In a limited number of patients, we found increased leukocyte pausing in similar-sized upper dermal blood vessels of aGVHD patients, compared to post-HCT controls.