Background: Relative telomere length (RTL), the biological chronometer, varies considerably among individuals under the influence of multiple risk factors such as socioeconomic status (SES). It is anticipated that during fetal life, telomeres undergo reprogramming. The purpose of this study is to find the association between SES and telomere length of mother-newborn and genetic remodeling that occurs during fetal life. Results: The mean telomere/single gene copy (T/S) ratio and RTL (base pairs) among 250 mother-newborn dyads were higher in cord blood of newborns (1.18 ± 0.23) (6765 ± 1350 bp) (95% confidence level) compared to maternal blood (1.13 ± 0.18) (6432 ± 1350 bp) of all SES of the Pakistani population. A positive association (r = 0.396, p < 0.05) (F (2,238) = 9.229, p < 0.05) was found between maternal and newborn telomere length by using Spearman's correlation and regression analyses. Calculated RTL by Kruskal Wallis was found significant in low SES maternal and cord blood (5916 ± 754-6214 ± 596) compared to high SES maternal and cord blood (6818 ± 1248-7471 ± 1851). Conclusion: Significantly longer RTL in cord blood than maternal blood was observed in the targeted Pakistani population, including the low socioeconomic group highlighting fetal telomere reprogramming. High education appears to have a strong determining factor for longer RTL.

Background: The COVID-19 virus, in terms of pathogenesis and disease spectrum, resembles its predecessor viral strains which caused outbreaks of SARS and MERs. Due to unavailability of approved treatment protocols, healthcare workers initiated treatment of COVID-19 patients with convalescent plasma therapy. Objective: To appraise similarities between the three Coronaviruses and deduce the effectiveness of CP therapy based on exploration of its efficacy in the SARS and MERS outbreaks. Analysis: A narrative review of case reports, randomised controlled trials and meta-analysis studies, on use of CP therapy in SARs and MERS, was conducted. Studies evaluated for the purpose of this review were added through search engines of PubMed Central and Google Scholar. Results: We concluded that CP therapy had been able to play pivotal roles in treating critically-ill SARS and MERS patients. The risks of unintended immunological responses among other factors, hindering CP Therapy’s approval from drug administration authorities, were weighed against favourable chanisms, such as hypercoagulability, that support its use in COVID-19 patients. Conclusion: Findings collected from these studies steered our path to theorize the possibility of reducing mortality with convalescent plasma therapy and support our rallying efforts for enlisting this in the official treatment protocol of COVID-19. Doi: 10.28991/SciMedJ-2020-0204-6 Full Text: PDF

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Radiological imaging plays a vital role in clinically diagnosing TSC. TSC prognosis is largely determined by the severity and the extent of the systems affected by it. TSC patients are symptomatically managed, since no cure is present. Healthcare professionals must frequently check‐up TSC patients who have a lifelong disorder.

The Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 positive (HER2+) breast cancer (BC) is a more aggressive tumor with 5 years median survival rates after metastasis. Despite successful treatment, unfortunately, the majority of affected patients die. Defects in cell cycle and transcription regulation phases which are governed by cyclindependent kinases (CDKs) are the hallmark of many cancers that underpinning the progression of the disease. Therefore, the current study looked at the alteration of six CDKs mRNA expression levels in pre-and postmenopausal lung metastasis BC groups; the majority were HER2+. Two hundred pre-and postmenopausal lung metastasis breast cancer and healthy control blood samples were taken for RNA isolation. Quantitative PCR was done for CDKs mRNA expressions. We observed overexpression of CDK11, CDK12, CDK17, CDK18, and CDK19 in both pre-and postmenopausal groups. However, CDK20 showed progressive downregulation from early to advanced stages in both groups of patients. Collectively, this data revealed that CDKs overexpression levels may predict BC disease progression and provide further rationale for novel anticancer strategies for HER2+ BC cancers.

UNSTRUCTURED It has been proved that the current COVID-19 pandemic can be loosely bound to its predecessor outbreaks i.e. SARS and MERS. No vaccine or approved treatment is available for either coronavirus. At present, COVID-19 has infected 2,436,743 people in over 200 countries with unprecedented transmission rate. Healthcare workers in China initiated treatment of clinically worsening COVID-19 patients with a traditional method of passive immunity i.e. transfusion of plasma recovered from COVID-19 recuperated patients. According to available medical data, this technique is routinely favored by the World Health Organization (WHO) and has been in use since 1890 for combatting newly emerging infectious diseases, most commonly of a viral origin. Exploration of studies carried out on Convalescent Plasma and its effectiveness in the past steered our path to theorize the possibility of reducing mortality with convalescent plasma therapy and put together reviewed evidence to support our rallying efforts for enlisting this in the official treatment protocol of COVID-19.