Lithium has literally been everywhere forever, since it is one of the three elements created in the Big Bang. Lithium concentration in rocks, soil, and fresh water is highly variable from place to place, and has varied widely in specific regions over evolutionary and geologic time. The biological effects of lithium are many and varied. Based on experiments in which animals are deprived of lithium, lithium is an essential nutrient. At the other extreme, at lithium ingestion sufficient to raise blood concentration significantly over 1 mM/, lithium is acutely toxic. There is no consensus regarding optimum levels of lithium intake for populations or individuals—with the single exception that lithium is a generally accepted first-line therapy for bipolar disorder, and specific dosage guidelines for sufferers of that condition are generally agreed on. Epidemiological evidence correlating various markers of social dysfunction and disease vs. lithium level in drinking water suggest benefits of moderately elevated lithium compared to average levels of lithium intake. In contrast to other biologically significant ions, lithium is unusual in not having its concentration in fluids of multicellular animals closely regulated. For hydrogen ions, sodium ions, potassium ions, calcium ions, chloride ions, and magnesium ions, blood and extracellular fluid concentrations are closely and necessarily regulated by systems of highly selective channels, and primary and secondary active transporters. Lithium, while having strong biological activity, is tolerated over body fluid concentrations ranging over many orders of magnitude. The lack of biological regulation of lithium appears due to lack of lithium-specific binding sites and selectivity filters. Rather lithium exerts its myriad physiological and biochemical effects by competing for macromolecular sites that are relatively specific for other cations, most especially for sodium and magnesium. This review will consider what is known about the nature of this competition and suggest using and extending this knowledge towards the goal of a unified understanding of lithium in biology and the application of that understanding in medicine and nutrition.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s00232-017-9998-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Gram-negative bacilli <i>Pseudomonas aeruginosa</i> is an important pathogen in hospitalized patients, contributing to their morbidity and mortality due to its multiple resistance mechanisms. Therefore, as therapeutic options become restricted, the search for new agents is a priority. Latterly an accelerated increase in frequency of multidrug-resistant clinical strains has severely limited the availability of therapeutic options. Several <i>in vitro</i> and <i>in vitro</i> studies evaluating the efficacy of different antimicrobials agents and development of vaccines against P. aeruginosa have been reported as novel approaches, such as inhibition of virulence factor expression or inhibition of their metabolic pathways
COVID-19 poses a dramatic challenge to health, community life, and the economy of communities across the world. While the properties of the virus are similar from place to place, the impact has been dramatically different from place to place, due to such factors as population density, mobility, age distribution, etc. Thus, optimum testing and social distancing strategies may also be different from place to place. The Epidemiology Workbench provides access to an agent-based model in which demographic, geographic, and public health information a community together with a social distancing and testing strategy may be input, and a range of possible outcomes computed, to inform local authorities on coping strategies. The model is adaptable to other infectious diseases, and to other strains of coronavirus. The tool is illustrated by scenarios for the cities of Urbana and Champaign, Illinois, the home of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Our calculations suggest that massive testing is the most effective strategy to combat the likely increase in local cases due to mass ingress of a student population carrying a higher viral load than that currently present in the community.
This article summarizes motivations, organization, and activities of the Fourth Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE4). The WSSSPE series promotes sustainable research software by positively impacting principles and best practices, careers, learning, and credit. This article discusses the code of conduct; the mission and vision statements that were drafted at the workshop and finalized shortly after it; the keynote and idea papers, position papers, experience papers, demos, and lightning talks presented during the workshop; and a panel discussion on best practices. The main part of the article discusses the set of working groups that formed during the meeting, along with contact information for readers who may want to join a group. Finally, it discusses a survey of the workshop attendees.
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