Dipòsit Digital de la Universitat de Barcelona
El Dipòsit Digital de la Universitat de Barcelona és el repositori institucional que conté en format digital els materials derivats de l'activitat docent, investigadora i institucional de la comunitat universitària.
Enviaments recents
ArticleSerological reactivity against T. cruzi-derived antigens: Evaluation of their suitability for the assessment of response to treatment in chronic Chagas disease.(Elsevier B.V., 2021-09-01) Alonso Padilla, Julio; López, Manuel Carlos; Esteva, Mónica; Zrein, Maan; Casellas, Aina; Gómez, Itziar; Granjon, Elodie; Méndez, Susana; Benítez, Celia; Ruiz, Andrés Mariano; Sanz, Sergi; Gascón i Brustenga, Joaquim; Thomas, M. Carmen; Pinazo, Maria-Jesus; Abril Cuevas, Meritxell; NHEPACHA Study GroupChagas disease, caused by the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi, affects more than 6 million people worldwide. Following a mostly asymptomatic acute phase, the disease progresses to a long-lasting chronic phase throughout which life-threatening disorders to the heart and/or gastrointestinal tract will manifest in about 30% of those chronically infected. During the chronic phase, the parasitemia is low and intermittent, while a high level of anti-T. cruzi antibodies persist for years. These two features hamper post-chemotherapeutic follow-up of patients with the tools available. The lack of biomarkers for timely assessment of therapeutic response discourages a greater use of the two available anti-parasitic drugs, and complicates the evaluation of new drugs in clinical trials. Herein, we investigated in a blinded case-control study the serological reactivity over time of a group of parasite-derived antigens to potentially address follow up of T. cruzi chronically infected subjects after treatment. We tested PFR2, KMP11, HSP70, 3973, F29 and the InfYnity multiplexed antigenic array, by means of serological assays on a multi-national retrospective collection of samples. Some of the antigens exhibited promising results, underscoring the need for further studies to determine their potential role as treatment response biomarkers.- ArticleSiC-Based MIS gas sensor for high water vapor environments(Elsevier, 2011) Casals Guillén, Olga; Becker, Th.; Godignon, P.; Romano Rodríguez, AlbertIn this work we will prove that SiC-based MIS capacitors can work in environments with extremely high concentrations of water vapor and still be sensitive to hydrogen, CO and hydrocarbons, making these devices suitable for monitoring the exhaust gases of hydrogen or hydrocarbons based fuel cells. Under the harshest conditions (45% of water vapor by volume ratio to nitrogen), Pt/TaOx/SiO2/SiC MIS capacitors are able to detect the presence of 1 ppm of hydrogen, 2 ppm of CO, 100 ppm of ethane or 20 ppm of ethene, concentrations that are far below the legal permissible exposure limits.
- ArticleAn LED Platform for Micropower Gas Sensors(MDPI, 2018-11-30) Markiewicz, Nicolai; Casals Guillén, Olga; Fàbrega Gallego, Cristian; Wasisto, Hutomo Suryo; Waag, Andreas; Prades García, Juan DanielWe developed an integrated platform to build up conductometric sensors with controlled illumination. Our device contains a miniaturized indium gallium nitride (InGaN) LED as a light source, and a set of interdigitated electrodes (IDEs) in close contact with the LED. The sensor material is later deposited on top of the IDE, to monitor its resistance. In this configuration, all the light emitted by the LED is collected by the sensor material, leading to a very efficient photoexcitation. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach building a photoactivated gas sensor based on ZnO operating with as little as 100 μW.
- ArticleCurrent pharmacological treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma(Elsevier, 2021-10-01) Muñoz Martínez, Sergio; Iserte, Gemma; Sanduzzi Zamparelli, Marco; Llarch, Neus; Reig, MaríaThe landscape of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has changed since the incorporation of sorafenib in 2007 as the first pharmacological treatment for HCC. The combination of atezolizumab plus bevacizumab is currently the first-line treatment for HCC patients, and there are several second-line options approved for patients who had received sorafenib as the first-line treatment. The advantage of having multiple options of pharmacological treatment for HCC patients is associated to the need to redefine the clinical decision-making approach and considering new endpoints for the clinical trials design. The aim of this review was to share the Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer approach and to summarize the ongoing clinical trials, which are testing pharmacological treatments.
- ArticleDiffusion-Weighted Imaging: Recent Advances and Applications(Elsevier, 2021-10-01) Martínez Heras, Eloy; Grussu, Francesco; Prados, Ferran; Solana Díaz, Elisabeth; Llufriu Duran, SaraQuantitative diffusion imaging techniques enable the characterization of tissue microstructural properties of the human brain “in vivo”, and are widely used in neuroscientific and clinical contexts. In this review, we present the basic physical principles behind diffusion imaging and provide an overview of the current diffusion techniques, including standard and advanced techniques as well as their main clinical applications. Standard diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) offers sensitivity to changes in microstructure due to diseases and enables the characterization of single fiber distributions within a voxel as well as diffusion anisotropy. Nonetheless, its inability to represent complex intravoxel fiber topologies and the limited biological specificity of its metrics motivated the development of several advanced diffusion MRI techniques. For example, high-angular resolution diffusion imaging (HARDI) techniques enabled the characterization of fiber crossing areas and other complex fiber topologies in a single voxel and supported the development of higher-order signal representations aiming to decompose the diffusion MRI signal into distinct microstructure compartments. Biophysical models, often known by their acronym (e.g., CHARMED, WMTI, NODDI, DBSI, DIAMOND) contributed to capture the diffusion properties from each of such tissue compartments, enabling the computation of voxel-wise maps of axonal density and/or morphology that hold promise as clinically viable biomarkers in several neurological and neuroscientific applications; for example, to quantify tissue alterations due to disease or healthy processes. Current challenges and limitations of state-of-the-art models are discussed, including validation efforts. Finally, novel diffusion encoding approaches (e.g., b-tensor or double diffusion encoding) may increase the biological specificity of diffusion metrics towards intra-voxel diffusion heterogeneity in clinical settings, holding promise in neurological applications.