Cytocompatible cellulose nanofibers from invasive plant species Agave americana L. and Ricinus communis L.: a renewable green source of highly crystalline nanocellulose

In this study, the fibers of invasive species Agave americana L. and Ricinus communis L. were successfully used for the first time as new sources to produce cytocompatible and highly crystalline cellulose nanofibers. Cellulose nanofibers were obtained by two methods, based on either alkaline or acid hydrolysis. The morphology, chemical composition, and crystallinity of the obtained materials were characterized by scanning electron microscopy(SEM) together with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy(EDX), dynamic light scattering(DLS), X-ray diffraction(XRD), and Fourier transform infrared(FTIR)spectroscopy. The crystallinity indexes(CIs) of the cellulose nanofibers extracted from A. americana and R. communis were very high(94.1% and 92.7%, respectively). Biological studies evaluating the cytotoxic effects of the prepared cellulose nanofibers on human embryonic kidney 293 T(HEK293 T) cells were also performed. The nanofibers obtained using the two different extraction methods were all shown to be cytocompatible in the concentration range assayed(i.e., 0-500 μg/mL). Our results showed that the nanocellulose extracted from A. americana and R. communis fibers has high potential as a new renewable green source of highly crystalline cellulose-based cytocompatible nanomaterials for biomedical applications.     

生物医学工程:一个发展迅速值得关注的交叉学科——生物力学、组织工程学、生物材料与人工器官

生物医学工程学（Biomedical Engineering，BME）是包含多种技术并相互交叉融合的一门科学。它综合了生物学、医学与工程学的理论和方法，研究生命体的构造、功能、状态和变化，研究新材料、新技术、新仪器设备，用于防病、治病、保护人民健康和提高医学水平。涉及科学领域广泛，除生物学、医学外，还有电子学、微电子学、现代计算机技术、化学、高分子化学、力学、近代物理学、光学、射线学、精密机械和近代高技术，并在不断发展扩大，是各国争相大力发展的高技术之一。本文主要从生物力学、组织工程学、生物材料与人工器官等方面进行探讨。     

生物医学工程类期刊开辟临床应用栏目的意义和实践——以《中华生物医学工程杂志》为例

【目的】探讨生物医学工程类期刊开辟临床应用栏目的意义,为媒体融合出版形式下期刊的栏目建设和竞争力的提高提供借鉴。【方法】以《中华生物医学工程杂志》为例,介绍其临床应用特色栏目“新技术与临床”设置的背景、特点、选题策划过程、现状和今后发展规划。【结果】《中华生物医学工程杂志》开辟“新技术与临床”栏目偏重临床的实践性报道,围绕栏目宗旨和选题计划、读者需求、培养年轻医师潜在作者群3个方面确定报道内容,体现了该刊为临床医生服务的办刊宗旨。【结论】生物医学工程类期刊开辟临床应用栏目可强化期刊的读者意识,突出期刊的导向功能,体现期刊的办刊特色,提高期刊竞争力。     

基于医工融合的生物医学信号处理应用型课程教学探索与实践

生物医学信号处理是生物医学工程专业的一门核心课程,优化本课程原有的课程体系,改进并完善教学内容,课堂学习采用PBL模式,利用学校与医院和相关企业的资源优势,开展“医工融合”的实践教学模式,加强课程中的实践实验教学,让教学更具有实用性。     

硒对人体的生物医学功效

硒是人体生命必需的微量元素，紫阳县是我国已经科学证实的两大富硒区之一。本文讨论了人体日需补硒量为50～250μg／d，并阐述了人和动物硒水平分布，论述了硒在人类健康中的20种功效，对紫阳富硒茶的抗氧化、抗衰老、防癌抑癌、抗辐射作用进行了论述。     

长三角生物医药创新集群的演化动力——基于系统动力学的仿真分析

为进一步深入对生物医药创新集群演化动力机制的探讨,推进区域性生物医药产业创新集群发展,以长三角生物医药创新集群为对象,根据生物医药产业创新集群特征设计系统动力学模型,分析系统动力机制、演化路径和关键变量作为可持续发展决策的杠杆作用点,基于其2012—2021年有关面板数据,对关键要素推动集群创新发展的影响进行仿真模拟分析。结果发现：市场需求子系统为创新集群演化提供根本性动力,其中国内市场需求影响尤为显著;技术创新能力子系统是创新集群演化的内生动力,但研发投入持续高速增长可能不利于集群发展;政府支持子系统是推动创新集群演化的外生动力,且影响显著。据此,建议深挖市场需求,加强研发管理,产学研政密切合作,进一步优化对生物医药产业创新集群的财政投入结构,加速开拓国际市场。     

Organization of biomedical data for collaborative scientific research: A research information management system

Biomedical researchers often work with massive, detailed and heterogeneous datasets. These datasets raise new challenges of information organization and management for scientific interpretation, as they demand much of the researchers’ time and attention. The current study investigated the nature of the problems that researchers face when dealing with such data. Four major problems identified with existing biomedical scientific information management methods were related to data organization, data sharing, collaboration, and publications. Therefore, there is a compelling need to develop an efficient and user-friendly information management system to handle the biomedical research data. This study evaluated the implementation of an information management system, which was introduced as part of the collaborative research to increase scientific productivity in a research laboratory. Laboratory members seemed to exhibit frustration during the implementation process. However, empirical findings revealed that they gained new knowledge and completed specified tasks while working together with the new system. Hence, researchers are urged to persist and persevere when dealing with any new technology, including an information management system in a research laboratory environment.     

The Influence of Medical Orientation on Perceived Physician Credibility

This study assessed whether two medical orientations of physicians—biomedical vs biopsychosocial—influenced individuals’ perceptions of physician credibility. Participants read a vignette describing a physician communicating either a predominantly biomedical or a predominantly biopsychosocial orientation and then completed the Measure of Source Credibility in reference to the physician. Results indicate that physicians who display a biopsychosocial orientation were rated higher in perceived competence, character, and caring. Future researchers should address various effects of the medical context on physician credibility and how patients’ preferences regarding physicians’ medical orientation influence choice of and communication with physicians, patient satisfaction, and compliance.     

Combining gene sequence similarity and textual information for gene function annotation in the literature

Annotation of the functions of genes and proteins is an essential step in genome analysis. Information extraction techniques have been proposed to obtain the function information of genes and proteins in the biomedical literature. However, the performance of most information extraction techniques of function annotation in the biomedical literature is not satisfactory due to the large variability in the expression of concepts in the biomedical literature. This paper proposes a framework to improve the gene function annotation in the literature by considering both the textual information in the literature and the functions of genes with sequences similar to a target gene. The new framework collects multiple types of evidence as: (i) textual information about gene functions by matching keywords of the gene functions; (ii) gene function information from the known functions of genes with sequences similar to a target gene; and (iii) the prior probabilities of gene functions to be associated with an arbitrary gene by mining the known gene functions from curated databases. A supervised learning method is utilized to obtain the weights for combining the three types of evidence to assign appropriate Gene Ontology terms for target genes. Empirical studies on two testbeds demonstrate that the combination of sequence similarity scores, function prior probabilities and textual information improves the accuracy of gene function annotation in the literature. The F-measure scores obtained with the proposed framework are substantially higher than the scores of the solutions in prior research.

An intelligent electronic capsule system for automated detection of gastrointestinal bleeding

In clinical practice, examination of the hemorrhagic spot (HS) remains difficult. In this paper, we describe a remote controlled capsule (RCC) micro-system with an automated, color-based sensor to identify and localize the HS of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. In vitro testing of the detecting sensor demonstrated that it was capable of discriminating mimetic intestinal fluid (MIF) with and without the hemoglobin (Hb) when the concentration of Hb in MIF was above 0.05 g/ml. Therefore, this RCC system is able to detect the relatively accurate location of the HS in the GI tract.