Fondazione Pisa

Protocol for eVLP-mediated CRISPR-Cas9 and prime editing in pancreatic cancer cell lines

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) cell lines resist transfection, limiting gene-editing experiments. Here, we present a protocol for delivering CRISPR-Cas9 or prime editors into PDAC cell lines using retrovirus-derived engineered virus-like particles (eVLPs). We describe st...

Longitudinal Circulating Nerve Growth Factor in Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma: An Exploratory Study of Postoperative Recurrence and First-Line Disease Control

Nerve growth factor (NGF) signaling is involved in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) neurotropism, perineural invasion, pain, and tumor-stromal crosstalk, but its value as a circulating biomarker remains poorly defined. We retrospectively analyzed 51 patients with PDAC who...

Why do girls receive better grades in school? The role of students’ competencies, personality traits, school-related attitudes, and behaviour

This study investigates the gender gap in teacher-assigned grades in German and mathematics among 7th-grade students in Germany. Using rich data from the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS, N = 1,972 cases), we examine the extent to which observed differences in grades betwee...

Development and Internal Validation of a Clinical Risk Score for Hypovitaminosis D in Italian Adults Aged ≥50 Years Attending Osteoporosis and Metabolic Bone Disease Centers

Background/Objectives: Hypovitaminosis-D is a highly prevalent condition worldwide, associated with adverse skeletal and extra-skeletal outcomes. Increasing demand for serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) testing points toward the need for simple tools to identify individuals at r...