The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston

The interplay of air pollution with plasma neurodegenerative markers and metabolome for dementia, Parkinson’s disease and all-cause mortality risks and transitions: The UK Biobank study

We investigated the joint associations of circulating neurodegeneration markers—neurofilament light (NfL) and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP)—ambient air pollution, and plasma metabolomic profiles with transitions from a healthy state to dementia, Parkinson’s disease (PD),...

A Wastewater-basedModeling Framework for InferringNorovirus Transmission Dynamics

Abstract Norovirus is a leading cause of gastroenteritis globally, yet its true infection burden in the community remains poorly understood because of widespread asymptomatic transmission and underreporting. Wastewater-based surveillance is a promising approach for tracking infec...

Fire-Smoke InducedProtein Alterations in Firefighters'Body Fluids Identify Prognostic Pan-cancer Biomarkers

Abstract Firefighters are routinely exposed to complex mixtures of toxicants during fire suppression, and growing evidence links these exposures to elevated cancer risk. Proteomic profiling provides a sensitive means to detect early molecular alterations associated with such occu...

Necessity and plurality of neural dynamics under ROSE

I am grateful to the authors of the commentary articles for identifying productive points of pressure for any neurocomputational account of syntax: whether semantic interpretation can proceed without a full syntactic derivation; how dynamical motifs are selected and coordinated;...

National Trends, Postoperative Antibiotic Utilization, and Complications Following Operative Management of Mandibular Condylar Fractures: A TriNetX Database Review

BACKGROUND: Debate persists regarding the management of condylar fractures. While systematic reviews and retrospective studies have examined clinical outcomes, national complication profiles, and postoperative antibiotic utilization remain incompletely characterized. METHODS: The...

DHHC21 is a STIM1 protein S-acyltransferase that modulates immune function in vivo

Depletion of calcium from ER stores leads to the activation of calcium channels on the plasma membrane known as store-operated calcium entry. The proteins STIM1 and STIM2 function as ER calcium sensors, and upon store depletion, they undergo a conformational change that allows th...

Toward federated large language models in medicine: a parameter-efficient framework for privacy-preserving, multi-institutional adaptation

Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly adapted for medical applications, but most are trained using data from a single institution because privacy and governance constraints prevent multi-institutional data sharing. As a result, these models often generalize poorly across...

Novel Lipoprotein (a) Therapies: A Comprehensive Review

Abstract Purpose of Review Lipoprotein(a) [Lp(a)] is a genetically determined, independent risk factor for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and calcific aortic valve stenosis. Plasma Lp(a) levels are 70–90% heritable, largely unresponsive to lifestyle changes, and poorly co...

Follow-up after an abnormal screening mammogram: Impact of a pandemic on mobile mammography patients

Objectives: To evaluate the effect of COVID-19 on a mobile screening mammography program as measured by turnaround time (TAT) in days between an abnormal screening mammogram (sMG) and diagnostic mammography. Material and Methods: All of our institution’s sMG (mobile and non-mobil...

MutFormer: a multimodal deep learning framework for predicting somatic mutation hotspots from sequence and chromatin features

Somatic mutations are unevenly distributed across the genome, with certain loci recurrently mutated across independent tumors. Both local DNA sequence context and chromatin organization have been associated with mutation rate variation, yet their combined effects at single-nucleo...

Dipyridamole-Coated 3D-Printed β-Tricalcium Phosphate Scaffolds: Spectrophotometric Characterization, Drug Release Kinetics, and In Vitro Evaluation to Guide Critical-Sized Bone Defect Repair Studies

Critical-sized bone defects remain a significant clinical challenge, and dipyridamole (DIPY)-coated 3D-tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP) scaffolds have shown promising osteogenic efficacy in preclinical models. However, the literature on the systematic physicochemical characterization...

Physician Perceptions of Particulate Versus Non-Particulate Steroids in Epidural Steroid Injections

Background Epidural steroid injections (ESIs) are widely used for the treatment of chronic spinal pain, particularly in cervical and lumbar radiculopathy. Corticosteroids used in ESIs are broadly classified as particulate or non-particulate formulations, each with distinct safety...

BE-BOIN: A Dose Optimization Design Accommodating Backfill and Late-Onset Toxicity

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched Project Optimus and issued guidance to reform dose-finding and selection trials, shifting the paradigm from identifying the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) to determining the optimal biological dose (OBD), which optimizes the risk a...

Platelet-Rich Plasma Facet Joint Injections for Post-Traumatic Lumbar Facet-Mediated Pain: A Two-Patient Case Report

Background Lumbar facet-mediated pain is a common contributor to axial low back pain and may occur after traumatic or mechanical injury, even when advanced imaging demonstrates only mild degenerative or nonspecific findings. Standard interventional treatment pathways often includ...

Long-term poverty, rurality, and geographic disparities in colorectal cancer: a spatial analysis in Texas

Colorectal cancer (CRC) remains a leading cause of cancer morbidity and mortality in the United States and shows substantial geographic variation. Socioeconomically disadvantaged communities experience elevated CRC incidence, yet few studies have analyzed multi-decade poverty mea...

Altered hippocampal lipid profile underlies anxiety-like behavior secondary to mild traumatic brain injury

Abstract Traumatic brain injury (TBI) remains a major cause of neurological morbidity worldwide, and mild TBI (mTBI) is frequently associated with emotional disturbances, including anxiety-like behavior. Although classical mechanisms of secondary injury have been extensively char...

Pituitary neuroendocrine tumors: imaging features, clinical relevance, and a proposal for standardized MRI reporting

Pituitary neuroendocrine tumors (PitNETs) are a heterogeneous group of lesions redefined in the 2022 WHO classification, emphasizing their neuroendocrine nature and biological variability. Despite advances in imaging, radiological reporting of PitNETs remains inconsistent and lac...

The impact of structural variation on Alzheimer’s disease in the Alzheimer’s disease sequencing project

Structural variants (SV), genomic alterations spanning more than 50 base pairs, can significantly impact gene expression and protein function. However, their contribution to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) remains poorly understood. Leveraging a novel SV calling pipeline, we identified...

Pregnancy Ambivalence, History of Pregnancy, Condom Use, and Contraceptive Use Among U.S. Youth Experiencing Homelessness

Youth experiencing homelessness (YEH) are 5–8 times more likely than housed peers to become pregnant. A more nuanced examination of YEH pregnancy desire may better inform pregnancy and pregnancy prevention guidance. This study examined pregnancy ambivalence, pregnancy history, co...

OntoCodex: a multi-agent biomedical ontology enrichment framework

Ontology enrichment is a critical but labor-intensive step in semantic knowledge representation. To address this challenge, we propose OntoCodex, a multi-agent framework that integrates large language models (LLMs), ontologies, curated knowledge sources, and standard vocabularies...