ABSTRACT
Background & Aim: COVID-19 suggested to be treated with pleiotropic agents rather than single-target agents due to its complicated pathophysiology. There are currently no approved effective therapy that can stop the progression of COVID-19. Mesenchymal stem cells and its secretome have been studied in several in vivo lung disease models. The therapeutic application of Secretome therapy has been shown to be efficient in influenza infection, resulting in decreased alveolar fluid clearance and lung injury. This has been linked to attenuation of pro-inflammatory cytokine release, inflammatory cell recruitment, and increased alveolar macrophage content. In this article, we report case series of three COVID-19 patients received an experimental treatment with secretome from umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cells (UC-MSCs) therapy in conjunction with recommended treatment protocols. Methods, Results & Conclusion: Three male patients who were tested positive for COVID-19 are initially presented with mild case of COVID-19 symptoms. The patients were treated with recommended treatment protocols of COVID-19 and add-on secretome from umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cells (UC-MSCs) therapy. In this cases we report the administration of 1 cc and 0,5 cc secretome from UC-MSCs through nasal drop, with 0,5 cc and 0,25 cc for each nostril. Ground Glass Opacity (GGO) were checked by chest CT and the observation stop when patients were symptom-free and tested negative for (Figure Presented)Figs 1 and 2 COVID-19. Significant improvement showed in patients’s respiratory symptoms include GGO profiles, proven by chest CT and no side effects reported. Our report showed that nasal drop of secretome from UC-MSC therapy in patients with mild COVID-19 is safe and well tolerated. No serious therapy-associated adverse event was observed. Further study with more patients and comprehensive biomarker testing is needed to evaluate the efficacy of secretome from UC-MSC therapy to improve long-term treatment outcomes in COVID-19 patients
ABSTRACT
Background. COVI-VACTM is an intra-nasal live-attenuated SARS-COV-2 synthetic viral vaccine being developed for the prevention of COVID-19. COVI-VAC is attenuated through deletion of the furin cleavage site and introduction of 283 silent deoptimizing mutations that maintain viral amino acid sequence but result in significant attenuation due to slow translation in the human host cell. Notably, COVI-VAC includes all viral antigens and is not limited to spike. COVI-VAC has demonstrated attenuation, immunogenicity and single dose protection in both Syrian golden hamster and non-human primate models. Methods. 48 healthy young adults were enrolled in an inpatient quarantine setting to one of 3 dose escalating cohorts and randomized to COVI-VAC or saline placebo given as nose drops, as a single 0.5mL dose or 2 doses 28 days apart. Endpoints included solicited and unsolicited adverse events, serum cytokines, viral shedding and sequence stability, mucosal and serum antibody responses and IFN ELISpot. Subjects will be followed for 1 year for late safety events and durability of immune response. Results. Dosing is complete. There has been no trend in solicited reactogenicity events, and all unsolicited adverse events reported to date have been mild. There have been no SAEs or Grade 3 or 4 events. Vaccine virus from anonymized subjects was shed at levels lower than that likely to result in onward transmission, and the deoptimized sequence of the shed virus remained unchanged compared to the original vaccine sequence. Unblinded data including immunogenicity will be available prior to the IDWeek meeting. Conclusion. COVI-VAC appears safe and well tolerated in healthy young adults. Vaccination resulted in minimal viral shedding without sequence instability. Safety and shedding data supports continued development in a wider Phase 2/3 population.
ABSTRACT
A novel, simple, low-cost, and user-friendly potentiometric surfactant sensor based on the new 1,3-dihexadecyl-1H-benzo[d]imidazol-3-ium-tetraphenylborate (DHBI-TPB) ion-pair for the detection of cationic surfactants in personal care products and disinfectants is presented here. The new cationic surfactant DHBI-Br was successfully synthesized and characterized by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometry, liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) and elemental analysis and was further employed for DHBI-TPB ion-pair preparation. The sensor gave excellent response characteristics for CTAB, CPC and Hyamine with a Nernstian slope (57.1 to 59.1 mV/decade) whereas the lowest limit of detection (LOD) value was measured for CTAB (0.3 × 10-6 M). The sensor exhibited a fast dynamic response to dodecyl sulfate (DDS) and TPB. High sensor performances stayed intact regardless of the employment of inorganic and organic cations and in a broad pH range (2-11). Titration of cationic and etoxylated (EO)-nonionic surfactant (NSs) (in Ba2+) mixtures with TPB revealed the first inflexion point for a cationic surfactant and the second for an EO-nonionic surfactant. The increased concentration of EO-nonionic surfactants and the number of EO groups had a negative influence on titration curves and signal change. The sensor was successfully applied for the quantification of technical-grade cationic surfactants and in 12 personal care products and disinfectants. The results showed good agreement with the measurements obtained by a commercial surfactant sensor and by a two-phase titration. A good recovery for the standard addition method (98-102%) was observed.