Super excited to share my very first lead-author paper in @ScienceAdvances

Supported by @HIRN_CC @NIDDKgov @UFBME @UFWertheim @ufdiabetes @UMCoEDean
Lead by @Cherie_Stabler & @ashu83

link:
https://t.co/FbqVWQ0n5p

This is a thread 👇

Highlights:
⚪️A Lab-on-a-Chip platform for organoids w/ wide capabilities: long-term culture | controlled & dynamic perifusion | in situ spatio-temporal imaging | serial cell assessment | ease of sample retrieval
⚪️Continuous fluidic flow increased local oxygen supply to islets in hydrogels & reduced cellular hypoxia
⚪️Flow increased cellular viability & reduced apoptosis & cell death
⚪️Human islets in hydrogels were highly functional during the 10 day in situ culture in our chips, while islet function was rapidly lost under static conditions
⚪️Glucolipotoxicity study showed a treatment window as small as 2.5 hours can elevate cell death
What are organoids? – A miniaturized version of an organ that imitate an aspect of human interface. They are commonly developed from stem cells in a lab. Human body also produces organoids naturally particularly within the pancreas.
Think of organoids like a microscopic version of raspberries comprised of small spheres. These raspberry-like organoids in the pancreas are called the islets that manufacture insulin and maintain glucose homeostasis.
Photo: Raspberry | Islet (yellow = insulin & blue = cellular nuclei)
Problem: Culturing organoids traditionally lead to precipitous loss of cell mass & fxn. This is at least due to oxygen deprivation & the lack of nutrient exchange. Tools used to evaluate islet fxn also make it hard to recover cells as they are trapped in a device or a slurry.
Our Solution: Lab-on-a-chip platform
What is this technology? It is a replica of a specific organ interface on a microchip. Our device mimics the dynamic environment of the islet niche by providing a microfluidic flow to islets that are also embedded in a 3D gel.
Our device can allow live-cell imaging to do cool studies.
Here, beta cells within an islet treated with high glucose + lipotoxic agent (left) shows elevated calcium signaling (GCaMP) compared to those treated with basal level of glucose (right) while showing cell death.
Future work: Further investigation on the role of shear stress in maintaining islet function. Expand throughput & in situ functional assessment w/o sacrificing ease in usability. Study temporal interactions between complex matrices and other 3D organoids.
Checkout my personal journey that ultimately produced this research article & what this all means to me through this video🎥🎙️ https://t.co/unEdSYfiw0
This was a highly collaborative effort excellently lead by @Cherie_Stabler & @ashu83. My deepest and most sincere appreciation goes to my co-first author @MattIshahak, mentors @Deborah_Chaimov, @PhelpsLab_UF, Dr. Peter Buchwald (@umiamimedicine) and colleagues…
…Ashwin Velraj, Dan LaShoto, & @walkhagan without whom this work would not have been disseminated.
I want to express my gratitude to the reviewers and the editors @ScienceAdvances for providing insightful criticism that strengthen the impact of this manuscript.
Additionally, I would like to acknowledge the unsung heroes including all my lab members at the Stabler Lab, my partner, and family members. Thank you for your insights, critics, and putting up with my countless MIA hours!
If you are curious about any specifics, please reach out to me directly! Looking forward to your interesting questions.

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Hard agree. And if this is useful, let me share something that often gets omitted (not by @kakape).

Variants always emerge, & are not good or bad, but expected. The challenge is figuring out which variants are bad, and that can't be done with sequence alone.


You can't just look at a sequence and say, "Aha! A mutation in spike. This must be more transmissible or can evade antibody neutralization." Sure, we can use computational models to try and predict the functional consequence of a given mutation, but models are often wrong.

The virus acquires mutations randomly every time it replicates. Many mutations don't change the virus at all. Others may change it in a way that have no consequences for human transmission or disease. But you can't tell just looking at sequence alone.

In order to determine the functional impact of a mutation, you need to actually do experiments. You can look at some effects in cell culture, but to address questions relating to transmission or disease, you have to use animal models.

The reason people were concerned initially about B.1.1.7 is because of epidemiological evidence showing that it rapidly became dominant in one area. More rapidly that could be explained unless it had some kind of advantage that allowed it to outcompete other circulating variants.
https://t.co/hXlo8qgkD0
Look like that they got a classical case of PCR Cross-Contamination.
They had 2 fabricated samples (SRX9714436 and SRX9714921) on the same PCR run. Alongside with Lung07. They did not perform metagenomic sequencing on the “feces” and they did not get


A positive oral or anal swab from anywhere in their sampling. Feces came from anus and if these were positive the anal swabs must also be positive. Clearly it got there after the NA have been extracted and were from the very low-level degraded RNA which were mutagenized from

The Taq.
https://t.co/yKXCgiT29w to see SRX9714921 and SRX9714436.
Human+Mouse in the positive SRA, human in both of them. Seeing human+mouse in identical proportions across 3 different sequencers (PRJNA573298, A22, SEX9714436) are pretty straight indication that the originals

Were already contaminated with Human and mouse from the very beginning, and that this contamination is due to dishonesty in the sample handling process which prescribe a spiking of samples in ACE2-HEK293T/A549, VERO E6 and Human lung xenograft mouse.

The “lineages” they claimed to have found aren’t mutational lineages at all—all the mutations they see on these sequences were unique to that specific sequence, and are the result of RNA degradation and from the Taq polymerase errors accumulated from the nested PCR process
Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics

https://t.co/mzS7vVSREJ

https://t.co/353PdAX2fa

https://t.co/3yBImjOdd4

In some cases, almost 100% of the light energy can be converted to the second harmonic frequency. These cases typically involve intense pulsed laser beams passing through large crystals, and careful alignment to obtain phase matching.

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This media manipulation effort was inspired by the success of the "kids in cages" freakout, a 100% Stalinist propaganda drive that required people to forget about Obama putting migrant children in cells. It worked, so now they want pics of Trump "gassing children on the border."

There's a heavy air of Pallywood around the whole thing as well. If the Palestinians can stage huge theatrical performances of victimhood with the willing cooperation of Western media, why shouldn't the migrant caravan organizers expect the same?

It's business as usual for Anarchy, Inc. - the worldwide shredding of national sovereignty to increase the power of transnational organizations and left-wing ideology. Many in the media are true believers. Others just cannot resist the narrative of "change" and "social justice."

The product sold by Anarchy, Inc. is victimhood. It always boils down to the same formula: once the existing order can be painted as oppressors and children as their victims, chaos wins and order loses. Look at the lefties shrieking in unison about "Trump gassing children" today.