Exosome isolation and purification via hydrophobic interaction chromatography using a polyester,capillary‐channeled polymer fiber phase

Extracellular vesicles, including microvesicles and exosomes, are lipidic membrane‐derived vesicles that are secreted by most cell types. Exosomes, one class of these vesicles that are 30–100 nm in diameter, hold a great deal of promise in disease diagnostics, as they display the same protein biomarkers as their originating cell. For exosomes to become useful in disease diagnostics, and as burgeoning drug delivery platforms, they must be isolated efficiently and effectively without compromising their structure. Most current exosome isolation methods have practical problems including being too time‐consuming and labor intensive, destructive to the exosomes, or too costly for use in clinical settings. To this end, this study examines the use of poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) capillary‐channeled polymer (C‐CP) fibers in a hydrophobic interaction chromatography (HIC) protocol to isolate exosomes from diverse matrices of practical concern. Initial results demonstrate the ability to isolate extracellular vesicles enriched in exosomes with comparable yields and size distributions on a much faster time scale when compared to traditional isolation methods. As a demonstration of the potential analytical utility of the approach, extracellular vesicle recoveries from cell culture milieu and a mock urine matrix are presented. The potential for scalable separations covering submilliliter spin‐down columns to the preparative scale is anticipated.     

Stress relaxation of PBI based membrane electrode assemblies

Stress relaxation in the membrane electrode assemblies (MEA) in PEM fuel cells subjected to compressive loads is analyzed. This behavior is important because nonzero contact stress is required to maintain low electric resistivity in the fuel cell stack. Experimental results are used to guide the choice of the viscoelastic properties of the constituents of the MEA, the membrane and the gas diffusion layer (GDL), needed for the model. These properties are incorporated into the model that treats the membrane as a porous-viscoelastic solid, and the gas diffusion layer as a nonlinear elastic solid. Using numerical simulations (finite element method), the stress relaxation curves for the MEA are obtained for different fluid flow boundary conditions, variations in the material properties of the membrane and the GDL. The results are compared to experimental stress relaxation curves. Most of the experimental data were obtained at a temperature of 180 °C, corresponding to operating conditions, so in the model the temperature was considered fixed and equal to this value.     

Structural Stability for Ill-Posed Problems in Banach Space

We prove Holder-continuous dependence results for the difference between solutions of certain ill-posed and approximate well-posed problems in both Hilbert and Banach spaces. We use operator-theoretic methods, including C-semigroups, to treat the abstract Cauchy problem $\frac{du}{dt} = Au, u(0) = \chi, 0 \leq t < T,$ where the operator $-A$ is the infinitesimal generator of a holomorphic semigroup.     

Unilateral recurrent laryngeal nerve paralysis:The importance of “preoperative” voice therapy

This preliminary retrospective study of 19 female patients and 22male patients with unilateral recurrent nerve lesions demonstrated the promise of objective measurements in predicting the need for surgery, the efficacy of voice therapy in ameliorating vocal symptoms, and the effects of therapy in conjunction with surgery. Sixty-eight percent (68%) of the female patients and 64% of the male patients did not elect to have surgery. Outcome satisfaction of nonsurgical and surgical patients appeared to be similar. The data from this study support the importance of preoperative therapy for patients with unilateral vocal fold paralysis.     

Stereoselective synthesis of quaternary center bearing azetines and their beta-amino acid derivatives

We describe here the use of a stable, four-membered azetine heterocycle for the preparation of highly substituted beta-amino acid derivatives. Imidazolidinone chiral auxiliaries were found to eliminate a competitive reaction pathway that had been present under previously reported conditions for azetine synthesis. The ephedrine derived imidazolidin-2-one 21 was allowed to react as its chlorotitanium enolate with O-methyl or -benzyl oximes under optimized conditions to gain improved access to azetines at the gram scale. The azetines were further found to undergo alkylation with complete diastereocontrol, affording the creation of a quaternary center. Subsequent ring opening with benzoyl chloride and auxiliary cleavage provided the corresponding beta2,2,3-amino carbonyl derivatives in good yields.     

Continuous dependence results for inhomogeneous ill-posed problems in Banach space

We apply semigroup theory and other operator-theoretic methods to prove Hölder-continuous dependence on modeling for the inhomogeneous ill-posed Cauchy problem in Banach space. The inhomogeneous ill-posed Cauchy problem is given by , u(0)=χ, 0?t<T; where −A is the infinitesimal generator of a holomorphic semigroup on a Banach space X, χ∈X, and . For a suitable function f, the approximate problem is given by , v(0)=χ. Under certain stabilizing conditions, we prove that for a related norm, where and M are computable constants independent of β, 0<β<1, and ω(t) is a harmonic function. These results extend earlier work of Ames and Hughes on the homogeneous ill-posed problem.