Current Pharmaceutical Biotechnology - Volume 18, Issue 8, 2017

Background: Women of reproductive age diagnosed with cancer are often interested in preserving gametes or reproductive tissue that would allow for future genetic parenthood. Preservation of fertility is often accomplished in young cancer patients via ovarian stimulation followed by oocyte or embryo cryopreservation. Conventional stimulation protocols, however, require 2-4 weeks to complete ovarian stimulation, oocyte retri Read More

Background: Poor ovarian responders (POR) pose a challenge to a physicians' ability to choose a stimulation protocol that maximizes the number of oocytes harvested and their chances of conception with multiple protocols aimed at improving pregnancy rates in this poor prognosis population. The Bologna criteria standardized the diagnosis of POR and allows for a more homogenous patient population in clinical trials. Methods: Read More

Background: The role of elevated baseline progesterone (P) levels in outcomes of frozen embryo transfers (FET) performed in an artificial cycle has not been investigated yet. Objective: To evaluate the role of elevated P in artificial FET. Method: Case series study of 12 patients with high P levels undergoing artificial FET recruited during a 6-month period in a tertiary referral center. Results: The clinical pregnancy rate per transfer Read More

Background: The use of GnRH analogue medication is essential in reproductive medicine to avoid premature ovulation by pituitary suppression for the duration of ovarian stimulation by gonadotrophins. The type of pituitary suppression by either GnRH agonist analogues versus GnRH antagonist analogues may result in different embryological hence clinical results. Preimplantation genetic diagnosis is a subtype of IVF in which em Read More

Background: While there are guidelines for the use of intravenous immunoglobulins in children with Guillain-Barre syndrome and myasthenia gravis based on high-level evidence studies, data are scarce for the majority of neurologic disorders in this age group. Neuronal antibodies are detected in children with seizures of autoimmune etiology. Intravenous immunoglobulins with their broad immunomodulatory mechanism of action Read More

Background: Vaccine formulations may contain visible and/or subvisible particles, which can vary in both size and morphology. Extrinsic particles, which are particles not part of the product such as foreign contaminants, are generally considered undesirable and should be eliminated or controlled in injectable products. However, biological products, in particular vaccines, may also contain particles that are inherent to the Read More

Background: For design of a subunit vaccine for tuberculosis, identification of antigenic Tcell epitope is of utmost importance. Several MHC prediction server are available that can accurately predict antigenic peptide of variable lengths. However, peptides predicted from one server not necessarily are predicted form another server, thus creating a confusing situation for scientists to choose a best epitope. Method: Keepi Read More

Background: Enterococcus faecalis 2001 is a probiotic lactic acid bacterium and has been used as a biological response modifier (BRM). From physiological limitation of bacterial preservation in storage and safety, the live E. faecalis 2001 has been heat-treated and the BRM components containing high level of β-glucan, named EF-2001, were prepared. Method: The heat-treated EF-2001 has been examined for the antioxi Read More

Background: Connexin (Cx) proteins are the building blocks of gap junctions. Among these, Cx37 and Cx40 are expressed on vascular system and reported to have cardioprotective role. Linking polymorphisms in genes coding for Cx and coronary artery disease (CAD) risk showed conflicting results in different populations. None has been studied before in Egyptians. Therefore, the aims of this study were to investigate the influ Read More

Background: Among the many researches on cellular uptake and intracellular trafficking pathways of αvβ3-targeted nanomedicines, a large number of studies utilize serum-free medium to evaluate drug effects and cellular mechanisms in vitro whether the medium is serum free or not has not been paid much attention. Methods: The aim of this study was to assess the impact of serum on αvβ3-mediated endocytosis and Read More

Background: Citrullus colocynthis (L.) Schrad is an important medicinal plant belonging to the family Cucurbitaceae. Cucurbitacin E glucoside (1) was isolated from Citrullus colocynthis fruits. A novel mono-ester of cucurbitacin-E and cinnamyl and caffeoyl-β-D-glucoside (2 and 3) was synthesized by reaction of cucurbitacin E glucoside with cinnamic and/or caffeic acid in the presence of CHCl2 and K2CO3 with constant Read More