Browsing by Author "Kopel, Jonathan (TTUHSC)"
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Item Amyloid Beta in Aging and Alzheimer’s Disease(2022) Sehar, Ujala (TTUHSC); Rawat, Priyanka (TTUHSC); Reddy, Arubala P (TTU); Kopel, Jonathan (TTUHSC); Reddy, P. Hemachandra (TTUHSC)Alzheimer’s disease (AD), is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects behavior, thinking, learning, and memory in elderly individuals. AD occurs in two forms, early onset familial and late-onset sporadic; genetic mutations in PS1, PS2, and APP genes cause early onset familial AD, and a combination of lifestyle, environment and genetic factors causes the late-onset sporadic form of the disease. However, accelerated disease progression is noticed in patients with familial AD. Disease-causing pathological changes are synaptic damage, and mitochondrial structural and functional changes, in addition to increased production and accumulation of phosphorylated tau (p-tau), and amyloid beta (Aβ) in the affected brain regions in AD patients. Aβ is a peptide derived from amyloid precursor protein (APP) by proteolytic cleavage of beta and gamma secretases. APP is a glycoprotein that plays a significant role in maintaining neuronal homeostasis like signaling, neuronal development, and intracellular transport. Aβ is reported to have both protective and toxic effects in neurons. The purpose of our article is to summarize recent developments of Aβ and its association with synapses, mitochondria, microglia, astrocytes, and its interaction with p-tau. Our article also covers the therapeutic strategies that reduce Aβ toxicities in disease progression and discusses the reasons for the failures of Aβ therapeutics.Item Anti-Pseudomonas aeruginosa Vaccines and Therapies: An Assessment of Clinical Trials(2023) Elmassry, Moamen M. (TTU); Colmer-Hamood, Jane A. (TTUHSC); Kopel, Jonathan (TTUHSC); San Francisco, Michael J. (TTU); Hamood, Abdul N. (TTUHSC)Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a Gram-negative opportunistic pathogen that causes high morbidity and mortality in cystic fibrosis (CF) and immunocompromised patients, including patients with ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), severely burned patients, and patients with surgical wounds. Due to the intrinsic and extrinsic antibiotic resistance mechanisms, the ability to produce several cell-associated and extracellular virulence factors, and the capacity to adapt to several environmental conditions, eradicating P. aeruginosa within infected patients is difficult. Pseudomonas aeruginosa is one of the six multi-drug-resistant pathogens (ESKAPE) considered by the World Health Organization (WHO) as an entire group for which the development of novel antibiotics is urgently needed. In the United States (US) and within the last several years, P. aeruginosa caused 27% of deaths and approximately USD 767 million annually in health-care costs. Several P. aeruginosa therapies, including new antimicrobial agents, derivatives of existing antibiotics, novel antimicrobial agents such as bacteriophages and their chelators, potential vaccines targeting specific virulence factors, and immunotherapies have been developed. Within the last 2–3 decades, the efficacy of these different treatments was tested in clinical and preclinical trials. Despite these trials, no P. aeruginosa treatment is currently approved or available. In this review, we examined several of these clinicals, specifically those designed to combat P. aeruginosa infections in CF patients, patients with P. aeruginosa VAP, and P. aeruginosa–infected burn patients.Item Near-Death Experiences and Religious Experience: An Exploration of Spirituality in Medicine(2022) Kopel, Jonathan (TTUHSC); Webb, Mark (TTU)There has been a continuous discussion of religious experience since William James, culminating in a rich and varied literature on the epistemology of religious experience in the late twentieth century. There has also been a burgeoning literature on near-death experiences (NDEs), largely on neurology and physiology and sometimes as possible counterevidence to naturalism. One important subject is largely missing, and that is a discussion of NDEs as religious experiences, and what light that might shed on their epistemic status. This paper is an attempt to fill that gap. In part one, we will delineate the topic of NDEs and what medical science has to say about them. In part two, we will lay out a general view of the epistemology of religious experience. In part three, we will apply that understanding of religious experience to NDEs and draw what lessons we may.