Applications of Chinese Camellia oleifera and its By-Products: A Review.

Camellia oleifera is a woody oil tree species unique to China that has been cultivated and used in China for more than 2,300 years. Most biological research on C. oleifera in recent years has focused on the development of new varieties and breeding. Novel genomic information has been generated for C. oleifera, including a high-quality reference genome at the chromosome level. Camellia seeds are used to process high-quality edible oil; they are also often used in medicine, health foods, and daily chemical products and have shown promise for the treatment and prevention of diseases. C. oleifera by-products, such as camellia seed cake, saponin, and fruit shell are widely used in the daily chemical, dyeing, papermaking, chemical fibre, textile, and pesticide industries. C. oleifera shell can also be used to prepare activated carbon electrodes, which have high electrochemical performance when used as the negative electrode of lithium-ion batteries. C. oleifera is an economically valuable plant with diverse uses, and accelerating the utilization of its by-products will greatly enhance its industrial value.

[Visual analysis of research progress of Sophorae Tonkinensis Radix et Rhizoma based on CiteSpace].

To analyze the study advance of Sophorae Tonkinensis Radix et Rhizoma, this study utilized CiteSpace 5.6.R5 software to conduct bibliometrics analysis on the Chinese literatures of Sophorae Tonkinensis Radix et Rhizoma from 1990 to 2020 included in the CNKI database retrieval platform. The analysis contents involved the number of published papers, co-authors, cooperative institutions, emergence, co-occurrence and clustering of keywords. A total of 808 Chinese literatures were included in the study, of which 17 were published by SUN Rong, the author with the most published papers, and formed a research team centered on SUN Rong; the analysis of the cooperation of publishing institutions showed that the Drug Safety Evaluation Research Center, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine was the organization with the largest number of publications, with a total of 29 articles. It also formed a scientific research coorperation institution with Shandong Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine as the core, and formed a relatively close cooperative network relationship. The analysis of literature keywords showed that the research direction was concentrated on the traditional Chinese medicine of Sophorae Tonkinensis Radix et Rhizoma, pharmacological mechanism, and side effects, active ingredients, etc. Among them, the research on the efficacy and toxicity of the active ingredients of Sophorae Tonkinensis Radix et Rhizoma has become a hot trend.

[Analysis of CiteSpace knowledge map for Cichorium intybus].

To analyze the study advance of Cichorium intybus, a kind of medicinal food, this study systematically retrieved Chinese and English literatures of C.intybus-related studies based on CNKI and the Web of Science database platforms by literature metrological research method and CiteSpace 5.5.R2 software, and visualized the literatures. A total of 1 247 Chinese literatures and 1 488 English literatures were included. Author analysis showed that HAN Yongfen in Guizhou Grass Industry Research Institute and W VAN DEN ENDE in Belgium Catholic University of Leuven had the most publications in Chinese and English C.intybus literatures respectively. ZHANG Bing's team was the core study team of C. intybus in China. Beijing University of Chinese Medicine and Belgium Catholic University of Leuven had the largest number of Chinese and English Cichorium literatures. There was a few cooperation between Chinese study institutions and close cooperation between foreign research institutions. Keywords analysis showed that C.intybus studies mainly focused on breeding and growth performance, composition analysis and content determination, nutritional value and medicinal value, in which C.intybus composition and its role in reducing uric acid were the hotspots of current studies. This study found that C.intybus has a high economic value and medicinal value, and its food nutrition and medicinal activity will be the main directions of future studies.

Comparison of the Copan WASPLab incorporating the BioRad expert system against the SIRscan 2000 automatic for routine antimicrobial disc diffusion susceptibility testing.

OBJECTIVES: This study investigated the agreement at the categorical level between the Copan WASPLab incorporating the BioRad expert system against the SIRscan 2000 automatic for antimicrobial disc diffusion susceptibility testing. METHODS: The 338 clinical strains (67 Pseudomonas aeruginosa, 19 methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, 75 methicillin-sensitive S. aureus and 177 Enterobacterales isolates) analysed in this study were non-duplicate isolates obtained from consecutive clinical samples referred to the clinical bacteriology laboratory at Geneva University Hospitals between June and August 2019. For the WASPLab the inoculum suspension was prepared in strict accordance with the manufacturer's instruction (Copan WASP srl, Brescia, Italy) by adding 2 mL of the 0.5 McFarland primary suspension used for the SIRscan analysis into a sterile tube filled with 4 mL of sterile saline (1:3 dilution). The inoculum (2 × 30 µL loop/spreader) was spread over the entire surface of Mueller-Hinton agar plates according to the AST streaking pattern defined by Copan. The antibiotic discs were dispensed by the WASP and inoculated media were loaded on conveyors for transfer to the automatic incubators. The plates were incubated for 16 h, and several digital images were acquired. Inhibition zone diameters were automatically read by the WASPLab and were adjusted manually whenever necessary. For the SIRscan 2000 automatic, the antimicrobial disc diffusion susceptibility testing was performed according to the EUCAST guidelines. The gradient strip method was used to resolve discrepancies. RESULTS: The overall categorical agreement between the compared methods reached 99.1% (797/804; 95% CI 98.2%-99.6%), 99.5% (1029/1034; 95% CI 98.9%-99.8%), and 98.8% (2798/2832; 95% CI 98.3%-99.1%) for P. aeruginosa, S. aureus and the Enterobacterales, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: WASPLab incorporating the BioRad expert system provides a fully automated solution for antimicrobial disc diffusion susceptibility testing with equal or better accuracy than other available phenotypic methods.

Evolution of Drug Development: Integrating the Patient Perspective Into Early Research.

Soaring drug development costs, increasingly stringent regulatory requirements, and demanding market access environments have necessitated that pharmaceutical companies examine their research processes in order to provide novel and meaningful solutions for patients. In this paper, we describe an initiative that aims to incorporate a better appreciation of the exam room experience of both patients and practitioners into the drug development pathway from the earliest point of research. Focusing on 4 core pillars-medical value, patient need, scientific rationale, and market environment-an integrated analytic process is undertaken so as to facilitate early identification of ideal target populations and criteria that will need to be met for successful entry into the treatment continuum. Collaborative interactions with other specialist roles within the organization are also described. It is argued that understanding the unmet medical need and the risks and opportunities inherent in different development scenarios can help direct early research so as to encourage truly transformative health care solutions.

Medical Resource Value Appraisal for Leucojum aestivum in Turkey.

In this study, we investigate the medical and economical value of Leucojum aestivum. Leucojum aestivum contains the alkaloid galanthamine, which is one of the main active substances in Reminyl, a commonly used drug for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD). In this analysis, we estimate that there are 13 million mild to moderate patients with Alzheimer's who use Reminyl. Our results suggest that the market change value of L aestivum required for 1 unit of Reminyl is US$62. The value of total change of galanthamine and L aestivumis estimated to be US$18.6 billion per year. Alzheimer's drugs that use L aestivum are relatively expensive, ranging in cost from US$183 to more than US$400 per month. The minimum annual cost of this is US$2196 per person for "patients with mild and moderate stage AD." The using value of 6 million units of L aestivum bulbs, which is the amount exported from Turkey, is estimated to be US$27 million per year. The determined value for L aestivum is equivalent to the value of a rare flower that can be used to treat the serious illness of AD.