The effects of the coronavirus disease pandemic on intravenous thrombolytic therapy among patients with acute ischemic stroke in Dalian, China.

BACKGROUND: We investigated the influence of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on the number of patients with acute ischemic stroke who received intravenous thrombolytic therapy (ITT) in Dalian, China, in 2020. METHODS: This retrospective descriptive study, conducted from February 1, 2020, to August 31, 2020, examined 13 hospitals in Dalian that participated in the "stroke emergency map". To use this "stroke emergency map" of China, patients followed the official "Stroke Map" WeChat account and dialed 120 for emergency medical services. We analyzed the number of patients with acute ischemic stroke who underwent ITT. In particular, we examined the onset-to-door time (ODT), door-to-needle time (DNT), onset-to-needle time (ONT), mode of transportation to the hospital, and National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) scores before and after ITT. Data were collected for the aforementioned period and compared with the 2021 baseline data from the same time of year. The Mann‒Whitney U test was performed for data analysis. RESULTS: Compared with the data from 2020, the number of patients with acute ischemic stroke who underwent ITT increased (from 735 to 1719 cases) in 2021, but the DNT decreased (from 59 to 45 min; P = 0.002). Moreover, 83.9% of patients in 2020 presented to the hospital without ambulance transport, compared to 81.1% of patients in the 2021 non-COVID-19 pandemic period. Patients with NIHSS scores of 6-14 were more likely to call an ambulance for transport to the hospital than to transport themselves to the emergency department. CONCLUSIONS: During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the DNT was prolonged as a result of strengthened fever surveillance. In 2021, the number of patients with acute ischemic stroke who underwent ITT increased compared to the previous year. Notably, the growth in the number of patients with acute ischemic stroke who underwent ITT benefited from both the "stroke emergency map" of China and the "green channel," a novel treatment approach that focuses on the rational design of the rescue process. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Our study was a retrospective descriptive study, not a clinical trial, thus we did not have to register for clinical trials.

Progress on Pharmaceutical Sciences/Pharmacy Postgraduate Education: a Bibliometric Perspective.

OBJECTIVE: The study quantitatively investigated the related research progress in pharmaceutical sciences/pharmacy education from a bibliometric angle and provided feasible suggestions to facilitate the development of pharmaceutical sciences/pharmacy postgraduate education. METHODS: Bibliometric analysis was conducted using the database of Web of Science Core Collection. The literature published in 1985-2021 was screened and selected. The overall profile description, citation analysis, and research hotspot mining were performed using the citation report of Clarivate Analytics, bibliometrics online platform, and VOSviewer software. The bibliometric results and profiles were plotted and illustrated. RESULTS: The bibliometric analysis of 485 papers of interest showed that the research frontier was continuously expanding; especially the institutions from the USA were the main contributors. The numbers of citing papers have been ascending, and a considerable part of citations were from the areas other than the education research. Mining results showed that the in-school and residency education of pharmacy postgraduates was a research hotspot, as well as interprofessional training and new education styles for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) therapy were the emerging trends in the field. CONCLUSION: Through the analysis of the studies, it was found that encouraging relevant research programs, establishing financial supports, and launching specified publication sources could be helpful to boost the development of pharmaceutical sciences/pharmacy postgraduate education. Besides, the results suggested that this was a less discussed topic and was worthy for the investigators to pay more attention to such an issue. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12247-021-09611-z.

Bibliometric landscape of the researches on protein corona of nanoparticles.

Unclear biological fate hampers the clinical translation of nanoparticles for biomedical uses. In recent years, it is documented that the formation of protein corona upon nanoparticles is a critical factor leading to the ambiguous biological fate. Efforts have been made to explore the protein corona forming behaviors on nanoparticles, and rearrangement of the relevant studies will help to understand the current trend of such a topic. In this work, the publications about protein corona of nanoparticles in Science Citation Index Expanded database of Web of Science from 2007 to 2020 (1417 in total) were analyzed in detail, and the bibliometrics landscape of them was showcased. The basic bibliometrics characteristics were summarized to provide an overall understanding. Citation analysis was performed to scrutinize the peer interests of these papers. The research hotspots in the field were evaluated, based on which some feasible topics for future studies were proposed. In general, the results demonstrated that protein corona of nanoparticles was a prospective research area, and had attracted global research interests. It was believed that this work could comprehensively highlight the bibliometrics landscape, inspire further exploitation on protein corona of nanoparticles, and ultimately promote the clinical translation of nanoparticles.

Virus-inspired surface-nanoengineered antimicrobial liposome: A potential system to simultaneously achieve high activity and selectivity.

Enveloped viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 frequently have a highly infectious nature and are considered effective natural delivery systems exhibiting high efficiency and specificity. Since simultaneously enhancing the activity and selectivity of lipopeptides is a seemingly unsolvable problem for conventional chemistry and pharmaceutical approaches, we present a biomimetic strategy to construct lipopeptide-based mimics of viral architectures and infections to enhance their antimicrobial efficacy while avoiding side effects. Herein, a surface-nanoengineered antimicrobial liposome (SNAL) is developed with the morphological features of enveloped viruses, including a moderate size range, lipid-based membrane structure, and highly lipopeptide-enriched bilayer surface. The SNAL possesses virus-like infection to bacterial cells, which can mediate high-efficiency and high-selectivity bacteria binding, rapidly attack and invade bacteria via plasma membrane fusion pathway, and induce a local "burst" release of lipopeptide to produce irreversible damage of cell membrane. Remarkably, viral mimics are effective against multiple pathogens with low minimum inhibitory concentrations (1.6-6.3 µg mL-1), high bactericidal efficiency of >99% within 2 h, >10-fold enhanced selectivity over free lipopeptide, 99.8% reduction in skin MRSA load after a single treatment, and negligible toxicity. This bioinspired design has significant potential to enhance the therapeutic efficacy of lipopeptides and may create new opportunities for designing next-generation antimicrobials.

Alveolar cells under mechanical stressed niche: critical contributors to pulmonary fibrosis.

Pulmonary fibrosis arises from the repeated epithelial mild injuries and insufficient repair lead to over activation of fibroblasts and excessive deposition of extracellular matrix, which result in a mechanical stretched niche. However, increasing mechanical stress likely exists before the establishment of fibrosis since early micro injuries increase local vascular permeability and prompt cytoskeletal remodeling which alter cellular mechanical forces. It is noteworthy that COVID-19 patients with severe hypoxemia will receive mechanical ventilation as supportive treatment and subsequent pathology studies indicate lung fibrosis pattern. At advanced stages, mechanical stress originates mainly from the stiff matrix since boundaries between stiff and compliant parts of the tissue could generate mechanical stress. Therefore, mechanical stress has a significant role in the whole development process of pulmonary fibrosis. The alveoli are covered by abundant capillaries and function as the main gas exchange unit. Constantly subject to variety of damages, the alveolar epithelium injuries were recently recognized to play a vital role in the onset and development of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. In this review, we summarize the literature regarding the effects of mechanical stress on the fundamental cells constituting the alveoli in the process of pulmonary fibrosis, particularly on epithelial cells, capillary endothelial cells, fibroblasts, mast cells, macrophages and stem cells. Finally, we briefly review this issue from a more comprehensive perspective: the metabolic and epigenetic regulation.