Latest Publications
Consensus Review of Perioperative Immune Modulation for Endovascular Thrombectomy Following Ischemic Stroke
Ling Cai, Yan Li, Chong Wang, Tim Magnus, Chengye Yao, Xiaoming Hu, Ann M. Stowe, Anna Rosell, Sunghee Cho, Stuart M. Allan, Jieqing Wan, Yulong Ma, Yang Liu, Daniel I. Sessler, Johannes Boltze, Tianlong Wang, Weifeng Yu, Yueman Zhang, Peiying Li,
Ischemic stroke is a major global health burden, leading to considerable mortality and long-term disability. Endovascular thrombectomy and mechanical recanalization have revolutionized acute stroke care. Nonetheless, many patients experience poor long-term neurological outcomes, which are often attributed to the no-reflow phenomenon and activation of inflammatory cascades. The perioperative period of endovascular thrombectomy, managed under either general anesthesia or conscious sedation, represents a critical window where anesthetic strategies may influence recovery through hemodynamic control and possibly immune modulation. This consensus review was generated by an international multidisciplinary expert group and synthesizes preclinical and clinical evidence to evaluate the promise of various immunomodulatory strategies for improving functional outcomes in patients with ischemic stroke following endovascular thrombectomy. Our goal is to provide a foundational reference for future research and development of novel perioperative immune therapies for patients with endovascular thrombectomy.
The perception to practice pathway of integrated pest management in horticulture: an extended Technology Acceptance Model
Jennifer Byrne, Lael Walsh, Robert Lillywhite, Henry Creissen, Antonia dos Santos, Fiona Thorne
An extended Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was used to explore the pathway between the perception of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) by growers and its practical uptake. IPM is an established framework for the management of crop health based on a range of strategic and tactical horticultural techniques. In this research, IPM adoption is quantified through the application of a novel IPM metric. Policy makers need to understand the perception to practice pathway for IPM in order to increase adoption in line with regulatory frameworks. The TAM examines perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEOU) on the attitude and subsequent acceptance of a technology; extended TAM frameworks incorporate additional antecedent variables. In this study, we include the additional latent variables of business features and innovativeness to examine their capacity to predict the adoption of IPM at the farm business level for growers of horticultural crops (n = 100) in the Republic of Ireland, surveyed in 2023. Findings verify the correlation between PU, PEOU and attitude and the effect of PEOU on PU. PU has a stronger association with attitude than PEOU. Neither business features nor innovativeness were significantly related to PU or PEOU, respectively. The hypothetical correlation between attitude and IPM adoption was rejected, demonstrating a divide in the perception to practice trajectory and adding to the literature on the attitude to adoption gap. The findings demonstrate the value of empirical assessment of behavioural data. An implication for IPM policy direction is that grower perception does not always infer future grower adoption. Therefore, a cautionary reliance on perception data during the ex-ante stages of IPM incentivisation development is recommended.
Microbial Primer: Ancientbiotics – making modern antimicrobials from historical infection remedies
Freya Harrison, Oluwatosin Q. Orababa
The modern antibiotic era began in the early twentieth century, but humans have long used materials from the natural world to attempt to treat the symptoms of infection. In this primer, we will discuss the rationale for attempting to reconstruct historical infection remedies in order to assess their antimicrobial activity and how this approach could aid the discovery of molecular cocktails with potential for development into novel treatments for infection.
Biofilm growth is insufficient to retain large buoyant microplastics in constructed wetlands
Charlotte Dykes, Jonathan Pearson, Gary Bending, Soroush Abolfathi
Microplastics (MPs) are emerging contaminants, with wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) as principal hotspots for their release into downstream systems, including constructed wetlands (CWs), a nature-based solution for water treatment. While non-buoyant MPs readily settle, buoyant MPs risk bypassing CWs and entering aquatic environments. Biofilm formation could influence MP transport by altering buoyancy, promoting sinking, and enhancing MP retention, yet its role in CWs remains unknown. This study, for the first time, quantifies the effects of MP polymer type, particle characteristics, exposure time, and seasonality on biofilm colonisation and its impact on terminal rising velocities of initially buoyant MPs in a UK-based CW receiving partially treated wastewater. Polypropylene (PP), expanded polystyrene (PS), and low-density polyethylene (LDPE) particles (3–5 mm) in spherical, beaded, and film shapes were incubated in situ over 12 months. Sampling followed two approaches: (1) a rolling bi-monthly schedule to capture seasonal variation, and (2) a long-term deployment with subsets retrieved every two months. Biofilm biomass was quantified by crystal violet staining, surface characteristics were captured by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and terminal rising velocity experiments measured buoyancy changes. Biofilm growth showed strong seasonality, with peak biomass in late spring showing up to a 1972 % increase compared to winter. Despite widespread colonisation, changes in terminal rising velocity were minimal and largely non-significant (p < 0.05), indicating that biofilm formation alone is insufficient to retain initially buoyant MPs in CWs. These findings are crucial for deriving MP transport models and challenge assumptions that biofilm-induced density changes drive MP retention in CWs.
Cicada necrobiome mediates greenhouse and trace gas pulses following periodic mass emergence
Megan L. Purchase, Richard P. Phillips, Jonathan D. Raff, Amy I. Phelps, Elizabeth Huenupi, Ryan M. Mushinski
The emergence of periodical cicadas from soil every 13 or 17 years is a unique ecological phenomenon with the potential to affect soil biogeochemistry in forests, with increased emissions of climate-relevant gases as a consequence. While it's well-known that cicada carcasses create resource pulses of carbon and nitrogen (N) in soil when they die in mass, the processes underlying these effects, as well as the consequences of these effects for N losses, are poorly known. We investigated how the emergence of Brood X cicadas (Magicicada spp.) in 2021 affected soil microbial communities – particularly N cycling taxa - in forests of the United States. We found that decaying carcasses led to emissions of nitrous oxide (N2O) and ammonia (NH3) gas at around 0.53 mg-N m−2 h−1, estimated to be a ∼ 35-fold increase over ∼21 days from the annual average emissions from US forest soils (0.015 mg-N m−2 h−1), with the greatest effects occurring at the interface between carcasses and soil surface. Using amplicon sequencing and qPCR, we determined the potential microbial mechanisms behind N2O and NH3 production, including correlations between taxa capable of carrying out less well studied processes DNRA and nitrifier denitrification, and increased emissions of N2O and NH3. Although distinguishing the relative contributions of DNRA, denitrification, and nitrifier denitrification requires direct rate measurements, our results suggest these processes working together contribute to previously unrecognised greenhouse gas emissions following insect emergence events. Collectively, our results indicate that cicadas significantly affect nutrient cycling in forests with the potential to alter soil microbial communities in ways that may enhance ecosystem N emissions.
Beyond the clipboard: data collection with GridScore NEXT
Sebastian Raubach, Miriam Schreiber, Ruth Hamilton, Gaynor McKenzie, Susan McCallum, Benjamin Kilian, Alan Humphries, Loi Huu Nguyen, Tin Huynh Quang, Akanksha Singh, Shivali Sharma, Sarah Trinder, Manuel Feser, Paul D. Shaw
Accurate acquisition of phenotypic data is critical for cataloguing and utilising genetic variation in cultivated crops, landraces, and their wild relatives. The collection of phenotypic data using handwritten notes often introduces errors which can and should be avoided. Electronic data collection is crucial for ensuring error prevention and data standardisation and thus ensuring high-quality, reliable data.
This paper describes the development of GridScore NEXT, a new plant phenotyping application that significantly advances the state of the art for collecting field trial data in plant genetics, pre-breeding and crop improvement research. Building on its predecessor, GridScore, the development of GridScore NEXT was driven by real life, in the field interactions with expert user groups across a number of crops. This iterative design methodology allowed the development and testing of new features. Collaborators from the 'Biodiversity for Opportunities, Livelihoods and Development' (BOLD) project, focusing on crops including rice, grasspea, and alfalfa, along with barley, potato, vegetable and blueberry teams, provided invaluable insights through training sessions and interviews and in the field use of the application.
Key improvements to GridScore NEXT include enhanced data collection tools, supporting individual plant phenotyping within plots and enabling new data types such as GPS coordinates and image traits. GridScore NEXT provides customisable user defined validation rules to help prevent errors and incorporates barcode scanning for accurate, efficient data capture. The application offers an increased toolbox of data visualizations over its predecessor including heatmaps and statistical box plots, which aid in identifying potential data issues and understanding trial performance in the field. GridScore NEXT is cross-platform and can operate without an internet connection, making it ideal for field use in remote areas. Its adoption has led to standardisation of methods, significant error reduction, and the timely sharing of data, enabling quicker decision-making in pre-breeding and characterisation experiments. GridScore NEXT is available under an open-source (Apache 2.0) licence and freely available to all with no restrictions. It offers self-hosting options for enhanced data security and privacy. GridScore NEXT shows broad applicability across a diverse range of not only plant phenotyping experiments, but any experiment that requires the collection of accurate data.