IMPACT magazinePub Date : 2023-04-14DOI: 10.21820/23987073.2023.2.42
Junna Oba, Masako Toriya, Koichi Matsuo
{"title":"Building a versatile medical test system in a pandemic","authors":"Junna Oba, Masako Toriya, Koichi Matsuo","doi":"10.21820/23987073.2023.2.42","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21820/23987073.2023.2.42","url":null,"abstract":"The COVID-19 pandemic was unprecedented and forced countries to organise and combine resources and develop coordinated responses. Temporary systems were established with the support of researchers and other stakeholders. Dr Junna Oba, Assistant Professor at the Department of Extended Intelligence for Medicine at Keio University School of Medicine (KUSM) is devising methodologies for developing adjustable temporary systems that are quick and efficient to build, apply and dissemble when emergency situations have passed. KUSM helped to respond to the COVID-19 crisis by collaborating with basic science researches to reinforce the PCR testing system in hospitals. Among those involved in this effort were Professor Masako Toriya of Keio University Global Research Institute (KGRI) and Professor Koichi Matsuo from the KUSMâ–™s Collaborative Research Resources group. The researchers built from scratch a workflow for effective testing and information sharing. Since this time, the team has been working to build a cooperative network, developing a novel approach to planning, analysing and recording various processes and strategies to address emergency situations that will be shared with the wider healthcare community and policy makers. The researchers used systems engineering methods to launch an unprecedented collaborative system that offers the ability to gain an overall picture of the interrelationships between departments that are working together on the diagnosis, treatment and management of COVID-19.","PeriodicalId":88895,"journal":{"name":"IMPACT magazine","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73903883","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
IMPACT magazinePub Date : 2023-04-14DOI: 10.21820/23987073.2023.2.27
Masaki Takeda
{"title":"Elucidation of the mechanisms underway in the brain during sleep with a focus on the circuit mechanisms that promote memory formation","authors":"Masaki Takeda","doi":"10.21820/23987073.2023.2.27","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21820/23987073.2023.2.27","url":null,"abstract":"Scientists have been unable to fully elucidate the mechanisms at work in the human brain during sleep. A particularly mysterious area is memory formation during sleep. Professor Masaki Takeda, Research Center for Brain Communication, the Kochi University of Technology, Japan, leads\u0000 a team of researchers exploring brain behaviour and dynamism. A key focus is on human participants and what happens in their brains while sleeping, while a further element is looking at whether non-human primates have similar memory mechanisms to humans. A main goal for Takeda and the team\u0000 is uncovering the causal role of neural activities during sleep in memory consolidation. As such, the researchers are attempting to noninvasively manipulate neural activity when human participants are sleeping and investigate how these manipulations affect memory performance after sleep. Using\u0000 a combination of deep-learning decoding techniques and high spatiotemporal resolution of neural imaging by concurrent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG), the team has developed a novel technique for detecting the replay activity that emerges as unstructured\u0000 patterns of activations, overcoming challenges associated with the difference between spatial and semantic memory. In a recent project, Takeda and the team have been exploring brain circuit mechanisms during sleep that promote memory formation. The researchers are exploring whether the slow-oscillation\u0000 neural activity during deep sleep (SO) in the frontal cortex during deep sleep has a causal role in memory consolidation in humans. This involves the manipulation of the phase of SOs using transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) whose phase is matched to that of SOs.","PeriodicalId":88895,"journal":{"name":"IMPACT magazine","volume":"62 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78043278","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
IMPACT magazinePub Date : 2023-04-14DOI: 10.21820/23987073.2023.2.19
Mayumi Kako, M. Moriyama, Mariko Mizukawa
{"title":"Exploring educational program for specialisation of the primary care nursing role","authors":"Mayumi Kako, M. Moriyama, Mariko Mizukawa","doi":"10.21820/23987073.2023.2.19","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21820/23987073.2023.2.19","url":null,"abstract":"In countries including Australia, Canada, Ireland, the UK and Spain, primary care nursing (PCN) is situated as a part of the nursing education but it is not well recognised in Japan. As Japanâ–™s society continues to age, there is a shift underway from hospital to\u0000 community care and the role of nurses in the community is arguably more important than ever before. There are misconceptions around the role of primary care nurses, including the incorrect assumption that their role is that of a doctorâ–™s assistant. Rather, their roles are\u0000 far more complex and require a people-centred approach. Dr Mayumi Kako, School of Biomedical and Health Sciences, Division of Nursing Science (International Disaster Nursing), Hiroshima University, Japan, is working to improve understanding of and appreciation for the role of primary care\u0000 nurses. This research involves developing educational programmes to improve awareness of the professional role of PCN. She and her team are drawing comparisons between the concept of PCN in the basic nursing educational curriculum in Japan and PCN education in Australia, Canada, Spain, UK,\u0000 and Ireland in order to identify contrasts and enhance awareness. If they can better understand how the PCN concept is positioned in other countries, they will be able to identify gaps between PCN curriculums in these countries and Japan, and investigate how the PCN concept could be embedded\u0000 into the Japanese nursing curriculum in the future.","PeriodicalId":88895,"journal":{"name":"IMPACT magazine","volume":"9 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76282347","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
IMPACT magazinePub Date : 2023-04-14DOI: 10.21820/23987073.2023.2.68
K. Harada
{"title":"Co-evolution of Human and AI-Robots to Expand Science Frontiers","authors":"K. Harada","doi":"10.21820/23987073.2023.2.68","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21820/23987073.2023.2.68","url":null,"abstract":"The possibility for Artificial Intelligence (AI)-robot scientists to work alongside human scientists is an exciting area of exploration in the world of AI, robotics and automated machines. Moonshot R&D is a flagship program in Japan that brings researchers together on R&D projects\u0000 with the goal of overcoming challenging societal issues. Toshio Fukuda is Program Director of Goal three of the program's nine goals and envisions a future in which AI robots and humans co-exist. As such, one of the targets of Goal three is the: \"Realization of Artificial Intelligence (AI)\u0000 robots that autonomously learn, adapt to their environment, evolve itself in intelligence, and act alongside human beings, by 2050\". Associate Professor Kanako Harada, Center for Disease Biology and Integrative Medicine (CDBIM), Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Japan,\u0000 is a Project Manager working on this target. She is currently managing a project entitled the 'Co-Evolution of Human and AI-Robots to Expand Science Frontiers', in which she and her collaborators are developing AI-robot scientists that can collaborate in the lab, autonomously performing scientific\u0000 experiments in challenging environments. The researchers anticipate that this could lead to the discovery of scientific principles and solutions by autonomous AI-robots in scientific fields by 2050.","PeriodicalId":88895,"journal":{"name":"IMPACT magazine","volume":"55 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91117558","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
IMPACT magazinePub Date : 2023-04-14DOI: 10.21820/23987073.2023.2.16
M. Kayama
{"title":"Development of QUARIN-J, a Network for Providing Educational Resources for Qualitative Research Papers","authors":"M. Kayama","doi":"10.21820/23987073.2023.2.16","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21820/23987073.2023.2.16","url":null,"abstract":"Qualitative research harnesses thoughts, concepts or experiences and provides in-depth understanding. Nursing is a field that relies heavily on qualitative research but the diversity of qualitative research methods means there are sometimes issues during the peer review process of nursing\u0000 research papers. Mami Kayama is Research Director and an expert co-investigator on this team of researchers at the National College of Nursing, Tokyo, Japan, working on the dissemination of qualitative research methods in nursing. In addition to Kayama, the team comprises co-investigators\u0000 Yumi Nishimura, Kiyomi Asahara, Yuriko Miura, Yasuhito Kinoshita, Kyoko Oyamada, Noriko Yamamoto-Mitani and Misuzu Gregg. Ultimately, they want to promote the development of the field. Kayama believes that the biggest difficulty facing the dissemination of qualitative nursing studies is matching\u0000 papers and reviewers. The researchers have developed a network for providing educational resources for qualitative research papers called QUARIN-J (Qualitative Research Implementation Network of Nursingâ–“ Japan). The goal of the QUARIN-J website is to promote the publication\u0000 of qualitative research that contributes to the development of nursing science and it provides resources such as guidelines and peer review experiences that can assist with this. There are two guidelines for qualitative research methods on the website: a checklist developed by the research\u0000 group that demonstrates what a good qualitative research paper should look like; and the Japanese version of Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research (SRQR). There are also personal essays describing how members of the research group have personally experienced the peer review process.","PeriodicalId":88895,"journal":{"name":"IMPACT magazine","volume":"36 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84717898","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
IMPACT magazinePub Date : 2023-04-14DOI: 10.21820/23987073.2023.2.71
L. Annette
{"title":"\"Strengthening research and partnerships for Sub-Saharan health\"","authors":"L. Annette","doi":"10.21820/23987073.2023.2.71","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21820/23987073.2023.2.71","url":null,"abstract":"In sub-Saharan Africa, infectious diseases are causing illness, death and impacting income, education and economic growth and development. There is a need for global action. The European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) supports global health research in\u0000 sub-Saharan Africa and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It does this by funding clinical research for medical tools to detect, treat and prevent poverty-related infectious diseases in sub-Saharan Africa. EDCTP1 supported clinical trials on drugs, vaccines, microbicides\u0000 and diagnostics, with a focus on HIV/ AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. EDCTP2 was set up in 2014 and will run until 2024. It is supported by Horizon 2020 and will advance international and national health policy and practise for poverty-related diseases. The Global Health EDCTP3 Joint Undertaking\u0000 (GH EDCTP3 JU) was launched in May 2022 and will run until the end of 2031. At its launch, Commissioner Mariya Gabriel delivered an opening speech in which she celebrated the progress made by EDCTP to date. â–˜So far, we have jointly invested over 1.4 billion euros in 440\u0000 grants, including 140 clinical trials projects and over 210 fellowships,â–™ she said. Impacts include a malaria vaccine for children and a child-friendly tablet formulation of the medication to treat the acute and chronic disease caused by parasitic worms. Gabriel said that\u0000 four EDCTP Regional Networks of Excellence have been established in order to facilitate high-quality clinical research and networking and praised EDCTPâ–™s resiliency through the COVID-19 pandemic.","PeriodicalId":88895,"journal":{"name":"IMPACT magazine","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76647775","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
IMPACT magazinePub Date : 2023-04-14DOI: 10.21820/23987073.2023.2.56
K. Nagamine
{"title":"Development of detection kit for bad oral bacteria - a NASH factor","authors":"K. Nagamine","doi":"10.21820/23987073.2023.2.56","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21820/23987073.2023.2.56","url":null,"abstract":"Oral and systemic health are linked, with bad Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans) linked to increased risk of intracerebral micro-bleeding and heart disease, and Porphyromonas gingivalis (P. gingivalis) reports of links between periodontal disease and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH),\u0000 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, Alzheimer's disease, premature birth, and underweight birth. Dr Kentaro Nagamine, Department of Clinical Nutrition, Hiroshima International University, Japan, was involved in the loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) method and is applying this to oral\u0000 health, developing primers for LAMP of S. mutans and P. gingivalis and has also developed methods to culture oral bacteria. In one project, he is developing a detection kit for bad S. mutans (cnm gene positive S. mutans). The method he is developing is simple and effective compared to existing\u0000 methods that tend to be complicated and lengthy. It involves taking a saliva sample, which is then cultured and put into the LAMP reaction solution. Then, the target gene is amplified and gene amplification is seen, this confirms that the bacteria is present. Not only can a result be obtained\u0000 within two days, but the method also has the ability to amplify multiple types of bacteria. Nagamine is collaborating with a dental clinic that is utilising his method and, in the future, he hopes it can be used for dental examinations in numerous countries and regions, particularly in developing\u0000 countries.","PeriodicalId":88895,"journal":{"name":"IMPACT magazine","volume":"43 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82132643","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
IMPACT magazinePub Date : 2023-04-14DOI: 10.21820/23987073.2023.2.59
K. Miyake
{"title":"Development of gene therapy for hypophosphatasia","authors":"K. Miyake","doi":"10.21820/23987073.2023.2.59","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21820/23987073.2023.2.59","url":null,"abstract":"Hypophosphatasia (HPP) is a disease caused by an inborn defect in the production of alkaline phosphatase that affects bones and teeth. The six types are perinatal lethal form, perinatal benign form, infantile form, childhood form, adulthood form and odontohypophosphatasia. Treatments\u0000 have historically been limited but, in 2015, an enzyme replacement therapy known as Asfotase Alfa was approved. This has improved life expectancy and quality of life but drawbacks such as requires 3-6 injections per week for life, injection pain and swelling at injection sites remain. Professor\u0000 Koichi Miyake and his team at the Department of Gene Therapy at Nippon Medical School (NMS), Japan, are working to improve treatments for HPP. The researchers are developing novel therapeutic agents to potentially treat HPP by only single injection, one of which is ARU-2801. The hope is that\u0000 this will not only prolong the life of HPP patients and improve their symptoms, but also improve their quality of life and will also improve the symptoms of patients with disease types that currently cannot be treated with enzyme replacement therapy. Miyake and the team have evaluated the\u0000 efficacy and safety of ARU-2801 using non-human primates (NHPs). In their studies, ARU-2801 was able to maintain tissue nonspecific alkaline phosphatase (TNALP) expression in NHPs and mice for a long period, with no side effects. In future clinical trials the effectiveness of ARU-2801 will\u0000 need to be confirmed in patients.","PeriodicalId":88895,"journal":{"name":"IMPACT magazine","volume":"15 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88236427","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
IMPACT magazinePub Date : 2023-04-14DOI: 10.21820/23987073.2023.2.6
A. Filloux, L. Nolan
{"title":"The T6SS toxins are powerful weapons for Pseudomonas' antibacterial strategy ‐ MRC","authors":"A. Filloux, L. Nolan","doi":"10.21820/23987073.2023.2.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21820/23987073.2023.2.6","url":null,"abstract":"Antibiotic resistance is on the rise and an antibiotics crisis looms. Efforts to find new sources of antibiotics and antimicrobials have redoubled. This includes exploring the potential of repurposing drugs currently used against non-infectious diseases and seeking to discover new antimicrobials\u0000 in nature. Professor Alain Filloux, Imperial College London, is a world-leading expert in bacterial secretion systems who is investigating the type 6-secretion system (T6SS) of the multi-drug resistant bacterium P. aeruginosa. He is collaborating with Dr Laura Nolan in utilising a transposon\u0000 mutagenesis technique â–“ transposon directed insertion-site sequencing (TraDIS) ‐ to search the P. aeruginosa genome for novel toxins secreted by the T6SS. Filloux and Nolan are conducting TraDIS both when the T6SS is active and when it is inactive, which will enable\u0000 them to identify the related toxin. So far, the researchers have validated the use of TraDIS by identifying T6SS immunity genes, and corresponding toxins, that were already characterised as part of the T6SSâ–™ arsenal, confirming that a global and unbiased technique has the\u0000 potential to identify novel toxins. By sequencing the mutant population, the team has also identified several potential novel toxin/immunity pairs, including Tse8/Tsi8, which targets the transamidosome involved in bacterial protein synthesis.","PeriodicalId":88895,"journal":{"name":"IMPACT magazine","volume":"14 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89699283","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
IMPACT magazinePub Date : 2023-04-14DOI: 10.21820/23987073.2023.2.22
N. Yamada
{"title":"Examining the role of forensic nursing for the needs of bereaved family care and the nursing record system","authors":"N. Yamada","doi":"10.21820/23987073.2023.2.22","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21820/23987073.2023.2.22","url":null,"abstract":"Various scientists and medical practitioners believe care for bereaved families is lacking in Japan. Professor Noriko Yamada, Faculty of Nursing, Japanese Red Cross Akita College Of Nursing, believes a lack of focus on care for the bereaved is caused by the current emphasis on life-prolonging\u0000 treatment. She and her team are examining the role of forensic nursing in fulfilling the needs of bereaved families. In Japan, the range of responsibilities of nurses is narrow and regional, with expectations of nurses differing in different parts of Japan. This inconsistency can negatively\u0000 impact support for bereaved families and the police often take responsibility for providing care and support. This approach to care can lead to guilt among bereaved families and subsequent depression, chronic illness, soaring medical costs and even attempted suicide. Yamada and her team, which\u0000 includes clinical psychologist Kazuki Saito, is harnessing knowledge garnered from forensic medicine and preventive clinical forensic nursing to improve the level of care for bereaved families, benefiting affected individuals and Japanese society. Yamada has built a forensic recording software\u0000 tool for nursing intervention in the acute phase of disaster response to help early identification of victims. The app, called MiMoKA, can act as a tool to help the bereaved family in their mourning and grief.","PeriodicalId":88895,"journal":{"name":"IMPACT magazine","volume":"119 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74793239","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}