Cellular agriculture is defined as the production of agricultural products from cell cultures rather than from whole plants or animals. With growing interest in cellular agriculture as a means to address the public health, environmental, and animal welfare challenges of animal agriculture, the concept of producing seafood from fish cell- and tissue-cultures is emerging as a means to address similar challenges with industrial aquaculture systems and marine capture. Cell-based seafood - as opposed to animal-based seafood - can combine developments in biomedical engineering with modern aquaculture techniques. Biomedical engineering developments such as closed-system bioreactor production of land animal cells create a basis for large scale production of marine animal cells. Aquaculture techniques such as genetic modification and closed system aquaculture have achieved marked gains in production that can pave the way for innovations in cell-based seafood production. Here, we present the current state of innovation relevant to the development of cell-based seafood across multiple species as well as specific opportunities and challenges that exist for advancing this science. The authors find that the physiological properties of fish cell- and tissue- culture may be uniquely suited to cultivation in vitro. These physiological properties, including hypoxia tolerance, high buffering capacity, and low-temperature growth conditions, make marine cell culture an attractive opportunity for scale production of cell-based seafood; perhaps even more so than mammalian and avian cell cultures for cell-based meats. This, coupled with the unique capabilities of crustacean tissue-friendly scaffolding such as chitosan, a common seafood waste product and mushroom derivative, presents great promise for cell-based seafood production via bioreactor cultivation. To become fully realized, cell-based seafood research will require more understanding of fish muscle culture and cultivation; more investigation into serum-free media formulations optimized for fish cell culture; and bioreactor designs tuned to the needs of fish cells for large scale production.

Globally, open-pit coal mining is associated with severe land use impact and contamination of soil and water resources with heavy metals. Thus, in growing economies like India, where coal is a significant energy source, the heavy metals contamination of soil and water become ubiquitous. Remediation of such a large stretch of mined-out land is a major challenge and a costly process for the mining industry. In recent years, the application of biochar for the remediation of such heavy metals-contaminated soil has been widely practiced. However, applying biochar and cultivating plants in field conditions becomes challenging. This study uses a unique remediation approach by developing biochar-bentonite-based seed balls encapsulating Shorgham grass seeds at their core for application in the contaminated soil. The seed ball was developed by using the bentonite biochar composite in varying weight fractions of 0.5 – 5 % with respect to the kaolinite, whose fractions in the seed ball also varied at one, three, and five parts. The seed balls were applied to the pots containing 3 kg of heavy metals contaminated soil for a pot-culture study in a polyhouse for a period of four months. Initial soil analysis results indicated that the mine soil samples showed poor nutrient and organic matter content and were contaminated with heavy metals such as Ni, Zn, Cr, and Cd. Post-pot-culture soil analysis results indicated that the application of seed balls containing five fractions of biochar composite with its combination with three and five-weight fractions of kaolinite showed substantial improvement in the pH, available nutrients, organic matter content, soil enzymes, and overall soil fertility index compared to the controlled study and other cases. The same combination of seed balls also significantly reduced the plant-available fractions of Ni, Zn, Cr, and Cd in the soil and the translocation of these heavy metals from the rhizosphere zone to the grass’s aerial parts, indicating stabilization of heavy metals within the soil matrix. Moreover, the application of seed balls also substantially improved the plant physiology and reduced the release of stress hormones such as proline and glutathione within the plant cells indicating improvement in the plant’s biotic and abiotic stress factors. Thus, the application of seed balls in heavy metals contaminated soils, particularly over a large stretch of land, could be a low-cost and viable remediation technique.

The emergence of bioplastics presents a promising solution to the environmental impact of the plastics industry. Biodegradable plastics are engineered to degrade in aquatic or soil environments. Biodegradable bioplastics can degrade in these conditions, according to sustainability standards, and have a low environmental impact. However, not all bioplastics are completely biodegradable, and some, like petrochemical-based plastics, may contribute to plastic pollution. In this comprehensive review, we identify the biodegradability of significant bioplastics, including polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA), poly(lactic acid) (PLA), poly(butylene succinate) (PBS), and PBS-co-adipate (PBSA) in different environmental conditions given in the literature. Microbe-based bioplastics made from renewable materials like microalgae provide a sustainable alternative due to their high biodegradability compared to other bioplastics. However, we recognize concerns regarding the ecotoxicological impact of these alternatives on soil and aquatic organisms and recommend future research to observe the ecotoxicological behavior of biodegradation by-products.

Pythium insidiosum(PI) can cause sight threatening keratitis which is managed commonly by performing penetrating keratoplasty. This article is a retrospective review to assess outcomes of keratoplasty performed in patients diagnosed with PI keratitis. (2) Methods: Pre-operative, intra operative and post-operative data of patients diagnosed with PI keratitis and who underwent keratoplasty for their condition from January 2020 to December 2021 were col-lected from the central patient database of a tertiary eye care hospital in India. The data were an-alyzed for anatomic success, elimination of infection, graft survival, incidence of repeat kerato-plasty, final visual acuity and varied complications. (3) Results: In total, 16 eyes underwent pene-trating keratoplasty for PI keratitis during the study period. Mean time to keratoplasty from on-set of symptoms was 31.3 days and mean graft size was 10.4 mm. Nine out of the 16 cases had recurrence of infection following surgery, six of which required a repeat keratoplasty for elimina-tion of infection. Out of these 6 patients, one patient underwent 2 repeat keratoplasties. Mean graft size for repeat keratoplasty performed in recurrent cases was 11.7 mm. Globe was successfully salvaged in 14 out of 16 patients (87.5 %). Endo-exudates, graft infiltration, graft dehiscence, secondary glaucoma and retinal detachment were the various complications noted after kerato-plasty. (4) Conclusion: Keratoplasty remains the choice of treatment in PI keratitis, however re-currence of disease and graft failure are common. Large sized grafts, meticulous per-operative removal of infection, adjuvant cryotherapy, and intraoperative and post-operative use of antibi-otics can help in improving outcome of keratoplasty in these patients.

This hypothesis demonstrates that the efficiency of Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification (LAMP) for nucleic acid detection can be positively influenced by preconcentration of microbial cells onto hydrophobic paper surfaces. The mechanism of this model is based on the high attraction of microbes towards hydrophobic surfaces. Extensive studies have demonstrated that hydrophobic surfaces exhibit enhanced bacterial and fungal adhesion. The preconcentration approach by exploiting this inherent affinity of hydrophobic paper substrates enables the adherence of a greater number of target cells, resulting in a higher concentration of target templates for amplification directly from urine samples. In contrast to conventional methods, which often involve complex procedures, this approach offers a simpler, cost-effective, and user-friendly alternative. Moreover, the integration of cell adhesion, LAMP amplification, and signal readout within paper origami-based devices can provide a portable, robust, and highly efficient platform for rapid nucleic acid detection. This innovative hypothesis holds significant potential for point-of-care (POC) diagnostics and field surveillance applications. Further research and development in this field will advance the implementation of this technology, contributing to improved healthcare systems and public health outcomes.

COVID-19 is an infectious disease, growth of which depends upon the linked stages of the epidemic, the average number of people one person can infect and the time it takes for those people to become infectious themselves. We have studied the COVID-19 time series to understand the growth behaviour of COVID-19 cases series. A structural break occurs in the COVID-19 series at the change time form one stage to another. We have performed the structural break analysis of data available for 207 countries till April 20, 2020. There are 42 countries which have recorded five breaks in COVID cases series. This means that these countries are in the sixth stage of growth transmission and show a downward pattern in reporting in the daily cases, whereas countries with two and three breaks, record the rapid growth pattern in the daily cases. From this study, we conclude that the more the breaks in the series, there is more possibility to determine the constant or decreasing rate of daily cases. It is well fitted using lognormal distribution as this distribution is archived at its highest peak after some period and then suddenly it decreases at a longer time period. This can be seen in various countries like China, Australia, New Zealand and so on.

Background Bangladesh has been attracting international students on various subjects in recent times. Every year students from different parts of the world come to study undergraduate and postgraduate courses, mostly at private universities in Bangladesh. This study evaluates the depression status among international students who are studying dentistry in Bangladesh. Methods This cross-sectional survey was conducted among International undergraduate dental students who enrolled in the Bachelor of Dental Surgery program in nine public and private dental colleges in Bangladesh. A total of 206 students completed the survey, and CES-D 10 items Likert scale questionnaire was used for data collection. The Cronbach alpha for CES-D 10 scale items for this population is 0.812. Results The majority of the students (79.5%) are below 24 years of age, and students who cannot communicate well in Bengali (Bangla), about 60% of them have experienced depression. About 77.3% (p< 0.00) of the international students having financial difficulties exhibited depression. The international students who went through financial problems were two times more likely to suffer from depression (OR=2.38; p-value <0.01). Conclusion This study tried to highlight the struggles faced by international students in Bangladesh studying dentistry. It is evident from the findings that several factors influence students' mental well-being during demanding dental education years.

The T cell composition of the tumor microenvironment (TME) of esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) in comparison to the T cell composition of the TME of Barrett esophagus (BE) and in the context of clinicopathologic features and patient survival is unknown. To help fill these knowledge gaps, we used a multiplex immunofluorescence platform to study adaptive T cells and T cell subtypes based on costimulatory/inhibitory markers in EAC (n=54) and matched BE (n=21) samples from 54 patients with EAC and correlated the T cell phenotype distribution with clinicopathologic features and disease-free survival. We observed significant enrichment of cytotoxic T cells (CTCs), memory T cells, effector memory T cells, memory T regulatory cells (MTregs), and T cells expressing costimulatory/inhibitory markers LAG3, TIM3, and ICOS in EAC compared to BE, in the stroma. In EAC, increased TIM3 expression on T cells significantly correlated with increased CTCs but not T regulatory cells (Tregs). In EAC, higher densities of Tregs and MTregs correlated with pT1 disease, low pathologic stage, and absence of lymphovascular invasion. In EAC, patients with higher density of TIM3-expressing T cells had shorter disease-free survival by univariate and multivariate analyses. Our results identify T cell subtypes that are relevant to EAC biology and patient outcome. Furthermore, our results identify TIM3 as a potential target for optimization of immunomodulatory therapy in EAC.