Academic Center for Education, Culture and Research

Prenatal prediction of CD34+ adequacy supports cord-blood banking by reducing expenses on low-yield units and reserving capacity for clinically promising grafts. We have developed and evaluated a prenatal machine learning model that predicts whether an umbilical cord blood (UCB) unit will meet a clinically supported adequacy threshold (≥1.5×105 CD34+ cells/kg recipient) before collection for single-unit grafts. In this retrospective study, we analysed 126,406 records from the Royan Stem Cell Technology Company (RSCT; Tehran, Iran), which included routinely available maternal, neonatal, and family-history variables. A pipeline of imputation (IterativeImputer numeric; SimpleImputer+OrdinalEncoder categorical), feature selection (Extra Trees), and hyperparameter tuning using Bayesian optimisation with model training/evaluation was performed within cross-validation folds. Decision Tree (DT), K-Nearest Neighbours (KNN), Random Forest (RF), Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) classifiers were tuned via Bayesian optimisation. Models were ranked by the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). Majority voting (MV) ensembles were constructed from the top-k models. Model interpretability used SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP). The MV (top-4: RF, KNN, DT, MLP) ensemble achieved an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC-AUC)=0.808 and an area under the precision-recall curve (PR-AUC)=0.744 on the held-out test set, with an accuracy=0.757, precision=0.726, recall/sensitivity=0.804, F1=0.762, specificity=0.716, and Brier score=0.181. SHAP highlighted history of hepatitis C, birth place, hyperthyroidism, history of anaemia, oral fungus, and rheumatism among the most influential features. Prenatal prediction of UCB CD34+ adequacy using an interpretable MV ensemble is feasible and accurate to support pre-collection triage and can potentially improve banking efficiency. The resultant model offers a non-invasive tool to enhance the efficiency of cord blood banking by prioritising units with higher transplantation potential.

Previous studies by the authors have shown that human amniotic membrane extract (AME) potentially improves epithelial damage in corneal and skin lesions. However, questions about its role in diabetic foot ulcer (DFU) treatment remain unanswered. In this study, patients with hard-to-heal DFUs were randomly selected after screening and, after confirming the safety of the AME in an initial selection of patients, the remaining participants were divided into two groups. The treatment group received an AME product (DiAMX, Royan Stem Cell Technology, Iran) (concentration 1mg/ml) with standard of care (SoC), topically, every 48 hours for the first week and then every 72 hours until complete closure. The control group received SoC. Patients were visited weekly, and any improvement, reduction in the wound area and any side-effects were recorded. The results of the safety phase (without the control group) showed that the AME had no adverse events. In the efficacy phase, there was no significant difference in baseline characteristics between the treatment and control groups. The results showed that the wound healing rate was 100% in the treatment group and 77.5±3.12% in the control group (p<0.0001) at week 6. All wounds (n=15) were closed in the treatment group and seven wounds had closed in the control group (p<0.0001). The findings of this study showed that the topical use of DiAMX, in addition to SoC, was patient-friendly, inexpensive, safe and effective in healing hard-to-heal DFUs.

Human islet amyloid polypeptide (hIAPP) oligomers, formed through an accumulation pathway, are toxic to insulin‐secreting pancreatic β‐cells and are considered to contribute for β‐cell death and insulin deficiency commonly observed in type 2 diabetes (T2D) patients. In this study, we investigated and compared the antiaggregation effects of several nanoparticles (NPs) including zinc acetate, graphene oxide (GO), and zinc‐conjugated GO (GO–NH 2 –Zn) on their interactions with hIAPP. For this purpose, GO was purchased and subsequently conjugated with zinc acetate. Recombinant hIAPP was produced and its amyloidogenic behavior was evaluated in the presence of different concentrations of GO, zinc acetate, and GO–NH 2 –Zn. Thioflavin T (ThT) fluorescence spectroscopy was applied to examine the amyloid behavior of the protein. Additionally, the transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images of amyloid particles alone and in the presence of GO–NH 2 –Zn NP were recorded. A cell toxicity assay revealed these NPs protected insulin‐secreting NIT‐1 pancreatic β‐cells from hIAPP–induced toxicity. TEM images and ThT fluorescence spectra confirmed the reduction in hIAPP aggregation in the presence of GO–NH 2 –Zn. Our results clearly demonstrated that both zinc acetate and GO extended the lag‐phase latency to form amyloid fibrils, while GO–NH 2 –Zn exerted a synergistic inhibitory effect on fibril formation. Furthermore, when GO–NH 2 –Zn was incubated with fetal bovine serum (FBS) to form a hard corona mimicking in vivo circumstances, it effectively prevented the formation of amyloid as expected. Our study suggests that the GO–NH 2 –Zn, as an antiaggregation NP, has potential for use in designing new nanomedicine agents to inhibit hIAPP fibril formation and treat T2D disease.

We aimed to investigate the association of chrono-nutrition components with anthropometric measures and body composition in adults living in Tehran. This cross-sectional study was conducted on 450 healthy adults. The exposures of the study were meal frequency, meal timing, meal irregularity, breakfast skipping, night fasting duration, time of the first and last eating occasion and the time interval from the last meal to bed. The outcomes were BMI, waist circumference, neck circumference (NC), waist:hip ratio, waist:height ratio (WHtR), body adiposity index (BAI), body roundness index (BRI), a body shape index, percentage of body fat (PBF), fat mass (FM), fat-free mass and muscle mass. Bonferroni correction was applied, and the significance level was less than 0·004. Using ANCOVA, after adjusting for confounders, late lunch eating was associated with a lower PBF. There was a positive trend across the tertiles of dinner time with greater WHtR (mean difference = 0·019; Ptrend = 0·025) and BRI (mean difference = 0·24; Ptrend = 0·022). Moreover, increased irregularity at dinner time was associated with higher levels of PBF (Ptrend = 0·026) and FM (Ptrend = 0·025). Also, longer overnight fasting was associated with lower NC (Ptrend = 0·049) and a greater BRI (Ptrend = 0·050). We found differences across the time interval from the last meal to bed with greater means of BAI (Ptrend = 0·026), PBF (Ptrend = 0·014) and FM (Ptrend = 0·020). However, after applying the Bonferroni correction, we found no significant association between chrono-nutrition components and anthropometric measures and body composition in adults living in Tehran. Further studies are necessary to confirm the results.