5 Clinical Trials for Various Conditions
Microbial derived uremic solutes (p-cresol sulfate, indoxyl sulfate, and phenylacetylglutamine) are present in blood and excreted into the urine. Uremic solutes have high inter-individual variability of unclear etiology, that the investigators hypothesize is due to intestinal microbiome variation and/or dietary variation between people. In this study, the investigators will collect baseline samples on participant's habitual diet. The investigators will then administer a homogenous diet to all participants for 7 days and examine levels of uremic solutes in the urine via 24-hour urine collection during this period. In parallel, the investigators will monitor microbiome composition. The investigators predict that during the period subjects are consuming the same, homogenous diet, their excretion of uremic solutes (p-cresol sulfate, indoxyl sulfate, and phenylacetylglutamine) into the urine will have less inter-individual variation.
To follow longitudinally healthy and immune-compromised responses to pneumococcal vaccination, in 60+ individuals towards the development of personalized medicine implementation (minimum enrollments in 2 age categories: young adults\[18-25\], older adults \[55+\], within each category: 10+ healthy, 10+ asthma, 10+ immune-compromised \[e.g. leukemia or autoimmune disorders\]). The approach will profile thousands of molecular components utilizing high-throughput technologies and integrate these data to obtain personalized immune response to vaccination. The study will provide insights into immune response mechanisms specific to asthmatics, immune compromised and healthy individuals, as well as in response to vaccination. Additionally the differences in dynamic response across the two age groups will be investigated.
Respiratory viruses are known to be risk factors for asthma (e.g respiratory syncytial viruses, RSVs, and Human Rhinoviruses, HRVs, may induce bronchiolitis, and wheezing illnesses respectively). The common flu is also known to be a risk factor and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that asthmatics receive the annual flu vaccine, as a high-risk group for related asthma exacerbations. The investigators will be evaluating the variation in individual responses over time after controlled immune activation following influenza vaccination of monozygotic twins, both discordant for asthma, and concordant non-asthmatic. The transition from initial healthy to immune-system activated physiological states post vaccination will provide unprecedented molecular (omics) data on the molecular dynamics of immune response to vaccination, and novel insight into the flu response. The investigators will infer novel networks and pathways and as well as the dynamics of genes and mechanisms involved in asthma, flu vaccination, and individual responses, and correlate them to evaluated personalized genetic risks in the same study. The investigators will be able to also contrast the vaccination response in asthmatic and non-asthmatic individuals, in a longitudinal approach which has never been performed before using multiple-omics that included an immunization response.
A brain-computer interface (BCI) is a system that provides a separate output pathway for neurological signals whereby they can be interpreted to determine the user's intended cognitive action. Utilizing EEG-based sensorimotor rhythms (SMRs) generated in the motor cortex has allowed subjects to control virtual computer cursors in up to three dimensions by simply imagining the movement of a specified body part. Nevertheless, the scalp EEG signals are smeared by the volume conduction effect and measurement noise. The overall hypothesis of this study is that EEG-based virtual object control may help reveal optimal motor imagination tasks best used in a BCI. The PI's hypotheses include: (1) The use of advanced signal processing techniques will better reveal characteristics of EEG signals that represent the underlying motor cognitive function of the subject; (2) BCI systems based on SMR generated using motor imaginations will allow effective control of a virtual object in real time; (3) EEG imaging techniques will provide insight into the areas of cortical activation during a motor imagery task that can be utilized to increase the spatial resolution of non-invasive BCI's.
The purpose of this study is to investigate neurocognitive mechanisms underlying response to intervention aimed at enhancing, and remediating weaknesses in, numerical skills in children, including those with mathematical learning disabilities (MLD).