Background: Home to around 7.7 million HIV positive individuals, South Africa holds 20% of the global HIV population. HIV presents many challenges, such as stigmatization, …
A social-contextual approach to health promotion includes exploration of the influence of faith leaders and religious communities in health behaviors and outcomes. This thesis reports …
Objective: The objective of this thesis was to establish an experimental 3D culture system based on liver cancer (HepG2) cells in a gelatin scaffold and …
Morphogen activity gradients assign positional information within fields of cells in a concentration-dependent manner. As transcriptional changes respond to signaling activity thresholds, cells must encounter …
Objective: Cervical cancer causes 311,000 deaths annually. However, routine pap smears can facilitate early detection and improve patient outcomes. Liquid Pap smears are conducted in …
There has been mounting concern over the health hazards of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which has spread beyond the scientific community to federal regulators, …
Prokaryotic microbes, commonly termed bacteria, are essential components of the ecosystem in the open ocean. They are major primary producers, major diazotrophs that fix dinitrogen …
This thesis explores clinical and social factors to characterize underweight malnutrition on the national and global level using the UNICEF Childhood Malnutrition Datasets (survey-level data …
Agitation is a symptom of restlessness and overt behavior in individuals due to a variety of psychological, psychiatric, and medical conditions. The symptoms are seen …
Persons afflicted with neuromuscular diseases, whether acute or congenital, frequently suffer from secondary musculoskeletal conditions. These conditions may be so severe that they prevent persons …
Recent increases in the incidence of congenital (hypospadias, cryptorchidism) and adult-onset (testis germ cell cancer, lowered sperm counts) diseases of the male reproductive tract are …
Background: Predictive analytic models, including machine learning (ML) models, are increasingly integrated into electronic health record (EHR)-based decision support tools for clinicians. These models have …
Atherosclerotic plaque calcification is associated increased risk of cardiovascular events. Inflammation plays a key role in the development of atherosclerosis and is thought to potentially …
The sigma-2 receptor is a pharmacologically-defined protein receptor present in a variety of tissues, and interest in its role in a wide array of diseases …
Antibiotic resistance is an urgent threat to public health. For this reason, new antimicrobial therapies are constantly needed to treat ever-evolving pathogens. One such pathogen …
OBJECTIVES: To derive and validate a 30-day mortality clinical prediction rule for heart failure based on admission data and prior healthcare usage. A secondary objective …
Transposable elements (TEs) are potentially harmful DNA sequences that can copy themselves and then insert elsewhere into the genome, causing damage and disrupting normal gene …
The use of ultrasound (US) is a developing area of curricular growth in undergraduate medical education (UME). In the past several academic years, the Warren …
ABSTRACT Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), the most common adult-onset motor neuron disease in the world, can be caused by mutations scattered along the full length …
