Efficiency of ultrathin flexible solar photovoltaic silicon microcell arrays can be significantly improved using nonimaging solar concentrators. A fluorophore is introduced to match the solar spectrum and the low-reflectivity wavelength range of Si, reduce the escape losses, and allow the nontracking operation. In this paper we optimize our solar concentrators using a luminescent/nonluminescent...

Cardiac resident stem/progenitor cells (CSC/CPCs) are critical to the cellular and functional integrity of the heart because they maintain myocardial cell homeostasis. Several populations of CSC/CPCs have been identified based on expression of different stem cell-associated antigens. Sca-1(+) cells in the cardiac tissue may be the most common CSC/CPCs. However, they are a heterogeneous cell pop...

Rationale: TBX1 encodes a T-box transcription factor implicated in DiGeorge syndrome, which affects the development of many organs, including the heart. Loss of Tbx1 results into hypoplasia of heart regions derived from the second heart field, a population of cardiac progenitors cells (CPCs). Thus, we hypothesized that Tbx1 is an important player in the biology of CPCs. Objective: We asked whet...

In most somatic tissues, ASCs (adult stem cells) are crucial for the maintenance of tissue homoeostasis under normal physiological state and recovery from injury. LRC (label retaining cell) assay is a well-known method of identifying possible somatic stem/progenitor cells and their location both in situ and in vivo. BrdU (bromodeoxyuridine) was used here to tag the possible CSCs (cardiac stem c...

Regenerative therapies hold great potential to change the treatment paradigm for cardiac diseases. Human cardiac progenitor cells can be used for drug discovery in this area and also provide a renewable source of cardiomyocytes. However, a better understanding of their characteristics is critical for interpreting data obtained from drug screening using these cells. In the present study, we perf...

Diabetes leads to a decompensated myopathy, but the etiology of the cardiac disease is poorly understood. Oxidative stress is enhanced with diabetes and oxygen toxicity may alter cardiac progenitor cell (CPC) function resulting in defects in CPC growth and myocyte formation, which may favor premature myocardial aging and heart failure. We report that in a model of insulin-dependent diabetes mel...

Diabetes leads to a decompensated myopathy, but the etiology of the cardiac disease is poorly understood. Oxidative stress is enhanced with diabetes and oxygen toxicity may alter cardiac progenitor cell (CPC) function resulting in defects in CPC growth and myocyte formation, which may favor premature myocardial aging and heart failure. We report that in a model of insulin-dependent diabetes mel...

BACKGROUND To evaluate the efficiency and practicality of femtosecond laser assisted cataract surgery (FLACS) in a public teaching hospital setting using a mobile FLACS system compared to conventional phacoemulsification cataract surgery (CPCS). METHODS Ninety eyes from 90 patients underwent either FLACS or CPCS (45 in each group). Cataracts were graded using the Lens Opacities Classification...

RATIONALE Myocardial infarction is a leading cause of death in developed nations, and there remains a need for cardiac therapeutic systems that mitigate tissue damage. Cardiac progenitor cells (CPCs) and other stem cell types are attractive candidates for treatment of myocardial infarction; however, the benefit of these cells may be as a result of paracrine effects. OBJECTIVE We tested the hy...

The transcriptional profiles of cardiac cells derived from murine embryos and from mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs) have primarily been studied within a cell population. However, the characterization of gene expression in these cells at a single-cell level might demonstrate unique variations that cannot be appreciated within a cell pool. In this study, we aimed to establish a single-cell quan...