Rafiye Ciftciler

Bio: Rafiye Ciftciler is an academic researcher from Aksaray University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Microbiome & Hematology. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 3 publications receiving 1 citations.

Covid 19 scientific publications from turkey.

Abstract: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) outbreak poses a major global threat to the public health Worldwide. The infectious disease caused by the virus that affected the entire world was named as the Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). The knowledge regarding the wide clinico-biological aspects of the COVID-19 continues to evolve very rapidly, given the growing data from all over the World. During this complicated process, healthcare professionals have benefited from each other?s experiences in combatting against the COVID-19 syndrome. COVID-19 related studies have been performed by a wide variety of research groups in Turkey as well as the rest of the World. The aim of this paper is to outline Turkish COVID-19 research indexed in LitCovid system. LitCovid is a curated literature hub for tracking up-to-date scientific data about the SARS-CoV-2. COVID-19?s first case was detected in Turkey, on March 11th, 2020. Six months after the first case was observed, the total number of COVID-19 patients was reported to be as 286.455, and the total number of deaths due to SARS-CoV-2 was 6895. The genetic sequence of the novel coronavirus showed significant identity to SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV. Numerous drugs including lopinavir/ritonavir, favipiravir, neuraminidase inhibitors, remdesivir, umifenovir, azithromycin and chloroquine have been suggested for the management of COVID-19 although the exact treatment yet to be determined.

Local bone marrow renin-angiotensin system and covid-19/ Lokal kemik iliği renin anjiotensin sistem ve covid-19

Abstract: For the first time on December 31, 2019, 27 cases of pneumonia of unknown etiology were detected in Wuhan City, Hubei province, China. The factor that caused this clinic was called Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). In the following days, WHO officially named the disease caused by the new coronavirus as Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). Patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 mostly applied to health centers with symptoms of dry cough, shortness of breath and fever. some patients have developed death-causing complications such as organ failure, septic shock, pulmonary edema, severe pneumonia, and Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). SARS-CoV-2 infects patients by binding human Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2 (ACE 2), causing to severe pneumonia and high mortality. Circulating RAS and local paracrin-autocrin-intracrin tissue-based RAS participate in numerous pathobiological events. Pro-inflammatory, pro-fibrotic, and pro-thrombotic consequences associated with local RAS activation have been detected at cellular and molecular level. Regenerative progenitor cell therapy in response to RAS-modulating pharmacotherapy in context of endothelial cell damage and regeneration emerged as an auxiliary therapy to improve regeneration of the vascular endothelium. The aim of this article is to evaluate the relationship between circulating and local angiotensin systems and COVID-19.

Turkey's transition to face-to-face schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Abstract: BACKGROUND The COVID-19 pandemic majorly disrupted conventional schooling and many countries maintained educational services through distance education. The duration of school closures in Turkey was longer than most OECD countries, thus Turkey prioritized school reopenings in the 2021-2022 academic year to mitigate possible negative outcomes of closures. Here we study the compatibility of implications for school reopenings in Turkey with these practices and assess the first semester of face-to-face schooling. METHODS We have used document analysis to present and compare the practices in Turkey with international practices. We also used a comparative approach to assess the coherence between policies in Turkey and international suggestions. RESULTS We find that vaccination rates of teachers and education staff are quite high in Turkey. Other practices, mandatory face masks, class-based closures and quarantine policies, are also in agreement with international practices. These steps are supported with frequent cleaning and ventilation of school environments, as well as with social distancing measures in schools. DISCUSSION Consequently, the rate of daily closed classrooms has been kept below 1%, and the patterns of closures and openings are in general agreement with the changes of positive cases in the Turkish society. The net rate of closed classrooms decreased with the decline of quarantine days in Turkey. We hope that these insights will inform about school openings and contribute to best practices for face-to-face schooling.

Hematological aspects of the COVID-19 syndrome.

Abstract: OBJECTIVE Viral infections could complicate hematopoiesis and, in some cases, they may worsen the clinical prognosis of blood disorders. SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19, as a viral disease, can have serious impact on the disease course of hematological neoplastic diseases and can cause hematological complications. The aim of this paper is to review the hematologic aspects of COVID-19 syndrome and the potential management options for SARS-CoV-2 including the convalescent plasma, hemostatic agents and proper anticoagulant treatment. MATERIALS AND METHODS Up to February 2022, literature searches were performed using the internet search engines MEDLINE and EMBASE: (i) COVID-19; (ii) Hematology. PRISMA flow diagram described the COVID-19 and hematology search. RESULTS According to our COVID-19 and hematology research on research databases, we included 82 studies in the current paper. The issues of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on hematological diseases, the role of t-lymphocytes in donor lymphocyte infusion and viruses, hemato-immunologic research in COVID-19, local bone marrow renin-angiotensin system and viral infections, clinical management of COVID-19 infection via hemostatic agents, immune plasma treatment of COVID-19, anticoagulant treatment of COVID-19 associated thrombosis are comprehensively described in this paper. CONCLUSIONS The final episode of this pandemic will include the "chimerism-mediated immunotherapy" that will eventually lead to end of the COVID-19 process. The recent Omicron variant seems to have unique evasion effects on the interferon gene expression which will boost the chimerism-mediated immunotherapy without high mortality rates.

Free Health Coverage for All COVID-19 Patients is Required to Defeat the Virus at The Community Level

Abstract: Our country, Turkey, brilliantly outlined the preventive measures for COVID-19, to be taken across the country to restrict the ongoing viral spread via following the pathways of science [1]. On the other hand, several journal Editors inaugurated historical evidences to outline master management deficiencies in other countries during the current complicating course of the pandemic [2]. We would like to point out another challenging issue in many countries, that is the individual COVID-19 healthcare costs and high individual co-payments for numerous people even in patients having substantial level of health insurance. Those socio-economical facts further pronounced in the upcoming news regarding the development of vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 infection. The vaccines and the entire clinical COVID-19 care shall be freely available not only for ‘the rich’ but also for ‘the poor’ in order to establish a wide “immunity barrier” to stop current pandemic disaster.

Hypermethylation of the Promoter Region of miR-23 Enhances the Metastasis and Proliferation of Multiple Myeloma Cells via the Aberrant Expression of uPA

Abstract: Multiple myeloma has a long course, with no obvious symptoms in the early stages. However, advanced stages are characterized by injury to the bone system and represent a severe threat to human health. The results of the present work indicate that the hypermethylation of miR-23 promoter mediates the aberrant expression of uPA/PLAU (urokinase plasminogen activator, uPA) in multiple myeloma cells. miR-23, a microRNA that potentially targets uPA’s 3’UTR, was predicted by the online tool miRDB. The endogenous expressions of uPA and miR-23 are related to disease severity in human patients, and the expression of miR-23 is negatively related to uPA expression. The hypermethylation of the promoter region of miR-23 is a promising mechanism to explain the low level of miR-23 or aberrant uPA expression associated with disease severity. Overexpression of miR-23 inhibited the expression of uPA by targeting the 3’UTR of uPA, not only in MM cell lines, but also in patient-derived cell lines. Overexpression of miR-23 also inhibited in vitro and in vivo invasion of MM cells in a nude mouse model. The results therefore extend our knowledge about uPA in MM and may assist in the development of more effective therapeutic strategies for MM treatment.

How did research article publications on the COVID-19 pandemic progress in the Q1 ranked SCImage index journals in 2020?

Abstract: Aim: The aim of this paper is to survey the COVID-19 research articles in Q1 ranked high SJR index journals according to the SCImago journal rank indicator. Material and Method: The study was carried out on the website named "https://www.scimagojr.com". The search was conducted by selecting the criteria “medicine”, “pathology and forensic medicine”, “all regions/countries”, “journals”, and the “2020” as the year. Only 50 scientific journals met these criteria. COVID-19-related and unrelated research articles published in these journals were manually scanned. Review articles, book reviews, conferences, commentaries, case reports, mini reviews, short communications, letters to the editor were not included in the study. COVID-19 related research articles were divided into groups in terms of antemortem and postmortem type of the study by reviewing the abstract of the studies and also grouped according to the country of first author and countries of all authors. Results: A total of 3906 research articles published in 50 journals with Q1 SJR index over 0.887 were investigated. Of these 3906 research articles, 40 of them were related to COVID-19. 31 of these 40 COVID-19 related research articles were antemortem and 9 were postmortem studies. Among these 40 COVID-19 related scientific articles, the first author of publications belonged to 12 countries. United States, Australia, China, and Italy were found to be the most productive countries for published research articles on COVID-19 in selected high SJR index journals. The United States was the country with the highest number of first authors with 15 articles. China was the country with the highest number of multinational author list research articles. Conclusion: We believe that the number and content of studies conducted in these high-quality scientific journals on COVID-19 make important contributions and understanding in the fields of disease transmission, disease prevention, course and severity of symptoms, pathophysiology, molecular characteristics, and treatment approach processes.