University of Milano-Bicocca

About: University of Milano-Bicocca is a education organization based out in Milan, Italy. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Blood pressure. The organization has 8972 authors who have published 22322 publications receiving 620484 citations. The organization is also known as: Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca & Universita degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca.

Intrabone hematopoietic stem cell gene therapy for adult and pediatric patients affected by transfusion-dependent ß-thalassemia.

Abstract: s-thalassemia is caused by s-globin gene mutations resulting in reduced (β+) or absent (β0) hemoglobin production. Patient life expectancy has recently increased, but the need for chronic transfusions in transfusion-dependent thalassemia (TDT) and iron chelation impairs quality of life1. Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) transplantation represents the curative treatment, with thalassemia-free survival exceeding 80%. However, it is available to a minority of patients and is associated with morbidity, rejection and graft-versus-host disease2. Gene therapy with autologous HSCs modified to express s-globin represents a potential therapeutic option. We treated three adults and six children with s0 or severe s+ mutations in a phase 1/2 trial ( NCT02453477 ) with an intrabone administration of HSCs transduced with the lentiviral vector GLOBE. Rapid hematopoietic recovery with polyclonal multilineage engraftment of vector-marked cells was achieved, with a median of 37.5% (range 12.6–76.4%) in hematopoietic progenitors and a vector copy number per cell (VCN) of 0.58 (range 0.10–1.97) in erythroid precursors at 1 year, in absence of clonal dominance. Transfusion requirement was reduced in the adults. Three out of four evaluable pediatric participants discontinued transfusions after gene therapy and were transfusion independent at the last follow-up. Younger age and persistence of higher VCN in the repopulating hematopoietic cells are associated with better outcome. In a phase 1/2 clinical trial, gene therapy with autologous hematopoietic stem cells significantly reduced transfusion requirement in adults and children with transfusion dependent s-thalassemia.

Combination of Searches for Higgs Boson Pair Production in Proton-Proton Collisions at √s = 13 TeV

Abstract: This Letter describes a search for Higgs boson pair production using the combined results from four final states: bbγγ, bbττ, bbbb, and bbVV, where V represents a W or Z boson. The search is performed using data collected in 2016 by the CMS experiment from LHC proton-proton collisions at s=13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb-1. Limits are set on the Higgs boson pair production cross section. A 95% confidence level observed (expected) upper limit on the nonresonant production cross section is set at 22.2 (12.8) times the standard model value. A search for narrow resonances decaying to Higgs boson pairs is also performed in the mass range 250–3000 GeV. No evidence for a signal is observed, and upper limits are set on the resonance production cross section.

Newborns' face recognition: role of inner and outer facial features.

Abstract: Existing data indicate that newborns are able to recognize individual faces, but little is known about what perceptual cues drive this ability. The current study showed that either the inner or outer features of the face can act as sufficient cues for newborns' face recognition (Experiment 1), but the outer part of the face enjoys an advantage over the inner part (Experiment 2). Inversion of the face stimuli disrupted recognition when only the inner portion of the face was shown, but not when the whole face was fully visible or only the outer features were presented (Experiment 3). The results enhance our picture of what information newborns actually process and encode when they discriminate, learn, and recognize faces.