A process for fabricating high-quality Josephson junctions and DC SQUIDs on basis of Nb/Al technology has been developed. DC magnetron sputtering is used for the deposition of the metal layers and the barrier is formed by thermal oxidation of the Al-layer. The junction area of 5 microns x 5 microns is obtained using anodisation. Three types of Josephson tunnel junctions have been prepared: stan...

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to assess the differences in microRNA 21 expression among neuroblastoma (NB), embryonic tissue, and normal adrenal tissue and to identify correlations between microRNA 21 expression, the biological features of the tumor, and prognosis. METHODS A total of 70 patients with NB were selected from December 2005 and December 2007. Real-time polymerase chain reac...

Aberrant expression of the simple mucin-type carbohydrate antigens such as Tn antigen is associated with malignant transformation and cancer progression. N-acetylgalactosaminyltransferase 2 (GALNT2), one of the enzymes that mediate the initial step of mucin-type O-glycosylation, is responsible for forming Tn antigen. GALNT2 is expressed differentially in nervous tissues during mouse embryogenes...

The aim of this study was to establish a metastatic human neuroblastoma (NB) mouse model by xenograft in order to study the metastatic mechanisms of NB. A human NB cell line was obtained from a 5-year-old patient and cultured in vitro. A suspension of these cells was subcutaneously inoculated into nude mice at the right flank next to the forelimb. The biological characteristics of the developed...

Steroid hormones, particularly 17beta-estradiol (E2), regulate the development and expression of neural structures and sexual behavior. Recently, we demonstrated that E2-regulated responses are controlled by quantitative trait loci. In this study, we quantified 1) volume of the sexually dimorphic nucleus (SDN) of the preoptic area (POA); 2) medial basal hypothalamic (MBH)-POA aromatase and 5alp...

Neuroblastoma (NB) is the most common type of extracranial solid tumor in children with a high prevalence in toddlers. For childhood cancer survivors, preservation of reproductive potential is an important factor for quality of life. The optimization of NB minimal residual disease (MRD) detection in testicular tissue is crucial to evaluate the risk of malignant cell reintroduction. The first st...

NB-002 is an oil-in-water emulsion designed for use for the treatment of skin, hair, and nail infections. The activity of NB-002 was compared to the activities of the available antifungal drugs against the major dermatophytes responsible for cutaneous infections, Trichophyton rubrum, Trichophyton mentagrophytes, Epidermophyton floccosum, and Microsporum spp., as well as 12 other genera of filam...

OBJECTIVE To compare the efficacy of oral psoralen-UV-A (PUVA) with that of narrowband-UV-B (NB-UVB) phototherapy in patients with nonsegmental vitiligo. DESIGN Double-blind randomized study. SETTING Phototherapy unit in a university hospital. PATIENTS Fifty-six patients with nonsegmental vitiligo. Interventions Twice-weekly therapy with PUVA or NB-UVB. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES The change ...

Cell intrinsic and cell extrinsic factors mediate asymmetric cell divisions during neurogenesis in the Drosophila embryo. In the NB4-2->GMC-1->RP2/sib lineage, one of the well-studied neuronal lineages in the ventral nerve cord, the Notch (N) signaling interacts with the asymmetrically localized Numb (Nb) to specify sibling neuronal fates to daughter cells of GMC-1. In this current study, we ha...

Epigenetics and differentiation are intimately related in Neuroblastoma (NB), the most common extracranial solid tumor of childhood. NB originates from neural crest and primary tumors have a sympathoadrenal progenitor phenotype. High-risk NB is considered a failure of sympathoadrenal terminal differentiation. Despite intense multimodal treatment, high-risk NB is also one of the most aggressive ...