BackgroundIn most parts of the world, people with disabilities are deprived of education, employment, health, and social and political rights. Moreover, women with disabilities can be subjected to double discrimination because of their gender and are more likely to experience physical, mental, and sexual abuse. Because of the nature of their disability, women with intellectual disability in particular face stigma and discrimination in accessing sexual and reproductive healthcare, which in turn affects their decision-making abilities regarding sexuality. In Ethiopia, due to a lack of resources and limited awareness, women with intellectual disabilities have difficulties accessing sexual and reproductive healthcare to meet their needs. We, therefore, aimed to explore the barriers and facilitators impacting access to sexual and reproductive health services in Gondar, Ethiopia.MethodsThe study employed a qualitative descriptive approach to explore the existing barriers and facilitators impacting access to sexual and reproductive health services, aiming to inform how to improve service provision for women with intellectual disabilities in Gondar, Ethiopia. Using a semi-structured interview guide, we conducted interviews in Amharic with 17 purposively selected women with intellectual disability, aged 15-49, in Gondar, Ethiopia. After the interviews were transcribed, we conducted a thematic analysis using both inductive and deductive approaches in NVivo 14.ResultsThe analysis of the study resulted in six themes reflecting on different barriers and facilitators impacting Sexual and reproductive healthcare access: sexual and reproductive health education, contraception, prevention of sexual abuse, prevention of sexually transmitted infections, pregnancy and parenthood, and the roles of community-based rehabilitation impacting access to Sexual and reproductive health services.ConclusionsStudy findings showed the barriers and facilitators impacting access to sexual and reproductive health services for women with intellectual disability, based on firsthand information and experiences of these women embedded in structural and sociocultural factors. The study’s findings could guide future researchers, healthcare policymakers and healthcare practitioners to design culturally appropriate and disability inclusive interventions promoting sexual and reproductive healthcare access and improved outcomes among women and girls with intellectual disability.
Autolomous and Cellular Origins Expand Cell Therapy Manufacturing Process
Officials at Autolomous and Cellular Origins say the companies have carried out the end-to-end integration of their respective platforms to bring full automation and digitization to the entire cell therapy manufacturing process. This new scalable approach creates a connected manufacturing environment that gives developers greater standardization, traceability, and control across the entire manufacturing process, according to the companies’ spokespersons.
Cellular Origins’ Constellation® automated platform was created to enable cell therapy manufacturing, integrating mobile robotics, existing bioprocessing technologies, and sterile fluid transfer into a coordinated operation. Its flexible, modular architecture allows developers and manufacturers to scale manufacturing capacity as demand grows while maintaining standardized processes, avoiding therapy redevelopment and reducing scale-up risk, notes Edwin Stone, CEO of Cellular Origins.
Autolomous’ digital autoloMATE® platform was designed to allow real-time data exchange and integration across existing software and AI systems, as well as devices and robotic platforms across the entire manufacturing process and supply chain, while safeguarding intellectual property. The modular architecture allows each deployment to be configured to customer needs.
The combined solution overcomes fragmentation, limited visibility, and the absence of standardized, interoperable data flows without replacing existing processes, enabling manufacturers to scale to commercially viable levels, maintains Alexander Seyf, CEO of Autolomous. First integrations have already been achieved at the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult Digital and Automation Testbeds, as part of an Innovate UK-funded project.
“Scientific ambition has never been the bottleneck in bringing innovative cell therapy to patients, but the delivery infrastructure has brought many challenges,” continues Seyf. “Together with Cellular Origins, we enable fast and efficient scaling from research through to patient administration, ensuring standardization, automation and digitization across the entire process.”
“Scaling cell therapy manufacturing is not just a question of employing automation. It requires a manufacturing system that can evolve with demand,” adds Stone. “Our collaboration with Autolomous, and joint work with the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult, clearly demonstrates how robotic platforms and digital infrastructure can operate as one.”
The post Autolomous and Cellular Origins Expand Cell Therapy Manufacturing Process appeared first on GEN – Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News.
STAT+: Amylyx nears pivotal endocrine drug study readout
This story first appeared in Adam’s Biotech Scorecard, a subscriber-only newsletter. STAT+ subscribers can sign up here to get it delivered to their inbox.
Later this quarter, Amylyx Pharmaceuticals will read out results from a study evaluating a new treatment for a rare endocrine disorder. It’s a pivotal moment that could support the drug’s approval and comes two years after Amylyx was rocked — and lauded — for voluntarily pulling a drug for ALS off the market because a follow-on study showed it wasn’t helping patients.
The Amylyx drug, avexitide, is being developed to halt severe, uncontrolled drops in blood sugar that some people experience after undergoing stomach-reducing surgery for weight loss.
Nitinol supplier Fort Wayne Metals sold
Axel Johnson Inc. (AJI) has acquired Fort Wayne Metals and the medtech nitinol supplier’s parent company, Fort Wayne Metals Research Products. Terms of the sale were not disclosed. Founded in 1970 by Ardelle Glaze and most recently led and owned by his son Scott Glaze, Fort Wayne Metals will remain headquartered in Fort Wayne, Indiana.…
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MyFILM: A Pilot Study for Social-Emotional Learning in Clinical Youth
Conditions: Mood Disorders; Anxiety Disorders
Interventions: Behavioral: MyFILM
Sponsors: Mark Sinyor
Not yet recruiting
Interventions: Behavioral: MyFILM
Sponsors: Mark Sinyor
Not yet recruiting
The COMET Study: a Prospective COhort of MEdical residenTs to Assess Professional, Personal and Psychological Trajectories of Residents in General Internal Medicine
Conditions: Burnout Syndrome; Depression Disorder; Insomnia; Perceived Stress; Fatigue Symptom; Empathy
Sponsors: University of Fribourg; Insel Gruppe AG, University Hospital Bern; Hôpital Fribourgeois; University of Lausanne Hospitals
Recruiting
Sponsors: University of Fribourg; Insel Gruppe AG, University Hospital Bern; Hôpital Fribourgeois; University of Lausanne Hospitals
Recruiting
Evaluation of a Remote Behavioural Stress Recovery Intervention for Myocardial Infarction Patients Younger Than Fifty-five (BRIM-55): A Feasibility Study
Conditions: Cardiac Disease; Depression and Quality of Life; Cardiac Distress; Myocardial Infarction; Psychological Distress; Anxiety
Interventions: Behavioral: Remote-delivery Balance in Everyday Life (rBEL) Program for Myocardial Infarction Patients Younger Than 55 Years With Cardiac Distress
Sponsors: Uppsala University
Not yet recruiting
Interventions: Behavioral: Remote-delivery Balance in Everyday Life (rBEL) Program for Myocardial Infarction Patients Younger Than 55 Years With Cardiac Distress
Sponsors: Uppsala University
Not yet recruiting
Artificial Intelligence-based Parkinson’s Disease Risk Assessment (AI-PRA) Study
Conditions: Parkinson Disease (PD); REM Sleep Behavior Disorder (iRBD); Neurogenic Orthostatic Hypotension; Hyposmia
Interventions: Device: Smartwatch and phone app
Sponsors: Queen Mary University of London; Hospital Ruber Internacional; University Hospital, Toulouse; Aristotle University Of Thessaloniki
Not yet recruiting
Interventions: Device: Smartwatch and phone app
Sponsors: Queen Mary University of London; Hospital Ruber Internacional; University Hospital, Toulouse; Aristotle University Of Thessaloniki
Not yet recruiting
Social talk in virtual spaces: an observational study of pragmatic communication in children with autism spectrum disorder during avatar-mediated interaction
IntroductionImmersive virtual environments offer organized social contexts for the observation of communication behaviors under standardized and interactive conditions. This study adopts a VR-based observational approach to examine pragmatic social communication behaviors exhibited during structured social scenarios in autistic children, with a specific focus on social reciprocity and context-appropriate verbal communication. MethodsThe study included twenty-five children between the ages of 5 and 12 who were diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). A structured social scenario was presented by the Virtual Reality (VR) system to elicit social communication behaviors, including greeting initiation and response, attention to speakers, turn-taking, and context-appropriate verbal responses. Social communication outcomes were assessed using selected domains of the Indian Scale for Assessment of autism (ISAA). In addition, the Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ) and a VR-based Pragmatic Social Communication Observation Checklist (VR-PSCOC) were used to assess in-scenario behaviors. ResultsThe post-VR analysis revealed measurable changes across the assessed pragmatic social communication domains during repeated exposure to the VR scenarios. Variations were observed in the ISAA social-communication related domains, including speech-language, communication, and social relationship and reciprocity scores (p<0.001). Repeated VR exposure was associated with higher observational scores, indicating observable changes in social communication behaviors within the structured virtual environment. DiscussionThe findings indicate that the structured VR-based social scenarios provide a feasible environment for observing and characterizing social communication behaviors in children with ASD within controlled interaction settings.
Academic burnout in higher education: a multimodal study of resting-state EEG microstate correlates beyond trait anxiety, depressive symptoms, and self-efficacy in Chinese undergraduates
BackgroundAcademic burnout is a mental-health-relevant outcome of higher-education stress, but its relationship with spontaneous brain dynamics remains unclear. EEG microstates are quasi-stable scalp-potential configurations indexing millisecond-level transitions between large-scale resting brain states. This study tested whether resting-state EEG microstate dynamics are associated with academic burnout beyond trait anxiety, depressive symptoms, and general self-efficacy as perceived coping capacity.MethodsParticipants were 330 Chinese undergraduates (94 men, 236 women; mean age = 18.31 years, SD = 0.84). They completed self-report measures and an eyes-closed resting-state EEG recording. Academic burnout total score was the primary outcome. Covariate-adjusted partial correlations examined burnout–microstate associations. Hierarchical regression tested the incremental value of selected microstate markers.ResultsHigher academic burnout was associated with higher trait anxiety (r = 0.539, p < 0.001), higher depressive symptoms (r = 0.526, p < 0.001), and lower general self-efficacy (r = -0.474, p < 0.001). After adjustment for age, sex, trait anxiety, depressive symptoms, and general self-efficacy, greater burnout was associated with shorter microstate D duration (partial r = -0.196, q = 0.0049), higher microstate C occurrence (partial r = 0.172, q = 0.0081), shorter mean microstate duration, and higher mean occurrence. The psychological block explained substantial variance in burnout (R² = 0.417); adding microstate D duration and microstate C occurrence produced a small but significant improvement in model fit (ΔR² = 0.025, p = 0.001). In a scale-midpoint sensitivity analysis, the higher-burnout group showed shorter class D duration after covariate adjustment (adjusted B = -3.38 ms, 95% CI [-6.12, -0.64], p = 0.016). Dimension-specific analyses indicated that microstate associations were mainly evident for dejection and low sense of accomplishment, not the behavioral (improper-behavior) component.ConclusionAcademic burnout in undergraduates was primarily linked to internalizing distress and lower perceived coping capacity. Resting-state EEG microstate dynamics, especially shorter class D duration, provided modest incremental information, suggesting reduced temporal persistence of a canonical resting-state configuration among students with higher burnout. These findings do not establish a diagnostic EEG marker or a burnout-specific neural mechanism, but support multimodal, context-sensitive research on academic stress and mental health in higher education.