[{"id":252,"title":"Rabies Virus: Toward Ante-Mortem, Sub-Clinical Diagnosis by Electron Microscopy","sha":"5ed5cdad04e7ecb9d898274de0e95fc8","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Rabies is the cause of approximately 59,000 deaths annually worldwide. Rabies is 100% fatal and with no approved treatment or survivability upon clinical symptom presentation. With the low-efficacy and general irreproducibility of the “Milwaukee protocol,” post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) is essential in preventing disease onset through multiple rounds of vaccine alongside rabies immunoglobulin. There remains no single test to diagnose rabies infection sub-clinically in humans, with the gold standard being brain tissue analysis via animal host necropsy.\r\n\r\nElectron Microscopy (EM) appears a reliable option for early diagnostics given its ability to image Rhabdoviridae. Limitations include equipment size, expense, and technical expertise essential for operation. This can be partially addressed by the use of the Low-Voltage electron microscope (6-25kV). Such is functionally compact and does not require staining given its enhanced contrast, provided tissue samples are thin enough for examination (20-65nm).\r\n\r\nRabies virus is known to initially replicate in infected muscle tissue of bite wounds. This could be the basis for aforementioned diagnosis via muscle biopsy by simple viral load presence. Combined with EM (having been used in rabies imaging previously), further research is necessary to determine the viability of this approach.\r\n","created_at":"2015-11-01T06:41:42.650Z","updated_at":"2015-11-02T06:00:40.491Z","zenodo_id":66918,"doi":"http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.33000","subject":null,"tags":["rabies","diagnosis","electron","microscopy","early","low","voltage","imaging","rhabdovirus","lyssavirus"],"vote_count":0,"view_count":1,"score":0.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":false,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null},{"id":337,"title":"Soap bar skin scanner for detection of early melanoma","sha":"4895ad3c12c62341c73c11681dabf970","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"Many scanners look inside the body, but none examine our whole skin because the ripples and folds of flesh need to be unfolded for camera access.  The current approach assumes no cooperation from the person being examined, except to lie or stand in standard positions. It struck me while showering that active participation by the person, in the privacy of their own washroom, could be invoked, because most of us will run a bar of soap over our whole accessible and not so accessible surfaces. My suggested design is then a checkerboard soap bar holder, with a smooth, exterior surface.  The squares would alternately allow the soap to contact the skin, and the other squares would be digital camera chips, for direct contact microscopy of the skin. Small LEDs could backlight nevi, allowing 3D lightfield imaging. After a shower or two, with appropriate montaging software, a map of our whole skin could be made and analyzed. Two such maps, 6 months apart, aligned and subtracted, could lead to detection of early melanoma: \"...most ultimately fatal melanomas are visible on the surface of the skin at a curable phase in their evolution\" (Weinstock, 2006). Melanoma incidence is rapidly increasing. See attached references.","created_at":"2016-09-20T06:00:01.780Z","updated_at":"2019-11-20T05:54:14.339Z","zenodo_id":154549,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.154549","subject":null,"tags":["imaging","microscopy","cancer","melanoma","lightfield","skin scanner"],"vote_count":2,"view_count":1,"score":2.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":true,"attachment_file_name":"Gordon2016_Soap_References.pdf","attachment_content_type":"application/pdf","attachment_file_size":77556,"attachment_updated_at":"2016-09-20T05:59:59.982Z"}]