Mina Aziz - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Mina Aziz

$Research paper thumbnail of Canadian Spine SocietyPresentation CPSS1: Spinal insufficiency fracture in the geriatric pediatric spinePresentation CPSS2: The clinical significance of tether breakages in anterior vertebral body growth modulation: a 2-year postoperative analysisPresentation CPSS3: Anterior vertebral body growth...$

Canadian Journal of Surgery, 2020

Blood, 2019

Systemic glucocorticoids are the principal treatment for acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), ... more Systemic glucocorticoids are the principal treatment for acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), which remains the major cause of non-relapse mortality (NRM) after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT). However, there are no validated biomarkers that measure a patient's response to glucocorticoid therapy, and thus response is evaluated by the change in clinical symptom severity. A major weakness in the predictive power of clinical responses is that changes to all organs are weighted equally even though the major driver of NRM is irreversible damage to the crypts of the GI tract. Recent studies from the Mount Sinai Acute GVHD International Consortium (MAGIC) have validated an algorithm probability (MAP) that combines serum concentrations of two biomarkers of GVHD (REG3α and ST2) to generate an estimated probability of 6 month NRM for individual patients. The MAP has been considered a "liquid biopsy" that estimates the damage caused by GVHD to crypts throug...

Leukemia, 2020

The graft-versus-leukemia (GVL) effect after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplant (HCT) can p... more The graft-versus-leukemia (GVL) effect after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplant (HCT) can prevent relapse but the risk of severe graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) leads to prolonged intensive immunosuppression and possible blunting of the GVL effect. Strategies to reduce immunosuppression in order to prevent relapse have been offset by increases in severe GVHD and nonrelapse mortality (NRM). We recently validated the MAGIC algorithm probability (MAP) that predicts the risk for severe GVHD and NRM in asymptomatic patients using serum biomarkers. In this study we tested whether the MAP could identify patients whose risk for relapse is higher than their risk for severe GVHD and NRM. The multicenter study population ( n = 1604) was divided into two cohorts: historical (2006–2015, n = 702) and current (2015–2017, n = 902) with similar NRM, relapse, and survival. On day 28 post-HCT, patients who had not developed GVHD (75% of the population) and who possessed a low MAP were at much higher risk for relapse (24%) than severe GVHD and NRM (16 and 9%); this difference was even more pronounced in patients with a high disease risk index (relapse 33%, NRM 9%). Such patients are good candidates to test relapse prevention strategies that might enhance GVL.

Blood Advances, 2019

Key Points The MAGIC algorithm probability, computed from 2 serum biomarkers, predicts mortality ... more Key Points The MAGIC algorithm probability, computed from 2 serum biomarkers, predicts mortality in all GVHD grades after 4 weeks of treatment. Dynamic changes in the MAGIC algorithm probability occur within all biomarker risk groups and can guide therapy.

Annals of Translational Medicine, 2019

The spine is one of the most common sites of bony metastases, and its involvement leads to signif... more The spine is one of the most common sites of bony metastases, and its involvement leads to significant patient morbidity. Surgical management in these patients is aimed at improving quality of life and functional status throughout the course of the disease. Resection of metastases often leads to critical size bone defects, presenting a challenge to achieving adequate bone regeneration to fill the void. Current treatment options for repairing these defects are bone grafting and commercial bone cements; however, each has associated limitations. Additionally, tumor recurrence and tumor-induced bone loss make bone regeneration particularly difficult. Systemic therapeutic delivery, such as bisphosphonates, have become standard of care to combat bone loss despite unfavorable systemic side-effects and lack of local efficacy. Developments from tissue engineering have introduced novel materials with osteoinductive and osteoconductive properties which also act as structural support scaffolds for bone regeneration. These new materials can also act as a therapeutic reservoir to sustainably release drugs locally as an alternative to systemic therapy. In this review, we outline recent advancements in tissue engineering and the role of translational research in developing implants that can fully repair bone defects while also delivering local therapeutics to curb tumor recurrence and improve patient quality of life.

Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, 2019

Objective: The purpose of this study was to quantify the impact of a single lumbar spinal manipul... more Objective: The purpose of this study was to quantify the impact of a single lumbar spinal manipulation (SM) intervention on the leg movement performance of degenerative lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS) patients in a small-scale registered randomized clinical trial. Methods: Participants with LSS (n = 14) were tested at baseline for pain, lumbar range of motion, and behavioral or kinematic motor performance (using an established Fitts' Law foot-pointing task), then underwent covariate adaptive randomization to receive SM or no intervention. Postintervention all dependent measures were repeated. Experimenters were blinded to patient group allocation. University ethics board approval was attained. Results: For the primary outcome movement time, there was no significant difference between groups. As predicted by Fitts' Law, all participants had longer movement times as task difficulty increased. Secondary kinematic outcomes yielded no significant between-group differences. Consistent with Fitts' Law, kinematic measures changed significantly with task difficulty. Pairwise comparisons revealed the kinematic variables were more adversely affected by greater movement amplitudes than target size changes. No exploratory differences in pain or lumbar range of motion were observed. Conclusion: Changes in motor performance were not observed in this chronic pain population after a single SM intervention compared with a control group. Given the sample size, the study may have been underpowered to detect meaningful differences. Fitts' Law was observed for the lower extremity-pointing task for an LSS population and may provide an objective measure of motor performance.

Journal of Clinical and Translational Science, 2019

OBJECTIVES/SPECIFIC AIMS: The first aim of the study is to evaluate the accuracy of serum biomark... more OBJECTIVES/SPECIFIC AIMS: The first aim of the study is to evaluate the accuracy of serum biomarkers of acute GVHD measured after four weeks of corticosteroid therapy to predict 6 month NRM. The second aim of this study is to compare the accuracy of the biomarker algorithm to that of clinical response to corticosteroids after four weeks. The third aim of the study is to develop a novel regression model that uses weekly biomarker measurements over the first month of corticosteroid therapy to predict 6 month NRM. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION:. Patients who received HCT at one of 22 IRB-approved centers and provided blood samples to the Mount Sinai Acute GVHD International Consortium (MAGIC) biorepository and developed GVHD between January 2008 to May 2018 are included in this study. Patients were divided by time into a training set (Jan 2008-Dec 2015, n=233) for model development and a validation set (Jan 2015-May 2018, n=357) to evaluate the predictive performance of the model. The later...

SKIN The Journal of Cutaneous Medicine, 2018

Refractory psoriasis poses a significant challenge to dermatologists, and comorbid conditions may... more Refractory psoriasis poses a significant challenge to dermatologists, and comorbid conditions may further exacerbate that challenge. This is especially true for conditions that compromise a patient’s immune status—such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)—as many of the most potent medications in the psoriasis armamentarium rely on immunomodulation. Moreover, patients with HIV are often excluded from clinical trials because of their immunocompromised state. Therefore, most treatment recommendations rely on anecdotal evidence derived from case reports and case series. This article reviews the current recommendations regarding management of HIV-associated psoriasis, with a particular focus on the relatively recent use of biologic agents in this population. Though there is a risk of compounding patients’ suppressed immune status, the reports to date have demonstrated promise in treating refractory HIV-associated psoriatic disease, and these agents may play a role in managing appropria...

The Plant journal : for cell and molecular biology, Jan 11, 2018

Despite the importance of oilseeds to worldwide human nutrition, and more recently to the product... more Despite the importance of oilseeds to worldwide human nutrition, and more recently to the production of bio-based diesel fuels, the detailed mechanisms regulating seed oil biosynthesis remain partly understood, especially from a tissue-specific perspective. Here, we investigated the spatial distributions of lipid metabolites and transcripts involved in oil biosynthesis from seeds of two low-erucic acid genotypes of Brassica napus with high and low seed oil content. Integrated results from matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-mass spectrometry imaging (MALDI-MSI) of lipids in situ, lipidome profiling of extracts from seed tissues, and tissue-specific transcriptome analysis revealed complex spatial distribution patterns of lipids and transcripts. In general, it appeared that many triacylglycerol and phosphatidylcholine species distributed heterogeneously throughout the embryos. Tissue-specific transcriptome analysis identified key genes involved in de novo fatty acid biosynthes...

Molecules (Basel, Switzerland), Jan 29, 2017

Urushiols are the allergenic components of Toxicodendron radicans (poison ivy) as well as other T... more Urushiols are the allergenic components of Toxicodendron radicans (poison ivy) as well as other Toxicodendron species. They are alk-(en)-yl catechol derivatives with a 15- or 17-carbon side chain having different degrees of unsaturation. Although several methods have been developed for analysis of urushiols in plant tissues, the in situ localization of the different urushiol congeners has not been reported. Here, we report on the first analysis of urushiols in poison ivy stems by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-mass spectrometry imaging (MALDI-MSI). Our results show that the urushiol congeners with 15-carbon side chains are mainly localized to the resin ducts, while those with 17-carbon side chains are widely distributed in cortex and vascular tissues. The presence of these urushiols in stem extracts of poison ivy seedlings was confirmed by GC-MS. These novel findings provide new insights into the spatial tissue distribution of urushiols that might be biosynthetically or...

Medical Engineering & Physics, 2017

Conservative hip implants preserve healthy bone for revision surgeries and improve physiological ... more Conservative hip implants preserve healthy bone for revision surgeries and improve physiological loading; however, they have few supporting biomechanical data. This thesis determined the 3D orientation of a straight short stem hip implant within the proximal femur that would yield a stress distribution most similar to an intact femur. Synthetic femurs were implanted with a stem in one of seven maximum angles or positions and axially loaded, with resultant strain values used to validate a finite element model. Design of experiments was used to analyze the range of potential implant orientations under three gait cycle loading conditions. A global optimal orientation of 9.14° valgus, 2.49° anteversion, 0.48mm posterior position, and 0.23mm inferior position yielded optimal stress distributions across the range of the gait cycle. Orthopaedic surgeons should therefore implant straight short stem hip implants in valgus up to 10° with an otherwise neutral position and version for maximal physiological loading.

Journal of Thermal Biology, 2017

We investigated the ability of juvenile American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) to accli... more We investigated the ability of juvenile American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) to acclimate to temperature with respect to growth rate. We hypothesized that alligators would acclimate to cold temperature by increasing the metabolic capacity of skeletal muscles and the heart. Additionally, we hypothesized that lipid membranes in the thigh muscle and liver would respond to low temperature, either to maintain fluidity (via increased unsaturation) or to maintain enzyme reaction rates (via increased docosahexaenoic acid). Alligators were assigned to one of 3 temperature regimes beginning at 9 mo of age: constant warm (30°C), constant cold (20°C), and daily cycling for 12 h at each temperature. Growth rate over the following 7 mo was highest in the cycling group, which we suggest occurred via high digestive function or feeding activity during warm periods and energy-saving during cold periods. The warm group also grew faster than the cold group. Heart and liver masses were proportional to body mass, while kidney was proportionately larger in the cold group compared to the warm animals. Whole-animal metabolic rate was higher in the warm and cycling groups compared to the cold group-even when controlling for body mass-when assayed at 30°C, but not at 20°C. Mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation capacity in permeabilized fibers of thigh muscle and heart did not differ among treatments. Membrane fatty acid composition of the brain was largely unaffected by temperature treatment, but adjustments were made in the phospholipid headgroup composition that are consistent with homeoviscous adaptation. Thigh muscle cell membranes had elevated polyunsaturated fatty acids in the cold group relative to the cycling group, but this was not the case for thigh muscle mitochondrial membranes. Liver mitochondria from cold alligators had elevated docosahexaenoic acid, which might be important for maintenance of reaction rates of membrane-bound enzymes.

Proceedings of the Twelfth Pakistan Science Conference Hyderabad, 1960

Medical Engineering & Physics, 2016

Quick release formulation of Bromocriptine mesylate is recently been approved by FDA (Food and Dr... more Quick release formulation of Bromocriptine mesylate is recently been approved by FDA (Food and Drug Administration) for the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus. Early morning dose of bromocriptine mesylate reduces the plasma prolactin level and increases the hypothalamic dopaminergic drive thereby reducing postprandial plasma glucose, triglyceride, and free fatty acid concentrations. Conventional preparations of bromocriptine are available in 2.5 mg or 5 mg tablets used for hyperprolactinemia and suppression of lactation. Studies have shown that quick release bromocriptine given in dose of 0.8-4.8 mg per day for a period of 6 month has successfully achieved target blood sugar. So the drug is well tolerated in antidiabetic dosage with mild side effects like nausea vomiting and fatigue. The central mechanism of action , good side effect profile and its effects to reduce adverse cardiovascular outcomes make it an attractive option for treatment of type 2 diabetes.

Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Part H, Journal of engineering in medicine, Jan 8, 2014

During orthopedic surgery, screws are inserted by "subjective feel" in humeri for fract... more During orthopedic surgery, screws are inserted by "subjective feel" in humeri for fracture fixation, that is, stopping torque, while trying to prevent accidental over-tightening that causes screw-bone interface failure, that is, stripping torque. However, no studies exist on stopping torque, stripping torque, or stopping/stripping torque ratio in human or artificial humeri. This study evaluated five types of humeri, namely, human fresh-frozen (n = 19), human embalmed (n = 18), human dried (n = 15), artificial "normal" (n = 13), and artificial "osteoporotic" (n = 13). An orthopedic surgeon used a torque screwdriver to insert 3.5-mm-diameter cortical screws into humeral shafts and 6.5-mm-diameter cancellous screws into humeral heads by "subjective feel" to obtain stopping and stripping torques. The five outcome measures were raw and normalized stopping torque, raw and normalized stripping torque, and stopping/stripping torque ratio. Normalizatio...

Soil Biology, 2010

Plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) are naturally occurring soil microorganisms that colo... more Plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) are naturally occurring soil microorganisms that colonize roots and stimulate shoot and root growth. Such bacteria have been applied to a wide range of agricultural crops for the purpose of growth enhancement, including increased seed emergence, plant weight, and crop yields (Kloepper et al. 1991). For example, emergence increases of 10-40% result for canola when seeds are coated with PGPR before planting, and plant weight of tubertreated potatoes increases by 80% on average by midseason (Kloepper et al. 1980). Yield increases between 10 and 20% with PGPR applications have also been documented for several other agricultural crops (Kloepper et al. 1991). Plant-PGPR associations are mediated through an exchange of chemical metabolites. Root exudates provide energy-rich organic acids that are metabolized within hours by soil microorganisms (Jones et al. 2003) while specialized microbes generate an array of biologically active compounds that elicit plant growth promotion (Kloepper et al. 1999; Ryu et al. 2003; Paré et al. 2005). Widely accepted mechanisms for plant growth promotion by PGPR include bacterial synthesis of plant hormones (Loper and Schroth 1986; Timmusk et al. 1999; MacDonald et al. 1986), breakdown of plant produced ethylene (Glick et al. 1999), and increased mineral availability in the soil by bacterial produced siderophores (Lin et al. 1983).

Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine, 2014

Objectives: Several recent high profile injuries to elite players in the National Hockey League (... more Objectives: Several recent high profile injuries to elite players in the National Hockey League (NHL) secondary to skate blade lacerations have generated significant interest in these injuries and possible methods to protect against them. These injuries are typically due to direct contact of the skate blade of another player with posterior aspect of the calf resulting in a range of potential injuries to tendons or neurovascular structures. The Achilles tendon is most commonly involved. Kevlar® reinforced socks have recently become available for hockey players to wear and are cited as providing possible protection against such injuries. However, there has been no investigation of the possible protective effects of Kevlar® reinforced socks against skate blade injuries, and it is currently unknown what protective effects, if any, that these socks provide against these injuries. The proposed study sought to address this by conducting a biomechanical investigation of the protective effec...

$Research paper thumbnail of Biomechanical analysis of a new carbon fiber/flax/epoxy bone fracture plate shows less stress shielding compared to a standard clinical metal plate$

Journal of biomechanical engineering, 2014

Femur fracture at the tip of a total hip replacement (THR), commonly known as Vancouver B1 fractu... more Femur fracture at the tip of a total hip replacement (THR), commonly known as Vancouver B1 fracture, is mainly treated using rigid metallic bone plates which may result in "stress shielding" leading to bone resorption and implant loosening. To minimize stress shielding, a new carbon fiber (CF)/Flax/Epoxy composite plate has been developed and biomechanically compared to a standard clinical metal plate. For fatigue tests, experiments were done using six artificial femurs cyclically loaded through the femoral head in axial compression for four stages: Stage 1 (intact), stage 2 (after THR insertion), stage 3 (after plate fixation of a simulated Vancouver B1 femoral midshaft fracture gap), and stage 4 (after fracture gap healing). For fracture fixation, one group was fitted with the new CF/Flax/Epoxy plate (n = 3), whereas another group was repaired with a standard clinical metal plate (Zimmer, Warsaw, IN) (n = 3). In addition to axial stiffness measurements, infrared thermogr...