The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted dental education and research activities, creating challenges for students, educators, and health-care professionals. The unfolding crisis has shed the light on how technology can facilitate not only the delivery of dental education and improving access to dental care but also new and ongoing research. While dental schools worldwide have re-structured their policies and curricula in terms of incorporating appropriate methods of distance learning, this now needs to be applied to dental research where appropriate. By conducting a “strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats” analysis and describing the authors' experiences, here we discuss the impact of the pandemic on various aspects of dental research to provide a timely perspective on dental research activity in academic institutions to help achieve research outcomes despite the pandemic's impact.

Background: Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a highly efficacious treatment modality used to produce seizures in patients diagnosed with major depressive disorders and psychotic episodes. In general, ECT treatment is successful in most patients; however, in some populations, ECT fails to produce adequate response. Caffeine, theophylline, and aminophylline are documented to augment seizure activity in ECT. By inhibiting adenosine, these medications can improve ECT response rate in a certain patient population. Caffeine and aminophylline have been documented to prolong seizure duration. Theophylline has been shown to improve seizure duration along with decreasing seizure threshold. All of these medications have very minimal side effect profiles. This review will discuss up-to-date evidence on the effects of xanthine derivatives in patients receiving ECT treatment. Methods: A literature review of PubMed and EMBASE was performed for related studies. Results: Eight studies were included in our review. Premedication with caffeine, theophylline, or aminophylline was associated with increased seizure duration in patients suffering from mental disorders and were indicated to manage ECT. Conclusion: Xanthine derivatives prolong seizure duration in patients treated with ECT.

Dendritic cells (DCs) are professional antigen-presenting cells, which are resident or proliferating in organs. Major histocompatibility complex (MHC) Class I and II on DCs in normal steady conditions process and present antigens including cancer antigens. Many approaches are used to enhance antigen presentation process of DCs and capture cancer cells. DCs are harvested from cancer patients and manipulated ex vivo in DC-based cancer immunotherapy. In addition, DCs' vaccines and other anticancer therapy combinations were discussed to optimize DCs' efficiency for cancer immunotherapy. This review addressed the use of the human conventional type-1 DCs, OX40⁺ plasmacytoid DCs, and DCs-derived exosomes. In addition, different combinations with DCs therapy such as combination with the monoclonal antibody, cytokine-induced killer cells, adjuvants, chemotherapy (DCs-based chemoimmunotherapy), and nanoparticles were listed and explored for their effectiveness against cancer, and mainly against colorectal cancer.

Background: Malaria has been an important public health all over the globe. Although conventional light microscopy is the gold standard of diagnosis, light microscopes are heavy, fragile, costly, and electricity dependent. Rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) have become more popular but perform badly in temperate climate. This is because the RDT kits require maintenance of cold chain for its optimal use. In this regard, there is a recent interest in handheld malaria microscopy at the point of care in the field setting. Foldscopes are cheap, handy, nonfragile, and use mobile camera for illumination. The purpose of the study was to find whether foldscope can be used in the national vector borne disease control program (NVBDCP) in India. Methods: Ten laboratory technicians were trained in identifying malaria parasites using foldscope and their mobiles. Later, they were provided with unassembled foldscope to document their test results for the preidentified malaria slides. The blood smears were stained as per the protocol of NVBDCP. The report of the index test (foldscope microscopy) was compared with the reference test (conventional microscopy). Results: The sensitivity and specificity of the index test was found to be 13.3% (6.257–26.18), specificity of 97.78% (88.43–99.61), positive predictive value 85.71% (48.69–97.43), and negative predictive value 53.01% (42.38–63.38). The devise failure rate and test failure rate were 20% and 11.7%. The kappa agreement between the index and reference microscopy was only 11% and the McNemar P < 0.01. Conclusion: The ×400 foldscope at its present magnification and illumination cannot be utilized in the field under NVBDCP.

This study evaluated age-related changes in the testicular morphophysiology of the cane rat (Thryonomys swinderianus) using histological, histochemical, and sex hormonal profile approaches. Twenty (20) pathogen-free male cane rats were used for the investigation. Cane rats were divided into four groups: prepubertal (≤4 months), pubertal (>4 ≤12 months), adult (>12 ≤30 months), and aged (>30 months) of 5 rats each. Blood was collected from the different cane rat groups and processed for sex serum hormonal levels. Testes were also excised and processed routinely for variations in histology, histochemistry (using Masson's trichrome [MT] and Periodic acid–Schiff [PAS]), and histomorphometric evaluations using GIMP2 software. Testosterone concentrations were significantly elevated (P < 0.05) in the prepubertal to adult, while there were no significant differences (P > 0.05) in this hormone between adult and aged. The concentrations of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) decreased significantly (P < 0.05) for prepubertal, pubertal, and adult, respectively. There were no significant differences (P > 0.05) between adult and aged for FSH and luteinizing hormone. Histologically, there were scanty interstitial cells, lack of patent lumen, and incomplete spermatogenetic cell series in prepubertal compared to other age groups. Testicular capsular (MT and PAS) staining intensity increased with age advancement, while in the parenchyma, remarkably high intensity was displayed by the pubertal compared to others. Seminiferous tubular and luminal diameters (LD) significantly (P < 0.05) increased with advancing age whereas epithelial height (EH) was markedly increased in pubertal relative to other groups. In conclusion, these sets of data have shown that reproductive activity is directly related to age and is at maximum in adult cane rat.

Background: COVID-19 pandemic has affected the educational process greatly in the academic year 2019–2020. Therefore, this warranted an urgent and effective shift and intervention toward the online teaching practice. Aim: We have aimed in this study to assess the impact of the necessary shift of the educational process of the basic sciences toward the online distant learning in the female campus; Faculty of Medicine in Rabigh, King Abdulaziz University. Subjects and Methods: Promptly shift toward the online teaching practice through virtual classrooms for the 2^nd and 3^rd year students was accomplished during the second term of the academic year 2019–2020. Following that, we analyzed the efficacy of this shift qualitatively through focus group discussions with the students and the staff members. For objective assessment, we analyzed and compared the students' results of the second term of the academic years 2018–2019 and 2019–2020 regarding the same modules. Results: The results of the students were not negatively affected during the pandemic hit. Conversely, the results improved in the basic science modules, and no significant difference was found in the clinically-oriented genetic module. Conclusion: The significant move toward the online virtual classrooms did not affect the teaching and learning process negatively. Contrarily, the online teaching and learning practice have proved to be a decent alternative if applied on a sound basis during emergencies and thus is promising as an adjuvant method in the educational process in the ordinary circumstances.

Context: Many congenital malformations are seen increasingly, due to diabetic mothers causing a burden on health systems. Corn silk (CS) extract has been used as a natural hypoglycemic treatment. However, its teratogenic safety was not studied. Aims: Therefore, in this study, we examine the effect of CS aqueous extract on fetuses, offspring of normal and diabetic female mice treated with CS aqueous extract. Settings and Design: Pregnant female mice were divided into two groups diabetic and nondiabetic. Then, each of these groups was divided into control and treated. Subjects and Methods: A daily dose of 4 g/kg of CS aqueous extract was given orally to the treated groups, control groups were given distilled water. The collection of samples was at day 16.5 of pregnancy, and neonates. Brown adipose tissue (BAT) in the sections of the preserved sample was examined. Statistical Analysis Used: BAT areas were measured from 10 samples of each treatment age group in 2 sections. Data were analyzed with one-way ANOVA, then, two-independent sample test (Mann–Whitney) was done to test the significance of differences between groups. Results: The BAT areas were negatively affected by diabetes and the extract. Both the extract and diabetes caused an increase in fat accumulation in the adipocytes with varying degrees. Conclusions: This study showed for the first time to our knowledge that the use of CS aqueous extract during pregnancy affected BAT organization and area, and that the used dose did not decrease the malformations caused by diabetes. More studies with different doses should be investigated.

In the current situation, biometric devices, electronic devices, and medical apparatus usage cannot be restricted in hospitals and offices. These devices will act as a vehicle for the transmission of bacterial agents. Our study observed that a biometric device is acting as a vehicle/source of spreading bacterial agents. It will be more in the hospital environment. The only way to protect from infections is strict adherence to infection control and good hygienic practices. We also observed fewer samples containing yielding of bacteria, indicating that either student is not interacting with biometric devices or is more aware of infection spread and followed the hand hygiene practice with alcohol.

Adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC) is an unusual slow growing salivary gland malignancy with higher chances of recurrence. It is characterized by the proliferation of ductal (luminal) and myoepithelial cells in cribriform, tubular, solid, and cystic forms. Standard treatment, including surgery with postoperative radiation therapy, has attained reasonable local control rates, but distant metastases do not allow any improvement in the survival rate. We present a case of a 50-year-old female diagnosed with ACC involving almost the whole of the upper lip, with an aim to highlight its histologic evolution from it being clinically seen as severely ulcerated and necrotised upper lip mimicking a case of squamous cell carcinoma and its prognosis.