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Artificial intelligence (AI) and telemedicine have great potential to transform dermatology care delivery, but patient perspectives on these technologies have not been systematically compared. To examine patient perspectives on AI and telemedicine in dermatology to inform implementation strategies as these technologies increasingly converge in clinical practice. A comprehensive literature search was conducted using PubMed, Scopus, and Embase databases between August 2024 and October 2024. We identified 48 articles addressing patient perspectives on AI and telemedicine in dermatology, with none directly comparing views on both technologies. Several distinct themes emerged regarding patient perspectives on these technologies: willingness to use, perceived benefits and risks, barriers to implementation, and conditions necessary for successful integration. Findings revealed that patients express hesitancy towards AI-based diagnoses that lack dermatologist involvement, while preferences for teledermatology varied by appointment reason, age, and prior technology exposure. Patients' motivations for AI implementation are connected to AI's potential for quicker diagnoses and improved triage efficiency, while telemedicine addresses logistical challenges such as reduced travel time and improved appointment availability. Both technologies were perceived to improve accessibility and diagnostic efficiency, though patients expressed concerns about AI's limited communication abilities and teledermatology's limits in performing physical examinations. Primary adoption barriers for these modalities included technological limitations and trust concerns, with patients emphasizing the need for dermatologist oversight, transparency, and adequate educational resources for successful integration. The complementary strengths of AI and teledermatology suggest they could mitigate each other's limitations when integrated-AI potentially enhancing teledermatology's diagnostic accuracy while teledermatology addresses AI's lack of human connection. By thoroughly examining these perspectives, this review may serve as a guide for patient-centered technological integration in the future landscape of accessible dermatologic care.

Dermatomyositis is a chronic autoimmune disease with distinctive cutaneous eruptions and muscle weakness, and the pathophysiology is characterised by type I interferon (IFN) dysregulation. This study aims to assess the efficacy, safety, and target engagement of dazukibart, a potent, selective, humanised IgG1 neutralising monoclonal antibody directed against IFNβ, in adults with moderate-to-severe dermatomyositis. This multicentre, double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled, phase 2 trial was conducted at 25 university-based hospitals and outpatient sites in Germany, Hungary, Poland, Spain, and the USA. Adults aged 18–80 years with skin-predominant dermatomyositis were enrolled during stages 1, 2, and 2a, and had to have a Cutaneous Dermatomyositis Disease Area and Severity Index-Activity (CDASI-A) score of 14 or more and at least one unsuccessful systemic treatment with standard of care; whereas those with muscle-predominant dermatomyositis were enrolled in stage 3 and had to have active moderate muscle involvement. Patients were randomly assigned using an interactive response technology system to dazukibart 600 mg or placebo in stage 1; dazukibart 600 mg, dazukibart 150 mg, or placebo in stage 2; dazukibart 600 mg then placebo, dazukibart 150 mg then placebo, placebo then dazukibart 600 mg, or placebo then dazukibart 150 mg in stage 2a; and dazukibart 600 mg then placebo or placebo then dazukibart 600 mg in stage 3. For stage 2a and stage 3, treatments were switched at week 12. Patients, investigators, outcome assessors, and funders were masked to the treatment assignment. Dazukibart and placebo were administered intravenously on day 1 every 4 weeks, up to and including week 8 (stages 1 and 2, and stages 2a and 3 for patients starting dazukibart), or on week 12 every 4 weeks, up to and including week 20 (stages 2a and 3 for patients who started placebo and switched to dazukibart). The primary outcome for the skin-predominant cohorts was the change from baseline in CDASI-A score at week 12 assessed in the full analysis set (FAS; stage 1) and the pooled skin FAS (stages 1, 2, and 2a), and safety in the muscle-predominant cohort. This study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03181893. Between Jan 23, 2018, and Feb 23, 2022, 125 adults were assessed and 50 were excluded. 75 patients were randomly assigned and treated (15 to dazukibart 150 mg, 37 to dazukibart 600 mg, and 23 to placebo). Most patients were female (53 [93%] of 57 in the skin-predominant cohort vs 13 [72%] of 18 in the muscle-predominant cohort and four [7%] vs five [28%] were male). In the FAS in stage 1 at week 12, the mean change from baseline in CDASI-A for dazukibart 600 mg was –18·8 (90% CI –21·8 to –15·8; placebo-adjusted difference –14·8 [–20·3 to –9·4]; p<0·0001). In the pooled skin FAS at week 12, the mean change from baseline in CDASI-A for the dazukibart 600 mg group was –19·2 (–21·5 to –16·8; placebo-adjusted difference –16·3 [–20·4 to –12·1]; p<0·0001), whereas the dazukibart 150 mg group was –16·6 (–19·8 to –13·4; placebo-adjusted difference –13·7 [–18·3 to –9·0]; p<0·0001). Treatment-emergent adverse events occurred in 12 (80%) of 15 patients in the dazukibart 150 mg group versus 30 (81%) of 37 in the dazukibart 600 mg group versus 18 (78%) of 23 in the placebo group, with the most common being infections and infestations (two [13%] vs 12 [32%] vs seven [30%]). Four (11%) patients in the dazukibart 150 mg group and one (4%) in the placebo group reported serious adverse events. One patient in stage 3 received dazukibart 600 mg then placebo and died during follow-up due to haemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis and macrophage activation syndrome. Dazukibart resulted in a pronounced reduction in disease activity and was generally well tolerated, supporting IFNβ inhibition as a highly promising therapeutic strategy in adults with dermatomyositis. Pfizer.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and telemedicine have significant potential to transform dermatology care delivery, but patient perspectives on these technologies have not been systematically compared. This study aimed to examine patient perspectives on AI and telemedicine in dermatology to inform implementation strategies as these technologies increasingly converge in clinical practice. A comprehensive literature search was conducted using PubMed, Scopus, and Embase databases between August 2024 and October 2024. We identified 48 papers addressing patient perspectives on AI and telemedicine in dermatology, with none directly comparing patients' views of both technologies. Several distinct themes emerged regarding patient perspectives on these technologies: willingness to use, perceived benefits and risks, barriers to implementation, and conditions necessary for successful integration. Findings revealed that patients express hesitancy toward AI-based diagnoses that lack dermatologist involvement, while preferences for teledermatology varied by reason for appointment, age, and previous technology exposure. Patients' motivations for implementing AI are connected to its potential for quicker diagnoses and improved triage efficiency. At the same time, telemedicine addresses logistical challenges such as reduced travel time and improved appointment availability. Both technologies were perceived to improve accessibility and diagnostic efficiency, though patients expressed concerns about AI's limited communication abilities and teledermatology's inability to perform physical examinations. Primary adoption barriers for these modalities included technological limitations and trust concerns, with patients emphasizing the need for dermatologist oversight, transparency, and adequate educational resources for successful integration. The complementary strengths of AI and teledermatology suggest they could mitigate each other's limitations when integrated-AI potentially enhancing teledermatology's diagnostic accuracy, while teledermatology addresses AI's lack of human connection. By thoroughly examining these perspectives, this review may serve as a guide for the patient-centered integration of technology in the future landscape of accessible dermatologic care.

Development and Phase 3 testing of the most advanced malaria vaccine, RTS,S/AS01, indicates that malaria vaccine R&D is moving into a new phase. Field trials of several research malaria vaccines have also confirmed that it is possible to impact the host-parasite relationship through vaccine-induced immune responses to multiple antigenic targets using different platforms. Other approaches have been appropriately tested but turned out to be disappointing after clinical evaluation. As the malaria community considers the potential role of a first-generation malaria vaccine in malaria control efforts, it is an apposite time to carefully document terminated and ongoing malaria vaccine research projects so that lessons learned can be applied to increase the chances of success for second-generation malaria vaccines over the next 10 years. The most comprehensive resource of malaria vaccine projects is a spreadsheet compiled by WHO thanks to the input from funding agencies, sponsors and investigators worldwide. This spreadsheet, available from WHO's website, is known as \"the rainbow table\". By summarizing the published and some unpublished information available for each project on the rainbow table, the most comprehensive review of malaria vaccine projects to be published in the last several years is provided below.

Technologies that define the atomic-level structure of neutralization-sensitive epitopes on viral surface proteins are transforming vaccinology and guiding new vaccine development approaches. Previously, iterative rounds of protein engineering were performed to preserve the prefusion conformation of the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) fusion (F) glycoprotein, resulting in a stabilized subunit vaccine candidate (DS-Cav1), which showed promising results in mice and macaques. Here, phase I human immunogenicity data reveal a more than 10-fold boost in neutralizing activity in serum from antibodies targeting prefusion-specific surfaces of RSV F. These findings represent a clinical proof of concept for structure-based vaccine design, suggest that development of a successful RSV vaccine will be feasible, and portend an era of precision vaccinology.

Perceiving success in group conversations is central to social life, yet little is known about the extent to which the conversation success perceived by conversational partners aligns with that perceived by third-party observers. This study explores how third-party observers perceive conversation success across three sensory conditions (auditory-visual (AV), visual-only (V), and auditory-only (A)) to identify cues of which sensory domain signal perception of success. In two online experiments, older adults (57.1 years (SD = 6.1), N = 160 per experiment) watched and/or heard audio of 2-minute excerpts of previously recorded four-person conversations. Just as the original interlocutors had done themselves, observers provided continuous judgements of conversation success using a slider and an overall success rating after the conversation. Observers judged conversations in AV and V conditions (Experiment 1) and AV and A conditions (Experiment 2). Across both experiments, observers’ overall ratings generally aligned with interlocutors’ overall success ratings, showing that success can be assessed without active participation. However, for less successful conversations, observers overestimated success when deprived of auditory information (V condition) but not when deprived of visual information (A condition). These findings suggest that auditory cues provide the most critical information for assessing conversation failure, while visual cues alone may mislead observers.

Many conversations in our day-to-day lives are held in noisy environments – impeding comprehension, and in groups – taxing auditory attention-switching processes. These situations are particularly challenging for older adults in cognitive and sensory decline. In noisy environments, a variety of extra-linguistic strategies are available to speakers and listeners to facilitate communication, but while models of language account for the impact of context on word choice, there has been little consideration of the impact of context on extra-linguistic behaviour. To address this issue, we investigate how the complexity of the acoustic environment and interaction situation impacts extra-linguistic conversation behaviour of older adults during face-to-face conversations. Specifically, we test whether the use of intelligibility-optimising strategies increases with complexity of the background noise (from quiet to loud, and in speech-shaped vs. babble noise), and with complexity of the conversing group (dyad vs. triad). While some communication strategies are enhanced in more complex background noise, with listeners orienting to talkers more optimally and moving closer to their partner in babble than speech-shaped noise, this is not the case with all strategies, as we find greater vocal level increases in the less complex speech-shaped noise condition. Other behaviours are enhanced in the more complex interaction situation, with listeners using more optimal head orientations, and taking longer turns when gaining the floor in triads compared to dyads. This study elucidates how different features of the conversation context impact individuals’ communication strategies, which is necessary to both develop a comprehensive cognitive model of multimodal conversation behaviour, and effectively support individuals that struggle conversing.

Spaceflight has several detrimental effects on human and rodent health. For example, liver dysfunction is a common phenotype observed in space-flown rodents, and this dysfunction is partially reflected in transcriptomic changes. Studies linking transcriptomics with liver dysfunction rely on tools which exploit correlation, but these tools make no attempt to disambiguate true correlations from spurious ones. In this work, we use a machine learning ensemble of causal inference methods called the Causal Research and Inference Search Platform (CRISP) which was developed to predict causal features of a binary response variable from high-dimensional input. We used CRISP to identify genes robustly correlated with a lipid density phenotype using transcriptomic and histological data from the NASA Open Science Data Repository (OSDR). Our approach identified genes and molecular targets not predicted by previous traditional differential gene expression analyses. These genes are likely to play a pivotal role in the liver dysfunction observed in space-flown rodents, and this work opens the door to identifying novel countermeasures for space travel.

Previous studies show that the spleen and bone marrow can serve as leukemia microenvironments in which macrophages play a significant role in immune evasion and chemoresistance. We hypothesized that the macrophage driven tolerogenic process of efferocytosis is a major contributor to the immunosuppressive leukemia microenvironment and that this was driven by aberrant phosphatidylserine expression from cell turnover and cell membrane dysregulation. Since MerTK is the prototypic efferocytosis receptor, we assessed whether the MerTK inhibitor MRX2843, which is currently in clinical trials, would reverse immune evasion and enhance immune-mediated clearance of leukemia cells. We found that inhibition of MerTK decreased leukemia-associated macrophage expression of M2 markers PD-L1, PD-L2, Tim-3, CD163 and Arginase-1 compared to vehicle-treated controls. Additionally, MerTK inhibition led to M1 macrophage repolarization including elevated CD86 and HLA-DR expression, and increased production of T cell activating cytokines, including IFN-β, IL-18, and IL-1β through activation of NF-κB. Collectively, this macrophage repolarization had downstream effects on T cells within the leukemia microenvironment, including decreased PD-1 Tim-3 and LAG3 checkpoint expression, and increased CD69 CD107a expression. These results demonstrate that MerTK inhibition using MRX2843 altered the leukemia microenvironment from tumor-permissive toward immune responsiveness to leukemia and culminated in improved immune-mediated clearance of AML.

For most of human history, face-to-face interactions have been the primary and most fundamental way to build social relationships, and even in the digital era they remain the basis of our closest bonds. These interactions are built on the dynamic integration and coordination of verbal and non-verbal information between multiple people. However, the psychological processes underlying face-to-face interaction remain difficult to study. In this Review, we discuss three ways the multimodal phenomena underlying face-to-face social interaction can be organized to provide a solid basis for theory development. Next, we review three types of theory of social interaction: theories that focus on the social meaning of actions, theories that explain actions in terms of simple behaviour rules and theories that rely on rich cognitive models of the internal states of others. Finally, we address how different methods can be used to distinguish between theories, showcasing new approaches and outlining important directions for future research. Advances in how face-to-face social interaction can be studied, combined with a renewed focus on cognitive theories, could lead to a renaissance in social interaction research and advance scientific understanding of face-to-face interaction and its underlying cognitive foundations.Face-to-face social interaction depends on dynamic integration and coordination of verbal and non-verbal information. In this Review, Hadley et al. describe the ways that social interaction behaviour can be categorized, the theories available to interpret current work and the methods used to test these theories.