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Indium is considered a valuable and irreplaceable material for a variety of applications that improve the quality of human life. Due to its limited availability and the growing demand, it is mandatory to find sustainable solutions for indium recovery from end-of-life devices. The green indium patented technology SCRIPT (ITA202018000008207) focuses on recovering indium from ground LCD panels, developed through laboratory scale investigation. The process ensures high recovery efficiencies of indium (>90%), features a simple design, and fully exploits the solid residue with the production of a concrete for building applications. This manuscript presents a study focused on the validation and optimization of the patented SCRIPT technology at the bench scale, driven by sustainability assessment. Bench scale experiments successfully validated the technology, improving its technology readiness level. Furthermore, an environmental sustainability assessment highlighted the importance of treating the finest fraction, which has the highest indium concentration. Optimization tests at the bench scale demonstrated that water could be recirculated for more than five cycles. The economic sustainability tests highlighted that when the indium concentration in the material fed into the recycling plant is above 1000 mg/kg, the technology is cost effective and worth investment. Our study is fundamental for boosting indium recycling in the world. Moreover, our methodological approach represents a guideline for achieving sustainability goals within circular economy approaches for strategic metals in complex matrices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The technology advancement and innovation has been very significant and fast, in the last decades. This aspect is particularly evident in the electric and electronic equipment (EEE) field, where new devices are produced every year. The manufacture development is translated in two main issues: the highest metal required and the greatest waste flows to manage. To solve this double criticality, the old linear management method, in which every product became a waste, must evolve in a circular approach based on the principle "resource-productregenerated resource" (urban mining). The end-of-life printed circuit boards (PCB) represent one of the most significant wastes from electric and electronic equipment (WEEE). In addition to their availability, the interest for these scraps is mainly justified by the high precious metal concentration (e.g. gold, silver, and palladium), which makes them a promising secondary resource. Several approaches are developed for precious metal recoveries from PCB, mainly by pyrometallurgy or hydrometallurgy. Biohydrometallurgical and green hydrometallurgical processes, using more sustainable reagents, are gaining increasing prominence, for their possibility to decrease the environmental costs, compared to the most traditional hydrometallurgy with chemical cyanide lixiviant. The present work aims to supply two innovative solutions: biotechnology by Pseudomonas aeruginosa for the biological cyanide production, and a green-hydrometallurgical process, using the thiosulphate as lixiviant agent for precious metal (i.e. Au and Ag) recovery. The central composite design of a response surface methodology (CCD-RSM) is used to optimize the cyanide production by P. aeruginosa evaluating the influence of both initial pH and glycine concentration. The same statistical approach (CCD-RSM) is used to find the best operative conditions for the precious metal leaching from PCB by thiosulphate, assessing the interaction among sodium thiosulphate, total ammonia/ammonium, particle size and time. The experimental results are further enhanced by the carbon footprint assessment which has quantified the possible environmental advantages of the developed solutions of PCB recycling, able to integrate the circular economy principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the knowledge on SARS-CoV-2 infection in pregnancy has greatly improved, there is still a lack of information on its role in the later stages of gestation. The aim of this study is to investigate whether SARS-CoV-2 discovered at delivery is associated with any obstetric or neonatal complications. A retrospective case-control study was conducted at Department of Obstetrics, University Hospital Maggiore della Carità, Novara, Italy, from March 2020 to March 2023. Pregnant women admitted were tested for SARS-CoV-2. 168 women resulted positive at the time of delivery; the women were asymptomatic or paucisymptomatic. 170 negative women were selected as controls, selecting, for each SARS-CoV-2 positive patient, the patient who gave birth right before, if negative. Demographic and anamnestic characteristics, pregnancy, labor, and neonatal outcomes were evaluated. SARS-CoV-2 positive patients were more likely to have gestational diabetes (13.7 vs. 5.3 %) and required less frequently intrapartum analgesia (11.3 vs. 27 %) and labor augmentation (7.3 vs. 16.5 %). Post-partum hemorrhage rate was lower (13.7 vs. 22.9 %) and a shorter length of first and second stage of labor occurred. There were no statistically significant differences between the two groups regarding the mode of delivery and neonatal outcomes. SARS-CoV-2 positive patients have shorter labor length and a lower incidence of postpartum hemorrhage. Fewer obstetric interventions, as well as less use of intrapartum analgesia and oxytocin, could explain these findings. Moreover, gestational diabetes could increase susceptibility to infection. SARS-CoV-2 infection discovered at the time of delivery in asymptomatic or paucisymptomatic patients does not appear to increase the rate of cesarean delivery or other obstetric complications, and neonatal outcomes have not worsened. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The BEST1 gene encodes bestrophin-1, a homopentameric ion channel expressed in the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), where it localizes to the basolateral plasma membrane. Pathogenic variants in this gene can cause different autosomal dominant and recessive inherited retinal diseases (IRDs), collectively named "bestrophinopathies." These disorders share a number of clinical and molecular features that make them an appealing target for gene therapy. Clinically, bestrophinopathies are often slowly progressive with a wide window of opportunity, and the presence of subretinal material (vitelliform deposits and/or fluid) as a hallmark of these conditions provides an easily quantifiable endpoint in view of future clinical trials. From a molecular standpoint, most BEST1 pathogenic variants have been shown to cause either loss of function (LOF) of the protein or a dominant-negative (DN) effect, with a smaller subset causing a toxic gain of function (GOF). Both LOF and DN mutations may be amenable to gene augmentation alone. On the other hand, individuals harboring GOF variants would require a combination of gene silencing and gene augmentation, which has been shown to be effective in RPE cells derived from patients with Best disease. In this article, we review the current knowledge of BEST1-related IRDs and we discuss how their molecular and clinical features are being used to design novel and promising therapeutic strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Retinitis pigmentosa GTPase regulator (RPGR)-related retinopathy is a retinal dystrophy inherited in a X-linked recessive manner that typically causes progressive visual loss starting in childhood with severe visual impairment by the fourth decade of life. It manifests as an early onset and severe form of retinitis pigmentosa. There are currently no effective treatments for RPGR-related retinopathy; however, there are multiple clinical trials in progress exploring gene augmentation therapy aimed at slowing down or halting the progression of disease and possibly restoring visual function. This review focuses on the molecular biology, clinical manifestations, and the recent progress of gene therapy clinical trials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]