Pittsburgh, PA Paid Clinical Trials

When controlling for tumor present in the Sentinel lymph node (SLN), intranodal hypoxia, as measured by Carbonic Anhydrase IX (CAIX IHC), is associated with worse PFS. This suggests that melanoma tumors may be utilizing deregulated metabolism as a means of propagating themselves to the next station of metastasis. This study aims to prospectively validate previous findings. Patients who are to undergo WLE and SLNB per standard of care (SOC) will be evaluable. It is hypothesized that SLN(s) with increased hypoxia, as measured by pimonidazole staining, will be associated with worse Progression-free Survival (PFS). Read Less

The purpose of this study is to find objective biomarkers of vaso-occlusion (blood vessel blockage) in people with SCD. Using information from earlier studies and work being done, researchers have developed a strategy to image VOC, using positron emission tomography (PET). The ability to see and measure VOC in SCD patients can help patient care, by showing when and how a VOC is occurring or going to occur. Studying this method will also help in future drug research, as it will allow researchers to deliver promising new medications that target hyper-adhesion and sickling in people with SCD. Read Less

TARGET-DERM is a longitudinal, observational study of adult and pediatric patients being managed for Atopic Dermatitis and other Immune-Mediated Inflammatory Skin Conditions (IMISC) in usual clinical practice. TARGET-DERM will create a research registry of patients with IMISC within academic and community real-world practices in order to assess the safety and effectiveness of current and future therapies. Read Less

The main goal of this study is to establish the proportion of patients with objective response to zimberelimab/domvanalimab in PD-1 R/R melanoma patients. Read Less

The overarching goal of this exploratory research is to understand the dynamic and flexible nature of speech processing in the human supratemporal plane. The temporal lobe has long been established as a region of interest in the speech perception and processing literature because it contains the auditory cortex. More recently, research has localized the supratemporal plane as an area that exhibits response specificity to acoustic properties of complex auditory signals like speech. The supratemporal plane, comprised of Heschl's gyrus, the planum polare, and the planum temporale, is capable of the rapid spectrotemporal analysis required to map acoustic information to linguistic representation. Neural activity in this area, however, is rarely studied directly because it is difficult to access with non-invasive measures like scalp electroencephalography (EEG). Capitalizing on the unique opportunity to access these areas via routine clinical stereoelectroencephalography (sEEG) in a patient population, this study seeks to understand how cortical responses reflect the diagnosticity of two acoustic-phonetic dimensions of interest and how responses rapidly and flexibly adapt to changes in listening demands. Examining how neural response to voice onset time (VOT) and fundamental frequency (F0) modulates as a function of perceptual weight carried in signaling phoneme categories, and identifying how changes in listening context shift perceptual weight, will provide invaluable data that indicates how speech processing flexibly adapts to short-term acoustic patterns. Read Less

Pompe disease is a genetic condition which causes muscle weakness over time. People with Pompe disease have a faulty gene that makes an enzyme called acid alpha-glucosidase (or GAA). This enzyme breaks down a type of sugar called glycogen. Without this enzyme, there is a build-up of glycogen in the cells of the body. This causes muscle weakness and other symptoms. Pompe disease can happen at any age, but in late-onset Pompe disease, symptoms generally start from 12 months old onwards. The standard treatment for people with Pompe disease is to receive regular infusions of the GAA enzyme. This is known as enzyme replacement therapy. However, people can build up antibodies against the GAA enzyme over time. Gene therapy is used to treat conditions caused by a faulty gene. It works by replacing the faulty gene with a working gene inside the cells of the body. The working gene is delivered into the cells using certain viruses as carriers (vectors). Viruses are often used as carriers as they can easily get inside cells. The genetic material of the original virus is replaced with the working gene, so only the working gene gets inside the cells. A common virus used as a carrier in gene therapy is the adeno-associated virus (or AAV). This is like an adenovirus, which causes the common cold. The original type of AAV does not cause any harm to humans. However, people that have previously been infected with the original type of AAV may have built up antibodies against AAV. These antibodies may stop the AAV carrier with the working gene getting inside the cells. Researchers want to learn more about antibody levels against AAV and the GAA enzyme in people with late-onset Pompe disease. They also want to learn about other substances in the blood that provide more information about late-onset Pompe disease. These are known as biomarkers. In this study, older teenagers and adults with late-onset Pompe disease will take part. They will not have had gene therapy using AAV. There will be 2 groups - those who have never had enzyme replacement therapy, and those who have had enzyme replacement therapy for 6 months or more. No study treatment will be given during the study, but blood and urine samples will be taken for testing. The main aims of the study are to check antibody levels against AAV8 (a type of AAV) in people with late-onset Pompe disease who had not received any treatment using AAV, to check antibody levels against the GAA enzyme in people previously treated with GAA as part of enzyme replacement therapy, to check levels of biomarkers for Pompe disease, and to check for medical problems. In the study, people will visit the study clinic several times. Some visits may be in the person's home. The first visit is to check if they can take part. Those who can take part will have a medical examination, and have their vital signs checked. Vital signs include blood pressure, heart rate, breathing rate and temperature. Blood samples will be taken to check antibody levels against the GAA enzyme and against AAV8. Blood and urine samples will also be taken to check for biomarkers for Pompe disease. Blood and urine samples will be taken about every 4 months for up to 2 years. Read Less

Investigators are conducting this study to test if temporarily and non-invasively stimulating the brain will affect the emotional response to stress in healthy participants. Participants will perform a series of tasks while completing an MRI scan. After this, participants will be randomized to undergo transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) at two visits, undergoing active stimulation at one visit and undergoing 'sham' stimulation at another visit. Immediately following both stimulation sessions, participants will repeat the tasks during MRI scanning. Read Less

This Phase III trial will examine the efficacy of computerized cognitive training methods on perceived cognitive impairment in breast cancer survivors. Read Less

Kidney transplantation improves the health and quality of life for those Veterans with end stage kidney disease (ESKD). While early patient and graft survival are excellent, long-term outcomes continue to be challenging. Patient death with existing kidney graft function occurs in about half of all recipients over time. This is primarily due to the development of cardiovascular disease in a patient population with multiple preexisting cardiac disease risk factors. There has been little progress in improving outcomes in this area for over two decades. Recent studies in chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients using SGLT2 inhibitors (SGLT2i), regardless of the presence of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), results in both kidney protective and cardiac protective impacts and improved patient outcomes. However, kidney transplant recipients (KTRs) were excluded from these clinical trials due to concerns that these agents promote infection, diminish graft function, and may alter immunosuppressive drug levels that are the mainstay of patient's transplant therapy. There are limited published data of SGLT2i treatment of selected KTRs. Read Less

There has been much interest in the potential role of social media (SM) use in driving a current mental health crisis among teens, with a dire need for evidence that goes beyond self-report. One important avenue is to understand the role of the brain in driving the effects of SM use on emotional health and vice versa. However, there is almost no research addressing these questions, largely due to a lack of tasks that can probe the neural correlates of modern SM use. The goal of this clinical trial is to develop and validate a new developmentally-appropriate and ecologically-valid functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and eyetracking task, the TeenBrainOnline (TBO) Task, that is more realistic and similar to modern SM platforms. Participants will be 50 teens (ages 13-17) with depressive symptoms who will complete the final version of TBO task during fMRI with eye-tracking, an older Chatroom Interact (CHAT-I) Task, daily surveys of SM use, and measures of depressive symptoms. Our goal is to show that the task works by: * Demonstrating that it activates expected regions of the brain and visual attention biases toward feedback cues. * Showing that brain and eyetracking (visual attention) activity on the task explain variability in depressive symptoms at baseline and three months later, and work better than similar indices from an older task. * Showing that brain and eyetracking (visual attention) activity on the task are associated with real-world measures of social media use collected during daily surveys. Specifically, The investigators expect that teens whose brain and eyetracking activity suggests they are more sensitive to feedback on SM will report a social evaluation orientation toward social media use in daily life, such as engaging a lot in social comparison, worrying about missing out, and caring about getting a lot of likes and comments. Participants will be asked to: * complete a 10-15 minute screening call to determine eligibility for the study * complete one 90 minute virtual study visit to complete questionnaires and prepare for the MRI visit (visit 1) * submit 24 photos to our study specific social media site * complete an (in person) MRI scan visit (\~4 hours), which consists of 2 tasks where they will interact with peers (visit 2) * complete \~5 minute smartphone surveys 3 times a day for 16 days, asking about their daily experiences online and emotional reactions. * complete 2 online questionnaires asynchronously 3 months after their scan date Read Less

The goal of this study is to identify genes that convey susceptibility to congenital diaphragmatic hernia in humans. The identification of such genes, and examination of their structure and function, will enable a delineation of molecular pathogenesis and, ultimately, prevention or treatment of congenital diaphragmatic hernia. There are many different possible modes of inheritance for congenital anomalies, including autosomal dominant, autosomal recessive, and multifactorial. Multi-factorial inheritance is responsible for many common medical disorders, including hypertension, myocardial infarction, diabetes and cancer. This type of inheritance pattern appears to involve environmental factors as well as a combination of genetic variations that together can predispose to or produce congenital anomalies, such as congenital diaphragmatic hernia. Our study is designed to establish a small, well-defined genetic resource consisting of 1) Nuclear families suitable for linkage analysis by parametric,non-parametric (e.g. sib pairs, TDT) and association techniques, 2) Individuals with congenital diaphragmatic hernia who can be directly screened for allelic variation in candidate genes, and 3) Individuals who can serve as controls (are unaffected by congenital diaphragmatic hernia). Neonates and their families will be collected from homogenous and heterogeneous populations. By characterizing diverse populations, it should be possible to increase the likelihood of demonstration of genetic variation in selected candidate genes that can then be used in association and linkage studies in individual subjects with congenital diaphragmatic hernia. Read Less

The purpose of this study is to estimate the probability of immune response for the combination treatment of dendritic cell vaccine with oral cabozantinib and characterize the safety profile of interventional therapy. Read Less