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Background Cancer patients are regarded as a highly vulnerable group in the current Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. To date, the clinical characteristics of COVID-19-infected cancer patients remain largely unknown. Patients and methods In this retrospective cohort study, we included cancer patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 from three designated hospitals in Wuhan, China. Clinical data were collected from medical records from 13 January 2020 to 26 February 2020. Univariate and multivariate analyses were carried out to assess the risk factors associated with severe events defined as a condition requiring admission to an intensive care unit, the use of mechanical ventilation, or death. Results A total of 28 COVID-19-infected cancer patients were included; 17 (60.7%) patients were male. Median (interquartile range) age was 65.0 (56.0–70.0) years. Lung cancer was the most frequent cancer type (n = 7; 25.0%). Eight (28.6%) patients were suspected to have hospital-associated transmission. The following clinical features were shown in our cohort: fever (n = 23, 82.1%), dry cough (n = 22, 81%), and dyspnoea (n = 14, 50.0%), along with lymphopaenia (n = 23, 82.1%), high level of high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (n = 23, 82.1%), anaemia (n = 21, 75.0%), and hypoproteinaemia (n = 25, 89.3%). The common chest computed tomography (CT) findings were ground-glass opacity (n = 21, 75.0%) and patchy consolidation (n = 13, 46.3%). A total of 15 (53.6%) patients had severe events and the mortality rate was 28.6%. If the last antitumour treatment was within 14 days, it significantly increased the risk of developing severe events [hazard ratio (HR) = 4.079, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.086–15.322, P = 0.037]. Furthermore, patchy consolidation on CT on admission was associated with a higher risk of developing severe events (HR = 5.438, 95% CI 1.498–19.748, P = 0.010). Conclusions Cancer patients show deteriorating conditions and poor outcomes from the COVID-19 infection. It is recommended that cancer patients receiving antitumour treatments should have vigorous screening for COVID-19 infection and should avoid treatments causing immunosuppression or have their dosages decreased in case of COVID-19 coinfection.

We successfully replaced the ovalbumin gene of a magnum region in chickens with a human plasminogen activator. We constructed pL-eGFP, pL-tPAGFP and pL-2.8OVtPAGFP vectors and cultured 293FT chicken embryo fibroblasts, chicken primordial germ cells, Hela C127 cells, and oviduct epithelial cells. All vectors were expressed in the transfected cells, except pL-2.8OVtPAGFP vector, which was only expressed in oviduct epithelial cells. A lentivirus with pL-2.8OVtPAGFP was injected in fertilized eggs; 11 chicks hatched in the G₀ generation, four of them carried the tPAGFP. Two cockerels from the G₀ generation were crossed with four wild-type hens. Three chicks in G₁ carried the tPAGFP. We concluded that by using an oviduct-specific vector for transfection, human recombinant plasminogen activator protein can be expressed in the oviducts of laying hens. This character is inherited and can be reproduced with a need for repeated transfection.

The contrast ratios of new reflective bistable twisted nematic liquid crystal displays with rear quarter-wave film are optimized by means of a parameter space approach. Both the absolute reflectance and the wavelength dispersion of two bistable twisted states are investigated. The simulation results show that super-high contrast ratio, reflectance about 95% with polarized-light-input, large dΔn (0.63 μm) and little dispersion are possible for such reflective bistable liquid crystal display.

Determining the extent of liver fibrosis has clinically been difficult due to the lack of a simple, objective method that can accurately quantify the amount of collagen in the diseased tissue. Second harmonic generation (SHG) microscopy has been shown to produce bright and robust signals from non-centrosymmetric fibrillar collagen. We designed a SHG system that can objectively measure collagen presence in livers. In addition, we have developed a fully automated algorithm to quantify liver fibrosis in an efficient, standardized and reproducible manner. SHG microscopy was performed on livers harvested from bile duct ligated Wistar rats using a confocal microscope with a mode-locked Ti:Sapphire laser. Images acquired were later analyzed with Otsu method and a custom-developed, fully automated algorithm to measure area of fibers. Both the qualitative and quantitative progression of collagen over time was observed using SHG microscopy. We have compared the modified quantification algorithm with Otsu segmentation algorithm. With the modified algorithm, we have maintained greater amount of collagen after segmentation. We have also shown modified algorithm was able to identify the presence of finer collagen which was completely removed with the normal Otsu method. We have built an imaging system using state-of-the-art SHG microscopy. In addition, a fully-automated algorithm was developed to quantify collagen content in tissue to measure the presence of collagen in high accuracy. By combining SHG microscopy and our quantification algorithm, we can provide sensitive measurement for liver fibrosis which accurately reflects the progression of liver fibrosis, especially in early stages.