Vaccination could be an effective strategy for slowing the spread of the current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Vaccine hesitancy could pose a serious problem for COVID-19 prevention, due to the spread of misinformation surrounding the ongoing pandemic. The aim of this study was to assess the attitudes towards the prospective COVID-19 vaccines among the general public in Jordan, Kuwait and other Arab countries. We also aimed to assess the association between COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and conspiracy beliefs. This study used an online survey distributed in December 2020, with items assessing conspiracies regarding COVID-19’s origin and vaccination. Attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccines were assessed using the Vaccine Conspiracy Belief Scale (VCBS), with higher scores indicating a greater belief in vaccine conspiracy. A total of 3414 respondents completed the survey, the majority being residents of Jordan (n = 2173, 63.6%), Kuwait (n = 771, 22.6%) and Saudi Arabia (n = 154, 4.5%). The acceptance rates for COVID-19 and influenza vaccines were 29.4% and 30.9%, respectively. Males, respondents with higher educational levels and those with histories of chronic disease had higher rates of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance. Beliefs that COVID-19 vaccines are intended to inject microchips into recipients and that the vaccines are related to infertility were found in 27.7% and 23.4% of respondents, respectively. Higher VCBS scores were found among females, respondents with lower educational levels and respondents relying on social media platforms as the main source of information. The high rates of vaccine hesitancy in Jordan and Kuwait, among other Arab countries, are alarming. They could hinder the proper control of COVID-19 in the region. The harmful effect of COVID-19 misinformation and conspiracy beliefs was manifested in vaccine hesitancy. This may represent a massive obstacle to the successful control of the pandemic. A reliance on social media as the main source of information about COVID-19 vaccines was associated with vaccine hesitancy. This should alert governments, policy makers and the general public to the importance of vigilant fact checking.

An expanded hexanucleotide repeat in a noncoding region of the C9orf72 gene is a major cause of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), accounting for up to 40% of familial cases and 7% of sporadic ALS in European populations. We have generated induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from fibroblasts of patients carrying C9orf72 hexanucleotide expansions, differentiated these to functional motor and cortical neurons, and performed an extensive phenotypic characterization. In C9orf72 iPSC-derived motor neurons, decreased cell survival is correlated with dysfunction in Ca²⁺ homeostasis, reduced levels of the antiapoptotic protein Bcl-2, increased endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, and reduced mitochondrial membrane potential. Furthermore, C9orf72 motor neurons, and also cortical neurons, show evidence of abnormal protein aggregation and stress granule formation. This study is an extensive characterization of iPSC-derived motor neurons as cellular models of ALS carrying C9orf72 hexanucleotide repeats, which describes a novel pathogenic link between C9orf72 mutations, dysregulation of calcium signaling, and altered proteostasis and provides a potential pharmacological target for the treatment of ALS and the related neurodegenerative disease frontotemporal dementia. Stem Cells 2016;34:2063–2078

The world has been afflicted heavily by the burden of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) that overwhelmed health care systems and caused severe economic and educational deficits, in addition to anxiety among the public. The main aim of this study was to evaluate the mutual effects of belief that the pandemic was the result of a conspiracy on knowledge and anxiety levels among students at the University of Jordan (UJ). An electronic-based survey was conducted between 29 March, 2020 and 31 March, 2020. The targeted population involved all undergraduate and postgraduate students from the health, scientific and humanities schools at UJ. Survey sections included 26 items on: socio-demographic information, knowledge and sources of information about the disease, attitude towards the false notion that COVID-19 stemmed from a conspiracy and items to assess the anxiety level among students during the quarantine period. The total number of participants was 1540 students. The mean age of study participants was 22 years and females predominated the study population (n = 1145, 74.4%). The majority of participants perceived the disease as moderately dangerous (n = 1079, 70.1%). Males, Jordanians and participants with lower income were more inclined to feel that COVID-19 is very dangerous. A lower level of knowledge and a higher level of anxiety about COVID-19 were associated with the belief that the disease is part of a conspiracy. Females and participants with lower income were more likely to believe that the disease is related to conspiracy. Belief in conspiracy regarding the origin of COVID-19 was associated with misinformation about the availability of a vaccine and the therapeutic use of antibiotics for COVID-19 treatment. The Ministry of Health in Jordan was the most common source of information about COVID-19 reported by the participants (n = 1018). The false belief that COVID-19 was the result of a global conspiracy could be the consequence of a lower level of knowledge about the virus and could lead to a higher level of anxiety, which should be considered in the awareness tools of various media platforms about the current pandemic.

Vaccination to prevent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) emerged as a promising measure to overcome the negative consequences of the pandemic. Since university students could be considered a knowledgeable group, this study aimed to evaluate COVID-19 vaccine acceptance among this group in Jordan. Additionally, we aimed to examine the association between vaccine conspiracy beliefs and vaccine hesitancy. We used an online survey conducted in January 2021 with a chain-referral sampling approach. Conspiracy beliefs were evaluated using the validated Vaccine Conspiracy Belief Scale (VCBS), with higher scores implying embrace of conspiracies. A total of 1106 respondents completed the survey with female predominance (n = 802, 72.5%). The intention to get COVID-19 vaccines was low: 34.9% (yes) compared to 39.6% (no) and 25.5% (maybe). Higher rates of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance were seen among males (42.1%) and students at Health Schools (43.5%). A Low rate of influenza vaccine acceptance was seen as well (28.8%), in addition to 18.6% of respondents being anti-vaccination altogether. A significantly higher VCBS score was correlated with reluctance to get the vaccine (p < 0.001). Dependence on social media platforms was significantly associated with lower intention to get COVID-19 vaccines (19.8%) compared to dependence on medical doctors, scientists, and scientific journals (47.2%, p < 0.001). The results of this study showed the high prevalence of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and its association with conspiracy beliefs among university students in Jordan. The implementation of targeted actions to increase the awareness of such a group is highly recommended. This includes educational programs to dismantle vaccine conspiracy beliefs and awareness campaigns to build recognition of the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines.

TDP-43 dysfunction is common to 97% of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) cases, including those with mutations in C9orf72. To investigate how C9ORF72 mutations drive cellular pathology in ALS and to identify convergent mechanisms between C9ORF72 and TARDBP mutations, we analyzed motor neurons (MNs) derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from patients with ALS. C9ORF72 iPSC-MNs have higher Ca²⁺ release after depolarization, delayed recovery to baseline after glutamate stimulation, and lower levels of calbindin compared with CRISPR/Cas9 genome-edited controls. TARDBP iPS-derived MNs show high glutamate-induced Ca²⁺ release. We identify here, by RNA sequencing, that both C9ORF72 and TARDBP iPSC-MNs have upregulation of Ca²⁺-permeable AMPA and NMDA subunits and impairment of mitochondrial Ca²⁺ buffering due to an imbalance of MICU1 and MICU2 on the mitochondrial Ca²⁺ uniporter, indicating that impaired mitochondrial Ca²⁺ uptake contributes to glutamate excitotoxicity and is a shared feature of MNs with C9ORF72 or TARDBP mutations.

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are a subset of tumor cells that has the ability to self-renew and to generate the diverse cells that comprise the tumor mass. The cell-surface glycoprotein CD44 is one of the most common surface markers used to identify CSCs. Aptamers are synthetic oligonucleotides selected from pools of random sequences that can bind to a wide range of targets with high affinity and specificity. In this study, the systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX) technology was used to isolate RNA aptamers using human recombinant full-length CD44 protein and 2′-F-pyrimidine modified RNA library with a complexity of around 10 ¹⁴ different molecules. Following 11 iterative rounds of SELEX, the selected aptamers were cloned and sequenced. Three different sequences were identified. The binding specificities for one of these RNA aptamers was assessed using representative breast cancer cell lines expressing CD44; namely, MDA-MB-231, MCF7, and T47D. The selected RNA aptamer (Apt1) was found to interact specifically with such cancer cells when analyzed by flow cytometry and fluorescent microscopy, with different intensities of fluorescence reflecting the level of CD44 expression on the surface of these cells. It can be concluded that the selected aptamers can be used to target CD44 positive cells, including cancer stem cells, for detection, sorting, and enrichment and for drug delivery purposes.