Cumulative Dispensing of Oral Corticosteroids Over 12 Months in People with COPD.

Purpose: Oral corticosteroids (OCS) are recommended for the treatment of exacerbations in people with COPD; however, high cumulative lifetime doses (≥1000mg prednisolone-equivalent) are associated with adverse health effects. This issue is well defined in asthma but is less well understood in COPD. The aim of this study was to examine cumulative OCS dispensed to people with COPD over 12 months.

Conditional Split Inteins: Adaptable Tools for Programming Protein Functions.

Split inteins are biological mechanisms for the operation of the spatiotemporal control of protein activities. They function through protein -splicing, in which their N- and C-terminal fragments are expressed contiguously with two protein halves. The subsequent self-excision upon recognition of the complimentary fragment yields a mature, complete, and functional protein.

'Zombie drugs': Dehumanising news frames and public stigma towards people who use drugs.

Background: News media is an important determinant of public understanding of drug policy topics. Recent media reporting around the use of synthetic drugs such as xylazine makes frequent use of non-human metaphors, including reference to the effects of 'zombie drugs'. We investigated whether presentation of news stories which included such dehumanising frames were associated with i) increased stigmatising attitudes towards people who use drugs; and ii) lower support for relevant harm reduction programmes.

Navigating Host Immunity and Concurrent Ozone Stress: Strain-Resolved Metagenomics Reveals Maintenance of Intraspecific Diversity and Genetic Variation in on Pepper.

The evolving threat of new pathogen variants in the face of global environmental changes poses a risk to a sustainable crop production. Predicting and responding to how climate change affects plant-pathosystems is challenging, as environment affects host-pathogen interactions from molecular to the community level, and with eco-evolutionary feedbacks at play. To address this knowledge gap, we studied short-term within-host eco-evolutionary changes in the pathogen, , on resistant and susceptible pepper in the open-top chambers (OTCs) under elevated Ozone (O) conditions in a single growing season.

Experiences of Oral Corticosteroid Use and Adverse Effects: A National Cross-Sectional Survey of People with Asthma.

Purpose: Oral corticosteroids (OCS) are an effective treatment for severe uncontrolled asthma or asthma exacerbations, but frequent bursts or long-term use carry serious and sometimes irreversible adverse effects, or complications such as adrenal insufficiency upon discontinuation. Our aim was to survey people with asthma on their experiences of, and attitudes towards, using OCS.

Patients And Methods: This study was a national descriptive cross-sectional survey of people with asthma in Australia.