Comparing the effects of three neonicotinoids on embryogenesis of the South African clawed frog .

Neonicotinoids (NEOs) are widely used insecticides that are ubiquitous in agricultural use. Since NEOs are found in natural waters as well as in tap water and human urine in regions where NEOs are widely used, NEOs pose a potential hazard to non-target organisms such as animals and humans. Some of the commonly detected NEOs are imidacloprid (IMD), thiamethoxam (TMX), and its metabolite clothianidin (CLO).

Mindfulness-based stress reduction for men on active surveillance for prostate cancer and their spouses: Design and methodology of a randomized controlled trial.

Background: Although active surveillance (AS) is an increasingly adopted treatment paradigm for management of very low risk prostate cancer, many men and their partners face a variety of AS-related psychosocial stressors. Stressors may include anxiety and fear of progression, which may negatively affect short- and long-term psychosocial adjustment and influence early withdrawal from AS in order to seek definitive therapies such as surgery or radiation. Here we describe the protocol for an NCI-funded trial, which seeks to examine the efficacy of mindfulness training compared with a time/attention-matched health promotion control condition in a geographically generalizable sample of men on AS and their spouses.

Assessing the clinical utility of genetic risk scores for targeted cancer screening.

Background: Genome-wide association studies have identified thousands of disease-associated single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). A subset of these SNPs may be additively combined to generate genetic risk scores (GRSs) that confer risk for a specific disease. Although the clinical validity of GRSs to predict risk of specific diseases has been well established, there is still a great need to determine their clinical utility by applying GRSs in primary care for cancer risk assessment and targeted intervention.

Feasibility and performance of a novel probe panel to detect somatic DNA copy number alterations in clinical specimens for predicting prostate cancer progression.

Background: To assess the feasibility of a novel DNA-based probe panel to detect copy number alterations (CNAs) in prostate tumor DNA and its performance for predicting clinical progression.

Methods: A probe panel was developed and optimized to measure CNAs in trace amounts of tumor DNA (2 ng) isolated from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissues. Ten genes previously associated with aggressive disease were targeted.

Germline Mutations in ATM and BRCA1/2 Are Associated with Grade Reclassification in Men on Active Surveillance for Prostate Cancer.

Background: Mutations in DNA repair genes are associated with aggressive prostate cancer (PCa).

Objective: To assess whether germline mutations are associated with grade reclassification (GR) in patients undergoing active surveillance (AS).

Design, Setting, And Participants: Two independent cohorts of PCa patients undergoing AS; 882 and 329 patients from Johns Hopkins and North Shore, respectively.