A randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of the LAG-3-depleting monoclonal antibody GSK2831781 in patients with active ulcerative colitis.

Background: Selective depletion of T cells expressing LAG-3, an immune checkpoint receptor that is upregulated on activated T cells, has been investigated in pre-clinical models as a potential therapeutic approach in inflammatory and autoimmune diseases where activated T cells are implicated.

Aims: GSK2831781, a depleting monoclonal antibody that specifically binds LAG-3 proteins, may deplete activated LAG-3 cells in ulcerative colitis (UC).

Methods: Patients with moderate to severe UC were randomised to GSK2831781 or placebo.

Automated vs. manual case investigation and contact tracing for pandemic surveillance: Evidence from a stepped wedge cluster randomized trial.

Background: Case investigation and contact tracing (CICT) is an important tool for communicable disease control, both to proactively interrupt chains of transmission and to collect information for situational awareness. We run the first randomized trial of COVID-19 CICT to investigate the utility of manual (, call-based) vs. automated (, survey-based) CICT for pandemic surveillance.

Advancing the match-mismatch framework for large herbivores in the Arctic: Evaluating the evidence for a trophic mismatch in caribou.

Climate-induced shifts in plant phenology may adversely affect animals that cannot or do not shift the timing of their reproductive cycle. The realized effect of potential trophic "mismatches" between a consumer and its food varies with the degree to which species rely on dietary income and stored capital. Large Arctic herbivores rely heavily on maternal capital to reproduce and give birth near the onset of the growing season but are they vulnerable to trophic mismatch? We evaluated the long-term changes in the temperatures and characteristics of the growing seasons (1970-2013), and compared growing conditions and dynamics of forage quality for caribou at peak parturition, peak lactation, and peak forage biomass, and plant senescence between two distinct time periods over 36 years (1977 and 2011-13).