Feasibility and Acceptability of Collecting Passive Smartphone Data for Potential Use in Digital Phenotyping Among Family Caregivers and Patients With Advanced Cancer.

Purpose: Modeling passively collected smartphone sensor data (called digital phenotyping) has the potential to detect distress among family caregivers and patients with advanced cancer and could lead to novel clinical models of cancer care. The purpose of this study was to assess the feasibility and acceptability of collecting passive smartphone data from family caregivers and their care recipients with advanced cancer over 24 weeks.

Methods: This was an observational feasibility study.

Specialization of Physician Associates and Nurse Practitioners as Reflected in Workforce Projections.

Introduction The utilization of physician associates (PAs) and nurse practitioners (NPs) within the United States healthcare system has increased substantially since their inception in the 1960s. While many PAs and NPs are educated and work within specialty areas in their clinical practice, the federal government does not identify PAs and NPs by specialty in its workforce projections. Methods We obtained data from publicly available sources as well as professional organizations.

The Chronic Conditions Care Collaborative (4C Collaborative): A Platform for Improving Diabetes and Heart Disease Outcomes in Rural South Carolina.

Rural U.S. counties experience racial, geographic, and socioeconomic disparities in chronic diseases.

Disparities in lung cancer screening utilization at two health systems in the Southeastern USA.

Purpose: Low-dose computed tomography lung cancer screening is effective for reducing lung cancer mortality. It is critical to understand the lung cancer screening practices for screen-eligible individuals living in Alabama and Georgia where lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death. High lung cancer incidence and mortality rates are attributed to high smoking rates among underserved, low income, and rural populations.

The Community is the Cure: How African American Washington, DC Residents Informed Opioid Treatment Engagement.

Background: Recent data indicate rising opioid overdose deaths among African American residents of Washington, DC.

Objectives: We highlight a community-informed approach to assessing attitudes toward opioid use disorder treatment among DC residents (February 2019 to March 2020).

Methods: A listening tour with trusted community leaders led to the formation of a Community Advisory Board (CAB).

Reference-free structural variant detection in microbiomes via long-read co-assembly graphs.

Motivation: The study of bacterial genome dynamics is vital for understanding the mechanisms underlying microbial adaptation, growth, and their impact on host phenotype. Structural variants (SVs), genomic alterations of 50 base pairs or more, play a pivotal role in driving evolutionary processes and maintaining genomic heterogeneity within bacterial populations. While SV detection in isolate genomes is relatively straightforward, metagenomes present broader challenges due to the absence of clear reference genomes and the presence of mixed strains.

Townes-Brocks Syndrome Revealed by Kidney Gene Panel Testing.

Introduction: Townes-Brocks syndrome (TBS), a rare autosomal dominant genetic condition associated with (Spalt like Transcription Factor 1), is reported to be present in 1:238,000 individuals in the general population. TBS is characterized by the triad of anorectal malformations, dysplastic ears, with or without hearing impairment, and hand or thumb anomalies. Although kidney involvement is less common in TBS, the disease can progress to kidney failure.

Lightweight taxonomic profiling of long-read metagenomic datasets with Lemur and Magnet.

The advent of long-read sequencing of microbiomes necessitates the development of new taxonomic profilers tailored to long-read shotgun metagenomic datasets. Here, we introduce Lemur and Magnet, a pair of tools optimized for lightweight and accurate taxonomic profiling for long-read shotgun metagenomic datasets. Lemur is a marker-gene-based method that leverages an EM algorithm to reduce false positive calls while preserving true positives; Magnet is a whole-genome read-mapping-based method that provides detailed presence and absence calls for bacterial genomes.

Microbial Community Profiling Protocol with Full-length 16S rRNA Sequences and Emu.

16S rRNA targeted amplicon sequencing is an established standard for elucidating microbial community composition. While high-throughput short-read sequencing can elicit only a portion of the 16S rRNA gene due to their limited read length, third generation sequencing can read the 16S rRNA gene in its entirety and thus provide more precise taxonomic classification. Here, we present a protocol for generating full-length 16S rRNA sequences with Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) and a microbial community profile with Emu.

Reference-free Structural Variant Detection in Microbiomes via Long-read Coassembly Graphs.

Bacterial genome dynamics are vital for understanding the mechanisms underlying microbial adaptation, growth, and their broader impact on host phenotype. Structural variants (SVs), genomic alterations of 10 base pairs or more, play a pivotal role in driving evolutionary processes and maintaining genomic heterogeneity within bacterial populations. While SV detection in isolate genomes is relatively straightforward, metagenomes present broader challenges due to absence of clear reference genomes and presence of mixed strains.

Availability of Family Caregiver Programs in US Cancer Centers.

Importance: Family caregivers provide the majority of health care to the 18 million patients with cancer in the US. Yet despite providing complex medical and nursing care, a large proportion of caregivers report no formal support or training. In recognition of this gap, many interventions to support cancer caregivers have been developed and tested over the past 2 decades.

Developing a national implementation strategy to accelerate uptake of evidence-based family caregiver support in U.S. cancer centers.

Objective: Characterize key factors and training needs of U.S. cancer centers in implementing family caregiver support services.

Genetic Counseling in Kidney Disease: A Perspective.

As genetic testing is increasingly integrated into nephrology practice there is a growing need for partnership with genetic experts. Genetic counselors are ideally suited to fill this role. The value of genetic counseling is born out of the clinical value of genetic test results against the backdrop of the complexity of genetic testing.

Ultra-high throughput mapping of genetic design space.

Massively parallel genetic screens have been used to map sequence-to-function relationships for a variety of genetic elements. However, because these approaches only interrogate short sequences, it remains challenging to perform high throughput (HT) assays on constructs containing combinations of sequence elements arranged across multi-kb length scales. Overcoming this barrier could accelerate synthetic biology; by screening diverse gene circuit designs, "composition-to-function" mappings could be created that reveal genetic part composability rules and enable rapid identification of behavior-optimized variants.

Analysis of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid metatranscriptomes among patients with COVID-19 disease.

To better understand the potential relationship between COVID-19 disease and hologenome microbial community dynamics and functional profiles, we conducted a multivariate taxonomic and functional microbiome comparison of publicly available human bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) metatranscriptome samples amongst COVID-19 (n = 32), community acquired pneumonia (CAP) (n = 25), and uninfected samples (n = 29). We then performed a stratified analysis based on mortality amongst the COVID-19 cohort with known outcomes of deceased (n = 10) versus survived (n = 15). Our overarching hypothesis was that there are detectable and functionally significant relationships between BALF microbial metatranscriptomes and the severity of COVID-19 disease onset and progression.

Impact of the Insoluble Gas Concentration on Measured Stroke Volume at Rest and Submaximal Exercise Using the Innocor Device.

Introduction: The Innocor® device uses an insoluble gas (SF 6 ) to estimate lung volume and the rate of disappearance of a soluble gas (nitrous oxide) to measure pulmonary blood flow (PBF), which approximates cardiac output assuming no shunt. We sought to identify error in the measurement of the insoluble gas in an effort to reduce variation in Innocor® measurement.

Methods: We enrolled 28 participants from the Dallas Heart Study (mean age, 63 yr; 57% men; 43% White).