Supervised Toothbrushing Programmes: Understanding Barriers and Facilitators to Implementation.

Objectives: Supervised toothbrushing programmes (STPs), whereby children brush their teeth at nursery or school with a fluoride toothpaste under staff supervision, are a clinically and cost-effective intervention to reduce dental caries. However, uptake is varied, and the reasons unknown. The aim was to use an implementation science approach to explore the perspectives of key stakeholders on the barriers and facilitators at each level of implementation of STPs.

Supervised toothbrushing programmes in England: a national survey of current provision and factors influencing their implementation.

Introduction Supervised toothbrushing programmes (STPs) in nurseries and schools are effective at reducing inequalities in caries when targeted to areas of dental disease. Recent changes to government education and health policy have increased interest in STPs in England. This study aimed to establish the current level of provision of STPs in England, describe changes over time, understand associations with predictor variables, and summarise key barriers and facilitators to their implementation.

Heavy Medicine: The Need for Ethical Stewardship of Metal and Metalloid-based Medicines and Technologies.

Metals and metalloids including cobalt, gadolinium, lutetium and germanium are used in numerous medical applications spanning diverse specialities including orthopedics, radiology, oncology and healthcare artificial intelligence. These medical advances include cobalt containing orthopedic implants, gadolinium-based contrast agents, lutetium-containing cancer drugs and germanium-based semiconductors. While these metal and metalloid-based solutions do improve patient care, there is a heavy side to how the elements needed for these solutions are mined, extracted and discarded.

Phylogeny and virulence determinant detection of Fusobacterium necrophorum strains isolated at the UK Anaerobe Reference Unit between 1982 and 2019.

Objectives: The study aims to explore the presence, or absence, of virulence genes and the phylogeny of a multidecade United Kingdom collection of clinical and reference Fusobacterium necrophorum isolates.

Methods: Three hundred and eighty-five F. necrophorum strains (1982-2019) were recovered from storage (-80°C).

Iron and Copper Liver Concentrations in Wilson Disease.

Background And Aims: Wilson disease (WD) results in the defective incorporation of copper into ceruloplasmin as well as decreased biliary copper excretion. Secondary iron overload has also been associated with WD; however, the prevalence is currently unknown. This study aims to determine the prevalence of potential secondary iron overload in patients suspected to have WD.

AI-Augmented Kidney Stone Composition Analysis with Auto-Release Improves Quality, Efficiency, Cost-Effectiveness, and Staff Satisfaction.

Background: We sought to evaluate key performance indicators related to an internally developed and deployed artificial intelligence (AI)-augmented kidney stone composition test system for potential improvements in test quality, efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and staff satisfaction.

Methods: We compared quality, efficiency, staff satisfaction, and financial data from the 6 months after the AI-augmented laboratory test system was deployed (test period) with data from the same 6-month period in the previous year (control period) to determine if AI-augmentation improved key performance indicators of this laboratory test.

Results: In the 6 months following the deployment (test period) of the AI-augmented kidney stone composition test system, 44 830 kidney stones were analyzed.

"It's like being chained up": the oral mucositis experiences of children and young people with cancer, their parents, and healthcare professionals- a qualitative study.

Objective: The objective is to explore the experiences of children and young people (CYP) with cancer, their parents, and healthcare professionals (HCPs) involved in their care of oral mucositis.

Design: A qualitative study was conducted. CYP with experience of mucositis were purposively sampled, aiming for diversity in age, sex and cancer diagnosis.

Impact of State Abortion Policies on Family Medicine Practice and Training After .

Purpose: The (Dobbs) Supreme Court decision revoked the constitutional right to abortion. Now, restrictive state abortion laws may contribute to the shortage and strain already felt in primary care practice, especially related to the provision of reproductive health care. The purpose of this study is to evaluate perceived impacts of state abortion legislation on family medicine clinicians' practice and medical education regarding reproductive health care.

Exploring and enhancing the accessibility of children's oral health resources (called HABIT) for high risk communities.

Background: Within the city of Bradford in West Yorkshire, South Asian and Eastern European communities have an increased risk of childhood tooth decay, especially among families with Limited English Proficiency. Tooth decay is preventable, with national guidelines advocating home-based behaviours (toothbrushing with fluoride toothpaste and reducing sugar intake). In England, Health Visitors have opportunities to undertake oral health conversations during universal visits for children aged 0-24 months.

An 'explosion in the mouth': The oral health experiences of autistic children.

In England, one in four children have tooth decay by the age of 5 years. Tooth decay affects many autistic children. Communication differences, sensory sensitivities and preferred routines can make dental care difficult.

Primary Sequence and Three-Dimensional Structural Comparison between Malanin and Ricin, a Type II Ribosome-Inactivating Protein.

Malanin is a new type II ribosome-inactivating protein (RIP) purified from , a rare, endangered tree is only found in the southwest of Guangxi Province and the southeast of Yunnan Province, China. The gene coding sequence of malanin was found from the cDNA library of seeds by employing the ten N-terminal amino acid sequences of malanin, DYPKLTFTTS for chain-A and DETXTDEEFN (X was commonly C) for chain-B. The results showed a 65% amino acid sequence homology between malanin and ricin by DNAMAN 9.

Electronic Structures and Spectra of Donor-Acceptor Conjugated Oligomers.

Narrow band gap donor-acceptor conjugated polymers present excellent paradigms in photonics and optoelectronics due to their chemical tunability, correlated electronic structures, and tunable open-shell electronic configurations. However, rational design for enhancing the properties of these molecular systems remains challenging. In this study, we employed density functional theory (DFT) calculations to investigate prototypical narrow band gap donor-acceptor conjugated oligomers, consisting of alternating cyclopentadithiophene (CPDT) donors paired with benzothiadiazole (BT), benzoselenadiazole (BSe), benzobisthiadiazole (BBT), and thiadiazoloquinoxaline (TQ) acceptors.

Behaviour change intervention (education and text) to prevent dental caries in secondary school pupils: BRIGHT RCT, process and economic evaluation.

Background: The presence of dental caries impacts on children's daily lives, particularly among those living in deprived areas. There are successful interventions across the United Kingdom for young children based on toothbrushing with fluoride toothpaste. However, evidence is lacking for oral health improvement programmes in secondary-school pupils to reduce dental caries and its sequelae.

Total Copper and Labile Bound Copper Fraction as a Selective and Sensitive Tool in the Evaluation of Wilson Disease.

Background: A dual filtration-based method for determination of serum labile bound copper (LBC) and LBC fraction (LBC/total copper) was developed. Reduced total copper, elevated LBC, and elevated LBC fraction have been reported in Wilson disease (WD).

Methods: To evaluate the diagnostic performance of these markers, samples were obtained from 21 WD treatment-naïve (WD-TN, no WD treatment or <28 days of treatment) patients, 46 WD standard-of-care-treated (WD-SOC) patients, along with 246 patients representing other potential disorders of copper status.

Hierarchical Phased-Array Antennas Coupled to Al KIDs: A Scalable Architecture for Multi-band Millimeter/Submillimeter Focal Planes.

We present the optical characterization of two-scale hierarchical phased-array antenna kinetic inductance detectors (KIDs) for millimeter/submillimeter wavelengths. Our KIDs have a lumped-element architecture with parallel plate capacitors and aluminum inductors. The incoming light is received with a hierarchical phased array of slot dipole antennas, split into 4 frequency bands (between 125 GHz and 365 GHz) with on-chip lumped-element band-pass filters, and routed to different KIDs using microstriplines.

Use of Drug Sensitisers to Improve Therapeutic Index in Cancer.

The clinical management of malignant tumours is challenging, often leading to severe adverse effects and death. Drug resistance (DR) antagonises the effectiveness of treatments, and increasing drug dosage can worsen the therapeutic index (TI). Current efforts to overcome DR predominantly involve the use of drug combinations, including applying multiple anti-cancerous drugs, employing drug sensitisers, which are chemical agents that enhance pharmacokinetics (PK), including the targeting of cellular pathways and regulating pertinent membrane transporters.

It's a spiral staircase, not just two steps: An iterative approach to assessing patient capacity for medical decision-making.

The assessment of medical decision-making capacity as part of the process of clinical informed consent has been considered a bioethical housekeeping matter for decades. Yet in practice, the reality bears little resemblance to what is described in the medical literature and professed in medical education. Most literature on informed consent refers to medical decision-making capacity as a precondition to the consent process.

Discovery of MK-1084: An Orally Bioavailable and Low-Dose KRAS Inhibitor.

Oncogenic mutations in the gene account for 30% of all human tumors; more than 60% of which present as KRAS mutations at the hotspot codon 12. After decades of intense pursuit, a covalent inhibition strategy has enabled selective targeting of this previously "undruggable" target. Herein, we disclose our journey toward the discovery of MK-1084, an orally bioavailable and low-dose KRAS covalent inhibitor currently in phase I clinical trials (NCT05067283).

Chirality-Induced Spin Selectivity: Analysis of Density Functional Theory Calculations.

Chirality-induced spin selectivity (CISS), which was demonstrated in several molecular and material systems, has drawn much interest recently. The phenomenon, described in electron transport by the difference in the transport rate of electrons of opposite spins through a chiral system, is however not fully understood. Herein, we employed density functional theory in conjunction with spin-orbit coupling to evaluate the percent spin-polarization in a device setup with finite electrodes at zero bias, using an electron transport program developed in-house.

Protein engineering enables a soakable crystal form of human CDK7 primed for high-throughput crystallography and structure-based drug design.

Cyclin dependent kinase 7 (CDK7) is an important therapeutic kinase best known for its dual role in cell cycle regulation and gene transcription. Here, we describe the application of protein engineering to generate constructs leading to high resolution crystal structures of human CDK7 in both active and inactive conformations. The active state of the kinase was crystallized by incorporation of an additional surface residue mutation (W132R) onto the double phosphomimetic mutant background (S164D and T170E) that yielded the inactive kinase structure.