Publications by authors named "E Melia"

The incidence of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), currently ~800,000 cases per year worldwide, is rising. Radiotherapy remains a mainstay for the treatment of HNSCC, although inherent radioresistance, particularly in human papillomavirus (HPV)-negative disease subtypes, remains a significant barrier to effective treatment. Therefore, combinatorial strategies using drugs or inhibitors against specific cellular targets are necessary to enhance HNSCC radiosensitivity to lead to an improvement in patient outcomes.

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Radiotherapy is one of the main cancer treatments being used for ~50% of all cancer patients. Conventional radiotherapy typically utilises X-rays (photons); however, there is increasing use of particle beam therapy (PBT), such as protons and carbon ions. This is because PBT elicits significant benefits through more precise dose delivery to the cancer than X-rays, but also due to the increases in linear energy transfer (LET) that lead to more enhanced biological effectiveness.

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Background: Falsified medicines and their international regulation impacts all healthcare sectors and their actors. These regulations aim to strengthen and protect the global pharmaceutical supply chain against falsified medicines. However, an evaluation of the impacts of these regulations on key stakeholders within the legitimate supply chain have not been explored.

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Ionising radiation (IR) is widely used in cancer treatment, including for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), where it induces significant DNA damage leading ultimately to tumour cell death. Among these lesions, DNA double strand breaks (DSBs) are the most threatening lesion to cell survival. The two main repair mechanisms that detect and repair DSBs are non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) and homologous recombination (HR).

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This review investigates the multifaceted role of the p66Shc adaptor protein and the gut microbiota in regulating mitochondrial function and oxidative stress, and their collective impact on the pathogenesis of chronic diseases. The study delves into the molecular mechanisms by which p66Shc influences cellular stress responses through Rac1 activation, Forkhead-type transcription factors inactivation, and mitochondria-mediated apoptosis, alongside modulatory effects of gut microbiota-derived metabolites and endotoxins. Employing an integrative approach, the review synthesizes findings from a broad array of studies, including molecular biology techniques and analyses of microbial metabolites' impacts on host cellular pathways.

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