Publications by authors named "FORREST I"

Background And Aims: An in silico quantitative score of coronary artery disease (ISCAD), built using machine learning and clinical data from electronic health records, has been shown to result in gradations of risk of subclinical atherosclerosis, coronary artery disease (CAD) sequelae, and mortality. Large-scale metabolite biomarker profiling provides increased portability and objectivity in machine learning for disease prediction and gradation. However, these models have not been fully leveraged.

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Background Pulmonary function tests are central to diagnosis and monitoring of respiratory diseases but do not provide information on regional lung function heterogeneity. Fluorine 19 (F) MRI of inhaled perfluoropropane permits quantitative and spatially localized assessment of pulmonary ventilation properties without tracer gas hyperpolarization. Purpose To assess regional lung ventilation properties using F MRI of inhaled perfluoropropane in participants with asthma, participants with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and healthy participants, including quantitative evaluation of bronchodilator response in participants with respiratory disease.

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  • Mode of inheritance (MOI) is crucial for understanding pathogenic variants, yet most variants lack this information, particularly impacting recessive diseases.
  • MOI-Pred and ConMOI are new tools developed to predict variant pathogenicity by incorporating MOI, with MOI-Pred focusing on both dominant and recessive variants through evolutionary and functional data.
  • Both tools have shown high accuracy in benchmarks and real-world evaluations, with ConMOI outperforming individual methods, underscoring the benefits of using a consensus approach for variant predictions.
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  • Coronary artery disease (CAD) involves a mix of risk factors and processes, and a new machine learning-based score can help track its progression and severity.
  • Researchers tested this score against rare gene variants in different biobanks and found significant associations in 17 genes, with 14 receiving prior support related to CAD.
  • The study suggests that there are likely more ultrarare gene variants associated with CAD, highlighting how digital tools can improve genetic research in complex diseases.
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Background: Diet is a key modifiable risk factor of coronary artery disease (CAD). However, the causal effects of specific dietary traits on CAD risk remain unclear. With the expansion of dietary data in population biobanks, Mendelian randomization (MR) could help enable the efficient estimation of causality in diet-disease associations.

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  • Population-based genomic screening helps identify individuals at risk for diseases by analyzing their genetic variants alongside their health records.
  • In a study of over 29,000 participants, researchers found 614 individuals with significant genetic variants, but 76% of these cases had no prior clinical diagnosis.
  • The findings suggest that genomic screening may uncover previously undiagnosed conditions, showing a higher prevalence of harmful genetic variants than clinical diagnoses and illustrating the importance of genetic testing in identifying untreated diseases.
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Objective: To explore eating and drinking experiences of patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), the impact of any changes associated with their diagnosis and any coping mechanisms developed by patients.

Setting: Pulmonary fibrosis support groups around the UK and the regional Interstitial Lung Diseases Clinic, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Participants: 15 patients with IPF (9 men, 6 women), median age 71 years, range (54-92) years, were interviewed.

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Historical demographic research shows that the factors influencing mortality risk are labile across time and space. This is particularly true for datasets that span societal transitions. Here, we seek to understand how marriage, migration, and the local economy influenced mortality dynamics in a rapidly changing environment characterized by high in-migration and male-biased sex ratios.

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Background: Nintedanib slows progression of lung function decline in patients with progressive fibrosing (PF) interstitial lung disease (ILD) and was recommended for this indication within the United Kingdom (UK) National Health Service in Scotland in June 2021 and in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in November 2021. To date, there has been no national evaluation of the use of nintedanib for PF-ILD in a real-world setting.

Methods: 26 UK centres were invited to take part in a national service evaluation between 17 November 2021 and 30 September 2022.

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Chemical probes are invaluable tools to investigate biological processes and can serve as lead molecules for the development of new therapies. However, despite their utility, only a fraction of human proteins have selective chemical probes, and more generally, our knowledge of the "chemically-tractable" proteome is limited, leaving many potential therapeutic targets unexploited. To help address these challenges, powerful chemical proteomic approaches have recently been developed to globally survey the ability of proteins to bind small molecules (i.

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Studies have shown that drug targets with human genetic support are more likely to succeed in clinical trials. Hence, a tool integrating genetic evidence to prioritize drug target genes is beneficial for drug discovery. We built a genetic priority score (GPS) by integrating eight genetic features with drug indications from the Open Targets and SIDER databases.

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Kidney disease affects 50% of all diabetic patients; however, prediction of disease progression has been challenging due to inherent disease heterogeneity. We use deep learning to identify novel genetic signatures prognostically associated with outcomes. Using autoencoders and unsupervised clustering of electronic health record data on 1,372 diabetic kidney disease patients, we establish two clusters with differential prevalence of end-stage kidney disease.

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Background: Lyme disease is the most prevalent vector-borne disease in the US, yet its host factors are poorly understood and diagnostic tests are limited. We evaluated patients in a large health system to uncover cholesterol's role in the susceptibility, severity, and machine learning-based diagnosis of Lyme disease.

Methods: A longitudinal health system cohort comprised 1 019 175 individuals with electronic health record data and 50 329 with linked genetic data.

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Systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases (SARDs) can lead to irreversible damage if left untreated, yet these patients often endure long diagnostic journeys before being diagnosed and treated. Machine learning may help overcome the challenges of diagnosing SARDs and inform clinical decision-making. Here, we developed and tested a machine learning model to identify patients who should receive rheumatological evaluation for SARDs using longitudinal electronic health records of 161,584 individuals from two institutions.

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Background: Causality between plasma triglyceride (TG) levels and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) risk remains controversial despite more than four decades of study and two recent landmark trials, STRENGTH, and REDUCE-IT. Further unclear is the association between TG levels and non-atherosclerotic diseases across organ systems.

Methods: Here, we conducted a phenome-wide, two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis using inverse-variance weighted (IVW) regression to systematically infer the causal effects of plasma TG levels on 2600 disease traits in the European ancestry population of UK Biobank.

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Background: Binary diagnosis of coronary artery disease does not preserve the complexity of disease or quantify its severity or its associated risk with death; hence, a quantitative marker of coronary artery disease is warranted. We evaluated a quantitative marker of coronary artery disease derived from probabilities of a machine learning model.

Methods: In this cohort study, we developed and validated a coronary artery disease-predictive machine learning model using 95 935 electronic health records and assessed its probabilities as in-silico scores for coronary artery disease (ISCAD; range 0 [lowest probability] to 1 [highest probability]) in participants in two longitudinal biobank cohorts.

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Introduction: Dysphagia occurs in multiple respiratory pathophysiologies, increasing the risk of pulmonary complications secondary to aspiration. Reflux associated aspiration and a dysregulated lung microbiome is implicated in Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF), but swallowing dysfunction has not been described. We aimed to explore oropharyngeal swallowing in IPF patients, without known swallowing dysfunction.

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Background: Interstitial lung disease is a known complication of rheumatoid arthritis, with a lifetime risk of developing the disease in any individual of 7·7%. We aimed to assess the safety, tolerability, and efficacy of pirfenidone for the treatment of patients with rheumatoid arthritis-associated interstitial lung disease (RA-ILD).

Methods: TRAIL1 was a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase 2 trial done in 34 academic centres specialising in interstitial lung disease in four countries (the UK, the USA, Australia, and Canada).

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Phenome-wide association studies identified numerous loci associated with traits and diseases. To help interpret these associations, we constructed a phenome-wide network map of colocalized genes and phenotypes. We generated colocalized signals using the Genotype-Tissue Expression data and genome-wide association results in UK Biobank.

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Studies of microbiota reveal inter-relationships between the microbiomes of the gut and lungs. This relationship may influence the progression of lung disease, particularly in patients with cystic fibrosis (CF), who often experience extraoesophageal reflux (EOR). Despite identifying this relationship, it is not well characterised.

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Background: Little is currently known about the perspectives of people with interstitial lung disease and their carers in relation to the timing of palliative care conversations.

Aim: To establish patients' and carers' views on palliative care in interstitial lung disease and identify an optimum time to introduce the concept of palliative care.

Design: Meta-ethnography of qualitative evidence.

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