Publications by authors named "J Havranek"

Microbiome research is now demonstrating a growing number of bacterial strains and genes that affect our health. Although CRISPR-derived tools have shown great success in editing disease-driving genes in human cells, we currently lack the tools to achieve comparable success for bacterial targets in situ. Here we engineer a phage-derived particle to deliver a base editor and modify Escherichia coli colonizing the mouse gut.

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Therapy for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma remains challenging, and the chances of a complete cure are very limited. As in other types of cancer, the expression and role of miRNAs in controlling the biological properties of this type of tumor have been extensively studied. A better insight into miRNA biology seems critical to refining diagnostics and improving their therapeutic potential.

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Article Synopsis
  • There has been a significant increase in metagenomic studies, but challenges arise from the complex and variable nature of microbiome communities, making reliable profiling difficult.
  • Despite efforts to standardize methods in metagenomic research, variations in procedures still lead to inconsistent results, highlighting the need for uniform practices to ensure biologically relevant differences in microbiome composition.
  • Our analysis indicates that factors such as homogenization time and the choice of library preparation kits notably influence the diversity and accuracy of microbiome profiling, with a recommended homogenization time of 10 minutes for optimal results.
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Background/aim: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) still represents one of the most aggressive cancers. Understanding of the epithelial-mesenchymal crosstalk as a crucial part of the tumor microenvironment should pave the way for therapies to improve patient survival rates. Well-established cell lines present a useful and reproducible model to study PDAC biology.

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Background: Providing patient safety is a central matter in health care requiring complex treatment processes containing many risks. In hospital care, adverse events and patient harm occur frequently. In this context, the safety sciences investigate causes and contributing factors of such events as well as improvement measures.

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