Acoustic Radiation Force Optical Coherence Elastography of the Crystalline Lens: Safety.

Purpose: To assess the safety of acoustic radiation force optical coherence elastography in the crystalline lens in situ.

Methods: Acoustic radiation force (ARF) produced by an immersion single-element ultrasound transducer (nominal frequency = 3.5 MHz) was characterized using a needle hydrophone and used for optical coherence elastography (OCE) of the crystalline lens.

Biologically-targeted discovery-replication scan identifies G×G interaction in relation to risk of Barrett's esophagus and esophageal adenocarcinoma.

Inherited genetics represents an important contributor to risk of esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC), and its precursor Barrett's esophagus (BE). Genome-wide association studies have identified ∼30 susceptibility variants for BE/EAC, yet genetic interactions remain unexamined. To address challenges in large-scale G×G scans, we combined knowledge-guided filtering and machine learning approaches, focusing on genes with (A) known/plausible links to BE/EAC pathogenesis (n=493) or (B) prior evidence of biological interactions (n=4,196).

Brain age in genetic and idiopathic Parkinson's disease.

The brain-age gap, i.e. the difference between the brain age estimated from structural MRI data and the chronological age of an individual, has been proposed as a summary measure of brain integrity in neurodegenerative diseases.

Engaging survivor and oncologist stakeholders to develop a patient-reported outcome assessment to use as a component of survivorship care.

Purpose: Incorporating patient-reported outcomes (PROs) into survivorship care may improve the comprehensiveness of follow-up. The objective was to engage stakeholders to develop a PRO assessment of survivors' symptoms and concerns for use during breast cancer follow-up.

Methods: We convened patient and oncologist stakeholder advisory groups to develop an initial PRO assessment including survivorship domains of importance, measurement instruments, and clinically significant thresholds, and revise the assessment based on feedback from community focus groups and two rounds of iterative pilot testing with survivors.

Expression quantitative trait loci influence DNA damage-induced apoptosis in cancer.

Background: Genomic instability and evading apoptosis are two fundamental hallmarks of cancer and closely linked to DNA damage response (DDR). By analyzing expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) upon cell stimulation (called exposure eQTL (eQTL)) it is possible to identify context specific gene regulatory variants and connect them to oncological diseases based on genome-wide association studies (GWAS).

Results: We isolate CD8 T cells from 461 healthy donors and stimulate them with high doses of 5 different carcinogens to identify regulatory mechanisms of DNA damage-induced apoptosis.