Aetiology of lobar pneumonia determined by multiplex molecular analyses of lung and pleural aspirate specimens in the Gambia: findings from population-based pneumonia surveillance.

Objectives: To determine the causes of lobar pneumonia in rural Gambia.

Design And Setting: Population-based pneumonia surveillance at seven peripheral health facilities and two regional hospitals in rural Gambia. 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV7) was introduced routinely in August 2009 and replaced by PCV13 from May 2011.

The Etiology of Childhood Pneumonia in The Gambia: Findings From the Pneumonia Etiology Research for Child Health (PERCH) Study.

Background: Pneumonia remains the leading cause of death in young children globally. The changing epidemiology of pneumonia requires up-to-date data to guide both case management and prevention programs. The Gambia study site contributed a high child mortality, high pneumonia incidence, low HIV prevalence, Haemophilus influenzae type b and pneumococcal conjugate vaccines-vaccinated rural West African setting to the Pneumonia Etiology Research for Child Health (PERCH) Study.

Schistosoma and Strongyloides screening in migrants initiating HIV Care in Canada: a cross sectional study.

Background: Following migration from Schistosoma and Strongyloides endemic to non-endemic regions, people remain at high risk for adverse sequelae from these chronic infections. HIV co-infected persons are particularly vulnerable to the serious and potentially fatal consequences of untreated helminth infection. While general screening guidelines exist for parasitic infection screening in immigrant populations, they remain silent on HIV positive populations.

Anterograde amnesia and disorientation are associated with in-patients without traumatic brain injury taking opioids. Retrograde amnesia (RA) is absent. RA assessment should be integral to post-traumatic amnesia testing.

Unlabelled: The Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) only assesses orientation after traumatic brain injury (TBI). 'Post-traumatic amnesia' (PTA) comprises orientation, anterograde amnesia (AA) and retrograde amnesia (RA). However, RA is often disregarded in formalized PTA assessment.

The Effect of Antibiotic Exposure and Specimen Volume on the Detection of Bacterial Pathogens in Children With Pneumonia.

Background.: Antibiotic exposure and specimen volume are known to affect pathogen detection by culture. Here we assess their effects on bacterial pathogen detection by both culture and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in children.

The Diagnostic Utility of Induced Sputum Microscopy and Culture in Childhood Pneumonia.

Background.: Sputum microscopy and culture are commonly used for diagnosing the cause of pneumonia in adults but are rarely performed in children due to difficulties in obtaining specimens. Induced sputum is occasionally used to investigate lower respiratory infections in children but has not been widely used in pneumonia etiology studies.

Associations between nasopharyngeal carriage of Group B Streptococcus and other respiratory pathogens during early infancy.

Background: In West Africa, the carriage of Group B Streptococcus (GBS), among infants is poorly characterised. We investigated co-carriage of GBS with other respiratory pathogens in the infants' nasopharynx in The Gambia.

Methods: We assessed the carriage, serotypes and antibiotic susceptibility of Beta-haemolytic Streptococci (BHS) groups A-G; along with the carriage of Streptococcus pneumoniae; Haemophilus influenzae; Staphylococcus aureus and Moraxella catarrhalis in 1200 two-month old infants.

Synthetic lethality of cohesins with PARPs and replication fork mediators.

Synthetic lethality has been proposed as a way to leverage the genetic differences found in tumor cells to affect their selective killing. Cohesins, which tether sister chromatids together until anaphase onset, are mutated in a variety of tumor types. The elucidation of synthetic lethal interactions with cohesin mutants therefore identifies potential therapeutic targets.

MDMA (Ecstasy) association with impaired fMRI BOLD thalamic coherence and functional connectivity.

Background: MDMA exposure is associated with chronic serotonergic dysfunction in preclinical and clinical studies. A recent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) comparison of past MDMA users to non-MDMA-using controls revealed increased spatial extent and amplitude of activation in the supplementary motor area during motor tasks (Karageorgiou et al., 2009).

Synthetic lethal genetic interactions that decrease somatic cell proliferation in Caenorhabditis elegans identify the alternative RFC CTF18 as a candidate cancer drug target.

Somatic mutations causing chromosome instability (CIN) in tumors can be exploited for selective killing of cancer cells by knockdown of second-site genes causing synthetic lethality. We tested and statistically validated synthetic lethal (SL) interactions between mutations in six Saccharomyces cerevisiae CIN genes orthologous to genes mutated in colon tumors and five additional CIN genes. To identify which SL interactions are conserved in higher organisms and represent potential chemotherapeutic targets, we developed an assay system in Caenorhabditis elegans to test genetic interactions causing synthetic proliferation defects in somatic cells.