Publications by authors named "Lucy McDonald"

Article Synopsis
  • Prisons in Victoria, Australia, have implemented a statewide nurse-led model of care since 2015 to enhance hepatitis C testing and treatment among inmates, crucial for elimination efforts.
  • From 2015 to 2021, 3,133 DAA treatment courses were prescribed to 2,768 inmates, with a significant increase in prescriptions over the years and a median age of treated individuals being 39.
  • The program achieved a 93% success rate in sustained viral response (SVR12), demonstrating the effectiveness of decentralized, nurse-led initiatives in tackling hepatitis C in high-prevalence settings like prisons.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • People in prison can get treated for hepatitis C, but many don't receive treatment before they are released.
  • * When they get out, they have a lot of other important things to deal with, so they often miss out on getting help for hepatitis C.
  • * A study showed that having a care navigator helped more people get their hepatitis C medicine soon after leaving prison compared to just the usual care.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Low treatment rates for Hepatitis C (HCV) in prisons are due to barriers like the need for testing methods to determine cirrhosis.
  • A study analyzed two scoring systems, APRI and FIB-4, in a large group of prisoners to see how effectively they could indicate the absence of cirrhosis compared to the standard transient elastography.
  • Results showed that both scores had high negative predictive values, suggesting they could reduce the need for more invasive tests by about 71%, thus streamlining care for incarcerated individuals with HCV.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Nurse-led models of care are an important strategy in the management of patients with chronic disease because of the person-centered approach that allows the needs of the individual to be prioritized and addressed in accessible settings. Hepatitis C is caused by a blood-borne virus that can cause liver disease and liver cancer; it predominantly affects marginalized populations, including people who inject drugs. Since 2013, all oral, direct-acting antiviral regimens have been available to cure hepatitis C.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background & Aims: Treatment programs for people who inject drugs (PWID), including prisoners, are important for achieving hepatitis C elimination targets. There are multiple barriers to treatment of hepatitis C in prisons, including access to specialist physicians, testing and antiviral therapy, short prison sentences, and frequent inter-prison transfer. We aimed to assess the effectiveness of a nurse-led model of care for the treatment of prisoners with hepatitis C.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Researchers wanted to see how liver health changed over 10 years in people with chronic hepatitis C, especially those who had treatment that worked (SVR).
  • They looked at 131 patients, many of whom had their liver checked twice: once before 2004 and then again over a decade later.
  • The study found that while some patients who achieved SVR maintained their liver health, more people overall developed serious liver issues over time.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Identification of methionine aminopeptidase-2 (MetAP-2) as the molecular target of the antiangiogenic compound TNP-470 has sparked interest in N-terminal Met excision's (NME) role in endothelial cell biology. In this regard, we recently demonstrated that MetAP-2 inhibition suppresses Wnt planar cell polarity (PCP) signaling and that endothelial cells depend on this pathway for normal function. Despite this advance, the substrate(s) whose activity is altered upon MetAP-2 inhibition, resulting in loss of Wnt PCP signaling, is not known.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

This study, conducted in Newfoundland and Labrador, assessed the level of awareness, perceptions and concerns of healthcare providers, health researchers, data managers and the general public about the collection, use and disclosure of personal health information (PHI) for research purposes. Data collection involved surveys and follow-up focus groups with participants. Results indicate a poor understanding generally with regard to privacy rights and responsibilities.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

During insemination, males of internally fertilizing species transfer a complex array of seminal fluid proteins to the female reproductive tract. These proteins can have profound effects on female reproductive physiology and behavior and are thought to mediate postcopulatory sexual selection and intersexual conflict. Such selection may cause seminal fluid to evolve rapidly, with potentially important consequences for speciation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The 'protein world' exhibits additional complexity caused by post-translational modifications. One such process is nonenzymic deamidation of asparagine which is controlled partly by primary sequence, but also higher order protein structure. We have studied the deamidation of an N-terminal peptide in muscle glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase to relate three-dimensional structure, proteolysis, and deamidation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We describe a protocol for selective extraction of the amino (N)-terminal-most peptide of a protein or a mixture of proteins after proteolysis. The first stage of the protocol blocks the free amino groups alpha and epsilon (the latter being lysyl residues) on the intact proteins by acetylation. In the second stage, proteolysis of the acetylated proteins yields a mixture of N-terminally acetylated (true N-terminal) and non-acetylated (internal and carboxy-terminal) peptides.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Bottom-up proteomics is the analysis of peptides derived from single proteins or protein mixtures, and because each protein generates tens of peptides, there is scope for controlled reduction in complexity. We report here a new strategy for selective isolation of the N-terminal peptides of a protein mixture, yielding positionally defined peptides. The method is tolerant of several fragmentation methods, and the databases that must be searched are substantially less complex.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF