Publications by authors named "M Meehan"

Microbiology reference laboratories perform a crucial role within public health systems. This role was especially evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this Viewpoint, we emphasise the importance of microbiology reference laboratories and highlight the types of digital data and expertise they provide, which benefit national and international public health.

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Background: Traditional epidemiological models tend to oversimplify the transmission dynamics of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb) to replicate observed tuberculosis (TB) epidemic patterns. This has led to growing interest in advanced methodologies like agent-based modelling (ABM), which can more accurately represent the complex heterogeneity of TB transmission.

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Background: Glyoxal has been implicated as a significant contributor to the formation of secondary organic aerosols, which play a key role in our ability to estimate the impact of aerosols on climate. Elevated concentrations of glyoxal over open ocean waters suggest that there exists an additional source, different from urban and forest environments, which has yet to be identified.

Methods: Based on mass spectrometric analyses of nascent sea spray aerosols (SSAs) and gas-phase molecules generated during the course of a controlled algal bloom, the work herein suggests that marine microorganisms are capable of excreting toluene in response to environmental stimuli.

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-acyl lipids are important mediators of several biological processes including immune function and stress response. To enhance the detection of -acyl lipids with untargeted mass spectrometry-based metabolomics, we created a reference spectral library retrieving -acyl lipid patterns from 2,700 public datasets, identifying 851 -acyl lipids that were detected 356,542 times. 777 are not documented in lipid structural databases, with 18% of these derived from short-chain fatty acids and found in the digestive tract and other organs.

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