Publications by authors named "McNamara A"

TOPAS-nBio enables users to simulate dose rate-dependent radiation chemical yields in water radiolysis accounting for inter-track and long-term chemistry for pulsed irradiation. This study aims to extend the TOPAS-nBio chemistry for the special case of continuous high-dose rate scenario, where both intertrack and longer time reactions need to be considered, and to quantitatively validate the extended framework by comparing the results with experimental data.The inter-track chemistry and escape-values were first evaluated by the independent reaction time method.

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Background: A prolonged first episode of psychosis (FEP) without adequate treatment is a predictor of poor clinical, functional, and health outcomes and significant economic burden. Team-based "coordinated specialty care" (CSC) for early psychosis (EP) has established effectiveness in promoting clinical and functional recovery. However, California's CSC program implementation has been unsystematic and could benefit from standardizing its processes and data collection infrastructure.

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Article Synopsis
  • Alzheimer's disease is associated with impaired proteostasis, and enhancing it might help delay cognitive decline.
  • KPT-330 (Selinexor), an XPO1 inhibitor, shows promise in improving proteostasis and enhancing autophagy in neurons, leading to better memory in Alzheimer's models.
  • While KPT-330 increased overall amyloid deposition in the brain, it also resulted in lower levels of amyloid in specific areas like the thalamus, indicating that its effects on proteostasis and amyloid formation are region-specific.
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Numerous dose rate effects have been described over the past 6-7 decades in the radiation biology and radiation oncology literature depending on the dose rate range being discussed. This review focuses on the impact and understanding of altering dose rates in the context of radiation therapy, but does not discuss dose rate effects as relevant to radiation protection. The review starts with a short historic review of early studies on dose rate effects, considers mechanisms thought to underlie dose rate dependencies, then discusses some current issues in clinical findings with altered dose rates, the importance of dose rate in brachytherapy, and the current timely topic of the use of very high dose rates, so-called FLASH radiotherapy.

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  • The study aimed to automate the filling of case report forms (CRFs) for a COVID-19 trial across multiple locations in the U.S.
  • It utilized data from 27 hospitals and electronic health records to efficiently populate trial forms, successfully processing 499 out of 526 variables for 417 enrolled patients.
  • The researchers concluded that the automated system was effective and suggested improvements for future clinical trials.
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  • Researchers studied how to tell if patients with chronic hepatitis B would benefit from an additional treatment called pegylated interferon.
  • They found that certain blood tests (biomarkers) could help predict if patients would lose a specific marker (HBeAg) after treatment.
  • The tests showed that lower levels of a certain biomarker at the start and during treatment could help identify patients who might respond well to the pegylated interferon therapy.
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Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the sixth leading cause of death in the USA. It is established that neuroinflammation contributes to the synaptic loss, neuronal death, and symptomatic decline of AD patients. Accumulating evidence suggests a critical role for microglia, innate immune phagocytes of the brain.

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Introduction: Splenectomy is known to carry a risk of infection with encapsulated organisms and associated sepsis. Current Australian guidelines recommend intensive vaccination schedules and long-term antibiotic therapy. We postulate that in some clinical scenarios where distal pancreatectomy (DP) and splenectomy is being performed, a partial splenectomy is feasible.

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The induction and repair of DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) are critical factors in the treatment of cancer by radiotherapy. To investigate the relationship between incident radiation and cell death through DSB induction many in silico models have been developed. These models produce and use custom formats of data, specific to the investigative aims of the researchers, and often focus on particular pairings of damage and repair models.

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Due to their limited genetic capacity, viruses are reliant on multiple host systems to replicate successfully. Mammalian orthoreovirus (reovirus) is commonly used as a model system for understanding host-virus interactions. In this study, we identify that the proteasome system, which is critical for cellular protein turnover, affects reovirus entry.

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Outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy (OPAT) in Australia has evolved from modest beginnings to a well-established health service with proven benefits in patient outcomes. This is a comprehensive review of the current state of art Australian OPAT with vignettes of the types of OPAT models of care, antimicrobial prescribing and antimicrobial use. In addition, we highlight the similarities and differences between OPAT to other countries and describe Australian OPAT experiences with COVID-19 and paediatrics.

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This study compared euthanasia induced by rising concentrations of CO₂ in aged rats (n = 59) using different gas displacement rates. Rats were preimplanted with cardiovascular telemetry devices and had been previously used for short term safety pharmacology studies. Once fully recovered from previous studies, rats were euthanized using rising concentrations of CO₂.

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Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is the 6th leading cause of death in the US. It is established that neuroinflammation contributes to the synaptic loss, neuronal death, and symptomatic decline of AD patients. Accumulating evidence suggests a critical role for microglia, innate immune phagocytes of the brain.

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It is well-established that consumption of cruciferous and brassica vegetables has a correlation with reduced rates of many negative health outcomes. There is an increased interest in identifying food intake biomarkers to address limitations related to self-reported dietary assessment. The study aims to identify biomarkers of broccoli intake using metabolomic approaches, examine the dose-response relationship, and predict the intake by multimarker panel.

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Background: Alcohol is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Adolescence is when alcohol use typically begins. Harmful patterns of alcohol consumption, such as binge drinking, may emerge during adolescence and become established.

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Ultra-high dose rate irradiation has been reported to protect normal tissues more than conventional dose rate irradiation. This tissue sparing has been termed the FLASH effect. We investigated the FLASH effect of proton irradiation on the intestine as well as the hypothesis that lymphocyte depletion is a cause of the FLASH effect.

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Background: Linezolid is a broad-spectrum antimicrobial with limited use due to toxicity. This study aimed to evaluate linezolid toxicity in a large multicentre cohort. Secondary objectives were to identify factors contributing to toxicity, including the impact of therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM).

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Article Synopsis
  • Researchers found that mSWI/SNF chromatin remodeling complexes, especially cBAF, help SARS-CoV-2 infect host cells and could be targeted for new therapies.
  • The protein SMARCA4 is crucial for making the ACE2 gene accessible, which is important for the virus to enter cells, with certain transcription factors assisting in this process.
  • Using small molecules to inhibit mSWI/SNF activity can prevent ACE2 expression, offering protection against SARS-CoV-2 and its variants across various cell types, which suggests a promising approach for developing antivirals.
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. Irradiation at FLASH dose rates (>40 Gy s) has received great attention due to its reported normal tissue sparing effect. The FLASH effect was originally observed in electron irradiations but has since been shown to also occur with both photon and proton beams.

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Telomere maintenance 2 (TELO2), Tel2 interacting protein 2 (TTI2), and Tel2 interacting protein 1 (TTI1) are the three components of the conserved Triple T (TTT) complex that modulates activity of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase-related protein kinases (PIKKs), including mTOR, ATM, and ATR, by regulating the assembly of mTOR complex 1 (mTORC1). The TTT complex is essential for the expression, maturation, and stability of ATM and ATR in response to DNA damage. TELO2- and TTI2-related bi-allelic autosomal-recessive (AR) encephalopathies have been described in individuals with moderate to severe intellectual disability (ID), short stature, postnatal microcephaly, and a movement disorder (in the case of variants within TELO2).

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Purpose: Prognostic factors for prostate cancer include tumor, node, metastases stage, pretreatment prostate-specific antigen, and pathology (via Gleason score [GS] or grade group). Of these, GS yields the largest effect on prostate cancer specific mortality. It was previously determined that those with cores with a mix of higher and lower GS at biopsy (which was termed a "ComboGS") had decreased risk for prostate cancer specific mortality after either surgical or radiation treatment.

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The effects of realistic, deep space radiation environments on neuronal function remain largely unexplored.modeling studies of radiation-induced neuronal damage provide important quantitative information about physico-chemical processes that are not directly accessible through radiobiological experiments. Here, we present the first nano-scale computational analysis of broad-spectrum galactic cosmic ray irradiation in a realistic neuron geometry.

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Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in Europe. Europe's Beating Cancer Plan calls for a comprehensive approach to the disease in general but not specifically to lung cancer. Such a comprehensive approach, integrating efforts to strengthen anti-tobacco policies, early detection and underlying models of care, is sorely needed for lung cancer - particularly considering disruptions to care during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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