Publications by authors named "Melanie Schneider"

Total neoadjuvant therapy (TNT) is an evolving treatment schedule for locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC), allowing for organ preservation in a relevant number of patients in the case of complete response. Patients who undergo this so-called "watch and wait" approach are likely to benefit regarding their quality of life (QoL), especially if definitive ostomy could be avoided. In this work, we performed the first cost-effectiveness analysis from the patient perspective to compare costs for TNT with radical resection after neoadjuvant chemoradiation (CRT) in the German health care system.

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Purpose: Patient satisfaction with healthcare has been linked to clinical outcomes and regulatory agencies demand its regular assessment. Therefore, we aimed to investigate patient satisfaction with radiotherapy care and its determinants.

Methods: This is a secondary analysis of a multicenter prospective cross-sectional study.

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Background: Insomnia with short sleep duration has been postulated as more severe than that accompanied by normal/long sleep length. While the short duration subtype is considered to have greater genetic influence than the other subtype, no studies have addressed this question. This study aimed to compare these subtypes in terms of: (1) the heritability of insomnia symptoms; (2) polygenic scores (PGS) for insomnia symptoms and sleep duration; (3) the associations between insomnia symptoms and a wide variety of traits/disorders.

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Background: An environmental intervention with focus on was implemented in a university canteen. It comprised the offer of a health promoting food option (HPFO), including a health promoting lunch option and health promoting snacks.

Design And Methods: Possible changes of food consumption and nutrient intake of student canteen users (substudy A), perception of the HPFO by canteen users (substudy B.

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Purpose: Psychosocial distress is common among cancer patients in general, but those undergoing radiotherapy may face specific challenges. Therefore, we investigated the prevalence and risk factors for distress in a large national cohort.

Methods: We performed a secondary analysis of a multicenter prospective cross-sectional study which surveyed cancer patients at the end of a course of radiotherapy using a patient-reported questionnaire.

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Purpose: To establish and confirm prevalence as well as risk factors of financial toxicity in a large national cohort of cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy in a universal health care system.

Methods: We conducted a prospective cross-sectional study offering a patient-reported questionnaire to all eligible cancer patients treated with radiotherapy in 11 centers in Germany during 60 consecutive days. The four-point subjective financial distress question of the EORTC QLQ-C30 was used as a surrogate for financial toxicity.

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The intracellular bacteria Anaplasma spp. and Coxiella burnetii and the tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) are tick-transmitted pathogens circulating in the southern German sheep population. Knowledge of interaction among Anaplasma spp.

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Dabrafenib is an anticancer drug currently used in the clinics, alone or in combination. However, dabrafenib was recently shown to potently activate the human nuclear receptor pregnane X receptor (PXR). PXR activation increases the clearance of various chemicals and drugs, including dabrafenib itself.

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Introduction: Invasive meningococcal disease (IMD) is an uncommon, severe, life-threatening disease primarily affecting infants, with potential lifelong sequelae. Neisseria meningitidis (Nm) serogroup B (MenB) causes most IMD cases in Germany, many of which can be prevented with four-component MenB (4CMenB) vaccination. The potential public health and economic impact of introducing routine 4CMenB infant vaccination in Germany was assessed.

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The purpose of the study was to evaluate whether an environmental intervention in a university canteen changes the sale and daily consumption of vegetables and fruit among canteen users. The intervention focused on decision guidance, including a positive incentive and nudging. In a pretest-posttest-design, daily sales data of pieces (pcs) of vegetable components and fruit, as well as the sale per main component (pcs/mc), were assessed.

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Proteolysis-targeting chimeras (PROTACs) are an emerging drug modality that may offer new opportunities to circumvent some of the limitations associated with traditional small-molecule therapeutics. By analogy with the concept of the 'druggable genome', the question arises as to which potential drug targets might PROTAC-mediated protein degradation be most applicable. Here, we present a systematic approach to the assessment of the PROTAC tractability (PROTACtability) of protein targets using a series of criteria based on data and information from a diverse range of relevant publicly available resources.

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Protein flexibility is challenging for both experimentalists and modellers, especially in the field of drug design. Estrogen Receptor alpha (ERα) is an extensively studied Nuclear Receptor (NR) and a well-known therapeutic target with an important role in development and physiology. It is also a frequent off-target in standard toxicity tests for endocrine disruption.

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Article Synopsis
  • Arterial inflammation from atherosclerosis is a leading global cause of death, with HDAC9 identified as a key player in the disease's progression and complications like stroke and heart attacks.* -
  • Research using hyperlipidemic mice shows that inhibiting HDAC9 with a small molecule (TMP195) reduces inflammation and stabilizes atherosclerotic plaques by affecting macrophage and endothelial cell behavior.* -
  • TMP195 not only mitigates lesions and their vulnerability but also lowers inflammatory markers in monocytes from patients with atherosclerosis, indicating its potential as a therapeutic approach for atheroprotection.*
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Poor aqueous solubility and dissolution of drug candidates drive key decisions on lead series optimization during drug discovery, on formulation optimization, and clinical studies planning during drug development. The interpretation of the in vivo relevance of early pharmaceutical profiling is often confounded by the multiple factors affecting oral systemic exposure. There is growing evidence that in vitro drug solubility may underestimate the true in vivo solubility and lead to drug misclassification.

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Article Synopsis
  • Virtual screening (VS) is essential for drug development, but accurately estimating binding affinities for targets like Estrogen Receptor alpha (ERα) remains challenging and requires specific adjustments.
  • A new integrated approach using both Structure-Based (SBVS) and Ligand-Based VS is proposed, showing that structure-based features significantly outperform ligand-based ones in predicting binding affinities.
  • The developed prediction tool is publicly available on the @TOME server, allowing users to upload ligand datasets for docking and affinity predictions.
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Endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are a broad class of molecules present in our environment that are suspected to cause adverse effects in the endocrine system by interfering with the synthesis, transport, degradation, or action of endogenous ligands. The characterization of the harmful interaction between environmental compounds and their potential cellular targets and the development of robust in vivo, in vitro, and in silico screening methods are important for assessment of the toxic potential of large numbers of chemicals. In this context, computer-aided technologies that will allow for activity prediction of endocrine disruptors and environmental risk assessments are being developed.

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Article Synopsis
  • Scientists are studying specific gene mutations (JAK2, CALR, MPL) in patients with blood disorders called myeloproliferative neoplasms to better understand their health problems.
  • They found some unexpected gene mutations in patients who didn't have the usual ones and used advanced technology to analyze blood samples from 128 patients.
  • Their research showed that certain mutations often happened together and could help doctors find better treatments for these patients’ different conditions.
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This study investigated associations between mindfulness and symptoms of insomnia, depression and anxiety. Mindfulness was disaggregated into five subscales: 'nonreactivity to inner experience', 'observing', 'acting with awareness', 'describing' and 'nonjudging of inner experience'. Twin models were used to examine genetic and environmental influences on mindfulness, symptoms of insomnia, depression and anxiety and on their associations.

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This study examines the associations between dysfunctional belief about sleep (DBAS), its subtypes and insomnia symptoms and estimates the relative contribution of genetic and environmental influences to these variables and the associations between them. The data came from G1219, a twin/sibling study that comprises 862 individuals (aged 22-32 years, 34% male). The Insomnia Symptoms Questionnaire was used to measure insomnia symptoms and a 10-item version of the Dysfunctional Beliefs and Attitudes about Sleep Scale was used to assess DBAS.

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Study Objectives: This study examines the associations between overall pre-sleep arousal, its cognitive and somatic subscales and insomnia symptoms. Furthermore, the relative contribution of genetic and environmental influences on overall pre-sleep arousal, cognitive pre-sleep arousal, somatic pre-sleep arousal, and insomnia symptoms and the association between these variables is estimated.

Methods: The cross-sectional data came from G1219 (wave 5), a twin/sibling study which comprised 862 individuals (aged 22-32 years, 34% males).

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After adjudication by the courts that an individual is not criminally responsible for the offense committed, forensic psychiatrists/psychologists are tasked with evaluating an acquittees' ongoing risk of violence. These findings determine whether an acquittee is retained in a forensic hospital or transferred to a civil psychiatric setting or into the community. Better understanding of risk factors that affect decisions to retain or release acquittees from secure forensic facilities would increase clarity in decision-making, assist evaluators in identifying who may be successful outside of secure settings, and potentially assist in the development and implementation of targeted treatments to address risk factors before and after transfer.

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Research suggests that poor sleep quality is related to the occurrence of sleep paralysis, although the precise relationship between these two variables is unknown. This association has generated interest due to the related possibility that improving sleep quality could help to combat episodes of sleep paralysis. To date, studies examining the association between sleep quality and sleep paralysis have typically measured sleep quality using general measures such as the global score of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI).

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Study Objectives: To estimate genetic and environmental influences on the associations between insomnia and depression symptoms concurrently and longitudinally.

Methods: Behavioral genetic analyses were conducted on data from the British longitudinal G1219 twin/sibling study. One thousand five hundred fiftysix twins and siblings participated at Time 1 (mean age = 20.

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