Aerosols containing biological material (i.e., bioaerosols) impact public health by transporting toxins, allergens, and diseases and impact the climate by nucleating ice crystals and cloud droplets.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe sex chromosomes contain complex, important genes impacting medical phenotypes, but differ from the autosomes in their ploidy and large repetitive regions. To enable technology developers along with research and clinical laboratories to evaluate variant detection on male sex chromosomes X and Y, we create a small variant benchmark set with 111,725 variants for the Genome in a Bottle HG002 reference material. We develop an active evaluation approach to demonstrate the benchmark set reliably identifies errors in challenging genomic regions and across short and long read callsets.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSickle cell trait (SCT) has been associated with alterations in various immune-related laboratory parameters including lower circulating lymphocyte counts. To further characterize the impact of SCT on the immune system, we performed flow cytometry of monocyte and lymphocyte immune cell subsets from peripheral blood mononuclear cells collected in a large, community-based cohort of SCT-positive (n = 68) and SCT-negative (n = 959) Black adults. SCT was significantly associated with lower proportions of CD8 and CD4 T cell subsets that include senescent-like markers of repeated immune system challenges.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe rapid advances in genomics over the last decade have come to fruition amid intense public discussions of justice in medicine and health care. While much emphasis has been placed on increasing diversity in genomics research participation, an overly narrow focus on recruitment eschews recognition of the disparities in health care that will ultimately shape access to the benefits of genomic medicine. In this essay, we suggest that achieving a just genomics, both now and in the future, requires an explicit ELSI of translation-normative and pragmatic scholarship that embraces the interconnectedness of research and clinical care and centers the obligations of researchers, institutions, and funders to mitigate inequities throughout the translational pipeline.
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