Publications by authors named "P Meerts"

The genus is revised for DR. Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, based on herbarium taxonomy. Ninety-five taxa are reported (89 species, 1 subspecies, 5 varieties).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Chronic hepatitis B (CHB) poses a significant health challenge globally, and while there are limited treatment options, the oral drug JNJ-64794964 (JNJ-4964) is being tested for its potential effectiveness as a TLR7 agonist.
  • In a phase 1 trial involving healthy volunteers, researchers analyzed blood samples to observe changes in gene expression and immune cell activity after administering JNJ-4964, finding notable increases in interferon-stimulated genes and activated natural killer (NK) and B cells.
  • The results indicate that JNJ-4964 not only triggers a range of immune responses but also provides insights that could help develop biomarkers for monitoring CHB patients treated with TLR7 agonists
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Plant traits, which include various characteristics like morphology and physiology, play a crucial role in how plants interact with their environment and impact ecosystems, making them essential for research in areas like ecology, biodiversity, and environmental management.
  • The TRY database, established in 2007, has become a vital resource for global plant trait data, promoting open access and enabling researchers to identify and fill data gaps for better ecological modeling.
  • Although the TRY database provides extensive data, there are significant areas lacking consistent measurements, particularly for continuous traits that vary among individuals in their environments, presenting a major challenge that requires collaboration and coordinated efforts to address.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Understanding the patterns of biodiversity distribution and what influences them is a fundamental pre-requisite for effective conservation and sustainable utilisation of biodiversity. Such knowledge is increasingly urgent as biodiversity responds to the ongoing effects of global climate change. Nowhere is this more acute than in species-rich tropical Africa, where so little is known about plant diversity and its distribution.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The tropical vegetation of Africa is characterized by high levels of species diversity but is undergoing important shifts in response to ongoing climate change and increasing anthropogenic pressures. Although our knowledge of plant species distribution patterns in the African tropics has been improving over the years, it remains limited. Here we present RAINBIO, a unique comprehensive mega-database of georeferenced records for vascular plants in continental tropical Africa.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF