Publications by authors named "R Saffery"

Background: In a world confronted with new and connected challenges, novel strategies are needed to help children and adults achieve their full potential, to predict, prevent and treat disease, and to achieve equity in services and outcomes. Australia's Generation Victoria (GenV) cohorts are designed for multi-pronged discovery (what could improve outcomes?) and intervention research (what actually works, how much and for whom?). Here, we describe the key features of its protocol.

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Background: Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) is challenging to classify and effectively monitor due to the lack of disease- and subtype-specific biomarkers. A robust molecular signature that tracks with specific JIA features over time is urgently required, and targeted plasma metabolomics may reveal such a signature. The primary aim of this study was to characterise the differences in the plasma metabolome between JIA patients and non-JIA controls and identify specific markers of JIA subtype.

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Article Synopsis
  • Cytokines play a crucial role in childhood diseases' inflammation, but testing is mostly confined to research, and there are no standard reference ranges for healthy children.
  • The study aimed to create an accessible dataset of cytokine levels in the airways and blood of healthy children aged 1 to 16, analyzing how these levels change with age.
  • The researchers identified a core set of cytokines that can help evaluate inflammation and address the need for reference ranges to improve disease diagnosis and monitoring treatment effects.
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Article Synopsis
  • The study examines the relationship between socioeconomic disadvantage and body mass index (BMI) among children and adults while considering genetic predisposition to obesity.
  • By analyzing data from a sizable population-based cohort, the researchers found that children with higher polygenic risk for obesity are more affected by socioeconomic disadvantage.
  • Hypothetical interventions to reduce this disadvantage could significantly lower rates of adolescent overweight/obesity, especially among those with high genetic risk, suggesting that addressing childhood disadvantage may be an effective strategy for obesity prevention.
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Background: Respiratory diseases are a common cause of morbidity and hospitalization for children. Despite this, treatment options are limited and are often ineffective. The development of curative or disease-modifying treatments for children relies on a better understanding of underlying immunity in the early airway.

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