Real time monitoring of respiratory viral infections in cohort studies using a smartphone app.

Cohort studies investigating respiratory disease pathogenesis aim to pair mechanistic investigations with longitudinal virus detection but are limited by the burden of methods tracking illness over time. In this study, we explored the utility of a purpose-built AERIAL TempTracker smartphone app to assess real-time data collection and adherence monitoring and overall burden to participants, while identifying symptomatic respiratory illnesses in two birth cohort studies. We observed strong adherence with daily app usage over the six-month study period, with positive feedback from participant families.

Virtual BUILD Research Collaboratory: A biomedical data science training using innovative pedagogy to address structures of racism and inequitable stress for undergraduates of color.

Objective: The unprecedented events of 2020 required a pivot in scientific training to better prepare the biomedical research workforce to address global pandemics, structural racism, and social inequities that devastate human health individually and erode it collectively. Furthermore, this pivot had to be accomplished in the virtual environment given the nation-wide lockdown.

Methods: These needs and context led to leveraging of the San Francisco Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (SF BUILD) theories of change to innovate a Virtual BUILD Research Collaboratory (VBRC).

The Value of History and Physical Examination to Optimize Outcomes of Cataract Surgery: A Systematic Review.

This systematic review was conducted to examine the value of the preoperative history and physical (H&P) examination and preoperative care prior to cataract extraction and the resulting outcomes of adverse events, patient experience, and cost. Four databases were searched using appropriate keywords from 2012 to 2022. Observational studies, randomized controlled trials, and quality improvement studies with data on the precataract H&P were included.

The Tissue Response to Hypoxia: How Therapeutic Carbon Dioxide Moves the Response toward Homeostasis and Away from Instability.

Sustained tissue hypoxia is associated with many pathophysiological conditions, including chronic inflammation, chronic wounds, slow-healing fractures, microvascular complications of diabetes, and metastatic spread of tumors. This extended deficiency of oxygen (O) in the tissue sets creates a microenvironment that supports inflammation and initiates cell survival paradigms. Elevating tissue carbon dioxide levels (CO) pushes the tissue environment toward "thrive mode," bringing increased blood flow, added O, reduced inflammation, and enhanced angiogenesis.

Advancing socioecological mental health promotion intervention: A mixed methods exploration of Phase 1 Agenda Gap findings.

Introduction: Protecting and promoting the mental health of youth under 30 years of age is a priority, globally. Yet investment in mental health promotion, which seeks to strengthen the determinants of positive mental health and wellbeing, remains limited relative to prevention, treatment, and recovery. The aim of this paper is to contribute empirical evidence to guide innovation in youth mental health promotion, detailing the early outcomes of Agenda Gap, an intervention centering youth-led policy advocacy to influence positive mental health for individuals, families, communities and society.

Affirming NIH's commitment to addressing structural racism in the biomedical research enterprise.

NIH has acknowledged and committed to ending structural racism. The framework for NIH's approach, summarized here, includes understanding barriers; developing robust health disparities/equity research; improving its internal culture; being transparent and accountable; and changing the extramural ecosystem so that diversity, equity, and inclusion are reflected in funded research and the biomedical workforce.

Assessing the impacts of the Agenda Gap intervention for youth mental health promotion through policy engagement: a study protocol.

Background: Mental health challenges are a leading health concern for youth globally, requiring a comprehensive approach incorporating promotion, prevention and treatment within a healthy public policy framework. However, the broad enactment of this vision has yet to be realized. Further, mental health evidence specific to youth is still emerging and has not yet focused at a policy level.

Large phonon time-of-flight fluctuations in expanding flat condensates of cold Fermi gases.

We reexamine how quantum density fluctuations in condensates of ultra-cold Fermi gases lead to fluctuations in phonon times-of-flight, an effect that increases as density is reduced. We suggest that these effects should be measurable in pancake-like (two-dimensional) condensates on their release from their confining optical traps, providing their initial (width/thickness) aspect ratio is suitably large.

The NIDDK High School Short-Term Research Experience for Underrepresented Persons.

Background: Increasing the pipeline of aspiring minority biomedical/health professionals is a crucial component to diversifying the health science workforce. The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) created the High School Short-Term Research Experience for Underrepresented Persons (HS-STEP-UP) to provide introductory biomedical/biobehavioral research experiences to promising high school students, who are traditionally underrepresented in the biomedical/biobehavioral sciences. The program reaches out to African American and Lationo/Hispanic students, as well as Native American students and students from the United States Territories.

Lack of persistent microchimerism in contemporary transfused trauma patients.

Background: Following transfusion, donor white blood cells (WBCs) can persist long-term in the recipient, a phenomenon termed transfusion-associated microchimerism (TA-MC). Prior studies suggest TA-MC is limited to transfusion following traumatic injury, and is not prevented by leukoreduction.

Study Design And Methods: We conducted a prospective cohort study at a major trauma center to evaluate TA-MC following injury.

Building the Network of Minority Health Research Investigators: A Novel Program to Enhance Leadership and Success of Underrepresented Minorities in Biomedical Research.

Background: To address the myriad of health problems and disparities that affect the United States (US) population, the mix of health care professionals and researchers must reflect the full diversity of the nation. There continues to be discrepancy between the number of trained scientists and biomedical researchers from underrepresented populations relative to the overall population. A scarcity of formal and informal networking opportunities for minority researchers and health care providers contribute to this lack of diversity.

Integrated Proteogenomic Characterization of Human High-Grade Serous Ovarian Cancer.

To provide a detailed analysis of the molecular components and underlying mechanisms associated with ovarian cancer, we performed a comprehensive mass-spectrometry-based proteomic characterization of 174 ovarian tumors previously analyzed by The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), of which 169 were high-grade serous carcinomas (HGSCs). Integrating our proteomic measurements with the genomic data yielded a number of insights into disease, such as how different copy-number alternations influence the proteome, the proteins associated with chromosomal instability, the sets of signaling pathways that diverse genome rearrangements converge on, and the ones most associated with short overall survival. Specific protein acetylations associated with homologous recombination deficiency suggest a potential means for stratifying patients for therapy.

Using the CPTAC Assay Portal to Identify and Implement Highly Characterized Targeted Proteomics Assays.

The Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC) of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) has launched an Assay Portal (http://assays.cancer.gov) to serve as an open-source repository of well-characterized targeted proteomic assays.

Compliance with Surgical Care Improvement Project for Body Temperature Management (SCIP Inf-10) Is Associated with Improved Clinical Outcomes.

Background: In an effort to measure and improve the quality of perioperative care, the Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP) was introduced in 2003. The SCIP guidelines are evidence-based process measures designed to reduce preventable morbidity, but it remains to be determined whether SCIP-measure compliance is associated with improved outcomes.

Methods: The authors retrospectively analyzed the electronic medical record data from 45,304 inpatients at a single institution to assess whether compliance with SCIP Inf-10 (body temperature management) was associated with a reduced incidence of morbidity and mortality.

A relationship between the transient structure in the monomeric state and the aggregation propensities of α-synuclein and β-synuclein.

α-Synuclein is an intrinsically disordered protein whose aggregation is implicated in Parkinson's disease. A second member of the synuclein family, β-synuclein, shares significant sequence similarity with α-synuclein but is much more resistant to aggregation. β-Synuclein is missing an 11-residue stretch in the central non-β-amyloid component region that forms the core of α-synuclein amyloid fibrils, yet insertion of these residues into β-synuclein to produce the βSHC construct does not markedly increase the aggregation propensity.

Comprehensive quantitative analysis of ovarian and breast cancer tumor peptidomes.

Aberrant degradation of proteins is associated with many pathological states, including cancers. Mass spectrometric analysis of tumor peptidomes, the intracellular and intercellular products of protein degradation, has the potential to provide biological insights on proteolytic processing in cancer. However, attempts to use the information on these smaller protein degradation products from tumors for biomarker discovery and cancer biology studies have been fairly limited to date, largely due to the lack of effective approaches for robust peptidomics identification and quantification and the prevalence of confounding factors and biases associated with sample handling and processing.

Linking cancer genome to proteome: NCI's investment into proteogenomics.

Advances in both targeted and unbiased MS-based proteomics are now at a mature stage for comprehensively and reproducibly characterizing a large part of the cancer proteome. These developments combined with the extensive genomic characterization of several cancer types by large-scale initiatives such as the International Cancer Genome Consortium and Cancer Genome Atlas Project have paved the way for proteogenomic analysis of omics datasets and integration methods. The advances serve as the basis for the National Cancer Institute's Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium and this article highlights its current work and future steps in the area of proteogenomics.

Proteogenomic characterization of human colon and rectal cancer.

Extensive genomic characterization of human cancers presents the problem of inference from genomic abnormalities to cancer phenotypes. To address this problem, we analysed proteomes of colon and rectal tumours characterized previously by The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and perform integrated proteogenomic analyses. Somatic variants displayed reduced protein abundance compared to germline variants.

Development of a risk-adjusted blood utilization metric.

Background: Blood utilization has become an important outcome measure for surgical patients because of the recognized risks and costs associated with transfusion. However, comparisons of blood utilization between providers or institutions are difficult, because there is no standard method for risk adjustment when assessing surgical blood requirements. We examined whether accepted diagnosis-related group (DRG) case mix indexes can be used for this purpose.

Cataract surgery in patients with left ventricular assist device support.

Unlabelled: Left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) have been increasingly used for 20 years in terminally ill patients with advanced heart failure or awaiting cardiac transplantation. Despite improvement in morbidity and mortality from use of these devices, quality of life may be limited by cataract. Access to cataract surgery in this predominantly elderly population is essential but limited by unfamiliarity with these devices.

Competing Discourses about Youth Sexual Exploitation in Canadian News Media.

Media holds the power to create, maintain, or break down stigmatizing attitudes, which affect policies, funding, and services. To understand how Canadian news media depicts the commercial sexual exploitation of children and youth, we examined 835 Canadian newspaper articles from 1989-2008 using a mixed methods critical discourse analysis approach, comparing representations to existing research about sexually exploited youth. Despite research evidence that equal rates of boys and girls experience exploitation, Canadian news media depicted exploited youth predominantly as heterosexual girls, and described them alternately as victims or workers in a trade, often both in the same story.