Background: Difficulty discriminating bacterial versus viral etiologies of infection drives unwarranted antibacterial prescriptions and, therefore, antibacterial resistance.
Methods: Utilizing a rapid portable test that measures peripheral blood host gene expression to discriminate bacterial and viral etiologies of infection (the HR-B/V assay on Biomeme's polymerase chain reaction-based Franklin platform), we tested 3 cohorts of subjects with suspected infection: the HR-B/V training cohort, the HR-B/V technical correlation cohort, and a coronavirus disease 2019 cohort.
Results: The Biomeme HR-B/V test showed very good performance at discriminating bacterial and viral infections, with a bacterial model accuracy of 84.
Our group has developed an extra-uterine environment for newborn development (EXTEND) using an ovine model, that aims to mimic the womb to improve short and long-term health outcomes associated with prematurity. This study's objective was to determine the histologic and transcriptomic consequences of EXTEND on the brain. Histology and RNA-sequencing was conducted on brain tissue from three cohorts of lambs: control pre-term (106-107 days), control late pre-term (127 days), and EXTEND lambs who were born pre-term and supported on EXTEND until late pre-term age (125-128 days).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFContemp Clin Trials
January 2025
Background: Hereditary cancer syndromes cause a high lifetime risk of early, aggressive cancers. Early recognition of individuals at risk can allow risk-reducing interventions that improve morbidity and mortality. Family health history applications that gather data directly from patients could alleviate barriers to risk assessment in the clinical appointment, such as lack of provider knowledge of genetics guidelines and limited time in the clinical appointment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChronic pain is a prevalent condition with enormous economic burden. Opioids such as tramadol, codeine, and hydrocodone are commonly used to treat chronic pain; these drugs are activated to more potent opioid receptor agonists by the hepatic CYP2D6 enzyme. Results from clinical studies and mechanistic understandings suggest that CYP2D6-guided therapy will improve pain control and reduce adverse drug events.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Identifying patients with the optimal risk:benefit for ticagrelor is challenging. The aim was to identify ticagrelor-responsive platelet transcripts as biomarkers of platelet function and cardiovascular risk.
Methods: Healthy volunteers (n=58, discovery; n=49, validation) were exposed to 4 weeks of ticagrelor with platelet RNA data, platelet function, and self-reported bleeding measured pre-/post-ticagrelor.
Renal transplantation from hepatitis C (HCV) nucleic acid amplification test-positive (NAAT-positive) donors to uninfected recipients has greatly increased the organ donation pool. However, there is concern for adverse outcomes in these recipients due to dysregulated immunologic activation secondary to active inflammation from acute viremia at the time of transplantation. This includes increased rates of cytomegalovirus (CMV) DNAemia and allograft rejection.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Systematically assessing disease risk can improve population health by identifying those eligible for enhanced prevention/screening strategies. This study aims to determine the clinical impact of a systematic risk assessment in diverse primary care populations.
Methods: Hybrid implementation-effectiveness trial of a family health history-based health risk assessment (HRA) tied to risk-based guideline recommendations enrolling from 2014-2017 with 12 months of post-intervention survey data and 24 months of electronic medical record (EMR) data capture.
Opioid prescribing for postoperative pain management is challenging because of inter-patient variability in opioid response and concern about opioid addiction. Tramadol, hydrocodone, and codeine depend on the cytochrome P450 2D6 (CYP2D6) enzyme for formation of highly potent metabolites. Individuals with reduced or absent CYP2D6 activity (i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAims: Gene expression biosignatures may hold promise to individualize antiplatelet therapy in conjunction with current guidelines and risk scores. The Aspirin Response Signature (ARS) score is comprised of a weighted sum of correlated, pro-thrombotic gene transcripts measured in whole blood. In prior work where volunteers were exposed to aspirin 325 mg daily, higher ARS score was associated with lower platelet function; separately, in a clinical cohort of patients, higher ARS scores were associated with increased risk of adverse cardiovascular events.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAspirin has known effects beyond inhibiting platelet cyclooxygenase-1 (COX-1) that have been incompletely characterized. Transcriptomics can comprehensively characterize the on- and off-target effects of medications. We used a systems pharmacogenomics approach of aspirin exposure in volunteers coupled with serial platelet function and purified platelet mRNA sequencing to test the hypothesis that aspirin's effects on the platelet transcriptome are associated with platelet function.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Candidemia is one of the most common nosocomial bloodstream infections in the United States, causing significant morbidity and mortality in hospitalized patients, but the breadth of the host response to Candida infections in human patients remains poorly defined.
Methods: In order to better define the host response to Candida infection at the transcriptional level, we performed RNA sequencing on serial peripheral blood samples from 48 hospitalized patients with blood cultures positive for Candida species and compared them to patients with other acute viral, bacterial, and non-infectious illnesses. Regularized multinomial regression was utilized to develop pathogen class-specific gene expression classifiers.
Background: The presence of hereditary cancer syndromes in cancer patients can have an impact on current clinical care and post-treatment prevention and surveillance measures. Several barriers inhibit identification of hereditary cancer syndromes in routine practice. This paper describes the impact of using a patient-facing family health history risk assessment platform on the identification and referral of breast cancer patients to genetic counselling services.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Risk assessment is a precision medicine technique that can be used to enhance population health when applied to prevention. Several barriers limit the uptake of risk assessment in health care systems; and little is known about the potential impact that adoption of systematic risk assessment for screening and prevention in the primary care population might have. Here we present results of a first of its kind multi-institutional study of a precision medicine tool for systematic risk assessment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAn amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground There are sex differences in the efficacy and safety of aspirin for the prevention of myocardial infarction and stroke. Whether this is explained by underlying differences in platelet reactivity and aspirin response remains poorly understood. Methods and Results Healthy volunteers (n=378 208 women) and patients with coronary artery disease or coronary artery disease risk factors (n=217 112 women) took aspirin for 4 weeks.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPrimary care providers (PCPs) will play an important role in precision medicine. However, their lack of training and knowledge about genetics and genomics may limit their ability to advise patients or interpret or utilize test results. We evaluated PCPs' awareness of the role of genetics/genomics in health, knowledge about key concepts in genomic medicine, perception/attitudes towards direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing, and their level of confidence/comfort in discussing testing with patients prior to and after undergoing DTC testing through the 23andMe Health + Ancestry Service.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The IGNITE network funds six genomic medicine projects. Though interventions varied, we hypothesized that synergies across projects could be leveraged to better understand the participant experiences with genomic medicine interventions. Therefore, we performed cross-network analyses to identify associations between participant demographics and attitudes toward the intervention (attitude), plan to share results (share), and quality of life (QOL).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Investigate sociodemographic differences in the use of a patient-facing family health history (FHH)-based risk assessment platform.
Methods: In this large multisite trial with a diverse patient population, we evaluated the relationship between sociodemographic factors and FHH health risk assessment uptake using an information technology (IT) platform. The entire study was administered online, including consent, baseline survey, and risk assessment completion.
Purpose: This paper describes the implementation outcomes associated with integrating a family health history-based risk assessment and clinical decision support platform within primary care clinics at four diverse healthcare systems.
Methods: A type III hybrid implementation-effectiveness trial. Uptake and implementation processes were evaluated using the Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance (RE-AIM) framework.
We examined common variation in asthma risk by conducting a meta-analysis of worldwide asthma genome-wide association studies (23,948 asthma cases, 118,538 controls) of individuals from ethnically diverse populations. We identified five new asthma loci, found two new associations at two known asthma loci, established asthma associations at two loci previously implicated in the comorbidity of asthma plus hay fever, and confirmed nine known loci. Investigation of pleiotropy showed large overlaps in genetic variants with autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurposeImplementation research provides a structure for evaluating the clinical integration of genomic medicine interventions. This paper describes the Implementing Genomics in Practice (IGNITE) Network's efforts to promote (i) a broader understanding of genomic medicine implementation research and (ii) the sharing of knowledge generated in the network.MethodsTo facilitate this goal, the IGNITE Network Common Measures Working Group (CMG) members adopted the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) to guide its approach to identifying constructs and measures relevant to evaluating genomic medicine as a whole, standardizing data collection across projects, and combining data in a centralized resource for cross-network analyses.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: PCTP (phosphatidylcholine transfer protein) regulates the intermembrane transfer of phosphatidylcholine. Higher platelet PCTP expression is associated with increased platelet responses on activation of protease-activated receptor 4 thrombin receptors noted in black subjects compared with white subjects. Little is known about the regulation of platelet .
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe epigenome provides a substrate through which environmental exposures can exert their effects on gene expression and disease risk, but the relative importance of epigenetic variation on human disease onset and progression is poorly characterized. Asthma is a heterogeneous disease of the airways, for which both onset and clinical course result from interactions between host genotype and environmental exposures, yet little is known about the molecular mechanisms for these interactions. We assessed genome-wide DNA methylation using the Infinium Human Methylation 450K Bead Chip and characterized the transcriptome by RNA sequencing in primary airway epithelial cells from 74 asthmatic and 41 nonasthmatic adults.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFamily health history (FHH) in the context of risk assessment has been shown to positively impact risk perception and behavior change. The added value of genetic risk testing is less certain. The aim of this study was to determine the impact of Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) FHH and genetic risk counseling on behavior and its cognitive precursors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Risk-stratified guidelines can improve quality of care and cost-effectiveness, but their uptake in primary care has been limited. MeTree, a Web-based, patient-facing risk-assessment and clinical decision support tool, is designed to facilitate uptake of risk-stratified guidelines.
Methods: A hybrid implementation-effectiveness trial of three clinics (two intervention, one control).