Publications by authors named "Richard Damien"

Purpose: High doses of amoxicillin are recommended to treat severe infections such as endocarditis. Amoxicillin causes dose-dependent toxicities, in particular crystal nephropathy. Toxicity could be avoided by monitoring of amoxicillin trough plasma concentrations (ATPC).

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Peripheral nervous system (PNS) toxicity assessment in non-clinical safety studies is challenging and relies mostly on histopathological assessment. The present work aims to identify blood-based biomarkers that could detect peripheral neuropathy in rats upon exposure to neurotoxic compounds. Three anticancer agents (oxaliplatin, cisplatin, paclitaxel) and a developmental compound (NVS-1) were assessed in male rats (Wistar Han).

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  • Streptococcus mitis is a major contributor to infective endocarditis (IE), but its genetics and disease-causing abilities are not well understood due to the disease's rarity.
  • Researchers conducted whole genome sequencing on 129 S. mitis samples from UK bloodstream infections over 15 years, finding a high level of genetic diversity among isolates without a single dominant lineage.
  • The study identified a variable presence of virulence genes, suggesting that S. mitis acts as an accidental pathogen in IE cases rather than being driven by specific resistant or aggressive strains.
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  • Emergency doctors experienced more stress during a 24-hour shift compared to a 14-hour night shift, which lasted for several days.
  • A study measured stress hormones called catecholamines in 17 doctors during different work shifts and found that certain hormone levels changed based on the length and timing of their shifts.
  • It was suggested that doctors should limit working long 24-hour shifts to help reduce stress, which can lead to health problems later on.
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Volatile anesthetics have been shown in different studies to reduce ischemia reperfusion injury (IRI). Ex vivo lung perfusion (EVLP) facilitates graft evaluation, extends preservation time and potentially enables injury repair and improvement of lung quality. We hypothesized that ventilating lungs with sevoflurane during EVLP would reduce lung injury and improve lung function.

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Purpose: Irinotecan has considerable importance in the treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC). UDP-glucoronyltransferase (UGT) 1A1 is responsible for the inactivation of SN-38, a metabolite of irinotecan. Depending on UGT1A1 polymorphism, the activity of the UGT enzyme can be reduced leading to more frequent occurrence of adverse events related to irinotecan.

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Identifying compounds that are neurotoxic either toward the central or the peripheral nervous systems (CNS or PNS) would greatly benefit early stages of drug development by derisking liabilities and selecting safe compounds. Unfortunately, so far assays mostly rely on histopathology findings often identified after repeated-dose toxicity studies in animals. The European NeuroDeRisk project aimed to provide comprehensive tools to identify compounds likely inducing neurotoxicity.

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Bacterial adaptation is facilitated by the presence of mobile genetic elements and horizontal gene transfer of genes, such as those coding for virulence factors or resistance to antimicrobial compounds. A hybrid assembly of Nanopore MinIon long-read and Illumina short-read data was produced from a copper-resistant pv.  strain isolated from symptomatic broccoli leaves in Mauritius.

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Introduction: Aseptic abscess (AA) syndrome is a rare disease whose pathophysiology is unknown. It is often associated with inflammatory bowel disease and characterised by sterile inflammation with collections of neutrophils affecting several organs, especially the spleen. Microbiota are known to influence local and systemic immune responses, and both gut and oral microbiota perturbations have been reported in diseases associated with AA syndrome.

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  • The study investigates bat-borne coronaviruses in the UK, screening 48 faecal samples from various bat species.
  • Researchers identified nine complete coronavirus genomes, including two new species, highlighting a range of coronaviruses such as alphacoronaviruses and a MERS-related betacoronavirus.
  • One sarbecovirus was found to bind the human ACE2 receptor, indicating potential for human infection, but further mutations are needed for enhanced infectivity, stressing the importance of monitoring these viruses due to their zoonotic risk.
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Background: The injection of morphine from morphine sulfate capsules containing sustained-release microbeads (Skenan®) is a practice frequently described by French intravenous opioid users. They seek an injectable form of substitution for heroin. Depending on how the syringe is prepared, the morphine rates may vary.

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Unlabelled: Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are prevalent in renal transplant (RT) recipients and associated with worse outcomes. Early detection by sensitive diagnostic tests and appropriate treatment strategies in this cohort is therefore crucial, but evidence has shown that current methods may miss genuine infections. Research has shed light on the urinary tract microbial ecology of healthy individuals and nontransplant patients with UTI, but information on the RTx cohort is scant.

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Streptococcus mitis is a common oral commensal and an opportunistic pathogen that causes bacteremia and infective endocarditis; however, the species has received little attention compared to other pathogenic streptococcal species. Effective and easy-to-use molecular typing tools are essential for understanding bacterial population diversity and biology, but schemes specific for S. mitis are not currently available.

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Phthalates and other plasticisers are extensively used in medical devices (MD) from which they can leach out and lead to potential multiple problems for the patients. This exposure is a major issue because it is associated with reproductive and neurodevelopment disorders. The Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICU) population is at high risk due to the daily intensive medical interventions, the reduced ability of newborns to remove these contaminants and their higher sensitivity to endocrine disruptors.

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Aims: Determining dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPD) activity by measuring patient's uracil (U) plasma concentration is mandatory before fluoropyrimidine (FP) administration in France. In this study, we aimed to refine the pre-analytical recommendations for determining U and dihydrouracil (UH ) concentrations, as they are essential in reliable DPD-deficiency testing.

Methods: U and UH concentrations were collected from 14 hospital laboratories.

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  • SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, appeared in late 2019 in China and quickly spread worldwide, undergoing mutations at a rate of about two per month.
  • Major variants like Alpha, Delta, and Omicron emerged, with Alpha and Delta being more transmissible but less effective at evading immunity, while Omicron shows a higher tendency for immune escape and reinfection.
  • As global immunity from vaccinations and prior infections rises, the pandemic is expected to transition to an endemic phase, where the virus's impact may vary from being a mild common cold to a more severe seasonal flu or even a long-term persistent threat.
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Background: Donepezil, a cholinesterase inhibitor approved in Alzheimer's disease, has demonstrated analgesic and preventive effects in animal models of oxaliplatin-induced neuropathy. To improve the clinical interest of donepezil for the management and prevention of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN), a broader validation is required in different animal models of CIPN.

Methods: using rat models of CIPN (bortezomib, paclitaxel, and vincristine), the analgesic and preventive efficacies of donepezil were evaluated on tactile, cold and heat hypersensitivities.

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SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of the COVID-19 pandemic, can infect a wide range of mammals. Since its spread in humans, secondary host jumps of SARS-CoV-2 from humans to multiple domestic and wild populations of mammals have been documented. Understanding the extent of adaptation to these animal hosts is critical for assessing the threat that the spillback of animal-adapted SARS-CoV-2 into humans poses.

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Plasmids provide an efficient vehicle for gene sharing among bacterial populations, playing a key role in bacterial evolution. Network approaches are particularly suitable to represent multipartite relationships and are useful tools to characterize plasmid-mediated gene sharing events. The bacterial family Lysobacteraceae includes plant commensal, plant pathogenic and opportunistic human pathogens for which plasmid-mediated adaptation has been reported.

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The scale of the international efforts to sequence SARS-CoV-2 genomes is unprecedented. Early availability of genomes allowed rapid characterisation of the virus, thus kickstarting many highly successful vaccine development programmes. Worldwide genomic resources have provided a good understanding of the pandemic, supported close monitoring of the emergence of viral genomic diversity and pinpointed those sites to prioritise for functional characterisation.

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Over the past decade, ancient genomics has been used in the study of various pathogens. In this context, herbarium specimens provide a precious source of dated and preserved DNA material, enabling a better understanding of plant disease emergences and pathogen evolutionary history. We report here the first historical genome of a crop bacterial pathogen, Xanthomonas citri pv.

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Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the novel coronavirus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, continues to cause a significant public-health burden and disruption globally. Genomic epidemiology approaches point to most countries in the world having experienced many independent introductions of SARS-CoV-2 during the early stages of the pandemic. However, this situation may change with local lockdown policies and restrictions on travel, leading to the emergence of more geographically structured viral populations and lineages transmitting locally.

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Among postmenopausal women with estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer, more than 80% receive hormone therapy including aromatase inhibitors (AIs). Half of them develop chronic arthralgia - characterized by symmetric articular pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, morning stiffness, myalgia and a decrease in grip strength - which is associated with treatment discontinuation. Only a few animal studies have linked AI treatment to nociception, and none to arthralgia.

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A thorough knowledge of genotypic and phenotypic variations (e.g., virulence, resistance to antimicrobial compounds) in bacteria causing plant disease outbreaks is key for optimizing disease surveillance and management.

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