Publications by authors named "Rym Ben Othman"

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  • - Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a widespread health problem linked to chronic inflammation, which worsens the disease and leads to complications like cardiovascular issues.
  • - A study involving 522 diabetes patients compared the effects of insulin and metformin on inflammatory markers and complications, revealing that insulin users had significantly higher rates of microvascular problems like retinopathy and neuropathy compared to those on metformin.
  • - Results showed that insulin treatment lowered certain inflammatory markers (TNF-α and IL-6) but increased adhesion molecules (sE-selectin and sP-selectin), while metformin showed different inflammatory profiles, suggesting that treatment choices could influence disease progression differently.
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  • Neonatal sepsis is a serious condition with vague symptoms, making early diagnosis challenging; researchers aimed to identify gene expression biomarkers at birth to improve early detection.
  • In a study of 720 healthy full-term newborns, they compared gene expression data from those later hospitalized for early-onset sepsis (EOS) and others who remained healthy, identifying significant genetic differences.
  • A 4-gene signature (HSPH1, BORA, NCAPG2, PRIM1) was developed, showing high predictive accuracy for EOS at birth, indicating that even healthy-appearing infants may already exhibit signs of future sepsis through gene expression changes.
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  • - The study investigates how a personalized dietary plan affects kidney stone formation (urolithiasis) and related urinary parameters over 3 months in patients with different types of kidney stones.
  • - It involved 69 patients with various types of stones and measured changes in urinary components like calcium, oxalate, and uric acid before and after the dietary intervention.
  • - Results showed significant reductions in urinary oxalate levels and improvements in crystalluria for some stone types, highlighting the positive impact of diet in managing kidney stones.
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Understanding of newborn immune ontogeny in the first week of life will enable age-appropriate strategies for safeguarding vulnerable newborns against infectious diseases. Here we conducted an observational study exploring the immunological profile of infants longitudinally throughout their first week of life. Our Expanded Program on Immunization - Human Immunology Project Consortium (EPIC-HIPC) studies the epigenetic regulation of systemic immunity using small volumes of peripheral blood samples collected from West African neonates on days of life (DOL) 0, 1, 3, and 7.

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Introduction: Sarcopenia is a clinical condition defined as low skeletal muscle mass and function. It has been identified and described as a geriatric syndrome, but it may arise in individuals with obesity at any age.

Aim: screen for sarcopenia in obese adults and identify the nutritional, clinical and biological risk factors associated with the development of sarcopenic obesity (SO+).

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The first few days of life are characterized by rapid external and internal changes that require substantial immune system adaptations. Despite growing evidence of the impact of this period on lifelong immune health, this period remains largely uncharted. To identify factors that may impact the trajectory of immune development, we conducted stringently standardized, high-throughput phenotyping of peripheral white blood cell (WBC) populations from 796 newborns across two distinct cohorts (The Gambia, West Africa; Papua New Guinea, Melanesia) in the framework of a Human Immunology Project Consortium (HIPC) study.

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  • Scientists studied how tick bites affect skin to understand diseases caused by ticks.
  • They found many genes that behaved differently in skin right after a tick bite compared to skin taken later, showing how the body reacts over time.
  • The research could help identify markers to predict how a person will respond to tick bites and help with treatments in the future.
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Maternal immunisation, a low cost and high efficacy intervention is recommended for its pathogen specific protection. Evidence suggests that maternal immunisation has another significant impact: reduction of preterm birth (PTB), the single greatest cause of childhood morbidity and mortality globally. Our overarching question is: how does maternal immunisation modify the immune system in pregnant women and/or their newborn to reduce adverse pregnancy outcomes and enhance the newborn infant's capacity to protect itself from infectious diseases during early childhood? To answer this question we are conducting a multi-site, prospective observational cohort study collecting maternal and infant biological samples at defined time points during pregnancy and post-partum from nulliparous women.

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  • A study was conducted to evaluate the potential of pegylated IFNβ-1a in reducing COVID-19 transmission among household contacts of infected individuals in Santiago, Chile, from December 2020 to June 2021.
  • The trial involved 1,172 participants, with households randomly assigned to receive the IFN treatment or standard care, while safety and effectiveness on viral shedding and transmission were monitored.
  • Results indicated no significant effect of IFNβ-1a on the duration of viral shedding or transmission among household contacts, showing the absolute risk reductions were negligible for both outcomes.
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Background: Taste disorders (TDs) have been reported to be very common in patients suffering from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. In most of the hitherto conducted studies, a gustatory assessment was performed on the basis of surveys or self-reports by patients. The aim of our study was to undertake an objective assessment of four basic taste qualities by conducting tasting sessions that allowed detection thresholds in COVID-19 Tunisian patients and to study their associations with inflammation.

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Introduction: The management of obesity is difficult with many failures of lifestyle measures, hence the need to broaden the range of treatments prescribed. The aim of our work was to study the influence of pre and probiotics on weight loss psychological profile and metabolic parameters in obese patients.

Methods: It is a clinical trial involving 45 obese patients, recruited from the Obesity Unit of the National Institute of Nutrition between March and August 2022 divided into three groups: diet only (low-carbohydrate and reduced energy diet), prebiotics (30 g of carob/day) and probiotics (one tablet containing Bifidobacterium longum, Lactobacillus helveticus, Lactococcus lactis, Streptococcus thermophilus/day).

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Introduction: A substantial proportion of obese subjects are metabolically healthy and free from metabolic complications. Many mechanisms that could explain the existence of the metabolically healthy obese phenotype have been suggested, involving in particular a healthy lifestyle and diet. The aim of this study was to study the anthropometric, nutritional and biological profile of two groups: obese with metabolic syndrome (MS+) and obese without metabolic syndrome (MS-).

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A single birth-dose of Hepatitis B vaccine (HepB) can protect newborns from acquiring Hepatitis B infection through vertical transmission, though several follow-up doses are required to induce long-lived protection. In addition to stimulating antibodies, a birth-dose of HepB might also induce polyfunctional CD4 T-cells, which may contribute to initial protection. We investigated whether vaccination with HepB in the first week of life induced detectable antigen-specific CD4 T-cells after only a single dose and following completion of the entire HepB vaccine schedule (3 doses).

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In Australia, there is a paucity of data about the extent and impact of zoonotic tick-related illnesses. Even less is understood about a multifaceted illness referred to as Debilitating Symptom Complexes Attributed to Ticks (DSCATT). Here, we describe a research plan for investigating the aetiology, pathophysiology, and clinical outcomes of human tick-associated disease in Australia.

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Article Synopsis
  • * Researchers found that two types of dendritic cells significantly impact how well a person responds to the HBV vaccine, depending on their baseline state before vaccination.
  • * By analyzing gene expression in these dendritic cell subsets and using machine learning, they developed models that can better predict how effective a vaccine will be for different individuals based on their pre-vaccination immune cell characteristics.
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Background: SARS-CoV-2 infection rapidly spreads in populations due to the high rates of community transmission. Interrupting the shedding of SARS-CoV-2 may reduce the incidence of Coronavirus Disease 19 (COVID-19). Herein we provide a protocol for a cluster randomized trial that will examine the effectiveness of treatment with interferon (IFN) ß-1a compared to standard of care in limiting the transmission of SARS-CoV-2.

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The Expanded Program for Immunization Consortium - Human Immunology Project Consortium study aims to employ systems biology to identify and characterize vaccine-induced biomarkers that predict immunogenicity in newborns. Key to this effort is the establishment of the Data Management Core (DMC) to provide reliable data and bioinformatic infrastructure for centralized curation, storage, and analysis of multiple de-identified "omic" datasets. The DMC established a cloud-based architecture using Amazon Web Services to track, store, and share data according to National Institutes of Health standards.

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The BCG vaccine has long been recognized for reducing the risk to suffer from infectious diseases unrelated to its target disease, tuberculosis. Evidence from human trials demonstrate substantial reductions in all-cause mortality, especially in the first week of life. Observational studies have identified an association between BCG vaccination and reduced risk of respiratory infectious disease and clinical malaria later in childhood.

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Background: Vaccination remains one of the most effective means of reducing the burden of infectious diseases globally. Improving our understanding of the molecular basis for effective vaccine response is of paramount importance if we are to ensure the success of future vaccine development efforts.

Methods: We applied cutting edge multi-omics approaches to extensively characterize temporal molecular responses following vaccination with hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccine.

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Article Synopsis
  • Conventional vaccine design has traditionally relied on trial and error, but major diseases like tuberculosis and HIV still lack effective vaccines due to gaps in our understanding of immune responses at the molecular level.
  • Recent advancements in systems biology provide tools for in-depth analysis, but effective studies require intensive blood and tissue sampling from humans, which have yet to be fully developed and validated.
  • In a study of 15 healthy adults immunized with the hepatitis B vaccine, extensive sampling allowed for comprehensive immune response analysis, demonstrating the feasibility of such studies and the potential for improved vaccine design through data integration.
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Infection contributes to significant morbidity and mortality particularly in the very young and in low- and middle-income countries. While vaccines are a highly cost-effective tool against infectious disease little is known regarding the cellular and molecular pathways by which vaccines induce protection at an early age. Immunity is distinct in early life and greater precision is required in our understanding of mechanisms of early life protection to inform development of new pediatric vaccines.

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Death from sepsis in the neonatal period remains a serious threat for millions. Within 3 days of administration, bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccination can reduce mortality from neonatal sepsis in human newborns, but the underlying mechanism for this rapid protection is unknown. We found that BCG was also protective in a mouse model of neonatal polymicrobial sepsis, where it induced granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) within hours of administration.

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Immune signatures measured at baseline and immediately prior to vaccination may predict the immune response to vaccination. Such pre-vaccine assessment might allow not only population-based, but also more personalized vaccination strategies ('precision vaccination'). If baseline immune signatures are predictive, the underlying mechanism they reflect may also determine vaccination outcome.

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