Publications by authors named "S L Burnard"

Background: Hypomethylating agents (HMA), such as azacytidine (AZA) and decitabine (DAC), are epigenetic therapies used to treat some patients with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) and myelodysplastic syndrome. HMAs act in a replication-dependent manner to remove DNA methylation from the genome. However, AML cells targeted by HMA therapy are often quiescent within the bone marrow, where oxygen levels are low.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Problem: UK midwives report high work-related stress, which can negatively impact their health and wellbeing, with many considering leaving the profession.

Background: An occupational stress audit guides the implementation of stress management intervention, by identifying which stressors have the most negative impact and why, and highlighting "at risk" groups.

Aim: To conduct a concurrent mixed-methods stress audit with UK midwives in an NHS Trust.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Epigenetic mechanisms, like DNA methylation (DNAm), affect how DNA is expressed without altering the sequence and are linked to diseases, including multiple sclerosis (MS).
  • This study analyzed DNA methylation profiles in a large group of people with MS and found significant differences compared to healthy controls that are independent of known genetic risk factors.
  • The findings highlight that these methylation differences mainly occur in immune cells such as B cells and monocytes, shedding light on specific biological pathways involved in the disease.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Global changes in DNA methylation are observed in development and disease, and single-cell analyses are highlighting the heterogeneous regulation of these processes. However, technical challenges associated with single-cell analysis of DNA methylation limit these studies. We present single-cell transposable element methylation sequencing (scTEM-seq) for cost-effective estimation of average DNA methylation levels.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Conventional genome-wide association studies (GWASs) of complex traits, such as Multiple Sclerosis (MS), are reliant on per-SNP -values and are therefore heavily burdened by multiple testing correction. Thus, in order to detect more subtle alterations, ever increasing sample sizes are required, while ignoring potentially valuable information that is readily available in existing datasets. To overcome this, we used penalised regression incorporating elastic net with a stability selection method by iterative subsampling to detect the potential interaction of loci with MS risk.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF