Risk of invasive meningococcal disease in children and adults with HIV in England: a population-based cohort study.

Background: Recent studies have identified HIV infection as a potential risk factor for invasive meningococcal disease (IMD), suggesting that HIV-infected individuals could benefit from meningococcal vaccination to reduce their risk of this rare, but severe and potentially fatal infection. In the United Kingdom, as in most industrialised countries, HIV is not considered a risk factor for IMD.

Methods: IMD incidence and relative risk by age group and meningococcal capsular group in HIV-positive compared with HIV-uninfected individuals was estimated through data linkage of national datasets in England between 2011 and 2013.

Blood donors in England and North Wales: demography and patterns of donation.

Background: As populations in the developed world shift toward an older and more ethnically diverse population, the challenges of recruiting and retaining sufficient donors to secure an adequate, safe supply of blood in the future will increase.

Study Design And Methods: The study population included all first-time (n = 348,740) and repeat (n = 1,805,255) blood donors and their donations (n = 3,854,460) received by NHS Blood and Transplant during 2010 and 2011. Rates of new and repeat donors per 1000 population were estimated using Office for National Statistics 2011 population estimates.

Circumcision among men who have sex with men in London, United Kingdom: an unlikely strategy for HIV prevention.

Objectives: To explore attitudes toward circumcision among men who have sex with men (MSM) in London and the feasibility of conducting research into circumcision and HIV prevention in this population.

Methods: A convenience sample of MSM visiting central London gyms completed a confidential, self-administered questionnaire between May and June 2008. Information was collected on participants' demographic characteristics, self-reported HIV status, sexual behavior, circumcision status, attitudes toward circumcision, and willingness to participate in research on circumcision and HIV prevention.

Proteomic analysis of chronic pancreatitis and pancreatic adenocarcinoma.

Background & Aims: Markers to differentiate among pancreatic adenocarcinoma, chronic pancreatitis, and normal pancreas would be of significant clinical utility. This study was therefore designed to analyze the proteome of such specimens and identify new candidate proteins for differential diagnosis.

Methods: A PowerBlot analysis with more than 900 well-characterized antibodies was performed with tissue specimens from patients with chronic pancreatitis, pancreatic adenocarcinoma, and normal pancreas.

GeneMCL in microarray analysis.

Accurately and reliably identifying the actual number of clusters present with a dataset of gene expression profiles, when no additional information on cluster structure is available, is a problem addressed by few algorithms. GeneMCL transforms microarray analysis data into a graph consisting of nodes connected by edges, where the nodes represent genes, and the edges represent the similarity in expression of those genes, as given by a proximity measurement. This measurement is taken to be the Pearson correlation coefficient combined with a local non-linear rescaling step.

Intrinsic chemoresistance to gemcitabine is associated with decreased expression of BNIP3 in pancreatic cancer.

Purpose: Although chemotherapy with gemcitabine is a common mode of treatment of pancreatic cancer, 75% of patients do not benefit from this therapy. It is likely that the sensitivity of cancer cells to gemcitabine is determined by a number of different factors.

Experimental Design: To identify genes that might contribute to resistance to gemcitabine, 15 pancreatic cancer cell lines were subjected to gemcitabine treatment.

Expression profiles in the progression of ductal carcinoma in the breast.

An understanding of the multi-step nature of cancer as it is in the breast, as a series of pivotal genetic/epigenetic modifications is irrefutably a milestone in diagnostics, prognostics and eventually providing a cure. Here we have utilised a variant of analysis of variance (ANOVA) as a model for the identification and tracking of specific mRNA species whose transcription has been significantly altered at each grade in the progression of ductal carcinoma, making it possible to correlate histological progression with the genetic events underlying breast cancer. We show that in the progression of ductal carcinomas, from grade 1 to 3, there is a reduction in the actual number of mRNA species, which are significantly over or under expressed.