Emerging Concepts in Precision Medicine and Cardiovascular Diseases in Racial and Ethnic Minority Populations.

Cardiovascular diseases remain the leading cause of mortality and a major contributor to preventable deaths worldwide. The dominant modifiable risk factors and the social and environmental determinants that increase cardiovascular risk are known, and collectively, are as important in racial and ethnic minority populations as they are in majority populations. Their prevention and treatment remain the foundation for cardiovascular health promotion and disease prevention.

Progress Toward Improved Cardiovascular Health in the United States.

The Healthy People Initiative has served as the leading disease prevention and health promotion roadmap for the nation since its inception in 1979. Healthy People 2020 (HP2020), the initiative's current iteration, sets a national prevention agenda with health goals and objectives by identifying nationwide health improvement priorities and providing measurable objectives and targets from 2010 to 2020. Central to the overall mission and vision of Healthy People is an emphasis on achieving health equity, eliminating health disparities, and improving health for all population groups.

Building the Next Generation of Implementation Science Careers to Advance Health Equity.

Rapid advancements in translational research have produced innovative clinical discoveries and evidence-based interventions that are ready for uptake in real-world settings, creating vast opportunities and challenges for implementation science. However, there is an inadequate research workforce to study effective strategies and delivery of implementation to advance the field. Novel career development initiatives will build scholars for the next generation of implementation science to bridge research to practice for diverse populations to advance health equity, specifically with a strategic focus on heart, lung, blood and sleep diseases and conditions.

HLBS-PopOmics: an online knowledge base to accelerate dissemination and implementation of research advances in population genomics to reduce the burden of heart, lung, blood, and sleep disorders.

Recent dramatic advances in multiomics research coupled with exponentially increasing volume, complexity, and interdisciplinary nature of publications are making it challenging for scientists to stay up-to-date on the literature. Strategies to address this challenge include the creation of online databases and warehouses to support timely and targeted dissemination of research findings. Although most of the early examples have been in cancer genomics and pharmacogenomics, the approaches used can be adapted to support investigators in heart, lung, blood, and sleep (HLBS) disorders research.

Genetic characterization of physical activity behaviours in university students enrolled in kinesiology degree programs.

Studies of physical activity behaviours have increasingly shown the importance of heritable factors such as genetic variation. Nonsynonymous polymorphisms of alpha-actinin 3 (ACTN3) and the β-adrenergic receptors 1 and 3 (ADRB1 and ADRB3) have been previously associated with exercise capacity and cardiometabolic health. We thus hypothesized that these polymorphisms are also related to physical activity behaviours in young adults.

The science of sex and gender in human health: online courses to create a foundation for sex and gender accountability in biomedical research and treatment.

Background: Sex and gender differences play a significant role in the course and outcome of conditions that affect specific organ systems in the human body. Research on differences in the effects of medical intervention has helped scientists develop a number of sex- and gender-specific guidelines on the treatment and management of these conditions. An online series of courses, "The Science of Sex and Gender in Human Health," developed by the National Institutes of Health Office of Research on Women's Health and the U.

Advancement of Women in the Biomedical Workforce: Insights for Success.

Women continue to face unique barriers in the biomedical workforce that affect their advancement and retention in this field. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) formed the Working Group on Women in Biomedical Careers to address these issues. Through the efforts of the working group, the NIH funded 14 research grants to identify barriers or to develop and/or test interventions to support women in the biomedical workforce.

The ACTN3 R577X Polymorphism Is Associated with Cardiometabolic Fitness in Healthy Young Adults.

Homozygosity for a premature stop codon (X) in the ACTN3 "sprinter" gene is common in humans despite the fact that it reduces muscle size, strength and power. Because of the close relationship between skeletal muscle function and cardiometabolic health we examined the influence of ACTN3 R577X polymorphism over cardiovascular and metabolic characteristics of young adults (n = 98 males, n = 102 females; 23 ± 4.2 years) from our Assessing Inherent Markers for Metabolic syndrome in the Young (AIMMY) study.

Examination of Lifestyle Behaviors and Cardiometabolic Risk Factors in University Students Enrolled in Kinesiology Degree Programs.

Preventing physical inactivity and weight gain during college is critical in decreasing lifelong obesity and associated disease risk. As such, we sought to compare cardiometabolic risk factors and lifestyle behaviors between college students enrolled in kinesiology and non-kinesiology degree programs to assess whether health and exercise degree programs may influence health behaviors and associated disease risk outcomes. Anthropometrics, fasting blood glucose, insulin, lipid profiles and HbA1c%, blood pressure, and peak oxygen consumption (V[Combining Dot Above]O2peak) were assessed in 247 healthy college students.

Eccentric muscle challenge shows osteopontin polymorphism modulation of muscle damage.

A promoter polymorphism of the osteopontin (OPN) gene (rs28357094) has been associated with multiple inflammatory states, severity of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and muscle size in healthy young adults. We sought to define the mechanism of action of the polymorphism, using allele-specific in vitro reporter assays in muscle cells, and a genotype-stratified intervention in healthy controls. In vitro reporter constructs showed the G allele to respond to estrogen treatment, whereas the T allele showed no transcriptional response.

In vitro cultivation of Microphallus turgidus (Trematoda: Microphallidae) from metacercaria to ovigerous adult with continuation of the life cycle in the laboratory.

In vitro cultivation of trematodes would aid studies on the basic biology of the parasites and the development of chemotherapies and vaccines. Our goal was to measure the in vitro survival and maturation of metacercariae of Microphallus turgidus under different culture conditions. Metacercariae of M.