9,923 results match your criteria: "German Research Center for Environmental Health; stefan.stricker@bio.uni-muenchen.de.[Affiliation]"

Introduction: The identification of type 1 diabetes at an early presymptomatic stage has clinical benefits. These include a reduced risk of diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) at the clinical manifestation of the disease and a significant reduction in clinical symptoms. The European action for the Diagnosis of Early Non-clinical Type 1 diabetes For disease Interception (EDENT1FI) represents a pioneering effort to advance early detection of type 1 diabetes through public health screening.

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Background: High dietary sodium intake is a major cardiovascular risk factor and adversely affects blood pressure control. Patients with primary aldosteronism (PA) are at increased cardiovascular risk, even after medical treatment, and high dietary sodium intake is common in these patients. Here, we analyze the impact of a moderate dietary sodium restriction on microbiome composition and immunophenotype in patients with PA.

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Purpose Of Review: Climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution present a major threat to health. Although emphasis has been put on physical health impacts, evidence on the mental health consequences is now also accumulating quickly. Given the rapid developments in the field, this article provides an expert opinion on the emerging research.

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Viral oncogene EBNALP regulates YY1 DNA binding and alters host 3D genome organization.

EMBO Rep

January 2025

Division of Infectious Disease, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.

The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) nuclear antigen leader protein (EBNALP) is essential for the immortalization of naive B lymphocytes (NBLs). However, the mechanisms remain elusive. To understand EBNALP's role in B-cell transformation, we compare NBLs infected with wild-type EBV and an EBNALP-null mutant EBV using multi-omics techniques.

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Lung fibrosis development utilizes alveolar macrophages, with mechanisms that are incompletely understood. Here, we fate map connective tissue during mouse lung fibrosis and observe disassembly and transfer of connective tissue macromolecules from pleuro-alveolar junctions (PAJs) into deep lung tissue, to activate fibroblasts and fibrosis. Disassembly and transfer of PAJ macromolecules into deep lung tissue occurs by alveolar macrophages, activating cysteine-type proteolysis on pleural mesothelium.

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The giant genome of lily provides insights into the hybridization of cultivated lilies.

Nat Commun

January 2025

Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Horticultural Crop Quality Improvement, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.

Lilies are economically important monocots known for their ornamental flowers, bulbs, and large genomes. The absence of their genomic information has impeded evolutionary studies and genome-based breeding efforts. Here, we present reference genomes for Lilium sargentiae (lily, 35.

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Pantothenate kinase 4 controls skeletal muscle substrate metabolism.

Nat Commun

January 2025

Department of Molecular Physiology of Exercise and Nutrition, German Institute of Human Nutrition (DIfE), Potsdam-Rehbruecke, Nuthetal, Germany.

Article Synopsis
  • Metabolic flexibility in skeletal muscle is crucial for healthy glucose and lipid metabolism, and its dysfunction can lead to metabolic diseases.
  • Exercise improves metabolic flexibility and helps identify mechanisms that support metabolic health.
  • The study reveals that pantothenate kinase 4 (PanK4) is vital for muscle metabolism, as its deletion disrupts fatty acid oxidation and elevates harmful acetyl-CoA levels, which lead to glucose intolerance, while increasing PanK4 enhances glucose uptake and lowers acetyl-CoA.
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Article Synopsis
  • A team of over 180 researchers from more than 40 countries is addressing the issues related to "phantom agents," which are proposed pathogenic agents that are listed without concrete evidence of their existence.
  • These phantom agents, identified only through symptoms and lacking proper isolates or genetic data, create obstacles for trade and plant certification, making effective detection and risk assessment difficult.
  • The researchers recommend removing these agents from regulatory lists and updating standards in line with modern diagnostic methods to facilitate germplasm exchange and support global agriculture.
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The snow must go on: how German cross-country skiers maintained training and performance in the face of COVID-19 lockdowns.

Front Sports Act Living

December 2024

Swedish Winter Sports Research Centre, Department of Health Sciences, Mid Sweden University, Östersund, Sweden.

Background: The Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 led to disruption of sporting events, with athletes obliged to comply with national lockdown restrictions.

Purpose: To investigate the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions on national-team XC skiers' annual and weekly training distribution from training diaries, results from submaximal and maximal physiological roller ski tests, and competition results from the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) world cup.

Methods: Annual and weekly training type (specific, non-specific, strength, other) and intensity distribution (TID) data were collected for 12 German XC-skiers (Tier 4/5; BM: 67 ± 7 kg; age 26 ± 3 years; 6♀: V̇O 61.

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  • Proton Minibeam Radiation Therapy has been promising in enhancing treatment efficacy compared to traditional radiation, but more research into its biological mechanisms is needed.
  • A mechanical collimation setup was developed to produce 250µm minibeams with a 1000µm spacing, with optimization using Monte Carlo simulations conducted at various proton therapy sites.
  • Results showed a peak-to-valley dose ratio (PVDR) of 10 in Dresden and 14 in Seattle, with some discrepancies between dosimetry methods that can be addressed with correction factors.
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Over the recent past, tools have been developed to asses people's connection to and attitudes towards nature due to increasing interest in this topic in society and research. We translated one such questionnaire, the Nature Relatedness Scale, consisting of three subscales (NR-Self, NR-Perspective, NR-Experience) to German. We collected 251 data sets and performed a confirmatory factor analysis, followed by an exploratory factor analysis.

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Diversity and functional traits based indigenous rhizosphere associated phosphate solubilizing bacteria for sustainable production of rice.

Front Microbiol

December 2024

Division of Soil and Environmental Biotechnology, National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering College (NIBGE-C), Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences (PIEAS), Faisalabad, Pakistan.

Introduction: Rice, particularly Basmati rice, holds significant global importance as a staple food. The indiscriminate use of phosphate-based fertilizers during rice production has led to high residual levels of these chemicals in soil, impacting soil health and fertility. This study aimed to address this challenge by investigating the potential of phosphate solubilizing bacteria (PSB) in improving soil fertility and boosting the growth of Basmati rice.

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Background: The 313-variant polygenic risk score (PRS) provides a promising tool for clinical breast cancer risk prediction. However, evaluation of the PRS across different European populations which could influence risk estimation has not been performed.

Methods: We explored the distribution of PRS across European populations using genotype data from 94,072 females without breast cancer diagnosis, of European-ancestry from 21 countries participating in the Breast Cancer Association Consortium (BCAC) and 223,316 females without breast cancer diagnosis from the UK Biobank.

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The compact line-focus X-ray tube for microbeam radiation therapy - Focal spot characterisation and collimator design.

Phys Med

January 2025

Department of Radiation Oncology, TUM School of Medicine and Health and Klinikum rechts der Isar, TUM University Hospital, Technical University of Munich (TUM), Munich, Germany; Institute of Radiation Medicine, Helmholtz Zentrum München GmbH, German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany; Forschungs-Neutronenquelle Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Zentrum (FRM II), Technical University of Munich (TUM), Garching, Germany.

Purpose: Microbeam radiation therapy (MRT) has shown superior healthy tissue sparing at equal tumour control probabilities compared to conventional radiation therapy in many preclinical studies. The limitation to preclinical research arises from a lack of suitable radiation sources for clinical application of MRT due to high demands on beam quality. To overcome these limitations, we developed and built the first prototype of a line-focus X-ray tube (LFXT).

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The NC_000006.12: g.34887814C>G variant in TAF11 was identified as a potential functional variant in a Chinese pedigree including two non-syndromic cleft lip only (NSCLO) cases.

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The association between different timeframes of air pollution exposure and COVID-19 incidence, morbidity and mortality in German counties in 2020.

Environ Health

December 2024

Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Augustenburger Platz 1, Berlin, 13353, Germany.

Background: Ambient air pollution is a known risk factor for several chronic health conditions, including pulmonary dysfunction. In recent years, studies have shown a positive association between exposure to air pollutants and the incidence, morbidity, and mortality of a COVID-19 infection, however the time period for which air pollution exposure is most relevant for the COVID-19 outcome is still not defined. The aim of this study was to analyze the difference in association when varying the time period of air pollution exposure considered on COVID-19 infection within the same cohort during the first wave of the pandemic in 2020.

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An overview of climate changes and its effects on health - from mechanisms to One Health.

J Allergy Clin Immunol Pract

December 2024

Swiss Institute of Allergy and Asthma Research (SIAF), University Zurich, Davos, Switzerland.

Human activities, primarily the burning of fossil fuels, widespread deforestation, soil erosion or machine-intensive farming methods, manufacturing, food processing, mining, and construction iron, cement, steel, and chemicals industry, have been the main drivers of the observed increase in Earth's average surface temperature and climate change. Rising global temperatures, extreme weather events, ecosystems disruption, agricultural impacts, water scarcity, problems in access to good quality water, food and housing, and profound environmental disruptions such as biodiversity loss and extreme pollution are expected to steeply increase the prevalence and severity of acute and chronic diseases. Its long-term effects cannot be adequately predicted or mitigated without a comprehensive understanding of the adaptive ecosystems.

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Earth's most needed uncultivated aquatic prokaryotes.

Water Res

December 2024

Department of Environmental Metagenomics, Research Center One Health Ruhr, University Alliance Ruhr, Faculty of Chemistry, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany; Centre of Water and Environmental Research, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany. Electronic address:

Aquatic ecosystems house a significant fraction of Earth's biosphere, yet most prokaryotes inhabiting these environments remain uncultivated. While recently developed genome-resolved metagenomics and single-cell genomics techniques have underscored the immense genetic breadth and metabolic potential residing in uncultivated Bacteria and Archaea, cultivation of these microorganisms is required to study their physiology via genetic systems, confirm predicted biochemical pathways, exploit biotechnological potential, and accurately appraise nutrient turnover. Over the past two decades, the limitations of culture-independent investigations highlighted the importance of cultivation in bridging this vast knowledge gap.

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Exposure Profiles for the Long-Term Use of Disinfectants and Cleaning Products and Asthma.

Allergy

December 2024

Institute and Clinic for Occupational, Social and Environmental Medicine, LMU University Hospital, LMU Munich, Munich, Germany.

Background: Using disinfectants and cleaning products (DCPs) at home and work is known to influence both the onset and course of asthma, but most epidemiological studies did not consider the multiplicity and correlations of exposures to DCPs. We aimed to identify exposure profiles for the long-term weekly use of DCPs by latent class analysis (LCA) and assess their associations with asthma.

Methods: LCA was conducted on data from 1143 young adults initially recruited in the German centers of Phase II of the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC) and followed up three times.

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Background: Little is known about the association between air pollution and self-perceived health (including both health-related quality of life [HRQoL] and self-rated health [SRH]). The aim of this study was therefore to explore whether long-term air pollution exposure is associated with worse self-perceived health, as measured by different tools.

Methods: We used a land-use regression model to determine the annual average levels of particulate matter with a diameter <10 μm (PM), coarse particles (PM), fine particles (PM), fine particle absorbances (PM), particle number concentration (PNC), ozone (O), nitrogen dioxide (NO), and nitrogen oxide (NO) for geocoded residential addresses (2014-2015).

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Deep learning (DL) holds great promise to improve medical diagnostics, including pathology. Current DL research mainly focuses on performance. DL implementation potentially leads to environmental consequences but approaches for assessment of both performance and carbon footprint are missing.

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Novel flame retardants (NFRs) in e-waste: Environmental burdens, health implications, and recommendations for safety assessment and sustainable management.

Toxicology

December 2024

Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ, Department Ecotoxicology, Leipzig, Germany; Entity of In Vitro Toxicology and Dermato-Cosmetology, Department of Pharmaceutical and Pharmacological Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium.

Novel flame retardants (NFRs) have emerged as chemicals of environmental health concern due to their widespread use as an alternative to polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE) in electrical and electronic devices. Humans and ecosystems are under threat because of e-waste recycling procedures that may emit NFRs and other anthropogenic chemicals into the e-waste workplace and the surrounding environment. The individual toxicity of NFRs including novel brominated flame retardants (NBFRs), their combined effects and the underlying mechanisms of toxicity have remained poorly understood.

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Harnessing multimodal approaches for depression detection using large language models and facial expressions.

Npj Ment Health Res

December 2024

Machine Learning and Data Analytics Lab (MaD Lab), Department Artificial Intelligence in Biomedical Engineering (AIBE), Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), Erlangen, 91052, Germany.

Detecting depression is a critical component of mental health diagnosis, and accurate assessment is essential for effective treatment. This study introduces a novel, fully automated approach to predicting depression severity using the E-DAIC dataset. We employ Large Language Models (LLMs) to extract depression-related indicators from interview transcripts, utilizing the Patient Health Questionnaire-8 (PHQ-8) score to train the prediction model.

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Paternal impact on the developmental programming of sexual dimorphism.

Front Cell Dev Biol

December 2024

Institute of Experimental Genetics, Helmholtz Munich GmbH, German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

Sexual dimorphism involves distinct anatomical, physiological, behavioral, and developmental differences between males and females of the same species, influenced by factors prior to conception and during early development. These sex-specific traits contribute to varied phenotypes and individual disease risks within and across generations and understanding them is essential in mammalian studies. Hormones, sex chromosomes, and imprinted genes drive this dimorphism, with over half of quantitative traits in wildtype mice showing sex-based variation.

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