| 1. |
- Peloso, Gina M, et al.
(author)
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Association of low-frequency and rare coding-sequence variants with blood lipids and coronary heart disease in 56,000 whites and blacks.
- 2014
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In: American Journal of Human Genetics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0002-9297. ; 94:2, s. 223-232
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Low-frequency coding DNA sequence variants in the proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 gene (PCSK9) lower plasma low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), protect against risk of coronary heart disease (CHD), and have prompted the development of a new class of therapeutics. It is uncertain whether the PCSK9 example represents a paradigm or an isolated exception. We used the "Exome Array" to genotype >200,000 low-frequency and rare coding sequence variants across the genome in 56,538 individuals (42,208 European ancestry [EA] and 14,330 African ancestry [AA]) and tested these variants for association with LDL-C, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), and triglycerides. Although we did not identify new genes associated with LDL-C, we did identify four low-frequency (frequencies between 0.1% and 2%) variants (ANGPTL8 rs145464906 [c.361C>T; p.Gln121(∗)], PAFAH1B2 rs186808413 [c.482C>T; p.Ser161Leu], COL18A1 rs114139997 [c.331G>A; p.Gly111Arg], and PCSK7 rs142953140 [c.1511G>A; p.Arg504His]) with large effects on HDL-C and/or triglycerides. None of these four variants was associated with risk for CHD, suggesting that examples of low-frequency coding variants with robust effects on both lipids and CHD will be limited.
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| 2. |
- Homer, Natalie Z M, et al.
(author)
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Quantitative analysis of RU38486 (mifepristone) by HPLC triple quadrupole mass spectrometry
- 2009
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In: Journal of chromatography. B. - : Elsevier BV. - 1570-0232 .- 1873-376X. ; 877:5-6, s. 497-501
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- A sensitive liquid chromatography-mass spectrometric method was validated for the quantification of RU38486 (mifepristone) in human and murine plasma. The analyte and internal standard (alfaxolone) were extracted by liquid-liquid extraction with diethyl ether, resolved on a C18 column using gradient elution with methanol and ammonium acetate and detected after positive electrospray ionization (m/z 430-->372; m/z 333-->297, respectively). Quantification was linear over the range 0.5-500ng (r(2)>0.997), precise and accurate (intra-assay RSD
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| 3. |
- Ip, H. F., et al.
(author)
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Genetic association study of childhood aggression across raters, instruments, and age
- 2021
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In: Translational Psychiatry. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2158-3188. ; 11:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Childhood aggressive behavior (AGG) has a substantial heritability of around 50%. Here we present a genome-wide association metaanalysis (GWAMA) of childhood AGG, in which all phenotype measures across childhood ages from multiple assessors were included. We analyzed phenotype assessments for a total of 328 935 observations from 87 485 children aged between 1.5 and 18 years, while accounting for sample overlap. We also meta-analyzed within subsets of the data, i.e., within rater, instrument and age. SNP-heritability for the overall meta-analysis (AGGoverall) was 3.31% (SE= 0.0038). We found no genome-wide significant SNPs for AGG(overall). The gene-based analysis returned three significant genes: ST3GAL3 (P= 1.6E-06), PCDH7 (P= 2.0E-06), and IPO13 (P= 2.5E-06). All three genes have previously been associated with educational traits. Polygenic scores based on our GWAMA significantly predicted aggression in a holdout sample of children (variance explained = 0.44%) and in retrospectively assessed childhood aggression (variance explained = 0.20%). Genetic correlations (rg) among rater-specific assessment of AGG ranged from r(g)= 0.46 between self- and teacher-assessment to r(g)d= 0.81 between mother- and teacher-assessment. We obtained moderate-to-strong rgs with selected phenotypes from multiple domains, but hardly with any of the classical biomarkers thought to be associated with AGG. Significant genetic correlations were observed with most psychiatric and psychological traits (range r(g): 0.19-1.00), except for obsessive-compulsive disorder. Aggression had a negative genetic correlation (r(g)=-0.5) with cognitive traits and age at first birth. Aggression was strongly genetically correlated with smoking phenotypes (range |r(g)| : 0.46-0.60). The genetic correlations between aggression and psychiatric disorders were weaker for teacher-reported AGG than for mother- and self-reported AGG. The current GWAMA of childhood aggression provides a powerful tool to interrogate the rater-specific genetic etiology of AGG.
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| 4. |
- Lane, Ruth, et al.
(author)
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Responsibility and innovation for low waste and circular economy transitions: what roles for households?
- 2023
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In: Critical Policy Studies RCPS.
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The need for waste policy to embrace CE principles through measures to avoid waste generation and improve recycling rates can be understood within the broader context of sustainability transitions. We analyze three Australian waste policies to understand how households are framed as framing policy actors. Using a governance rationalities framework inspired by Hajer (2005) and Dryzek’s (2013) work on environmental governance, we identified four discursive structures, i.e. four different problem frames with suggested solutions, measures and responsibilities. These problem frames reveal an expanding role for government and industry in waste management, alongside a more passive role for households. While anticipating that households will undertake more sorting and will reduce the amount of waste they generate, the policies lack a coherent conceptualization of the role of households as actors in circular economy transitions in Australia. Our analysis highlights and helps to understand the discrepancy between high-level CE and zero-waste policy ambitions and their implementation in practice. We conclude with suggestions on how waste policy could benefit from deliberative approaches that engage with agency for social innovation and transformation in norms and practices at the household scale.
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| 5. |
- Maron, David J., et al.
(author)
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Initial Invasive or Conservative Strategy for Stable Coronary Disease
- 2020
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In: New England Journal of Medicine. - 0028-4793 .- 1533-4406. ; 382:15, s. 1395-1407
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background: Among patients with stable coronary disease and moderate or severe ischemia, whether clinical outcomes are better in those who receive an invasive intervention plus medical therapy than in those who receive medical therapy alone is uncertain.Methods: We randomly assigned 5179 patients with moderate or severe ischemia to an initial invasive strategy (angiography and revascularization when feasible) and medical therapy or to an initial conservative strategy of medical therapy alone and angiography if medical therapy failed. The primary outcome was a composite of death from cardiovascular causes, myocardial infarction, or hospitalization for unstable angina, heart failure, or resuscitated cardiac arrest. A key secondary outcome was death from cardiovascular causes or myocardial infarction.Results: Over a median of 3.2 years, 318 primary outcome events occurred in the invasive-strategy group and 352 occurred in the conservative-strategy group. At 6 months, the cumulative event rate was 5.3% in the invasive-strategy group and 3.4% in the conservative-strategy group (difference, 1.9 percentage points; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.8 to 3.0); at 5 years, the cumulative event rate was 16.4% and 18.2%, respectively (difference, -1.8 percentage points; 95% CI, -4.7 to 1.0). Results were similar with respect to the key secondary outcome. The incidence of the primary outcome was sensitive to the definition of myocardial infarction; a secondary analysis yielded more procedural myocardial infarctions of uncertain clinical importance. There were 145 deaths in the invasive-strategy group and 144 deaths in the conservative-strategy group (hazard ratio, 1.05; 95% CI, 0.83 to 1.32).Conclusions: Among patients with stable coronary disease and moderate or severe ischemia, we did not find evidence that an initial invasive strategy, as compared with an initial conservative strategy, reduced the risk of ischemic cardiovascular events or death from any cause over a median of 3.2 years. The trial findings were sensitive to the definition of myocardial infarction that was used. (Funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and others; ISCHEMIA ClinicalTrials.gov number, .) Patients with stable coronary disease were randomly assigned to an initial invasive strategy with angiography and revascularization if appropriate or to medical therapy alone. At 3.2 years, there was no significant difference between the groups with respect to the estimated rate of ischemic events. The findings were sensitive to the definition of myocardial infarction.
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| 6. |
- Reynolds, Ruth, et al.
(author)
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Globalization and classroom practice : insights on learning about the world in Swedish and Australian schools
- 2013
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In: Nordidactica. - Karlstad : CSD Karlstad. - 2000-9879. ; :1, s. 104-130
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Globalization and global education implies changes to practices at the classroom level to adapt to new imperatives associated with technology use and awareness, and environmental sustainability. It also implies much more. It implies that teachers apply their classroom pedagogy to take account of students’ new found global understandings of which they, and the school community, is largely unaware. This article addresses and discuses three key consequences of globalization for classrooms worldwide; an increased diversity of experience of the students within the classroom, an increased competitiveness of educational outcomes between national states and subsequently some standardisation of curriculum across nations to enable this, and an increased emphasis on teaching skills and values associated with intercultural understanding. Young children’s map knowledge and their resultant, and associated, interpretations of the world from a comparative study a from Swedish and Australian primary classrooms is used as examples of some of these implications of the impact of ‘global culture’ and ‘global issues’ on current and future classroom practice.
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| 7. |
- Sharp, Phoebe E H, et al.
(author)
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Increased incidence of anti-GBM disease in Fcgamma receptor 2b deficient mice, but not mice with conditional deletion of Fcgr2b on either B cells or myeloid cells alone
- 2012
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In: Molecular Immunology. - : Elsevier BV. - 0161-5890 .- 1872-9142. ; 50:1-2, s. 49-56
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Fcgamma receptor 2b (Fcgr2b) is the only inhibitory Fcgamma receptor in both humans and mice, and is implicated in both antibody production and effector responses to antibody complexes. Reduced function of Fcgr2b has previously been associated with anti-glomerular basement membrane antibody (anti-GBM) disease in mice. However, the mice used had 129 genetic elements flanking the deleted Fcgr2b gene, which are known to increase susceptibility to autoimmunity. In order to confirm a role for Fcgr2b in protection from anti-GBM disease, wild type (WT) mice, mice lacking Fcgr2b on a pure C57BL/6 background, or mice lacking Fcgr2b on a C57BL/6 background with 129 flanking sequences, were immunized with the recombinant NC1 domain of alpha 3 Type IV collagen. Twenty two weeks after immunization, there was a higher incidence of crescentic glomerulonephritis, macrophage infiltration and renal dysfunction in both groups of Fcgr2b-/- mice, indicating an important role of Fcgr2b in regulating the development of anti-GBM disease, on both genetic backgrounds. In order to determine the cellular origin of the Fcgr2b-associated effect, disease was induced in mice with deficiency of Fcgr2b on either B cells alone (CD19Cre), or a subset of myeloid cells (LysozymeMCre). Neither B cell nor myeloid specific knockout mice developed crescentic glomeruonephritis with higher incidence than WT mice indicating that Fcgr2b deficiency on either B cells or a subset of myeloid cells alone is not sufficient to increase susceptibility to anti-GBM disease, but that a combination of cell types, or deficiency of Fcgr2b in a different cell type, is also required.
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| 8. |
- Su, Zhan, et al.
(author)
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Common variants at the MHC locus and at chromosome 16q24.1 predispose to Barrett's esophagus.
- 2012
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In: Nature Genetics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1061-4036 .- 1546-1718. ; 44:10
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Barrett's esophagus is an increasingly common disease that is strongly associated with reflux of stomach acid and usually a hiatus hernia, and it strongly predisposes to esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC), a tumor with a very poor prognosis. We report the first genome-wide association study on Barrett's esophagus, comprising 1,852 UK cases and 5,172 UK controls in the discovery stage and 5,986 cases and 12,825 controls in the replication stage. Variants at two loci were associated with disease risk: chromosome 6p21, rs9257809 (Pcombined=4.09×10(-9); odds ratio (OR)=1.21, 95% confidence interval (CI)=1.13-1.28), within the major histocompatibility complex locus, and chromosome 16q24, rs9936833 (Pcombined=2.74×10(-10); OR=1.14, 95% CI=1.10-1.19), for which the closest protein-coding gene is FOXF1, which is implicated in esophageal development and structure. We found evidence that many common variants of small effect contribute to genetic susceptibility to Barrett's esophagus and that SNP alleles predisposing to obesity also increase risk for Barrett's esophagus.
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| 9. |
- Tapia-Ruiz, Nuria, et al.
(author)
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2021 roadmap for sodium-ion batteries
- 2021
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In: Journal of Physics. - : Institute of Physics Publishing (IOPP). - 2515-7655. ; 3:3
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Increasing concerns regarding the sustainability of lithium sources, due to their limited availability and consequent expected price increase, have raised awareness of the importance of developing alternative energy-storage candidates that can sustain the ever-growing energy demand. Furthermore, limitations on the availability of the transition metals used in the manufacturing of cathode materials, together with questionable mining practices, are driving development towards more sustainable elements. Given the uniformly high abundance and cost-effectiveness of sodium, as well as its very suitable redox potential (close to that of lithium), sodium-ion battery technology offers tremendous potential to be a counterpart to lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) in different application scenarios, such as stationary energy storage and low-cost vehicles. This potential is reflected by the major investments that are being made by industry in a wide variety of markets and in diverse material combinations. Despite the associated advantages of being a drop-in replacement for LIBs, there are remarkable differences in the physicochemical properties between sodium and lithium that give rise to different behaviours, for example, different coordination preferences in compounds, desolvation energies, or solubility of the solid-electrolyte interphase inorganic salt components. This demands a more detailed study of the underlying physical and chemical processes occurring in sodium-ion batteries and allows great scope for groundbreaking advances in the field, from lab-scale to scale-up. This roadmap provides an extensive review by experts in academia and industry of the current state of the art in 2021 and the different research directions and strategies currently underway to improve the performance of sodium-ion batteries. The aim is to provide an opinion with respect to the current challenges and opportunities, from the fundamental properties to the practical applications of this technology.
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| 10. |
- Tobias, Deirdre K, et al.
(author)
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Second international consensus report on gaps and opportunities for the clinical translation of precision diabetes medicine
- 2023
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In: Nature Medicine. - 1546-170X. ; 29:10, s. 2438-2457
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Research review (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Precision medicine is part of the logical evolution of contemporary evidence-based medicine that seeks to reduce errors and optimize outcomes when making medical decisions and health recommendations. Diabetes affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide, many of whom will develop life-threatening complications and die prematurely. Precision medicine can potentially address this enormous problem by accounting for heterogeneity in the etiology, clinical presentation and pathogenesis of common forms of diabetes and risks of complications. This second international consensus report on precision diabetes medicine summarizes the findings from a systematic evidence review across the key pillars of precision medicine (prevention, diagnosis, treatment, prognosis) in four recognized forms of diabetes (monogenic, gestational, type 1, type 2). These reviews address key questions about the translation of precision medicine research into practice. Although not complete, owing to the vast literature on this topic, they revealed opportunities for the immediate or near-term clinical implementation of precision diabetes medicine; furthermore, we expose important gaps in knowledge, focusing on the need to obtain new clinically relevant evidence. Gaps include the need for common standards for clinical readiness, including consideration of cost-effectiveness, health equity, predictive accuracy, liability and accessibility. Key milestones are outlined for the broad clinical implementation of precision diabetes medicine.
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