Public Health Commons^™

Effectiveness Of Original Monovalent And Bivalent Covid-19 Vaccines Against Covid-19-Associated Hospitalization And Severe In-Hospital Outcomes Among Adults In The United States, September 2022-August 2023, Jennifer Decuir, Diya Surie, Yuwei Zhu, Adam S Lauring, Manjusha Gaglani, Tresa Mcneal, Shekhar Ghamande, Ithan D Peltan, Samuel M Brown, Adit A Ginde, Aimee Steinwand, Nicholas M Mohr, Kevin W Gibbs, David N Hager, Harith Ali, Anne Frosch, Michelle N Gong, Amira Mohamed, Nicholas J Johnson, Vasisht Srinivasan, Jay S Steingrub, Akram Khan, Laurence W Busse, Abhijit Duggal, Jennifer G Wilson, Nida Qadir, Steven Y Chang, Christopher Mallow, Jennie H Kwon, Matthew C Exline, Nathan I Shapiro, Cristie Columbus, Ivana A Vaughn, Mayur Ramesh, Basmah Safdar, Jarrod M Mosier, Jonathan D Casey, H Keipp Talbot, Todd W Rice, Natasha Halasa, James D Chappell, Carlos G Grijalva, Adrienne Baughman, Kelsey N Womack, Jillian P Rhoads, Sydney A Swan, Cassandra Johnson, Nathaniel Lewis, Sascha Ellington, Fatimah S Dawood, Meredith Mcmorrow, Wesley H Self, Investigating Respiratory Viruses In The Acutely Ill (Ivy) Network

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

BACKGROUND: Assessments of COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness are needed to monitor the protection provided by updated vaccines against severe COVID-19. We evaluated the effectiveness of original monovalent and bivalent (ancestral strain and Omicron BA.4/5) COVID-19 vaccination against COVID-19-associated hospitalization and severe in-hospital outcomes.

METHODS: During September 8, 2022 to August 31, 2023, adults aged ≥ 18 years hospitalized with COVID-19-like illness were enrolled at 26 hospitals in 20 US states. Using a test-negative case-control design, we estimated vaccine effectiveness (VE) with multivariable logistic regression adjusted for age, sex, race/ethnicity, admission date, and geographic region.

RESULTS: Among 7028 patients, 2924 (41.6%) were …

Postpartum Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms And Their Association With Mood And Parenting Stress, Sarah Heerboth, Katharine E Bruce, Terri L Fletcher, Alison M Stuebe, Alison N Goulding

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

No abstract provided.

Lack Of Detection Of Norwalk Virus In Saliva Samples From A Controlled Human Infection Model, Robert L Atmar, Frederick H Neill, Nicole M Hayes, Antone R Opekun, David Y Graham, Mary K Estes, Sasirekha Ramani

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Following recent reports of norovirus replication in salivary gland cells, we examined whether the prototype norovirus strain, Norwalk virus (GI.1), could be detected in the saliva of 21 experimentally infected persons. Viral RNA was not detected in saliva 2 and 7 days after challenge despite high levels being present in feces.

Metabolites Link Intake Of A Healthy Diet To Better Insulin And Glucose Homeostasis In The Microbiome And Insulin Longitudinal Evaluation Study (Miles), Alexis C Wood, Danielle J Lee, Patricia A Sheridan, Elizabeth T Jensen, Gautam Ramesh, Alain G Bertoni, Stephen S Rich, Yii-Der I Chen, David M Herrington, Jerome I Rotter, Mark O Goodarzi

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

BACKGROUND: Dietary quality has been linked to better glycemic control, but the precise molecular mechanisms giving rise to these associations are not fully understood.

OBJECTIVES: To examine the association of metabolites associated with the intake of a healthy diet with measures of insulin/glucose homeostasis.

METHODS: Using cross-sectional data from 295 United States adults, the associations between 3 diet pattern scores and metabolome-wide metabolites were estimated via linear regression models, which controlled for demographic factors and health behaviors. Subsequently, the associations between the diet-related metabolites with 6 measures of glucose/insulin homeostasis were examined in similar models. A Bonferroni correction was applied …

Transcriptomic And Epigenomic Signatures Distinguish High- And Low-Risk Endotypes For Liver Tumor Development, Sandra L Grimm, Tia Talley, Rahul K Jangid, Amrit Koirala, Micah B Castillo, Preethi H Gunaratne, Cristian Coarfa, Cheryl L Walker

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

The epigenome is a target for environmental exposures and a potential determinant of inter-individual differences in response. In genetically identical C57Bl/6 mice exposed from gestation to weaning to the endocrine-disrupting chemical (EDC) tributyltin (TBT), hepatic tumor development later in life varied across multiple cohorts over time and depending on sex and diet. In one cohort where approximately half of TBT-exposed male mice developed liver tumors at 10 months (Katz et al. Hepatic tumor formation in adult mice developmentally exposed to organotin, Environmental Health Perspectives, 128 (1), 17010, 2020), transcriptomic (RNA-seq) and epigenomic (ChIP-seq) profiling was performed on blood and liver …

Age Modulates The Predictive Value Of Self-Reported Sleepiness For All-Cause Mortality Risk: Insights From A Comprehensive National Database Of Veterans, Arash Maghsoudi, Mehrnaz Azarian, Amir Sharafkhaneh, Melissa B Jones, Hoormehr Nozari, Meir Kryger, Amin Ramezani, Javad Razjouyan

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Study objectives: Excessive daytime sleepiness is prevalent and overwhelmingly stems from disturbed sleep. We hypothesized that age modulates the association between excessive daytime sleepiness and increased all-cause mortality.

Methods: We utilized the Veterans' Health Administration data from 1999-2022. We enrolled participants with sleep related International Classification of Diseases 9/10 codes or sleep services. A natural language processing pipeline was developed and validated to extract the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) as a self-reported tool to measure excessive daytime sleepiness from physician progress notes. The natural language processing's accuracy was assessed through manual annotation of 470 notes. Participants were categorized into normal-ESS …

Natural History Of Indeterminate Liver Nodules In Patients With Advanced Liver Disease: A Multicenter Retrospective Cohort Study, Amit G Singal, Neehar D Parikh, Kirti Shetty, Steven-Huy Han, Cassie Xie, Jing Ning, Jo Ann Rinaudo, Ashwini Arvind, Anna S Lok, Fasiha Kanwal, Translational Liver Cancer Investigators

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Introduction: Indeterminate liver nodules (ILNs) are frequently encountered on diagnostic imaging after positive hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) surveillance results, but their natural history remains unclear.

Methods: We conducted a multicenter retrospective cohort study among patients with ≥1 newly detected LI-RADS 3 (LR-3) lesion ≥1 cm or LI-RADS 4 (LR-4) lesion of any size (per LI-RADS v2018) between January 2018 and December 2019. Patients were followed with repeat imaging at each site per institutional standard of care. Multivariable Fine-Gray models were used to evaluate associations between potential risk factors and patient-level time-to-HCC diagnosis, with death and liver transplantation as competing risks.

Results: …

Prognostic Stratification In Dlbcl Patients With Aberrant Myc Gene, Jian-Rong Li, Vikram R Shaw, Abi Parthasarathy, Yong Li, Christopher I Amos, Chao Cheng

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) is a heterogeneous disease characterized by a subset of patients who exhibit treatment resistance and poor prognoses. Genomic assays have been widely employed to identify high-risk individuals characterized by rearrangements in the MYC, BCL2 and BCL6 genes. These patients typically undergo more aggressive therapeutic treatments; however, there remains a significant variation in their treatment outcomes. This study introduces an MYC signature score (MYCSS) derived from gene expression profiles, specifically designed to evaluate MYC overactivation in DLBCL patients. MYCSS was validated across several independent cohorts to assess its ability to stratify patients based on MYC-related genetic …

Residential Proximity To Oil And Gas Developments And Childhood Cancer Survival, Thanh T Hoang, Rutu A Rathod, Omar Rosales, Maria I Castellanos, Jeremy M Schraw, Elyse Burgess, Erin C Peckham-Gregory, Abiodun O Oluyomi, Michael E Scheurer, Amy E Hughes, Philip J Lupo

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Background: Environmental toxicants may impact survival in children with cancer, but the literature investigating these associations remains limited. Because oil and gas developments emit several hazardous air pollutants, the authors evaluated the relationship between residential proximity to oil or gas development and survival across 21 different pediatric cancers.

Methods: The Texas Cancer Registry had 29,730 children (≤19 years old) diagnosed with a primary cancer between 1995 to 2017. Geocoded data were available for 285,266 active oil or gas wells and 109,965 horizontal wells. The authors calculated whether each case lived within 1000 m (yes/no) from each type of oil or …

Identifying High-Risk Multiple Myeloma Patients: A Novel Approach Using A Clonal Gene Signature, Jian-Rong Li, Christiana Wang, Chao Cheng

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Multiple myeloma (MM) is a heterogeneous disease with a small subset of high-risk patients having poor prognoses. Identifying these patients is crucial for treatment management and strategic decisions. In this study, we developed a novel computational framework to define prognostic gene signatures by selecting genes with expression driven by clonal copy number alterations. We applied this framework to MM and developed a clonal gene signature (CGS) consisting of 22 genes and evaluated in five independent datasets. The CGS provided significant prognostic values after adjusting for well-established factors including cytogenetic abnormalities, International Staging System (ISS), and Revised ISS (R-ISS). Importantly, CGS …

Covid-19 Breakthrough Infection After Vaccination And Substance Use Disorders: A Longitudinal Cohort Of People With And Without Hiv Receiving Care In The United States Veterans Health Administration, Elena M Soyer, Kathleen A Mcginnis, Amy C Justice, Evelyn Hsieh, Maria C Rodriguez-Barradas, Emily C Williams, Lesley S Park

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Research regarding HIV, substance use disorders (SUD), and SARS-CoV-2 infections after COVID-19 vaccination is limited. In the Veterans Aging Cohort Study (VACS)-HIV cohort, we followed vaccinated persons with HIV (PWH) and without HIV (PWoH) from 12/2020 to 3/2022 and linked SARS-CoV-2 test results for laboratory-confirmed breakthrough infection through 9/2022. We examined associations of substance use (alcohol use disorder [AUD], other SUD, smoking status) and HIV status and severity with breakthrough infections, using Cox proportional hazards regression hazard ratios (HR). To test for potential interactions between substance use and HIV, we fit survival models with a multiplicative interaction term. Among 24,253 …

Assessment Of The Bioaccumulation Of Nicotine And Cotinine By The Crustacean Daphnia Magna, Ana Maria Vlasceanu, Daniela Luiza Baconi, Octavian Tudorel Olaru, Daniela Grădinaru, Viorela Gabriela Nitescu

Journal of Mind and Medical Sciences

Objectives. This study aimed to investigate the toxicity of nicotine and its metabolite cotinine on crustacean D. magna, and evaluate the quantity of compounds accumulated by D. magna. Materials and Methods. The bioassays involved the exposure of D. magna to varying doses of nicotine and cotinine, for 24 h and 48 h. The amount of bioaccumulated nicotine and cotinine was determined by an HPLC-DAD method. Results. The study has revealed that nicotine is more toxic than cotinine on D. magna, as the medium lethal concentration (LC50) values were higher for nicotine compared to cotinine. After 24 hours of exposure, D. …

Hepatotoxicity Induced By Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors, Flaviu Muresan, Olga Hilda Orasan, Angela Cozma, Madalina Daiana Bancos, Lorena Ciumarnean, Mircea Vasile Milaciu, Tinca Codruta Pocol, Nicoleta Valentina Leach, Teodora Gabriela Alexescu, Ovidiu Vasile Fabian, George Ciulei, Mirela Georgiana Perne

Journal of Mind and Medical Sciences

Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) are an effective immunotherapeutic approach for cancers affecting the lung, skin, kidney, mammary gland, or certain hematologic malignancies. Regarding the prognosis of these oncological conditions, treatments with ICIs open new therapeutic perspectives with benefits for both patients and healthcare providers. A drawback of immune checkpoint inhibition is the occurrence of immune-related adverse events that can involve a wide range of organs, such as the liver. Given widespread usage of immunotherapy, the number of patients who suffer from this unwanted condition has increased. Hepatopathy induced by ICIs can be severe and can even lead to death. Detecting …

A Genome-Wide Association Study Identifies Genetic Determinants Of Hemoglobin Glycation Index With Implications Across Sex And Ethnicity, John S. House, Joseph H. Breeyear, Farida S. Akhtari, Violet Evans, John B. Buse, James Hempe, Alessandro Doria, Josyf C. Mychaleckyi, Vivian Fonseca, Mengyao Shi, Changwei Li, Shuqian Liu, Tanika N. Kelly, Daniel Rotroff, Alison A. Motsinger-Reif

School of Medicine Faculty Publications

Introduction: We investigated the genetic determinants of variation in the hemoglobin glycation index (HGI), an emerging biomarker for the risk of diabetes complications. Methods: We conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) for HGI in the Action to Control Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes (ACCORD) trial (N = 7,913) using linear regression and additive genotype encoding on variants with minor allele frequency greater than 3%. We conducted replication analyses of top findings in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study with inverse variance-weighted meta-analysis. We followed up with stratified GWAS analyses by sex and self-reported race. Results: In ACCORD, we identified single …

Aromatase, Testosterone, Tmprss2: Determinants Of Covid-19 Severity, Eric C Mohan, Jude P J Savarraj, Gabriela D Colpo, Diego Morales, Carson E Finger, Alexis Mcalister, Hilda Ahnstedt, Huimahn Choi, Louise D Mccullough, Bharti Manwani

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: Male sex has been identified as a risk factor for worse COVID-19 outcomes. This sex difference has been mostly attributed to the complex role of sex hormones. Cell surface entry of SARS-CoV-2 is mediated by the transmembrane protease serine 2 (TMPRSS2) which is under transcriptional regulation by androgens. P450 aromatase enzyme converts androgens to estrogens. This study measured concentrations of aromatase enzyme, testosterone, estradiol, and TMPRSS-2 in plasma of hospitalized COVID-19 patients to elucidate the dynamics of sex-linked disparity in COVID-19 and correlate them with disease severity and mortality.

Methods: In this prospective cohort study, a total of 265 …

Interpreting The Biological Effects Of Protons As A Function Of Physical Quantity: Linear Energy Transfer Or Microdosimetric Lineal Energy Spectrum?, Fada Guan, Lawrence Bronk, Matthew Kerr, Yuting Li, Leslie A Braby, Mary Sobieski, Xiaochun Wang, Xiaodong Zhang, Clifford Stephan, David R Grosshans, Radhe Mohan

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

The choice of appropriate physical quantities to characterize the biological effects of ionizing radiation has evolved over time coupled with advances in scientific understanding. The basic hypothesis in radiation dosimetry is that the energy deposited by ionizing radiation initiates all the consequences of exposure in a biological sample (e.g., DNA damage, reproductive cell death). Physical quantities defined to characterize energy deposition have included dose, a measure of the mean energy imparted per unit mass of the target, and linear energy transfer (LET), a measure of the mean energy deposition per unit distance that charged particles traverse in a medium. The …

Micrornas Are Enriched At Covid-19 Genomic Risk Regions, And Their Blood Levels Correlate With The Covid-19 Prognosis Of Cancer Patients Infected By Sars-Cov-2, Simone Anfossi, Faezeh Darbaniyan, Joseph Quinlan, Steliana Calin, Masayoshi Shimizu, Meng Chen, Paola Rausseo, Michael Winters, Elena Bogatenkova, Kim-Anh Do, Ivan Martinez, Ziyi Li, Loredana Antal, Tudor Rares Olariu, Ignacio Wistuba, George A Calin

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: Cancer patients are more susceptible to an aggressive course of COVID-19. Developing biomarkers identifying cancer patients at high risk of COVID-19-related death could help determine who needs early clinical intervention. The miRNAs hosted in the genomic regions associated with the risk of aggressive COVID-19 could represent potential biomarkers for clinical outcomes.

Patients and methods: Plasma samples were collected at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center from cancer patients (N = 128) affected by COVID-19. Serum samples were collected from vaccinated healthy individuals (n = 23) at the Municipal Clinical Emergency Teaching Hospital in Timisoara, Romania. An in …

Excess Potassium Promotes Autophagy To Maintain The Immunosuppressive Capacity Of Myeloid-Derived Suppressor Cells Independent Of Arginase 1, Ramesh Thylur Puttalingaiah, Matthew J. Dean, Liqin Zheng, Phaethon Philbrook, Dorota Wyczechowska, Timothy Kayes, Luis Del Valle, Denise Danos, Maria Dulfary Sanchez-Pino

School of Medicine Faculty Publications

Potassium ions (K+) are critical electrolytes that regulate multiple functions in immune cells. Recent studies have shown that the elevated concentration of extracellular potassium in the tumor interstitial fluid limits T cell effector function and suppresses the anti-tumor capacity of tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs). The effect of excess potassium on the biology of myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs), another important immune cell component of the tumor microenvironment (TME), is unknown. Here, we present data showing that increased concentrations of potassium chloride (KCl), as the source of K+ ions, facilitate autophagy by increasing the expression of the autophagosome marker LC3β. Simultaneously, excess potassium …

Sall4 And Gata4 Induce Cardiac Fibroblast Transition Towards A Partially Multipotent State With Cardiogenic Potential, Hong Gao, Saliha Pathan, Beverly R E A Dixon, Aarthi Pugazenthi, Megumi Mathison, Tamer M A Mohamed, Todd K Rosengart, Jianchang Yang

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Cardiac cellular fate transition holds remarkable promise for the treatment of ischemic heart disease. We report that overexpressing two transcription factors, Sall4 and Gata4, which play distinct and overlapping roles in both pluripotent stem cell reprogramming and embryonic heart development, induces a fraction of stem-like cells in rodent cardiac fibroblasts that exhibit unlimited ex vivo expandability with clonogenicity. Transcriptomic and phenotypic analyses reveal that around 32 ± 6.4% of the expanding cells express Nkx2.5, while 13 ± 3.6% express Oct4. Activated signaling pathways like PI3K/Akt, Hippo, Wnt, and multiple epigenetic modification enzymes are also detected. Under suitable conditions, these cells …

Sex Hormones And Risk Of Lung And Colorectal Cancers In Women: A Mendelian Randomization Study, Marion Denos, Yi-Qian Sun, Ben Michael Brumpton, Yafang Li, Demetrius Albanes, Andrea Burnett-Hartman, Peter T Campbell, Sébastien Küry, Christopher I Li, Emily White, Jewel N Samadder, Mark A Jenkins, Xiao-Mei Mai

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

The roles of sex hormones such as estradiol, testosterone, and sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) in the etiology of lung and colorectal cancers in women, among the most common cancers after breast cancer, are unclear. This Mendelian randomization (MR) study evaluated such potential causal associations in women of European ancestry. We used summary statistics data from genome-wide association studies on sex hormones and from the Trøndelag Health Study (HUNT) and large consortia on cancers. There was suggestive evidence of 1-standard deviation increase in total testosterone levels being associated with a lower risk of lung non-adenocarcinoma (hazard ratio 0.60, 95% confidence interval …

Multivariable Mendelian Randomization With Incomplete Measurements On The Exposure Variables In The Hispanic Community Health Study/Study Of Latinos, Yilun Li, Kin Yau Wong, Annie Green Howard, Penny Gordon-Larsen, Heather M Highland, Mariaelisa Graff, Kari E North, Carolina G Downie, Christy L Avery, Bing Yu, Kristin L Young, Victoria L Buchanan, Robert Kaplan, Lifang Hou, Brian Thomas Joyce, Qibin Qi, Tamar Sofer, Jee-Young Moon, Dan-Yu Lin

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Multivariable Mendelian randomization allows simultaneous estimation of direct causal effects of multiple exposure variables on an outcome. When the exposure variables of interest are quantitative omic features, obtaining complete data can be economically and technically challenging: the measurement cost is high, and the measurement devices may have inherent detection limits. In this paper, we propose a valid and efficient method to handle unmeasured and undetectable values of the exposure variables in a one-sample multivariable Mendelian randomization analysis with individual-level data. We estimate the direct causal effects with maximum likelihood estimation and develop an expectation-maximization algorithm to compute the estimators. We …

Churning The Tides Of Care: When Nurse Turnover Makes Waves In Patient Access To Primary Care, Kelley Arredondo, Ashley M Hughes, Houston F Lester, Trang N D Pham, Laura A Petersen, Lechauncy Woodard, Richard Sorelle, Cheng Rebecca Jiang, Frederick L Oswald, Daniel R Murphy, Hilary N Touchett, Joshua Hamer, Sylvia J Hysong

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

BACKGROUND: Team-based primary care (PC) enhances the quality of and access to health care. The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) implements team-based care through Patient Aligned Care Teams (PACTs), consisting of four core members: a primary care provider, registered nurse (RN) care manager, licensed vocational nurse, and scheduling clerk. RNs play a central role: they coordinate patient care, manage operational needs, and serve as a patient point of contact. Currently, it is not known how varying levels of RN staffing on primary care teams impact patient outcomes.

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to empirically assess how the stability of RN staffing within …

Predisposing, Enabling, And Need Factors Influencing Health-Related Quality Of Life Among People With Metabolic Syndrome, Olajide Adekunle, Yun Wang, Ismaeel Yunusa, Marc L. Fleming, Enrique Seoane-Vazquez, Lawrence M. Brown

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Background

Objective

Methods

Gender And Sexuality Awareness In Medical Education And Practice: Mixed Methods Study, Rola Khamisy-Farah, Eden Biras, Rabie Shehadeh, Ruba Tuma, Hisham Atwan, Anna Siri, Manlio Converti, Francesco Chirico, Łukasz Szarpak, Carlo Biz, Raymond Farah, Nicola Bragazzi

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

BACKGROUND: The integration of gender and sexuality awareness in health care is increasingly recognized as vital for patient outcomes. Despite this, there is a notable lack of comprehensive data on the current state of physicians' training and perceptions in these areas, leading to a gap in targeted educational interventions and optimal health care delivery.

OBJECTIVE: The study's aim was to explore the experiences and perceptions of attending and resident physicians regarding the inclusion of gender and sexuality content in medical school curricula and professional practice in Israel.

METHODS: This cross-sectional survey targeted a diverse group of physicians across various specializations …

Sars-Cov-2 Vaccine Improved Hemostasis Of A Patient With Protein S Deficiency: A Case Report, Mohammad A. Mohammad, Alaa Malik, Lekha Thangada, Diana Polanía-Villanueva, Jovanny Zabaleta, Rinku Majumder

School of Medicine Faculty Publications

A 16-year-old patient, while an infant, incurred right-sided hemiparesis and had difficulty breast feeding. She was later diagnosed with a neonatal stroke and her genetic testing showed a missense mutation in her PROS1 (Protein S) gene. Both her grandfather and father, but not her mother, had hereditary Protein S (PS) deficiency. The patient was not prescribed any mediation due to her young age but was frequently checked by her physician. The patient’s plasma was first collected at the age of 13, and the isolated plasma from the patient and her father were analyzed by aPTT, thrombin generation, and enzyme-linked immunosorbent …

Semi-Supervised Machine Learning Method For Predicting Homogeneous Ancestry Groups To Assess Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium In Diverse Whole-Genome Sequencing Studies, Derek Shyr, Rounak Dey, Xihao Li, Hufeng Zhou, Eric Boerwinkle, Steve Buyske, Mark Daly, Richard A Gibbs, Ira Hall, Tara Matise, Catherine Reeves, Nathan O Stitziel, Michael Zody, Benjamin M Neale, Xihong Lin

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Large-scale, multi-ethnic whole-genome sequencing (WGS) studies, such as the National Human Genome Research Institute Genome Sequencing Program's Centers for Common Disease Genomics (CCDG), play an important role in increasing diversity for genetic research. Before performing association analyses, assessing Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) is a crucial step in quality control procedures to remove low quality variants and ensure valid downstream analyses. Diverse WGS studies contain ancestrally heterogeneous samples; however, commonly used HWE methods assume that the samples are homogeneous. Therefore, directly applying these to the whole dataset can yield statistically invalid results. To account for this heterogeneity, HWE can be tested on …

In Acute Severe Ulcerative Colitis Patients Who Receive Rescue Therapy, Prior Maintenance Therapy And Day 3 C-Reactive Protein After Rescue Therapy Are Associated With 12-Month Colectomy Risk, Jared A Sninsky, Ana-Maria Staicu, Edward L Barnes

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

No abstract provided.

Advances In Biomedical Research And Treatments: What Is Acceptable?, Michael L. Clancy, Khalid M. Iskandarani, Mitchell C. Mccrea

Journal of Health Ethics

This study investigated the technology acceptance (TA) of twenty-first century biomedical treatments by adults in the United States. A new TA instrument was created, using five distinct levels: (1) Healing and Prevention, (2) Replacement Organs, (3) Enhancements-Medical, (4) Enhancements-Discretionary, and (5) Transhumans. An on-line survey produced 353 usable responses, which showed distinct patterns for each of five biomedical treatment levels. There was clear support for Levels 1–3, but very strong opposition to Levels 4–5. The TA finding draws the line between which human interventions are acceptable versus others that should be prohibited through public policies and medical guidelines.

Physical Exercise-Related Manifestations Of Long Covid: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis, Chen Zheng, Jun-Jie Chen, Zi-Han Dai, Ke-Wen Wan, Feng-Hua Sun, Jun-Hao Huang, Xiang-Ke Chen

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to systematically assess physical exercise-related symptoms of post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC or long COVID) in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) survivors.

METHODS: Eight databases were systematically searched on March 03, 2024. Original studies that compared physical exercise-related parameters measured by exercise testing between COVID-19 survivors who recovered from SARS-CoV-2 infection over 3 months and non-COVID-19 controls were included. A random-effects model was utilized to determine the mean differences (MDs) or standardized MDs in the meta-analysis.

RESULTS: A total of 40 studies with 6241 COVID-19 survivors were included. The 6-min walk test, maximal oxygen consumption (VO …

Medical Students’ Self-Perceived Knowledge And Clinical Comfort With Genetics In Pakistan, Maheen Arshad, Angela Trepanier, S Shahrukh Hashmi, Rizwan Naeem, Saqib Mehmood, Myla Ashfaq

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Pakistan has a high rate of genetic disorders and neonatal mortality concurrent with noted lack of genetic counselors and geneticists. To meet the needs of the patient population, the responsibility of providing clinical genetic services falls on general and specialty physicians. However, their education regarding these essential services is not standardized in medical school curricula nor has it ever been evaluated. The purpose of this work is to describe the self-perceived knowledge, clinical comfort, and perspectives of Pakistani medical students toward their medical genetics' education. A web-based survey was distributed electronically to medical schools around the country. The survey comprised …