Beckman Coulter Life Sciences has launched an international HIV/AIDS award at the 2016 conference for the African Society for Laboratory Medicine (ASLM) recently held in Cape Town, South Africa (December 3 to 8).
The annual award is part of the company’s global CARES Initiative dedicated to helping people who are living with HIV/AIDS. Beckman Coulter’s CARES award is designed to recognize individuals who have shown ‘care, dedication and commitment’ in their communities as part of the fight against HIV/AIDS. The winner will receive a $5,000 (€4,700) donation in their name to one of the selected causes, with the three individual stories that receive the most nominations publicized around the world on the CARES Initiative website.
Potential winners can be nurses, healthcare workers, national coordinators, lab scientists and even clinicians; or lay people who are active in community outreach work. This could include a social worker providing AIDS counselling.
CARES supports the UNAIDS 90-90-90 target to ensure that by the year 2020, 90% of people living with HIV will know their status, 90% of those with diagnosed HIV infection will receive sustained antiretroviral therapy, and 90% of all people receiving antiretroviral therapy will have viral suppression.
It focuses on providing innovative solutions for the monitoring of HIV and AIDS treatment. CARES was inspired by the work of Professor Debbie Glencross, a South African laboratory pathologist, who found a different and less expensive way to measure a patient’s CD4 count.
While this is intended as an international award, in its first year, the award  will focus on recognizing the dedication of people in Africa, one of the areas in the world most affected by HIV/AIDS. The 2017 award will be launched at the annual meeting of the African Society for Laboratory Medicine (ASLM), a pan-African professional body aiming to improve laboratory services.  

Recognition for unsung heroes
Samuel Boova, Beckman Coulter’s Director Alliance Development, High Burden HIV Markets,  said: “The award is to give a platform to the work and stories of those we see as the unsung heroes of individual communities. These are people who have shown individual dedication, commitment and courage or who have made a difference in the battle against HIV/AIDS.
“However, it is not just the final winner we want to publicaly recognize. We hope the award will encourage communities to learn about and honour the work of every nominee, so that more people will come forward to help and support those living with HIV/AIDS.”
Nominations must first be made via the CARES website. Once a name has been nominated, the local community will be given the opportunity to vote in support. People with the greatest number of votes will be put forward for the final assessment panel.  Rules of entry and full details are available in full from http://www.beckman.com/cares.
Mr Boova gave the following examples of ordinary people who support their local communities in the field of HIV/AIDS. “We are looking for dedicated and committed individuals like these who work in the community helping others to live with, and manage, the disease,” he added.

Potential Nominees
The first example is how a young HIV positive woman in Uganda was inspired and empowered by a community charity, PINA (People In Need Agency), to rebuild her life and become an advocate herself for young people living with HIV. This was the objective of PINA when it was first set up by a local case worker – to work with young people, helping them overcome the stigma of living with HIV and rebuild their self-esteem.
Mr Boova also pointed out that there are many women in rural Africa who walk miles every day to see patients to ensure they are compliant with their medications. Medication alone does not help without the commitment of these women – and they have to walk many miles between patients each day and every day, whatever the conditions.www.beckman.com/cares

Stopping a wound from bleeding is essential for human health. Blood coagulation – in which blood goes from liquid to gel and forms a clot – can prevent excessive bleeding and infection. But exactly what molecular events transpire when blood coagulates has remained somewhat mysterious. Using a new profiling procedure invented by investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital permitted them to elucidate the role of immunoresolvents – molecules that help resolve inflammation and infections –in blood coagulation, identifying a new cluster of these molecules that are produced when blood coagulates.
“We’ve identified factors biosynthesized by human blood coagulation that elicit immune responses that protect the host,” said corresponding author Charles N. Serhan, PhD, DSc. director and principal investigator at the Center for Experimental Therapeutics and Reperfusion Injury at BWH. “Our results uncover a previously uncharacterized connection between the coagulation of blood and innate host defence mechanisms. We’ve demonstrated for the first time how the innate immune response is connected to coagulation via novel pro-resolving mediators.”
The new profiling procedure allowed the team to identify a cluster of immunoresolvents, namely resolvin D1, resolvin D5, resolvin E1, lipoxin B4 and maresin 1. These molecules activate immune cells called phagocytes, which can engulf and kill bacteria in the blood. Treating human blood with the components of this cluster of molecules discovered at BWH enhanced the abilities of phagocytes and helped the immune system attack E. coli, a common source of bacterial infection.
Interestingly, the newly developed profiling technique holds potential for profiling immunoresolvants in many contexts. The current study offers a glimpse of immunoresolvents found in the blood of healthy individuals, but the researchers are also interested in studying blood samples from patients with sepsis to pinpoint differences in immunoresolvents. Beyond blood, the research team also found a distinct profile of immunoresolvents in samples of healthy versus cancerous tissue from the testes – they note that this new profiling technique could potentially be used in the future to help distinguish between cancerous and healthy tissue from the testes or elsewhere in the body.

Brigham and Women’s Hospital
bwhclinicalandresearchnews.org/2017/08/04/whats-new-in-research-august-2017-2/
 

Lower levels of defective viral RNA molecules can make influenza viruses that affect humans more dangerous. This finding could help to guide patient treatment and provide important information for the design of influenza prevention strategies.
Flu viruses have defective genetic material that can activate the infected patient’s immune system, and lower levels of these molecules can increase the severity of the virus infection. This is the main conclusion reached by researchers from the Centre for Biomedical Research in Respiratory Diseases Network (CIBERES) and in the laboratory of Dr. Amelia Nieto at the Centro Nacional de Biotecnología of the CSIC (CNB-CSIC), in a study led by Dr. Ana Falcón that has just been published in the journal PLOS Pathogens.
Influenza is particularly dangerous for babies, the elderly, and people with underlying medical conditions, although healthy people can also suffer a serious infection. Of the many flu virus strains that circulate every year, some are more virulent than others. "So far we have found severity markers for specific strains, but not a more general marker like this, which applies to many strains and would be more useful in clinical decision-making and in the design of prevention strategies," explains Falcón.
To identify this marker, scientists from CIBERES and the CNB-CSIC, in collaboration with other health and research institutions, centred on defective viral genomes (DVG). These molecules, which consist of viral RNA fragments with defective genetic information, are found in many influenza virus strains.
Previous studies suggested that DVG activate the immune system in infected animals, and could restrict the severity of influenza infection; in this study, the scientists tested whether these molecules could serve as a general marker of influenza severity.
The validity of the marker was tested in infected mice and in cell cultures of human respiratory tissue with different strains of influenza A H1N1 virus, the subtype responsible for the 2009 influenza pandemic. The results showed that strains with lower DVG accumulation in cell cultures produced a more serious infection in mice.
The team also analysed the genomes of viruses isolated from samples from people who had a severe infection or died from the flu during the 2009 "swine flu" pandemic, or in later flu outbreaks with similar characteristics. They found that H1N1 strains that caused severe symptoms had significantly less DVG accumulation than influenza A strains from people who had only mild symptoms.
Overall, these results suggest that low DVG levels indicate an increased risk of serious illness in patients infected with the influenza A virus. With more research, these findings could help predict flu severity, guide patient treatment, and prompt new flu prevention strategies.

Centro Nacional de Biotecnología of the CSIC (CNB-CSIC)
www.cnb.csic.es/index.php/en/science-society/news/item/1450-identifican-un-marcador-viral-que-permitiria-predecir-la-gravedad-de-la-gripe-en-pacientes-infectados

A new study conducted by an international team of lung cancer researchers, including Professor John Field from the University of Liverpool, have identified new genetic variants for lung cancer risk.
Lung cancer continues to be the leading cause of cancer mortality worldwide. Although tobacco smoking is the main risk factor, variations in a persons genetic makeup has been estimated to be responsible for approximately 12% of cases. However, the exact details of these variations have been previously unknown.
By gathering genotype data from different studies around the world, through the use of a special research platform called OncoArray, researchers were able to increase the sample size for this study making it the largest one of its type in the world. The Liverpool Lung Project, funded by the Roy Castle Foundation, has made a major contribution to this international project.
Researchers examined the data to identify the genetic variants associated with lung cancer risk.
During the study more than 29,200 lung cancer cases and more than 56,000 samples taken from people without lung cancer (controls) were examined. Researchers identified 18 genetic variations that could make people more susceptible to lung cancer and also 10 new gene variations.
Professor John Field, Clinical Professor of Molecular Oncology and the Chief Investigator of the UK Lung Cancer Screening Trial, said: "This study has identified several new variants for lung cancer risk that will translate into improved understanding of the mechanisms involved in lung cancer risk.
"Samples taken from the major Liverpool Lung Project, funded by the Roy Castle Foundation, was conducted by experts at the University of Liverpool, were used in this study.
"These results will help us to further improve the way we can screen for lung cancer in high risk individuals in the UK. Further studies will help in the targeting of specific genes to influencing lung cancer risk, smoking behaviour and smoking effects on brain biology."
"This study definitely leads to new ideas about mechanisms influencing lung cancer risk."

EurekAlert
www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-07/uol-lgs071017.php
 

Researchers have developed a more precise way of diagnosing suicide risk, by developing blood tests that work in everybody, as well as more personalized blood tests for different subtypes of suicidality that they have newly identified, and for different psychiatric high-risk groups.
The research team, led by scientists at Indiana University School of Medicine, also showed how two apps, one based on a suicide risk checklist and the other on a scale for measuring feelings of anxiety and depression, work along with the blood tests to enhance the precision of tests and to suggest lifestyle, psychotherapeutic and other interventions. Lastly, they identified a series of medications and natural substances that could be developed for preventing suicide.
"Our work provides a basis for precision medicine and scientific wellness preventive approaches," said Alexander B. Niculescu III, MD, PhD, professor of psychiatry and medical neuroscience at IU School of Medicine and attending psychiatrist and research and development investigator at the Richard L. Roudebush Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
The research builds on earlier studies from the Niculescu group.
"Suicide strikes people in all walks of life. We believe such tragedies can be averted. This landmark larger study breaks new ground, as well as reproduces in larger numbers of individuals some of our earlier findings,” said Dr. Niculescu.
There were multiple steps to the research, starting with serial blood tests taken from 66 people who had been diagnosed with psychiatric disorders, followed over time, and who had at least one instance in which they reported a significant change in their level of suicidal thinking from one testing visit to the next. The candidate gene expression biomarkers that best tracked suicidality in each individual and across individuals were then prioritized using the Niculescu group’s Convergent Functional Genomics approach, based on all the prior evidence in the field.
Next, working with the Marion County (Indianapolis, Ind.) Coroner’s Office, the researchers tested the validity of the biomarkers using blood samples drawn from 45 people who had committed suicide.
The biomarkers were then tested in another larger, completely independent group of individuals to determine how well they could predict which of them would report intense suicidal thoughts or would be hospitalized for suicide attempts.
The biomarkers identified by the research are RNA molecules whose levels in the blood changed in concert with changes in the levels of suicidal thoughts experienced by the patients. Among the findings reported in the current paper were:

• An algorithm that combines biomarkers with the apps that was 90 percent accurate in predicting high levels of suicidal thinking and 77 percent accurate in predicting future suicide-related hospitalizations in everybody, irrespective of gender and diagnosis.
• A refined set of biomarkers that apply universally in predicting risk of suicide among both male and female patients with a variety of psychiatric illnesses, including new biomarkers never before linked to suicidal thoughts and behavior.
• Four new subtypes of suicidality were identified (depressed, anxious, combined, and non-affective/psychotic), with different biomarkers being more effective in each subtype.
• Biomarkers that were associated with specific diagnoses and genders, such as one, known as LHFP, that appears to be a very strong predictor for depressed men.
• Two of the biomarkers, APOE and IL6, have broad evidence for involvement in suicidality and potential clinical utility as targets for drug therapies, as well as suggest a neurodegenerative and inflammatory component to the predisposition to suicide. APOE is responsible for proteins involved with managing cholesterol and fats, and some forms of the gene have been strongly implicated as risks for Alzheimer’s disease. IL6 expresses proteins involved in the body’s inflammation response.

Indiana University School of Medicine
news.medicine.iu.edu/releases/2017/08/precision-medicine-opens-door-scientific-wellness-preventive-approaches-suicide.shtml