Publications

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Fouling at liquid-solid interfaces is a pernicious problem for a wide range of applications, including those that are implemented by digital microfluidics (DMF). There are several strategies that have been used to combat surface fouling in DMF, the most common being inclusion of amphiphilic surfactant additives in the droplets to be manipulated. Initial studies relied on Pluronic additives, and more recently, Tetronic additives have been used, which has allowed manipulation of complex samples...

CONCLUSION: Survivors of medulloblastoma have significant long-term medical sequelae, increased all-cause mortality, and are frequently dependent on disability supports. Efforts to reduce the toxicity of current therapy, specifically incorporating molecularly informed risk stratification to spare low- and intermediate-risk survivors the toxicity of treatment, are urgently needed. These findings should prompt a re-evaluation of our current treatment approaches where research focused on...

Differential gene expression analysis using RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) data is a standard approach for making biological discoveries. Ongoing large-scale efforts to process and normalize publicly available gene expression data enable rapid and systematic reanalysis. While several powerful tools systematically process RNA-seq data, enabling their reanalysis, few resources systematically recompute differentially expressed genes (DEGs) generated from individual studies. We developed a robust...

The recent elucidation of atomistic structures of Cl^(-) channel CFTR provides opportunities for understanding the molecular basis of cystic fibrosis. Despite having been activated through phosphorylation and provided with ATP ligands, several near-atomistic cryo-EM structures of CFTR are in a closed state, as inferred from the lack of a continuous passage through a hydrophobic bottleneck region located in the extracellular portion of the pore. Here, we present repeated, microsecond-long...

The state of open science needs to be monitored to track changes over time and identify areas to create interventions to drive improvements. In order to monitor open science practices, they first need to be well defined and operationalized. To reach consensus on what open science practices to monitor at biomedical research institutions, we conducted a modified 3-round Delphi study. Participants were research administrators, researchers, specialists in dedicated open science roles, and...

CONCLUSION: We describe the consortium, imaging protocols and analytics using preliminary results. Our findings thus far demonstrate how datasets across many sites can be harmonized and constructively pooled to enable execution of this large-scale project.

CONCLUSIONS: AI demonstrated comparable, if not superior performance to manual screening for patient enrolment into cancer clinical trials. As well, AI is highly efficient, requiring less time and human resources to screen patients. AI should be further investigated and implemented for patient recruitment into cancer clinical trials. Future research should validate the use of AI for clinical trials enrolment in less resource-rich regions, and to ensure broad inclusion for generalizability to all...

CONCLUSIONS: LOY is positively associated with non-mucinous EOC. Differences between estimated and expected model coefficients for LOY components suggest factors beyond ovulation underlie the associations between LOY components and EOC in general and for non-HGSOC.

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The P-glycoprotein efflux pump, encoded by the ABCB1 gene, has been shown to alter concentrations of various antidepressants in the brain. In this study, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to investigate the association between six ABCB1 SNPs (rs1045642, rs2032582, rs1128503, rs2032583, rs2235015, rs2235040) and antidepressant treatment outcomes in individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD), including new data from the Canadian Biomarker and Integration Network for...

Diagnosis of a chromosome 22q11.2 microdeletion and its associated deletion syndrome (22q11.2DS) is optimally made early. We reviewed the available literature to provide contemporary guidance and recommendations related to the prenatal period. Indications for prenatal diagnostic testing include a parent or child with the 22q11.2 microdeletion or suggestive prenatal screening results. Definitive diagnosis by genetic testing of chorionic villi or amniocytes using a chromosomal microarray will...

CONCLUSIONS: This study provides important insight into how individuals and families affected with a rare CNV feel toward research participation and their overall experience in rare disease research. There are clear targets for areas of improvement for study teams, although many stakeholders reported positive research experiences. Key findings from this international survey may help advance collaborative research and improve the experience of participants, investigators, and other stakeholders...

Due to their high target specificity and binding affinity, therapeutic antibodies are currently the largest class of biotherapeutics. The traditional largely empirical antibody development process is, while mature and robust, cumbersome and has significant limitations. Substantial recent advances in computational and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are now starting to overcome many of these limitations and are increasingly integrated into development pipelines. Here, we provide an...

Stress granules (SGs) are cytosolic biomolecular condensates that form in response to cellular stress. Weak, multivalent interactions between their protein and RNA constituents drive their rapid, dynamic assembly through phase separation coupled to percolation. Though a consensus model of SG function has yet to be determined, their perceived implication in cytoprotective processes (e.g., antiviral responses and inhibition of apoptosis) and possible role in the pathogenesis of various...

Elucidating enzyme-substrate relationships in posttranslational modification (PTM) networks is crucial for understanding signal transduction pathways but is technically difficult because enzyme-substrate interactions tend to be transient. Here we demonstrate that TurboID-based proximity labeling (TbPL) effectively and specifically captures the substrates of kinases and phosphatases. TbPL-mass spectrometry (TbPL-MS) identified over four hundred proximal proteins of Arabidopsis thaliana...

CONCLUSIONS: Recent syncope was not significantly associated with driver responsibility for traffic crash. Clinicians and policymakers should consider these results when making fitness-to-drive recommendations after syncope.

MOTIVATION: Protein and peptide engineering has become an essential field in biomedicine with therapeutics, diagnostics, and synthetic biology applications. Helices are both abundant structural feature in proteins and comprise a major portion of bioactive peptides. Precise design of helices for binding or biological activity is still a challenging problem.