Beyond the academic milieu: friendship in the shadow of death (studies)

Mortality ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-130
Author(s):  
Marius Rotar ◽  
Adriana Teodorescu
Keyword(s):  
2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Litty Paul ◽  
Jessica Comstock ◽  
Kornelia Edes ◽  
Robert Schlaberg

Abstract Psittacosis is a rare zoonosis that can cause severe disease and adverse outcomes during pregnancy. We identified a previously elusive case of psittacosis causing premature delivery and infant death by next-generation RNA sequencing of postmortem tissues. Hypothesis-free pathogen detection in postmortem specimens can increase the yield of epidemiologic and cause-of-death studies.


2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (9_suppl) ◽  
pp. 117S-126S ◽  
Author(s):  
Sariya Udayachalerm ◽  
Sasivimol Rattanasiri ◽  
Teeranan Angkananard ◽  
John Attia ◽  
Nakarin Sansanayudh ◽  
...  

New oral anticoagulants (NOACs; ie, direct thrombin inhibitor [DTI] and factor Xa [FXa] inhibitors) were used as alternatives to warfarin. Specific antidotes (idarucizumab for dabigatran and andexanet alfa for FXa inhibitors) and hemostatic reversal agents were used for lowering bleeding, but their efficacies were still uncertain. The objectives of this study were to estimate and compare the efficacy of NOAC antidotes on bleeding reversal and death. Studies were identified from MEDLINE and Scopus databases until May 2018. Case reports/series and cohorts were selected if they assessed reversal or death rates. Data were independently extracted by 2 reviewers. Individual patient data and aggregated data of outcomes were extracted from case reports/series and cohorts. Binary regression was used to estimate outcome rates, risk ratio (RR) along with 95% confidence interval (CI). Interventions were NOACs and reversal agents (ie, DTI-specific, DTI-standard, FXa-specific, and FXa-standard). Among 220 patients of 93 case reports/series, reversal rates were 95.9%, 77.6%, and 71.5% for DTI-specific, FXa-standard, and DTI-standard. Pooled RRs for DTI-specific and FXa-standard versus DTI-standard, respectively, were 1.34 (CI: 1.13-1.60) and 1.09 (CI: 0.84-1.40). Death rate was 0.18 (CI: 0.06-0.57) times lower in DTI-specific versus DTI-standard. For pooling 10 subcohorts, pooled RRs were 1.08 (CI: 1.00-1.16), 1.29 (CI: 1.20-1.39), and 1.13 (CI: 1.01-1.25) for DTI-specific, FXa-specific, and FXa-standard versus DTI-standard. In conclusion, specific reversal agents might be useful for reversal of bleeding and lowering the risk of death than standard reversal agents. Our findings were based on case reports/series and selected cohorts, further comparative studies are thus needed.


Open Biology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 180249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anita Krisko ◽  
Miroslav Radman

Ageing is considered as a snowballing phenotype of the accumulation of damaged dysfunctional or toxic proteins and silent mutations (polymorphisms) that sensitize relevant proteins to oxidative damage as inborn predispositions to age-related diseases. Ageing is not a disease, but it causes (or shares common cause with) age-related diseases as suggested by similar slopes of age-related increase in the incidence of diseases and death. Studies of robust and more standard species revealed that dysfunctional oxidatively damaged proteins are the root cause of radiation-induced morbidity and mortality. Oxidized proteins accumulate with age and cause reversible ageing-like phenotypes with some irreversible consequences (e.g. mutations). Here, we observe in yeast that aggregation rate of damaged proteins follows the Gompertz law of mortality and review arguments for a causal relationship between oxidative protein damage, ageing and disease. Aerobes evolved proteomes remarkably resistant to oxidative damage, but imperfectly folded proteins become sensitive to oxidation. We show that α-synuclein mutations that predispose to early-onset Parkinson's disease bestow an increased intrinsic sensitivity of α-synuclein to in vitro oxidation. Considering how initially silent protein polymorphism becomes phenotypic while causing age-related diseases and how protein damage leads to genome alterations inspires a vision of predictive diagnostic, prognostic, prevention and treatment of degenerative diseases.


2009 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 723-726 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roman A. Laskowski ◽  
Janet M. Thornton ◽  
Michael J.E. Sternberg

Charles Darwin's theory of evolution was based on studies of biology at the species level. In the time since his death, studies at the molecular level have confirmed his ideas about the kinship of all life on Earth and have provided a wealth of detail about the evolutionary relationships between different species and a deeper understanding of the finer workings of natural selection. We now have a wealth of data, including the genome sequences of a wide range of organisms, an even larger number of protein sequences, a significant knowledge of the three-dimensional structures of proteins, DNA and other biological molecules, and a huge body of information about the operation of these molecules as systems in the molecular machinery of all living things. This issue of Biochemical Society Transactions contains papers from oral presentations given at a Biochemical Society Focused Meeting to commemorate the 200th Anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, held on 26–27 January 2009 at the Wellcome Trust Conference Centre, Cambridge. The talks reported on some of the insights into evolution which have been obtained from the study of protein sequences, structures and systems.


1988 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 199-199
Author(s):  
Barbara Harris Doherty
Keyword(s):  

1984 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 335-353 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaus P. Jankofsky ◽  
Uwe H. Stuecher

Growing out of the authors' previous studies of death (Jankofsky's in literature and in historical documents primarily of the medieval period, and Stuecher's of clinical experiences with terminally ill children and adolescents), this cooperative interdisciplinary article identifies and discusses altruism as a basic trait of human character and behavior and explores its possible implications for the dying person. Altruism can be studied as a phenomenon which is like the “good death/bad death” topos of medieval chroniclers, thus permitting comparative evaluations over long periods of time and in different socioeconomic and political structures. As a trait observable in both the daily realities of a modern hospital setting and in the literary-aesthetic representation of human society and its values in medieval and modern literature, altruism is a part of the infinite variety of humanity's perceptions, activities, and experiences that make up the mosaic of life and death.


2011 ◽  
Vol 147 (2) ◽  
pp. 246-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annukka Marjamaa ◽  
Päivi Laitinen-Forsblom ◽  
Anetta Wronska ◽  
Lauri Toivonen ◽  
Kimmo Kontula ◽  
...  

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