5,713 research outputs found
Model consent clauses for rare disease research
Background: Rare Disease research has seen tremendous advancements over the last decades, with the development of new technologies, various global collaborative efforts and improved data sharing. To maximize the impact of and to further build on these developments, there is a need for model consent clauses for rare diseases research, in order to improve data interoperability, to meet the informational needs of participants, and to ensure proper ethical and legal use of data sources and participants' overall protection.
Methods: A global Task Force was set up to develop model consent clauses specific to rare diseases research, that are comprehensive, harmonized, readily accessible, and internationally applicable, facilitating the recruitment and consent of rare disease research participants around the world. Existing consent forms and notices of consent were analyzed and classified under different consent themes, which were used as background to develop the model consent clauses.
Results: The IRDiRC-GA4GH MCC Task Force met in September 2018, to discuss and design model consent clauses. Based on analyzed consent forms, they listed generic core elements and designed the following rare disease research specific core elements; Rare Disease Research Introductory Clause, Familial Participation, Audio/Visual Imaging, Collecting, storing, sharing of rare disease data, Recontact for matching, Data Linkage, Return of Results to Family Members, Incapacity/Death, and Benefits.
Conclusion: The model consent clauses presented in this article have been drafted to highlight consent elements that bear in mind the trends in rare disease research, while providing a tool to help foster harmonization and collaborative efforts
Antoni Kępiński’s Philosophy of Medicine – an alternative reading
Antoni Kępiński remains an often read and quoted author even 40 years after his premature death. Usually he is read in the context of his times and his connections with contemporary philosophy. This paper aims to show other aspects of his reflections on psychiatry. His views on the position of psychiatry within medicine, its methods, psychophysical problems, and other issues are compared with current knowledge and current thought paradigms. The goal is to show that while Kępiński was obviously functioning within a different scientific and philosophical paradigm many of his ideas and reflections can still be found within current debates. The important conclusion is to not hold on to the views that Kępiński held himself because he did not know as much as we do, but to see the importance of the debates that he foresaw even then and possibly learn something from his extensive clinical experience
Statistical data mining for symbol associations in genomic databases
A methodology is proposed to automatically detect significant symbol
associations in genomic databases. A new statistical test is proposed to assess
the significance of a group of symbols when found in several genesets of a
given database. Applied to symbol pairs, the thresholded p-values of the test
define a graph structure on the set of symbols. The cliques of that graph are
significant symbol associations, linked to a set of genesets where they can be
found. The method can be applied to any database, and is illustrated MSigDB C2
database. Many of the symbol associations detected in C2 or in non-specific
selections did correspond to already known interactions. On more specific
selections of C2, many previously unkown symbol associations have been
detected. These associations unveal new candidates for gene or protein
interactions, needing further investigation for biological evidence
Omnipresent Maxwell’s demons orchestrate information management in living cells
The development of synthetic biology calls for accurate
understanding of the critical functions that allow
construction and operation of a living cell. Besides
coding for ubiquitous structures, minimal genomes
encode a wealth of functions that dissipate energy in
an unanticipated way. Analysis of these functions
shows that they are meant to manage information
under conditions when discrimination of substrates
in a noisy background is preferred over a simple
recognition process. We show here that many of
these functions, including transporters and the ribosome
construction machinery, behave as would
behave a material implementation of the informationmanaging
agent theorized by Maxwell almost
150 years ago and commonly known as Maxwell’s
demon (MxD). A core gene set encoding these functions belongs to the minimal genome required
to allow the construction of an autonomous cell.
These MxDs allow the cell to perform computations
in an energy-efficient way that is vastly better than
our contemporary computers
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Optimizing genetics online resources for diverse readers.
PurposeClear and accurate genetic information should be available to health-care consumers at an individualized level of comprehension. The objective of this study is to evaluate the complexity of common online resources and to simplify text content using automated text processing tools.MethodsWe extracted all text from Genetics Home Reference and MedlinePlus in bulk and analyzed content using natural language processing. We applied custom tools to improve the readability and compared readability before and after text optimization.ResultsCommonly used educational materials were more complex than the recommended reading level for the general public. Genetic health information entries from Genetics Home Reference (n = 1279) were written at a median 13.0 grade level. MedlinePlus entries, which are not exclusively genetic (n = 1030), had a median grade level of 7.7. When we optimized text for the 59 actionable conditions by prioritizing medical details using a standard structure, the average reading grade level improved.ConclusionFactors that increase complexity are long sentences and difficult words. Future strategies to reduce complexity include prioritizing relevant details and using more illustrations. Simplifying and providing standardized online health resources would benefit diverse consumers and promote inclusivity
Decoding genomic information
Our work here outlines and follows some trends of research which analyze and interpret (i.e., decode) genomic information, by assuming the genome to be a book encrypted in an unknown language. This analysis is performed by sequence alignment-free methods, based on information theoretical concepts, in order to convert the genomic information into a comprehensible mathematical form and understand its complexity
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