RICORS2040 : The need for collaborative research in chronic kidney disease

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a silent and poorly known killer. The current concept of CKD is relatively young and uptake by the public, physicians and health authorities is not widespread. Physicians still confuse CKD with chronic kidney insufficiency or failure. For the wider public and health authorities, CKD evokes kidney replacement therapy (KRT). In Spain, the prevalence of KRT is 0.13%. Thus health authorities may consider CKD a non-issue: very few persons eventually need KRT and, for those in whom kidneys fail, the problem is 'solved' by dialysis or kidney transplantation. However, KRT is the tip of the iceberg in the burden of CKD. The main burden of CKD is accelerated ageing and premature death. The cut-off points for kidney function and kidney damage indexes that define CKD also mark an increased risk for all-cause premature death. CKD is the most prevalent risk factor for lethal coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and the factor that most increases the risk of death in COVID-19, after old age. Men and women undergoing KRT still have an annual mortality that is 10- to 100-fold higher than similar-age peers, and life expectancy is shortened by ~40 years for young persons on dialysis and by 15 years for young persons with a functioning kidney graft. CKD is expected to become the fifth greatest global cause of death by 2040 and the second greatest cause of death in Spain before the end of the century, a time when one in four Spaniards will have CKD. However, by 2022, CKD will become the only top-15 global predicted cause of death that is not supported by a dedicated well-funded Centres for Biomedical Research (CIBER) network structure in Spain. Realizing the underestimation of the CKD burden of disease by health authorities, the Decade of the Kidney initiative for 2020-2030 was launched by the American Association of Kidney Patients and the European Kidney Health Alliance. Leading Spanish kidney researchers grouped in the kidney collaborative research network Red de Investigación Renal have now applied for the Redes de Investigación Cooperativa Orientadas a Resultados en Salud (RICORS) call for collaborative research in Spain with the support of the Spanish Society of Nephrology, Federación Nacional de Asociaciones para la Lucha Contra las Enfermedades del Riñón and ONT: RICORS2040 aims to prevent the dire predictions for the global 2040 burden of CKD from becoming true

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Bibliotecas y bibliotecología en América Latina y el Caribe : un acercamiento

El 25 de marzo de 2006, la Biblioteca Pública Gobernador Menezes Pimentel del estado de Ceara, Brasil, celebró el 139 aniversario de su fundación. Con tal motivo, esta institución, con el apoyo de la Facultad de Biblioteconomía de la Universidad Federal de Ceara, el Consejo Regional de Biblioteconomía (CRB3) y la Asociación de Bibliotecarios de Ceara, organizó una reunión académica titulada La situación del profesional de la información en la sociedad contemporánea. En este evento académico, los miembros de IFLA/LAC presentamos una serie de documentos sobre la situación de las bibliotecas, particularmente las bibliotecas públicas, así como sobre la lectura y otros aspectos relacionados con el desarrollo de la Bibliotecología y los Estudios de la Información en América Latina y el Caribe

Genetic diversity of HLA system in six populations from Jalisco, Mexico: Guadalajara city, Tlajomulco, Tlaquepaque, Tonalá, Zapopan and rural Jalisco

We studied HLA class I (HLA-A, -B) and class II (HLA-DRB1, -DQB1) alleles by PCR-SSP based typing in 2046 Mexicans from the state of Jalisco living in the city of Guadalajara (N = 1189), Tlajomulco (N = 30), Tlaquepaque (N = 39), Tonalá (N = 35), Zapopan (N = 168) and rural communities (N = 585), to obtain information regarding allelic and haplotypic frequencies. We find that the most frequent haplotypes found in the state of Jalisco include nine Native American most probable ancestry and three European haplotypes. Admixture estimates revealed that the main genetic components in the state of Jalisco are European (48.45 ± 1.18 by ML; 41.66 of European haplotypes) and Native American (44.02 ± 1.24 by ML; 39.86 of Native American haplotypes), while African genetic component is less apparent (7.53 ± 0.30 by ML; 9.62 of African haplotypes)

Genetic diversity of HLA system in two populations from Colima, Mexico: Colima city and rural Colima

We studied HLA class I (HLA-A, -B) and class II (HLA-DRB1, -DQB1) alleles by PCR-SSP based typing in 104 Mexicans from the state of Colima living in the city of Colima (N = 61) and rural communities (N = 43), to obtain information regarding allelic and haplotypic frequencies. We find that the most frequent haplotypes in the state of Colima include eight Native American, two European and one African haplotype. Admixture estimates revealed that the main genetic components in the state are Native American (52.74 ± 3.88 by ML; 48.10 of Native American haplotypes) and European (37.52 ± 8.94 by ML; 26.66 of European haplotypes), and a relatively high African genetic component (9.74 ± 8.40 by ML; 11.91 of African haplotypes). © 2019 American Society for Histocompatibility and Immunogenetic

Genetic diversity of HLA system in two populations from Nayarit, Mexico: Tepic and rural Nayarit

We studied HLA class I (HLA-A, -B) and class II (HLA-DRB1, -DQB1) alleles by PCR-SSP based typing in 161 Mexicans from the state of Nayarit living in Tepic (N = 97) and rural communities (N = 64), to obtain information regarding allelic and haplotypic frequencies. We find that the ten most frequent haplotypes found in the state of Nayarit include eight Native American and two European haplotypes. Admixture estimates revealed that the main genetic components in the state of Nayarit are Native American (50.79 ± 5.03 by ML; 42.24 of Native American haplotypes) and European (37.04 ± 6.21 by ML; 35.72 of European haplotypes), while African genetic component is less apparent but relatively high (12.17 ± 2.50 by ML; 13.36 of African haplotypes)

Genetic diversity of HLA system in three populations from Guanajuato, Mexico: Guanajuato City, León and rural Guanajuato

We studied HLA class I (HLA-A, -B) and class II (HLA-DRB1, -DQB1) alleles by PCR-SSP based typing in 262 Mexicans from the state of Guanajuato living in the cities of Guanajuato (N = 78), León (N = 22) and rural communities (N = 162), to obtain information regarding allelic and haplotypic frequencies. We find that the most frequent haplotypes found in the state of Guanajuato include 12 Native American and three European haplotypes. Admixture estimates revealed that the main genetic components in the state of Guanajuato are Native American (50.64 ± 2.11 by ML, 43.35 of Native American haplotypes) and European (44.14 ± 1.14 by ML; 39.35 of European haplotypes), while African genetic component is less apparent (5.22 ± 2.08 by ML; 8.36 of African haplotypes)