The content of whistleblowing procedures: a critical review of recent official guidelines

There is an increasing recognition of the need to provide ways for people to raise concerns about suspected wrongdoing by promoting internal policies and procedures which offer proper safeguards to actual and potential whistleblowers. Many organisations in both the public and private sectors now have such measures and these display a wide variety of operating modalities: in-house or outsourced, anonymous/confidential/identified, multi or single tiered, specified or open subject matter, etc. As a result of this development, a number of guidelines and policy documents have been produced by authoritative bodies. This article reviews the following five documents from a management perspective, the first two deal with the principles upon which legislation might be based and the others describing good management practice: the Council of Europe Resolution 1729 (COER); Transparency International ‘Recommended Principles for Whistleblowing Legislation’ (TI); European Union Article 29 Data Protection Working Party Opinion (EUWP); International Chamber of Commerce ‘Guidelines on Whistleblowing’ (ICC); and the British Standards Institute ‘Whistleblowing arrangements Code of Practice 2008 (BSI)

Is sexual risk behaviour associated with an increased risk of transfusion-transmissible infections in blood donors from Western and Pacific countries? A systematic review and meta-analysis

Background and Objectives The donor medical questionnaire is designed to aid blood establishments in supporting a safe blood supply. According to blood donor deferral policies, sexual risk behaviour (SRB) leads to a (temporary) deferral from blood donation. This systematic review aimed to scientifically underpin these policies by identifying the best available evidence on the association between SRB and the risk of transfusion transmissible infections (TTIs). Materials & Methods Studies from three databases investigating the link between SRB (excluding men who have sex with men (MSM)) and TTIs (HBV, HCV, HIV, Treponema pallidum) in donors from Western and Pacific countries were obtained and assessed on eligibility by two reviewers independently. The association between SRB and TTIs was expressed by calculating pooled effect measures via meta-analyses. The GRADE methodology (Grades of Recommendation, Assessment, Development and Evaluation) was used to assess the quality of evidence. Results We identified 3750 references and finally included 15 observational studies. Meta-analyses showed that there is a significant (P < 0 center dot 05) positive association between the following SRB and HBV and/or HCV infection: having sex with an intravenous drug user (high-certainty evidence), receiving money or goods for sex (moderate-high certainty evidence), having a sex partner with hepatitis/HIV (moderate-certainty evidence) and paid for sex or anal sex (low-certainty evidence). Conclusion Sexual risk behaviour (including having sex with an intravenous drug user, receiving money or goods for sex or having a sex partner with hepatitis/HIV) is probably associated with an increased risk of HBV/HCV infection in blood donors from Western and Pacific countries

Sequence, expression and mutational analysis of BAF1, a transcriptional activator and ARS1-binding protein of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

We report the cloning and sequence analysis of the yeast BAF1 gene which encodes an abundant protein previously shown to act as a transcription activator in the YPT1-TUB2 intergene region. As predicted from the DNA sequence, the highly hydrophilic BAf1 protein is 731 amino acids long and has a molecular mass of 81 748 daltons. The protein product of the cloned BAF1 gene produced in Escherichia coli is able to form specific complexes with DNA fragments containing the conserved element TCN7ACG. The protein binds also to the ABF1-binding site of the B-domain of ARS1, entertaining the possibility that BAF1 and ABF1 are identical proteins. Extensive deletion studies identified the N-terminal two thirds of the Baf1 protein to be required for specific DNA binding. Amino acid substitutions point to the N-terminal sequence CysX7HisX3HisX4CysX4Cys to form an atypical metal-binding 'finger' structure. Disruption of the BAF1 gene is lethal. The existence of five potential Baf1-protein binding sites in the 5' region of the gene suggests the involvement of the Baf1 protein in transcription regulation of its own gene

Grifonin-1: A Small HIV-1 Entry Inhibitor Derived from the Algal Lectin, Griffithsin

Background: Griffithsin, a 121-residue protein isolated from a red algal Griffithsia sp., binds high mannose N-linked glycans of virus surface glycoproteins with extremely high affinity, a property that allows it to prevent the entry of primary isolates and laboratory strains of T- and M-tropic HIV-1. We used the sequence of a portion of griffithsin's sequence as a design template to create smaller peptides with antiviral and carbohydrate-binding properties. Methodology/Results: The new peptides derived from a trio of homologous β-sheet repeats that comprise the motifs responsible for its biological activity. Our most active antiviral peptide, grifonin-1 (GRFN-1), had an EC50 of 190.8±11.0 nM in in vitro TZM-bl assays and an EC50 of 546.6±66.1 nM in p24gag antigen release assays. GRFN-1 showed considerable structural plasticity, assuming different conformations in solvents that differed in polarity and hydrophobicity. Higher concentrations of GRFN-1 formed oligomers, based on intermolecular β-sheet interactions. Like its parent protein, GRFN-1 bound viral glycoproteins gp41 and gp120 via the N-linked glycans on their surface. Conclusion: Its substantial antiviral activity and low toxicity in vitro suggest that GRFN-1 and/or its derivatives may have therapeutic potential as topical and/or systemic agents directed against HIV-1

Single cell profiling of COVID-19 patients: an international data resource from multiple tissues

In late 2019 and through 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world, presenting both scientific and medical challenges associated with understanding and treating a previously unknown disease. To help address the need for great understanding of COVID-19, the scientific community mobilized and banded together rapidly to characterize SARS-CoV-2 infection, pathogenesis and its distinct disease trajectories. The urgency of COVID-19 provided a pressing use-case for leveraging relatively new tools, technologies, and nascent collaborative networks. Single-cell biology is one such example that has emerged over the last decade as a powerful approach that provides unprecedented resolution to the cellular and molecular underpinnings of biological processes. Early foundational work within the single-cell community, including the Human Cell Atlas, utilized published and unpublished data to characterize the putative target cells of SARS-CoV-2 sampled from diverse organs based on expression of the viral receptor ACE2 and associated entry factors TMPRSS2 and CTSL (Muus et al., 2020; Sungnak et al., 2020; Ziegler et al., 2020). This initial characterization of reference data provided an important foundation for framing infection and pathology in the airway as well as other organs. However, initial community analysis was limited to samples derived from uninfected donors and other previously-sampled disease indications. This report provides an overview of a single-cell data resource derived from samples from COVID-19 patients along with initial observations and guidance on data reuse and exploration