Lead Sources in Human Diet in Greenland

Although blood lead levels have declined in Greenland, they are still elevated despite the fact that lead levels in the Greenland environment are very low. Fragments of lead shot in game birds have been suggested as an important source of dietary exposure, and meals of sea birds, particularly eider, contain high concentrations of lead. In a cross-sectional population survey in Greenland in 1993–1994, blood lead adjusted for age and sex was found to be associated with the reported consumption of sea birds. Participants reporting less than weekly intake of sea birds had blood lead concentrations of approximately 75 μg/L, whereas those who reported eating sea birds several times a week had concentrations of approximately 110 μg/L, and those who reported daily intake had concentrations of 170 μg/L (p = 0.01). Blood lead was not associated with dietary exposure to other local or imported food items

En ny agenda for entreprenørskabsforskningen:Dansk forskning i entreprenørielle muligheder

Hvad er en entreprenøriel mulighed? Og hvordan opstår den? Disse to spørgsmål er omdrejningspunkt for et af de centrale temaer i forskningen om entreprenørskab. I denne artikel redegøres for de danske bidrag til denne debat. Disse udgør samlet konturerne til en dansk agenda for entreprenørskabsforskning. Denne tager udgangspunkt i en antagelse om, at muligheder skabes i dynamiske sociale interaktioner. Endvidere redegøres for begrænsningerne og udfordringerne for den danske agenda.What is an entrepreneurial opportunity? And how does it arise? These two questions are at the core of one of the key issues in research on entrepreneurship. Taken together, the Danish contributions to this debate as presented in this article outline the contours of a Danish agenda for entrepreneurship research, based on the assumption that opportunities are created in dynamic social interactions. The limitations and challenges of the Danish agenda are also discussed

Genetic Protection Modifications: Moving Beyond the Binary Distinction Between Therapy and Enhancement for Human Genome Editing

Current debate and policy surrounding the use of genetic editing in humans often relies on a binary distinction between therapy and human enhancement. In this paper, we argue that this dichotomy fails to take into account perhaps the most significant potential uses of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing in humans. We argue that genetic treatment of sporadic Alzheimer’s disease, breast- and ovarian-cancer causing BRCA1/2 mutations and the introduction of HIV resistance in humans should be considered within a new category of genetic protection treatments. We find that if this category is not introduced, life-altering research might be unnecessarily limited by current or future policy. Otherwise ad hoc decisions might be made, which introduce a risk of unforeseen moral costs, and might overlook or fail to address some important opportunities

Comparison of Short-Term Estrogenicity Tests for Identification of Hormone-Disrupting Chemicals

The aim of this study was to compare results obtained by eight different short-term assays of estrogenlike actions of chemicals conducted in 10 different laboratories in five countries. Twenty chemicals were selected to represent direct-acting estrogens, compounds with estrogenic metabolites, estrogenic antagonists, and a known cytotoxic agent. Also included in the test panel were 17β-estradiol as a positive control and ethanol as solvent control. The test compounds were coded before distribution. Test methods included direct binding to the estrogen receptor (ER), proliferation of MCF-7 cells, transient reporter gene expression in MCF-7 cells, reporter gene expression in yeast strains stably transfected with the human ER and an estrogen-responsive reporter gene, and vitellogenin production in juvenile rainbow trout. 17β-Estradiol, 17α-ethynyl estradiol, and diethylstilbestrol induced a strong estrogenic response in all test systems. Colchicine caused cytotoxicity only. Bisphenol A induced an estrogenic response in all assays. The results obtained for the remaining test compounds—tamoxifen, ICI 182.780, testosterone, bisphenol A dimethacrylate, 4-n-octylphenol, 4-n-nonylphenol, nonylphenol dodecylethoxylate, butylbenzylphthalate, dibutylphthalate, methoxychlor, o,p′-DDT, p,p′-DDE, endosulfan, chlomequat chloride, and ethanol—varied among the assays. The results demonstrate that careful standardization is necessary to obtain a reasonable degree of reproducibility. Also, similar methods vary in their sensitivity to estrogenic compounds. Thus, short-term tests are useful for screening purposes, but the methods must be further validated by additional interlaboratory and interassay comparisons to document the reliability of the methods

CD8+ T cells from patients with narcolepsy and healthy controls recognize hypocretin neuron-specific antigens

Autoreactive T cells are suspected to destroy hypocretin-producing neurons in narcolepsy. Here the authors detect CD8 T cells recognizing narcolepsy-related proteins in healthy individuals and in patients with narcolepsy, and show that the frequency of self-reactive CD8 T cells differs between patients and controls sharing the same HLA-II risk allele