Development of a candidate reference material for adventitious virus detection in vaccine and biologicals manufacturing by deep sequencing.

Unbiased deep sequencing offers the potential for improved adventitious virus screening in vaccines and biotherapeutics. Successful implementation of such assays will require appropriate control materials to confirm assay performance and sensitivity. A common reference material containing 25 target viruses was produced and 16 laboratories were invited to process it using their preferred adventitious virus detection assay. Fifteen laboratories returned results, obtained using a wide range of wet-lab and informatics methods. Six of 25 target viruses were detected by all laboratories, with the remaining viruses detected by 4-14 laboratories. Six non-target viruses were detected by three or more laboratories. The study demonstrated that a wide range of methods are currently used for adventitious virus detection screening in biological products by deep sequencing and that they can yield significantly different results. This underscores the need for common reference materials to ensure satisfactory assay performance and enable comparisons between laboratories

Cancer Facts and Figures for Hispanics/Latinos 2015-2017

This report summarizes statistics on cancer incidence, mortality, survival, risk factors, and early detection and screening for Hispanics in the US. It is intended to provide information to community leaders, public health and health care workers, and others interested in cancer prevention, early detection, and treatment for Hispanics. It is important to note that most cancer data in the US are reported for Hispanics as an aggregate group, masking important differences between Hispanic subpopulations according to nativity status (i.e., those who are foreign born versus those who are US born), degree of acculturation, and country of origin. For example, one study found that US cancer death rates in Mexicans are 12% lower than those in mainland Puerto Ricans