Position paper: The potential role of optical biopsy in the study and diagnosis of environmental enteric dysfunction

Environmental enteric dysfunction (EED) is a disease of the small intestine affecting children and adults in low and middle income countries. Arising as a consequence of repeated infections, gut inflammation results in impaired intestinal absorptive and barrier function, leading to poor nutrient uptake and ultimately to stunting and other developmental limitations. Progress towards new biomarkers and interventions for EED is hampered by the practical and ethical difficulties of cross-validation with the gold standard of biopsy and histology. Optical biopsy techniques — which can provide minimally invasive or noninvasive alternatives to biopsy — could offer other routes to validation and could potentially be used as point-of-care tests among the general population. This Consensus Statement identifies and reviews the most promising candidate optical biopsy technologies for applications in EED, critically assesses them against criteria identified for successful deployment in developing world settings, and proposes further lines of enquiry. Importantly, many of the techniques discussed could also be adapted to monitor the impaired intestinal barrier in other settings such as IBD, autoimmune enteropathies, coeliac disease, graft-versus-host disease, small intestinal transplantation or critical care

Industry 1.61803: the transition to an industry with reduced material demand fit for a low carbon future

Arising from a discussion meeting in September 2016, this editorial introduces a special issue on the transition to a future industrial system with greatly reduced demand for material production and attempts to synthesize the main findings. The motivation for such a transition is to reduce industrial greenhouse gas emissions, but unlike previous industrial transformations, there are no major stakeholders who will pursue the change for their own immediate benefit. The special issue, therefore, explores the means by which such a transition could be brought about. The editorial presents an overview of the opportunities identified in the papers of the volume, presents examples of actions that can be taken today to begin the process of change and concludes with an agenda for research that might support a rapid acceleration in the rate of change.The work of J.M.A. and A.C.S. on this paper was funded by EPSRC grant reference EP/N02351X/1 and that of A.C.H.S. by EPSRC grant reference EP/K039326/1

Industry 1.61803 : the transition to an industry with reduced material demand fit for a low carbon future

Arising from a discussion meeting in September 2016, this editorial introduces a special issue on the transition to a future industrial system with greatly reduced demand for material production and attempts to synthesize the main findings. The motivation for such a transition is to reduce industrial greenhouse gas emissions, but unlike previous industrial transformations, there are no major stakeholders who will pursue the change for their own immediate benefit. The special issue, therefore, explores the means by which such a transition could be brought about. The editorial presents an overview of the opportunities identified in the papers of the volume, presents examples of actions that can be taken today to begin the process of change and concludes with an agenda for research that might support a rapid acceleration in the rate of change.This article is part of the themed issue 'Material demand reduction'