HFE in Biophilic Design: Human Connections with Nature

Human Factors and Ergonomics (HFE) pays insufficient attention to nature based solutions for workplace issues, despite evidence for its effectiveness, while also being relatively inexpensive to implement. Lumber, Richardson and Albertsen discuss research evidence for the well-being, health, attention and sustainability benefits of belonging to a wider natural community through nature connection and biophilic design within work-based environments. From there, the importance of practitioner’s utilising natural elements in workplace environments is highlighted before Lumber, Richardson and Albertsen provide a critical outline for how these often-overlooked elements of human connections with nature can be incorporated into HFE for happier, healthier, more sustainable, and productive workplaces

Comorbid Psychiatric Illnesses

Comorbidity among psychiatric illnesses is common, as is comorbidity between psychiatric and physical illnesses. Current knowledge of psychiatric comorbidity points to several possible underlying factors, notably an overlap in their definitions and symptoms; unidirectional and bidirectional causation; disordered sleep; and a range of shared risk factors. Psychiatric illness may lead to poorer self-care and sleep problems, whereas being physically ill may impact upon an individual’s psychological wellbeing. An integration of the various causal models that have been proposed to explain the comorbidities is discussed, incorporating different socio-psychological and biological factors to explain the development of depression and anxiety. These issues are detailed in the following chapter with a focus on depression. Implications for treatment are also discussed

Interrogating open issues in cancer precision medicine with patient-derived xenografts

Patient-derived xenografts (PDXs) have emerged as an important platform to elucidate new treatments and biomarkers in oncology. PDX models are used to address clinically relevant questions, including the contribution of tumour heterogeneity to therapeutic responsiveness, the patterns of cancer evolutionary dynamics during tumour progression and under drug pressure, and the mechanisms of resistance to treatment. The ability of PDX models to predict clinical outcomes is being improved through mouse humanization strategies and the implementation of co-clinical trials, within which patients and PDXs reciprocally inform therapeutic decisions. This Opinion article discusses aspects of PDX modelling that are relevant to these questions and highlights the merits of shared PDX resources to advance cancer medicine from the perspective of EurOPDX, an international initiative devoted to PDX-based research