The communication chain of genetic risk: analyses of narrative data exploring proband-provider and proband-family communication in hereditary breast and ovarian cancer

Low uptake of genetic services among members of families with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer (HBOC) suggests limitations of proband-mediated communication of genetic risk. This study explored how genetic information proceeds from healthcare providers to probands and from probands to relatives, from the probands' perspectives. Using a grounded-theory approach, we analyzed narrative data collected with individual interviews and focus groups from a sample of 48 women identified as carriers of HBOC-associated pathogenic variants from three linguistic regions of Switzerland. The findings describe the "communication chain", confirming the difficulties of proband-mediated communication. Provider-proband communication is impacted by a three-level complexity in the way information about family communication is approached by providers, received by probands, and followed-up by the healthcare system. Probands' decisions regarding disclosure of genetic risk are governed by dynamic and often contradictory logics of action, interconnected with individual and family characteristics, eventually compelling probands to engage in an arbitrating process. The findings highlight the relevance of probands' involvement in the communication of genetic risk to relatives, suggesting the need to support them in navigating the complexity of family communication rather than replacing them in this process. Concrete actions at the clinical and health system levels are needed to improve proband-mediated communication

The promotion and development of One Health at Swiss TPH and its greater potential

One Health, an integrated health concept, is now an integral part of health research and development. One Health overlaps with other integrated approaches to health such as EcoHealth or Planetary Health, which not only consider the patient or population groups but include them in the social-ecological context. One Health has gained the widest foothold politically, institutionally, and in operational implementation. Increasingly, One Health is becoming part of reporting under the International Health Legislation (IHR 2005). The Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) has played a part in these developments with one of the first mentions of One Health in the biomedical literature. Here, we summarise the history of ideas and processes that led to the development of One Health research and development at the Swiss TPH, clarify its theoretical and methodological foundations, and explore its larger societal potential as an integrated approach to thinking. The history of ideas and processes leading to the development of One Health research at the Swiss TPH were inspired by far-sighted and open ideas of the directors and heads of departments, without exerting too much influence. They followed the progressing work and supported it with further ideas. These in turn were taken up and further developed by a growing number of individual scientists. These ideas were related to other strands of knowledge from economics, molecular biology, anthropology, sociology, theology, and linguistics. We endeavour to relate Western biomedical forms of knowledge generation with other forms, such as Mayan medicine. One Health, in its present form, has been influenced by African mobile pastoralists' integrated thinking that have been taken up into Western epistemologies. The intercultural nature of global and regional One Health approaches will inevitably undergo further scrutiny of successful ways fostering inter-epistemic interaction. Now theoretically well grounded, the One Health approach of seeking benefits for all through better and more equitable cooperation can clearly be applied to engagement in solving major societal problems such as social inequality, animal protection and welfare, environmental protection, climate change mitigation, biodiversity conservation, and conflict transformation

Structural dynamics and electronic structure changes probed with lasers and X-rays

Several new results and opportunities for ultrafast x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) are demonstrated. It is possible to work with highly dil. solns. in transmission mode without dramatic loss of signal-to-noise ratio. This is very promising as one can envision the study of samples, for which large concns. are impossible to reach. Moreover, it is possible to scan the time delay between the laser pump pulse and the x-ray probe pulse, and therefore follow the evolution of the system from the start. The operation of an optical x-ray cross-correlator is also demonstrated. The time resoln. is not a limiting factor and the expts. are feasible with sources of shorter x-ray pulses, provided the flux is not too low. [on SciFinder (R)

Impurity-localized electronic changes in Eu:SrGa 2 S 4 Studied by Ultrafast X-Ray Absorption Spectroscopy

The time-dependent electronic structure of Eu:SrGa 2 S 4 after excitation by a femtosecond laser pulse is investigated by time-resolved x-ray absorption spectroscopy. We observe a transient shift in the Eu L 3 edge consistent with Eu ionization

Picosecond time-resolved X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy of solvated organometallic complexes

We describe an experimental setup, which measures transient chemical changes of photoexcited solutes in disordered systems via time-resolved X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS) with picosecond temporal resolution. The setup combines a femtosecond amplified laser with picosecond X-ray pulses at beamline 5.3.1 at the Advanced Light Source in Berkeley, USA. New results on time-resolved XAS used for probing both the electronic and the geometric modi. cations of a photoexcited tris-(2,2'-bipyridine) ruthenium (II), [Ru-II(bpy)(3)](2+) in water solution are presented

Ultrafast x-ray spectroscopy for structural dynamics studies in chemistry and biology

Time-resolved x-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) spectroscopy with picosecond temporal resolution is a new method to observe electronic and geometric structures of short-lived reaction intermediates. It combines an intense femtosecond laser source synchronized to the x-ray pulses delivered into the microXAS beamline of the Swiss Light Source (SLS). We present key experiments on charge transfer reactions as well as spin-crossover processes in coordination chemistry compounds next to solvation dynamics studies of photogenerated atomic radicals

Capturing transient electronic and molecular structures in liquids by picosecond X-ray absorption spectroscopy

We describe an advanced setup for time-resolved x-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) spectroscopy with picosecond temporal resoln. It combines an intense femtosecond laser source synchronized to the x-ray pulses delivered into the microXAS beamline of the Swiss Light Source (SLS). The setup is applied to measure the short-lived high-spin geometric structure of photoexcited aq. Fe(bpy)3 at room temp. [on SciFinder (R)

Femtosecond XANES Study of the Light-Induced Spin Crossover Dynamics in an Iron(II) Complex

X-ray absorption spectroscopy is a powerful probe of mol. structure, but it has previously been too slow to track the earliest dynamics after photoexcitation. We investigated the ultrafast formation of the lowest quintet state of aq. iron(II) tris(bipyridine) upon excitation of the singlet metal-to-ligand-charge-transfer (1MLCT) state by femtosecond optical pump/x-ray probe techniques based on x-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES). By recording the intensity of a characteristic XANES feature as a function of laser pump/x-ray probe time delay, we find that the quintet state is populated in about 150 fs. The quintet state is further evidenced by its full XANES spectrum recorded at a 300-fs time delay. These results resolve a long-standing issue about the population mechanism of quintet states in iron(II)-based complexes, which we identify as a simple 1MLCT->3MLCT->5T cascade from the initially excited state. The time scale of the 3MLCT->5T relaxation corresponds to the period of the iron-nitrogen stretch vibration

Structural Determination of a Short-Lived Excited Iron(II) Complex by Picosecond X-Ray Absorption Spectroscopy

Structural changes of the Fe(II)-tris-bipyridine ([FeII(bpy)3]2+) complex induced by ultrashort pulse excitation and population of its short-lived (?0.6 ns) quintet high spin state were detected by picosecond x-ray absorption spectroscopy. The structural relaxation from the high spin to the low spin state was followed over the entire lifetime of the excited state. A combined anal. of the x-ray-absorption near-edge structure and extended x-ray-absorption fine structure spectroscopy features delivers an Fe-N bond elongation of 0.2 A in the quintet state compared to the singlet ground state. [on SciFinder (R)