Profound Chemopreventative Effects of a Hydrogen Sulfide-Releasing NSAID in the APC(Min/+) Mouse Model of Intestinal Tumorigenesis

Canadian Institutes of Health Research grant to JL

Rapid implementation of mobile technology for real-time epidemiology of COVID-19

The rapid pace of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) presents challenges to the robust collection of population-scale data to address this global health crisis. We established the COronavirus Pandemic Epidemiology (COPE) Consortium to unite scientists with expertise in big data research and epidemiology to develop the COVID Symptom Study, previously known as the COVID Symptom Tracker, mobile application. This application—which offers data on risk factors, predictive symptoms, clinical outcomes, and geographical hotspots—was launched in the United Kingdom on 24 March 2020 and the United States on 29 March 2020 and has garnered more than 2.8 million users as of 2 May 2020. Our initiative offers a proof of concept for the repurposing of existing approaches to enable rapidly scalable epidemiologic data collection and analysis, which is critical for a data-driven response to this public health challenge

Association of СОМТ gene polymorphisms with Parkinson’s disease

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is one of the most serious and widespread neurodegenerative disorders. Genetic susceptibility plays a significant role in the development of PD.The aim of our study was to investigate associations between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of the COMT gene coding dopamine catabolism enzyme and Parkinson’s disease.Materials and methods. In this study seven SNPs (rs4680, rs6269, rs4633, rs4818, rs769224, rs165774, rs174696) of COMT were genotyped. 232 patients with PD and 127 healthy individuals in the Siberian region of Russia were examined. Venous blood samples were drawn as a marker of PD. Statistical differences in the prevalence of alleles and genotypes between groups of patients were assessed using IBM SPSS Statistics 23.1 software.Results. A significant association between the rs165774 polymorphism and PD was observed. Our study demonstrates that polymorphisms in the COMT gene may play an important role in the pathophysiology of Parkinson’s disease

Colon-specific reduction/reversal of polyps.

<p>Initiation of treatment with ATB-346 (14.5 mg/kg once daily for 14 days) at week 12 had no effect on the small intestinal polyp score (assessed at week 14), but markedly reduced polyp formation in the colon (**p<0.01).</p