Mismatch of minor histocompatibility antigen contributes to a graft-versus-leukemia effect rather than to acute GVHD, resulting in long-term survival after HLA-identical stem cell transplantation in Japan

金沢大学大学院医学系研究科We determined the alleles of five polymorphic molecules including HA-1 and four adhesion molecules for 106 patients transplanted with HLA-identical stem cell grafts and investigated the association of mismatches as correlates of relapse and graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). All 106 recipients underwent stem cell transplantation (SCT) after myeloablative conditioning between 1985 and 2002. Risk status of disease at SCT was standard (n = 63) and high (n = 42). After SCT, 36, 49 and 33 developed acute GVHD, chronic GVHD and relapsed, respectively. Our patients relapsed at rates of 16.7 and 38.6% with one or more and without incompatibilities (P = 0.013). The relapse rates of patients with CD62L, CD31 codon 563, CD31 codon 125, HA-1 and CD49b incompatibilities were 5.9, 11.8, 15.4, 16.0 and 33.3%, respectively. The frequency of acute GVHD did not differ regardless of incompatibilities. In standard-risk group, the accumulated relapse rates of 19 and 44 patients with and without minor histocompatibility antigen incompatibility were 22% and unexpectedly 66%, respectively (P = 0.02). The probability of 12-year survival was 88% in the former and 66% in the latter patients (P = 0.03). Our data suggest that incompatibility of CD62L, CD31 codon 563 and CD31 codon 125 contributes to a graft-versus-leukemia effect rather than to GVHD, resulting in prolonged survival after HLA-identical SCT

The current status of Open Access in biomedical field: the comparison of countries relating to the impact of national policies

The purpose of the article is to show the current status of Open Access (OA) in biomedical field, and compare some countries such as the U.S., the U.K. and Japan in terms of the OA situation. There are controversies about the definition of OA. After examining the requirements about OA, we recognized OA as the situation in which researchers could read the full text of articles in unrestricted way. In order to investigate the current situation of OA, 4,756 articles were sampled randomly from articles published between January and September in 2005 and indexed in PubMed. The main results are as follows: 1) The rate of OA articles was 25%, and 75% of all the articles were available online including electronic subscription journal articles. 2) The means of OA was classified into five types. Among them, the rate of OA articles by “OA and Hybrid OA journals” was overwhelming (more than 70%), and that of PMC was 26.2%. The rates of OA articles by “institutional repositories” and “authors’ personal sites” were considerably low (6.0% and 4.9% respectively). 3) When comparing the rates of OA articles by countries, Belgium ranked the first with 41.7%. The five countries indicated more than 30% in OA articles: Canada and India (38.7%), Brazil (36.4%), Australia (30.8%), and the U.S. (30.7%). Each country was different in the means of OA. 4) We explored the rates of OA for two groups; one group consists of articles published in journals with an impact factor (IF), and the other consists of articles published in journals without IF. The rate of OA for the group of articles in journals with IF is 20.6%, and that of articles in journals without IF is 30.8%

Current status of open access in biomedical field-the comparison of countries related to the impact of national policies

The purpose of the article is to show the current status of Open Access (OA) in biomedical field, and compare some countries such as the U.S., the U.K. and Japan in terms of the OA situation. There are controversies about the definition of OA. After examining the requirements about OA, we recognized OA as the situation in which researchers could read the full text of articles in unrestricted way. In order to investigate the current situation of OA, 4,756 articles were sampled randomly from articles published between January and September in 2005 and indexed in PubMed. The main results are as follows: 1) The rate of OA articles was 25%, and 75% of all the articles were available online including electronic subscription journal articles. 2) The means of OA was classified into five types. Among them, the rate of OA articles by “OA and Hybrid OA journals” was overwhelming (more than 70%), and that of PMC was 26.2%. The rates of OA articles by “institutional repositories” and “authors’ personal sites” were considerably low (6.0% and 4.9% respectively). 3) When comparing the rates of OA articles by countries, Belgium ranked the first with 41.7%. The five countries indicated more than 30% in OA articles: Canada and India (38.7%), Brazil (36.4%), Australia (30.8%), and the U.S. (30.7%). Each country was different in the means of OA. 4) We explored the rates of OA for two groups; one group consists of articles published in journals with IF, and the other consists of articles published in journals without IF. The rate of OA for the group of articles in journals with IF is 20.6%, and that of articles in journals without IF is 30.8%

Unpacking Altmetric Donuts: Content Analysis of Tweets to Scholarly Journal Articles

Lightning talk slide at the 3rd Altmetric Conference, 28-29 September 2016.<br><div></div><div><br></div

Unpacking Altmetric Donuts: Content Analysis of Tweets to Scholarly Journal Articles

Poster at the 3rd Altmetric Conference, 28-29 September 2016.<br><div><div><br></div></div