Open licensing of BioBrick parts

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Prospective cohort study to investigate the burden and transmission of acute gastroenteritis in care homes: a study protocol.

INTRODUCTION: Noroviruses are the leading cause of acute gastroenteritis in all age groups, but illness is more severe and causes excess mortality in the elderly, particularly those in long-term care. The total burden of norovirus disease in the elderly in the UK is poorly defined; no current surveillance programmes systematically or accurately quantify norovirus infection in those living in care homes. The aim of this study is to evaluate an enhanced surveillance system for acute gastroenteritis among the elderly in care homes. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: We will conduct this prospective cohort study in care homes in North West England; residents and staff at study care homes will be asked to participate. We will prospectively enrol a cohort of participants in an enhanced surveillance system to capture the incidence of acute gastroenteritis and use multiplex PCR to detect pathogens. We will sample symptomatic and non-symptomatic participants to understand characteristics of norovirus disease and susceptibility to infection. We will generate novel data on transmission dynamics by collecting data on the pattern of interactions within care homes using electronic proximity sensors. Comparisons of outbreak and non-outbreak periods will be used to quantify the impact of norovirus outbreaks on care homes. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The study has been approved by the North West-Greater Manchester South NHS Research Ethics Committee (REC Reference: 16/NW/0541). Study outputs will be disseminated through scientific conferences and peer-reviewed publications. This study will provide detailed insight on the burden and aetiology of acute gastroenteritis in care homes, in addition to generating novel data on transmission dynamics and risks. The study will identify areas for improving infection control practice and allow more accurate modelling of the introduction of interventions such as vaccination

Double face of stem cells in paediatrics: therapeutic applications of mesenchymal stem cells and threats from cancer stem cells

International audienceDecades of research have shown that many, if not all, fully developed and differentiated organs and tissues contain a subpopulation of undifferentiated stem cells or progenitors of stem cells, which under natural or experimental conditions can self-renew and differentiate into specialised cells. These findings have opened countless possibilities of novel therapeutic applications for the treatment of adult and child diseases. The main sources of stem cells used in paediatric therapies are umbilical cord and umbilical cord blood, amniotic fluid, placenta, bone marrow, adipose tissue, urine, and induced pluripotent stem cells derived from the patient's cells. Here, we describe some of the paediatrically applicable stem cell therapies. We focus our attention on the therapeutic applications of mesenchymal stem cells in paediatric diseases. An important but negative effect of stem cell therapies is the risk of oncogenic potential of therapeutically applied stem cells. Under certain circumstances, these stem cells can lead to tumour development. In addition, the majority of adult and paediatric tumours contain a subpopulation of cancer stem cells which are privileged therapeutic targets for numerous paediatric cancers. In this article, we review these two opposite properties ("double face") of stem cells in general and paediatric medicine

Prospective cohort study to investigate the burden and transmission of acute gastroenteritis in care homes: epidemiological results

Objectives To estimate the incidence of gastroenteritis in individuals in care homes. Design Prospective cohort study. Setting Five participating care homes in North West England, UK. Participants Residents and staff present at the five study care homes between 15 August 2017 and 30 May 2019 (n=268). Outcome measures We calculated incidence rates for all gastroenteritis cases per 1000 person-years at risk and per 1000 bed-days at risk. We also calculated the incidence rate of gastroenteritis outbreaks per 100 care homes per year. Results In total 45 cases were reported during the surveillance period, equating to 133.7 cases per 1000 person-years at risk. In residents the incidence rate was 0.62 cases per 1000 bed-days. We observed seven outbreaks in all care homes included in surveillance, a rate of 76.4 outbreaks per 100 care homes per year. 15 stool samples were tested; three were positive for norovirus, no other pathogens were detected. Conclusions We found that surveillance of infectious gastroenteritis disease in care homes based on outbreaks, the current general approach, detected a majority of cases of gastroenteritis. However, if policymakers are to estimate the burden of infectious gastroenteritis in this setting using only routine outbreak surveillance data and not accounting for non-outbreak cases, this study implies that the total burden will be underestimated. This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon this work for any purpose, provided the original work is properly cited, a link to the licence is given, and indication of whether changes were made