Workshop to identify critical windows of exposure for children's health: immune and respiratory systems work group summary.

Fetuses, infants, and juveniles (preadults) should not be considered simply "small adults" when it comes to toxicological risk. We present specific examples of developmental toxicants that are more toxic to children than to adults, focusing on effects on the immune and respiratory systems. We describe differences in both the pharmacokinetics of the developing immune and respiratory systems as well as changes in target organ sensitivities to toxicants. Differential windows of vulnerability during development are identified in the context of available animal models. We provide specific approaches to directly investigate differential windows of vulnerability. These approaches are based on fundamental developmental biology and the existence of discrete developmental processes within the immune and respiratory systems. The processes are likely to influence differential developmental susceptibility to toxicants, resulting in lifelong toxicological changes. We also provide a template for comparative research. Finally, we discuss the application of these data to risk assessment

Definition of diseases during the fresh cow period and individual treatments in the conventional and sensor-based groups

Supplementary material of the publication: Simoni A, König F, Weimar K, Hancock A, Wunderlich C, Klawitter M, Breuer T, Drillich M, Iwersen M. 2024. Evaluation of sensor-based health monitoring in dairy cows: Exploiting rumination times for health alerts around parturition. Journal of dairy science. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2023-2431

A decade of optimizing drug development for rare neuromuscular disorders through TACT

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the TREAT-NMD Advisory Committee for Therapeutics (TACT), a group of multidisciplinary experts that evaluates drug development programmes for rare neuromuscular diseases and identifies pitfalls. Here, we discuss the experience with TACT based on its reviews of more than 50 applications and its potential as a model for other rare disorders