Personalizing medicine in silico and in socio

Proponents of the emerging field of P4 medicine (defined as personalized, predictive, preventive and participatory) argue that computational integration and analysis of patient-specific “big data” will revolutionize our health care systems, in particular primary care-based disease prevention. While many ambitions remain visionary, steps to personalize medicine are already taken via personalized genomics, mobile health technologies and pilot projects. An important aim of P4 medicine is to enable disease prevention among healthy persons through detection of risk factors. In this paper, we examine the current status of P4 medicine in light of historical and current challenges to predictive and preventive medicine, including overdiagnosis and overtreatment. Moreover, we ask whether it is likely that in silico integration of patient-specific data will be able to better deal such challenges and to turn risk predictions into disease-preventive actions in a wider social context. Given the lack of evidence that P4 medicine can tip the balance between benefits and harms in preventive medicine, we raise concerns about the current promotion of P4 medicine as a solution to the current challenges in public health

Personalizing medicine in silico and in socio

Proponents of the emerging field of P4 medicine (defined as personalized, predictive, preventive and participatory) argue that computational integration and analysis of patient-specific “big data” will revolutionize our health care systems, in particular primary care-based disease prevention. While many ambitions remain visionary, steps to personalize medicine are already taken via personalized genomics, mobile health technologies and pilot projects. An important aim of P4 medicine is to enable disease prevention among healthy persons through detection of risk factors. In this paper, we examine the current status of P4 medicine in light of historical and current challenges to predictive and preventive medicine, including overdiagnosis and overtreatment. Moreover, we ask whether it is likely that in silico integration of patient-specific data will be able to better deal such challenges and to turn risk predictions into disease-preventive actions in a wider social context. Given the lack of evidence that P4 medicine can tip the balance between benefits and harms in preventive medicine, we raise concerns about the current promotion of P4 medicine as a solution to the current challenges in public health

Making social studies in standards-based curricula

Purpose: The aim of this article is to critically explore the complex relations among the triad comprising standards-based curriculum, the curriculum concept of ‘competences’ and the subject of civics in Swedish curricula. Design/methodology/approach: The theoretical framework is based on Bernstein’s (2000) two models of pedagogy, the competence model and the performance model. Following Deng and Luke (2008), we analyse the conceptions of ‘knowledge’ in the subject of civics and explore how a civics syllabus in a standards-based curriculum can be understood and expanded in relation to a classical typology of social studies by Barth and Shermis (1970). Finding: The syllabi of civics includes a clear orientation towards social efficiency. Moreover, the abilities, the concept used instead of competences, are strongly linked to the subject matter. Civics is thus understood as a mélange of abilities and in-built subject-specific content. We identify a new category in the typology of social studies, which is social studies as performance-based generic competences

‘Long covid’ and how medical information is causing illness: A philosophical issue affecting public health

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Personalizing medicine in silico and in socio

Proponents of the emerging field of P4 medicine (defined as personalized, predictive, preventive and participatory) argue that computational integration and analysis of patient-specific “big data” will revolutionize our health care systems, in particular primary care-based disease prevention. While many ambitions remain visionary, steps to personalize medicine are already taken via personalized genomics, mobile health technologies and pilot projects. An important aim of P4 medicine is to enable disease prevention among healthy persons through detection of risk factors. In this paper, we examine the current status of P4 medicine in light of historical and current challenges to predictive and preventive medicine, including overdiagnosis and overtreatment. Moreover, we ask whether it is likely that in silico integration of patient-specific data will be able to better deal such challenges and to turn risk predictions into disease-preventive actions in a wider social context. Given the lack of evidence that P4 medicine can tip the balance between benefits and harms in preventive medicine, we raise concerns about the current promotion of P4 medicine as a solution to the current challenges in public health

Improving protein extraction and separation methods for investigating the metaproteome of anaerobic benzene communities within sediments

BTEX compounds such as benzene are frequent soil and groundwater contaminants that are easily biodegraded under oxic conditions by bacteria. In contrast, benzene is rather recalcitrant under anaerobic conditions. The analysis of anoxic degradation is often hampered by difficult sampling conditions, limited amounts of biomass and interference of matrix compounds with proteomic approaches. In order to improve the procedure for protein extraction we established a scheme consisting of the following steps: dissociation of cells from lava granules, cell lysis by ultrasonication and purification of proteins by phenol extraction. The 2D-gels revealed a resolution of about 240 proteins spots and the spot patterns showed strong matrix dependence, but still differences were detectable between the metaproteomes obtained after growth on benzene and benzoate. Using direct data base search as well as de novo sequencing approaches we were able to identify several proteins. An enoyl-CoA hydratase with cross species homology to Azoarcus evansii, is known to be involved in the anoxic degradation of xenobiotics. Thereby the identification confirmed that this procedure has the capacity to analyse the metaproteome of an anoxic living microbial community

A monoclinic polymorph of N-eth­oxy­carbonyl-N′-(3-phenyl-1H-1,2,4-triazol-5-yl)thio­urea

The title compound, C12H13N5O2S {systematic name: ethyl N-[N-(3-phenyl-1H-1,2,4-triazol-5-yl)carbamothio­yl]carbamate}, is a monoclinic polymorph (space group P21/c) which crystallizes with three similar independent mol­ecules in the asymmetric unit. The triazole ring makes dihedral angles of 6.6 (2), 8.4 (2) and 10.6 (2)° with the phenyl ring in the three independent molecules. The structure was previously reported [Dolzhenko et al. (2010a ▶). Acta Cryst., E46, o425] as a triclinic polymorph crystallizing in space group P . Mol­ecules in both polymorphs possess two S(6) rings generated by intra­molecular N—H⋯S and N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds, resulting in similar mol­ecular geometries. However, the two polymorphs differ in the crystal packing. In contrast to the dimers of the triclinic polymorph, mol­ecules of the monoclinic polymorph are connected by inter­molecular N—H⋯S and N—H⋯N hydrogen bonds, forming pseudosymmetric trimers arranged in sheets parallel to (302)