Project description:Ethics in social science experimentation and data collection are often discussed but rarely articulated in writing as part of research outputs. Although papers typically reference human subjects research approvals from relevant institutional review boards, most recognize that such boards do not carry out comprehensive ethical assessments. We propose a structured ethics appendix to provide details on the following: policy equipoise, role of the researcher, potential harms to participants and nonparticipants, conflicts of interest, intellectual freedom, feedback to participants, and foreseeable misuse of research results. We discuss each of these and some of the norms and challenging situations of each. We believe that discussing such issues explicitly in appendices of papers, even if briefly, will serve two purposes: more complete communication of ethics can improve discussions of papers and can clarify and improve the norms themselves.
Project description:The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has created an urgent need for coordinated mechanisms to respond to the outbreak across health sectors, and digital health solutions have been identified as promising approaches to address this challenge. This editorial discusses the current situation regarding digital health solutions to fight COVID-19 as well as the challenges and ethical hurdles to broad and long-term implementation of these solutions. To decrease the risk of infection, telemedicine has been used as a successful health care model in both emergency and primary care. Official communication plans should promote facile and diverse channels to inform people about the pandemic and to avoid rumors and reduce threats to public health. Social media platforms such as Twitter and Google Trends analyses are highly beneficial to model pandemic trends as well as to monitor the evolution of patients' symptoms or public reaction to the pandemic over time. However, acceptability of digital solutions may face challenges due to potential conflicts with users' cultural, moral, and religious backgrounds. Digital tools can provide collective public health benefits; however, they may be intrusive and can erode individual freedoms or leave vulnerable populations behind. The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the strong potential of various digital health solutions that have been tested during the crisis. More concerted measures should be implemented to ensure that future digital health initiatives will have a greater impact on the epidemic and meet the most strategic needs to ease the life of people who are at the forefront of the crisis.
Project description:In May 2013, the WHO Member States requested the WHO to establish a Global Observatory on Health Research and Development (R&D), as part of a strategic work-plan to promote innovation, build capacity, improve access, and mobilize resources to address diseases that disproportionately affect the world's poorest countries.The rationale for establishing a Global Observatory on Health R&D is to provide a mechanism to monitor and analyse health R&D resource flows, product pipelines, and research outputs, aiming to contribute to the identification of gaps to inform priority-setting for new R&D investments to be operationalized through a new global financing and coordination mechanism for health R&D and utilized by all stakeholders informing health research policy decisions in countries, civil society, and the private sector.As one of the mechanisms to achieve the goals of the Global Observatory on Health R&D, the WHO is launching a Call for Papers to be published as a Thematic Series in Health Research Policy and Systems to contribute state-of-the-art knowledge and innovative approaches to analyse, interpret, and report on health R&D information. Further, to serve as a key resource to inform the future WHO-convened coordination mechanism, which will be utilized to generate evidence-informed priorities for new R&D investments to be financed through a proposed new global financing and coordination mechanism for health R&D.
Project description:Common ALL (cALL) is the most frequent entity of childhood ALL and carries an early pre-B cell phenotype. Expression patterns of 25 pediatric cALL samples were analyzed by use of high-density DNA microarrays HG-U133A. Leukemic patients’ bone marrow samples were compared to sorted B cells from cord blood of healthy donors expressing CD19 and CD10 surface antigens. Differential gene expression profiling of pediatric cALL versus non-malignant tissues enabled the identification of aberrantly expressed genes in malignant cells, facilitating discrimination of leukemic from normal cells and possibly revealing specific disease mechanisms. Principal component analysis clearly distinguished leukemia samples from normal controls. Significance analysis of microarrays revealed 487 genes significantly up-regulated, and 572 down-regulated genes in leukemic cells. A comparison to previous publications investigating genetically defined subsets of cALL revealed 465 genes previously not associated with cALL. Interestingly, terminal deoxynucleotidyl-transferase (DNTT) as well as in the context of cALL unknown genes, were found to be the strongest predictive genes for the malignant phenotype signifying the diagnostic value of our approach.
Project description:Common ALL (cALL) is the most frequent entity of childhood ALL and carries an early pre-B cell phenotype. Expression patterns of 25 pediatric cALL samples were analyzed by use of high-density DNA microarrays HG-U133A. Leukemic patientsâ bone marrow samples were compared to sorted B cells from cord blood of healthy donors expressing CD19 and CD10 surface antigens. Differential gene expression profiling of pediatric cALL versus non-malignant tissues enabled the identification of aberrantly expressed genes in malignant cells, facilitating discrimination of leukemic from normal cells and possibly revealing specific disease mechanisms. Principal component analysis clearly distinguished leukemia samples from normal controls. Significance analysis of microarrays revealed 487 genes significantly up-regulated, and 572 down-regulated genes in leukemic cells. A comparison to previous publications investigating genetically defined subsets of cALL revealed 465 genes previously not associated with cALL. Interestingly, terminal deoxynucleotidyl-transferase (DNTT) as well as in the context of cALL unknown genes, were found to be the strongest predictive genes for the malignant phenotype signifying the diagnostic value of our approach. RNA was extracted from bone marrow or peripheral blood samples form pediatric cALL patients, leukemia cell lines, and purified fetal B cells and hybridized with Affymetrix HG_U133A microarrays.