Biomedical subjects

D Agrafiotis

Publications and source records attributed to D Agrafiotis.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2002

Ageing research in Greece.

Ageing research in Greece is well established. Research groups located in universities, research institutes or public hospitals are studying various and complementary aspects of ageing. These research activities include (a) functional analysis of Clusterin/Apolipoprotein J, studies in healthy centenarians and work on protein degradation and the role of proteasome during senescence at the National Hellenic Research Foundation; (b) regulation of cell proliferation and tissue formation, a nationwide study of determinants and markers of successful ageing in Greek centenarians and studies of histone gene expression and acetylation at the National Center for Scientific Research, Demokritos; (c) work on amyloid precursor protein and Presenilin 1 at the University of Athens; (d) oxidative stress-induced DNA damage and the role of oncogenes in senescence at the University of Ioannina; (e) studies in the connective tissue at the University of Patras; (f) proteomic studies at the Biomedical Sciences Research Center Alexander Fleming; (g) work on Caenorhabditis elegans at the Foundation for Research and Technology; (h) the role of ultraviolet radiation in skin ageing at Andreas Sygros Hospital; (i) follow-up studies in healthy elderly at the Athens Home for the Aged; and (j) socio-cultural aspects of ageing at the National School of Public Health. These research activities are well recognized by the international scientific community as it is evident by the group's very good publication records as well as by their direct funding from both European Union and USA. This article summarizes these research activities and discuss future directions and efforts towards the further development of the ageing field in Greece.

Aging↗

PubMed2000

HIV risk behaviour correlates among injecting drug users in Greek prisons.

AIMS: To identify the correlates of injecting drug use within prison. DESIGN: A national cross-sectional study, participation being voluntary and anonymous. SETTING: Ten Greek prisons. PARTICIPANTS: A representative sample of 1000 male inmates; 861 questionnaires were completed and analysed. MEASUREMENT: A self-report questionnaire for demographics, penal history, drug use and sharing injecting equipment. FINDINGS: Two hundred and ninety inmates (33.7%) reported injecting drugs at some time in their lives, of whom 174 (60%) had injected while imprisoned. Among those who had injected while imprisoned, 145 (83%) had shared equipment while incarcerated. Logistic regression analysis suggested that total time in prison, previous drug conviction, being a convict (as opposed to on remand) and having multiple female sexual partners 1 year before incarceration were significant HIV risk behaviour correlates. For every year of imprisonment, the risk of injection in prison increased by about 17% [OR = 1.17 (95% CI: 1.07-1.27)]. Inmates with a previous drug-related conviction were about twice as likely to inject within prison [OR = 1.97 (95% CI: 1.16-3.33)]. Finally, convicted inmates were marginally significantly more prone to inject in prison [OR = 1.58 (95% CI: 0.92-2.74)]. CONCLUSIONS: Variables related to the inmates' prison career influence HIV risk behaviours within prison. There is a need to assist IDUs in reducing the likelihood of high-risk behaviour by considering factors such as frequency of incarceration, length of time incarcerated and availability of detoxification programmes within prison.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗

PubMed1995

PD 90780, a non peptide inhibitor of nerve growth factor's binding to the P75 NGF receptor.

Nerve growth factor is a peptide that supports the survival and differentiation of discrete neuronal populations in the peripheral and central nervous systems. NGF binds to both trkA, a tyrosine kinase receptor, and to the p75 nerve growth factor receptor, a protein lacking a consensus signalling sequence. We have identified a substituted pyrazoloquinazolinone, PD 90780, which inhibits binding of nerve growth factor to the p75 receptor. This inhibition of binding occurs due to PD 90780 binding to nerve growth factor, not to the p75 receptor. This compound may be useful in identifying the region(s) of nerve growth factor involved in binding to the p75 receptor and in clarifying the role of p75 receptor in the actions of the neurotrophins.

Animals↗

PubMedDate not supplied

A novel method for building regression tree models for QSAR based on artificial ant colony systems.

Among the multitude of learning algorithms that can be employed for deriving quantitative structure-activity relationships, regression trees have the advantage of being able to handle large data sets, dynamically perform the key feature selection, and yield readily interpretable models. A conventional method of building a regression tree model is recursive partitioning, a fast greedy algorithm that works well in many, but not all, cases. This work introduces a novel method of data partitioning based on artificial ants. This method is shown to perform better than recursive partitioning on three well-studied data sets.

Algorithms↗

PubMedDate not supplied

AIDS in Greece.

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Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗