Biomedical subjects

T Mason

Publications and source records attributed to T Mason.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

PubMed2001

Tuberculosis in North Carolina: trends across two decades, 1980-1999.

In North Carolina, we analyzed cumulative data for tuberculosis (TB) from 1980 through 1999 to determine trends in incidence, population subgroups at risk, and implications for health policy- makers. The overall incidence rates declined significantly over the study period (p = 0.0001). This decline correlates strongly with an increase in TB patients receiving directly observed therapy. Males have approximately twice the risk for disease, and persons >65 years of age are at the highest risk. For every Caucasian with TB, six blacks, six Hispanics, and eight Asians have the disease. TB incidence rates are declining in all other population subgroups but increasing in foreign-born and Hispanic persons.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2001

African-American heredity prostate cancer study: a model for genetic research.

A genome-wide scan of high-risk prostate cancer families in North America has demonstrated linkage of a particular marker to Chromosome Iq (HPC11. An even greater proportion of African-American families have shown linkage to HPC 1. Therefore, investigators at the National Human Genome Research Institute [NHGRI] in collaboration with Howard University and a predominantly African-American group of urologists established the African-American Hereditary Prostate Cancer (AAHPC) Study Network to confirm the suggested linkage of HPC in African Americans with a gene on Chromosome 1. Blood samples from recruited families were sent to Howard University for extraction of DNA. The DNA was sent to NHGRI at NIH where the genotyping and genetic sequence analysis was conducted. Genotype data are merged with pedigree information so that statistical analysis can be performed to establish potential linkage. From March 1, 1998, to June 1, 1999, a total of 40 African-American families have been recruited who met the study criteria. Preliminary results suggest that racial/ethnicity grouping may affect the incidence and extent of linkage of prostate cancer to specific loci. The importance of these findings lays in the future treatment of genetic-based diseases.

Black People↗

PubMed2001

African-American heredity prostate cancer study: a model for genetic research.

A genome-wide scan of high-risk prostate cancer families in North America has demonstrated linkage of a particular marker to Chromosome 1q (HPC1). An even greater proportion of African-American families have shown linkage to HPC1. Therefore, investigators at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) in collaboration with Howard University and a predominantly African-American group of urologists established the African-American Hereditary Prostate Cancer (AAHPC) Study Network to confirm the suggested linkage of HPC in African Americans with a gene on Chromosome 1. Blood samples from recruited families were sent to Howard University for extraction of DNA. The DNA was sent to NHGRI at NIH where the genotyping and genetic sequence analysis was conducted. Genotype data are merged with pedigree information so that statistical analysis can be performed to establish potential linkage. From March 1, 1998, to June 1, 1999, a total of 40 African-American families have been recruited who met the study criteria. Preliminary results suggest that racial/ethnicity grouping may affect the incidence and extent of linkage of prostate cancer to specific loci. The importance of these findings lays in the future treatment of genetic-based diseases.

Aged↗

PubMed2000

Complete genome sequence of Neisseria meningitidis serogroup B strain MC58.

The 2,272,351-base pair genome of Neisseria meningitidis strain MC58 (serogroup B), a causative agent of meningitis and septicemia, contains 2158 predicted coding regions, 1158 (53.7%) of which were assigned a biological role. Three major islands of horizontal DNA transfer were identified; two of these contain genes encoding proteins involved in pathogenicity, and the third island contains coding sequences only for hypothetical proteins. Insights into the commensal and virulence behavior of N. meningitidis can be gleaned from the genome, in which sequences for structural proteins of the pilus are clustered and several coding regions unique to serogroup B capsular polysaccharide synthesis can be identified. Finally, N. meningitidis contains more genes that undergo phase variation than any pathogen studied to date, a mechanism that controls their expression and contributes to the evasion of the host immune system.

Antigenic Variation↗

PubMed2000

Identification of vaccine candidates against serogroup B meningococcus by whole-genome sequencing.

Neisseria meningitidis is a major cause of bacterial septicemia and meningitis. Sequence variation of surface-exposed proteins and cross-reactivity of the serogroup B capsular polysaccharide with human tissues have hampered efforts to develop a successful vaccine. To overcome these obstacles, the entire genome sequence of a virulent serogroup B strain (MC58) was used to identify vaccine candidates. A total of 350 candidate antigens were expressed in Escherichia coli, purified, and used to immunize mice. The sera allowed the identification of proteins that are surface exposed, that are conserved in sequence across a range of strains, and that induce a bactericidal antibody response, a property known to correlate with vaccine efficacy in humans.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

PubMed2000

Recruitment experience in the first phase of the African American Hereditary Prostate Cancer (AAHPC) study.

The African American Hereditary Prostate Cancer (AAHPC) Study is an ongoing multicenter genetic linkage study organized by Howard University and the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), with support from the Office for Research on Minority Health and the National Cancer Institute. The goals of the study are to: (i) look for evidence of involvement of chromosome 1q24-25 (HPC1) in African American men with hereditary prostate cancer (HPC) and (ii) conduct a genome-wide search for other loci associated with HPC in African American men. To accomplish these goals, a network has been established including Howard University, the NHGRI, and six Collaborative Recruitment Centers (CRCs). The CRCs are responsible for the identification and enrollment of 100 African American families. To date, 43 families have been enrolled. Recruitment strategies have included mass media campaigns, physician referrals, community health-fairs/prostate cancer screenings, support groups, tumor registries, as well as visits to churches, barber shops, and universities. By far, the most productive recruitment mechanisms have been physician referrals and tumor registries, yielding a total of 35 (81%) families. Approximately 41% (n = 3400) of probands initially contacted by phone or mail expressed interest in participating; the families of 2% of these met the eligibility criteria, and 75% of those families have been enrolled in the study, indicating a 0.5% recruitment yield (ratio of participants to contacts). As the first large-scale genetic linkage study of African Americans, on a common disease, the challenges and successes of the recruitment process for the AAHPC Study should serve to inform future efforts to involve this population in similar studies.

Black or African American↗

PubMed2000

Managing protest behaviour: from coercion to compassion.

The compulsory detention and involuntary treatment of mentally disordered offenders is fraught with conceptual difficulties relating to liberty and the protection of others from harm. It is often the case in forensic psychiatry that patients consider themselves unjustly treated and unfairly judged, which may result in some engaging in protest behaviour. This paper is concerned with setting out some philosophical positions in relation to such loss of liberty and forced treatment, and views the protest scenario as a form of hostage situation. This perspective shifts the management of protest behaviour from strategies of coercion to those based on negotiation. Finally, four models of management are set out to facilitate the understanding of protest, and these refer to: (a) crisis bargaining by tracking relational paradox; (b) negotiation as psychotherapy; (c) bio-behavioural dimension; and (d) protest as post-traumatic stress disorder.

Coercion↗

PubMed2000

Value of imaging in disorders of the facial nerve.

Imaging of the facial nerve has proved its usefulness to physicians in the evaluation of pathological conditions of this nerve. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the facial nerve should always be obtained selectively and should include the parotid gland in case of peripheral facial nerve palsy. Gadolinium-DTPA contrast pulse sequence is the most informative MRI study for evaluation of facial nerve pathology. This article reviews the imaging anatomy of the facial nerve and describes the clinical features and MR characteristics of common disorders of the facial nerve.

Contrast Media↗

PubMed1999

Sequence and analysis of chromosome 2 of the plant Arabidopsis thaliana.

Arabidopsis thaliana (Arabidopsis) is unique among plant model organisms in having a small genome (130-140 Mb), excellent physical and genetic maps, and little repetitive DNA. Here we report the sequence of chromosome 2 from the Columbia ecotype in two gap-free assemblies (contigs) of 3.6 and 16 megabases (Mb). The latter represents the longest published stretch of uninterrupted DNA sequence assembled from any organism to date. Chromosome 2 represents 15% of the genome and encodes 4,037 genes, 49% of which have no predicted function. Roughly 250 tandem gene duplications were found in addition to large-scale duplications of about 0.5 and 4.5 Mb between chromosomes 2 and 1 and between chromosomes 2 and 4, respectively. Sequencing of nearly 2 Mb within the genetically defined centromere revealed a low density of recognizable genes, and a high density and diverse range of vestigial and presumably inactive mobile elements. More unexpected is what appears to be a recent insertion of a continuous stretch of 75% of the mitochondrial genome into chromosome 2.

Arabidopsis↗

PubMed1999

Genome duplications and other features in 12 Mb of DNA sequence from human chromosome 16p and 16q.

Several publicly funded large-scale sequencing efforts have been initiated with the goal of completing the first reference human genome sequence by the year 2005. Here we present the results of analysis of 11.8 Mb of genomic sequence from chromosome 16. The apparent gene density varies throughout the region, but the number of genes predicted (84) suggests that this is a gene-poor region. This result may also suggest that the total number of human genes is likely to be at the lower end of published estimates. One of the most interesting aspects of this region of the genome is the presence of highly homologous, recently duplicated tracts of sequence distributed throughout the p-arm. Such duplications have implications for mapping and gene analysis as well as the predisposition to recurrent chromosomal structural rearrangements associated with genetic disease.

Animals↗

PubMed1999

Riboflavin-mediated delivery of a macromolecule into cultured human cells.

Cell surface receptors for the vitamins folic acid and biotin have been previously reported to mediate the endocytosis of vitamin-conjugated macromolecules into cultured cells. To evaluate whether a similar uptake pathway for riboflavin-conjugated macromolecules might exist, riboflavin was covalently linked to bovine serum albumin (BSA) via the vitamin's ribityl side chain, and uptake of the protein by cultured human cells was examined. Whereas unconjugated BSA was not internalized by KB, A549, SK-LU-1 or SK-OV cells, riboflavin-conjugated BSA was readily internalized (>106 molecules/cell). Analysis of the uptake pathway revealed that the riboflavin-BSA conjugate likely docks on cells at a carrier/transport protein that is distinct from the uptake pathway for free riboflavin and then enters via normal membrane cycling. Evidence for this contention is: (i) the internalized conjugate accumulates in endosomal compartments, (ii) uptake into cells is halted at temperatures near 0 degreesC where membrane trafficking is abrogated, (iii) cell association is inhibited by unlabeled riboflavin-BSA, but not by free riboflavin, and (iv) cellular uptake of [3H]riboflavin is only partially inhibited by riboflavin-BSA. Regardless of the pathway of internalization, these data demonstrate that riboflavin conjugation can facilitate protein entry into human cells in culture.

Binding Sites↗

PubMed1999

Effective rate models for the analysis of transport-dependent biosensor data.

Optical biosensors, including the BIACORE, provide an increasingly popular method for determining reaction rates of biomolecules. In a flow chamber, with one reactant immobilized on a chip on the sensor surface, a solution containing the other reactant (the analyte) flows through the chamber. The time course of binding of the reactants is monitored. Scientists using the BIACORE to understand biomolecular reactions need to be able to separate intrinsic reaction rates from the effects of transport in the biosensor. For a model to provide a useful basis for such an analysis, it must reflect transport accurately, while remaining simple enough to couple with a routine for estimating reaction rates from BIACORE data. Models have been proposed previously for this purpose, consisting of an ordinary differential equation with 'effective rate coefficients' incorporating reaction and transport parameters. In this paper we investigate both the theoretical basis and numerical accuracy of these and related models.

Biological Transport↗

PubMed1999

Continuous combined hormone replacement therapy compared with tibolone.

OBJECTIVE: To compare relief of vasomotor symptoms, changes in lipoproteins, and bleeding patterns in postmenopausal women receiving either continuous combined hormone replacement therapy (HRT) of estradiol valerate and norethisterone or tibolone 2.5 mg/day. METHODS: In a multicenter, randomized, open-label study, 235 postmenopausal women received one of the above-mentioned treatments. Fasting lipoproteins were measured at baseline and at 3, 6, and 12 months. At each visit, participants completed Greene climacteric questionnaires and recorded any bleeding episodes. Data are presented as mean +/- standard deviation if normally distributed, median and interquartile range if non-normally distributed, or as frequency count. For menopausal symptoms and diary card data, the differences were tested by Wilcoxon rank-sum test. RESULTS: One hundred sixteen women received continuous combined HRT and 119 women received tibolone; 72 and 76 women, respectively, completed 12 months of therapy. Both treatments effectively relieved vasomotor symptoms and reduced serum total cholesterol. Continuous combined HRT, but not tibolone, significantly reduced low-density lipoprotein levels. Both treatments reduced high-density lipoprotein levels, but the effect was more profound with tibolone. The initial bleeding score was higher for women taking continuous combined HRT; however, by the end of the study, the percentages of amenorrheal women were comparable. Endometrial histology was similar for both treatments at the end of the study, although two cases of proliferative endometrium were found in the tibolone group. CONCLUSION: Estradiol valerate-norethisterone continuous combined HRT controls symptoms and is associated with a safe lipid profile.

Climacteric↗

PubMed1999

Triumvirate nursing for personality disordered patients: crossing the boundaries safely.

As the issue of the treatment and effective management of personality disordered patients comes under close scrutiny in the wake of the Fallon Inquiry, we offer a brief overview of the nature of the challenges involved in nursing this difficult group of patients. Traditional methods of setting limits and defining boundaries are no longer convincing amidst the allegations of multidisciplinary staff being culpable, at one level or another, for their contribution in this tragic inquiry. In this paper we offer a strategic mechanism of constructing nursing care for this difficult group of patients and provide a framework for crossing boundaries safely through a multidisciplinary framework. We term this triumvirate nursing. Nursing management of those patients considered to have personality disorders is traditionally very difficult. This difficulty, in part, stems from the inability of nurses to strategically develop therapeutic relationships in a safe manner. Crossing boundaries is a necessary part of therapeutic exploration and relationship building; triumvirate nursing offers a safe mechanism for undertaking this. Creative thinking is a necessary part of the future development of the nursing management of these disorders.

Hospital Units↗

PubMed1999

Good & evil in the crusade of care. Social constructions of mental disorders.

Forensic nursing is a product of medicalized criminality, where social and moral issues are managed within a psychiatric ideology. The narrative accounts of nursing staff reflect a tension between scientific and lay interpretations of offending behavior. A nonprofessional discourse about "evil" presents a challenge to the structural and clinical credibility of forensic practice.

Culture↗

PubMed1998

Chromosome 2 sequence of the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum.

Chromosome 2 of Plasmodium falciparum was sequenced; this sequence contains 947,103 base pairs and encodes 210 predicted genes. In comparison with the Saccharomyces cerevisiae genome, chromosome 2 has a lower gene density, introns are more frequent, and proteins are markedly enriched in nonglobular domains. A family of surface proteins, rifins, that may play a role in antigenic variation was identified. The complete sequencing of chromosome 2 has shown that sequencing of the A+T-rich P. falciparum genome is technically feasible.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

PubMed1998

Immunogenic epitopes of Salmonella typhi GroEL heat shock protein reactive with both monoclonal antibody and patients sera.

A series of 122, 9-mer overlapping peptides based on the sequence of the Salmonella typhi GroEL gene was synthesized on the surfaces of polyethylene pins and screened with monoclonal antibody to GroEL and with human sera from patients with typhoid fever and normal healthy blood donors. Three immunogenic epitopes corresponding to peptides EGQDRGYSY, YSYNKETGE and GKGTEEKEK were identified upon screening with the human sera. In addition, screening of the peptides with a monoclonal antibody to GroEL detected binding to a third peptide, KGGKGTEEK, which contains a common overlapping sequence to peptide GKGTEEKEK. Identification and definition of these epitopes will be important in delineating the biological and immunological functions of this protein and in designing better diagnostic tests and vaccines.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

PubMed1998

Admission trends to a special hospital: court diversion and prison transfers.

This paper reviews the literature regarding the diversion of mentally disordered offenders from the criminal justice system to the mental health services, with a specific focus on the high security psychiatric special hospitals. The traditional sources of admission to these institutions have been predominantly courts and prisons, with the majority of patients being admitted via the former route. This study reports on the admissions to a special hospital over a 20-year period, and shows that over the previous decade there has been a reversal in this trend, with the number of patients transferred from prison being greater than that via any other route. The factors that may have contributed to this reversal are discussed and conclusions are drawn as to the external and internal forensic factors that may influence the court's decision in the referral process.

England↗