Shift-work research: Where do we stand,where should we go?

Sleep and Biological Rhythms - Shift-work seriously affects the health and well-being of millions of people worldwide, and the number of shift workers is constantly rising (currently approximately...     

Leptin in farm animals: where are we and where can we go?

Fat affects meat quality, value and production efficiency as well as providing energy reserves for pregnancy and lactation in farm livestock. Leptin, the adipocyte product of the obese (ob) gene, was quickly seen as a predictor of body fat content in animals approaching slaughter and an aid to assessing reproductive readiness in females. Its participation in inflammation and immune responses that help animals survive infection and trauma has clear additional relevance to meat and milk production. Furthermore, almost a decade of discoveries of nucleotide polymorphisms in the leptin and leptin receptor genes has suggested useful applications relating to feed intake regulation, the efficiency of feed use, the composition of growth, the timing of puberty, mammogenesis and mammary gland function and fertility in cattle, pigs and poultry. The current review attempts to summarise where research has taken us in each of these aspects and speculates on where future research might lead.     

Community genetics: what have we accomplished and where should we be going?

Research in community genetics seeks to understand how the dynamic interplay between ecology and evolution shapes simple and complex communities and ecosystems. A community genetics perspective, however, may not be necessary or informative for all studies and systems. To better understand when and how intraspecific genetic variation and microevolution are important in community and ecosystem ecology, we suggest future research should focus on three areas: (i) determining the relative importance of intraspecific genetic variation compared with other ecological factors in mediating community and ecosystem properties; (ii) understanding the importance of microevolution in shaping ecological dynamics in multi-trophic communities; and (iii) deciphering the phenotypic and associated genetic mechanisms that drive community and ecosystem processes. Here, we identify key areas of research that will increase our understanding of the ecology and evolution of complex communities but that are currently missing in community genetics. We then suggest experiments designed to meet these current gaps.     

Pim kinases in hematological malignancies: where are we now and where are we going?

The proviral insertion in murine (PIM) lymphoma proteins are a serine/threonine kinase family composed of three isoformes: Pim-1, Pim-2 and Pim-3. They play a critical role in the control of cell proliferation, survival, homing and migration. Recently, overexpression of Pim kinases has been reported in human tumors, mainly in hematologic malignancies. In vitro and in vivo studies have confirmed their oncogenic potential. Indeed, PIM kinases have shown to be involved in tumorgenesis, to enhance tumor growth and to induce chemo-resistance, which is why they have become an attractive therapeutic target for cancer therapy. Novel molecules inhibiting Pim kinases have been evaluated in preclinical studies, demonstrating to be effective and with a favorable toxicity profile. Given the promising results, some of these compounds are currently under investigation in clinical trials. Herein, we provide an overview of the biological activity of PIM-kinases, their role in hematologic malignancies and future therapeutic opportunities.     

Outlook on sponge reproduction science in the last ten years: are we far from where we should be?

To comprehend the state of the art of sponge reproduction science (SRS), we quantified and analyzed the trends in SRS in the last decade, aiming to answer three questions: (i) Were there fewer SRS works presented during the last sponge conference? (ii) Did the number of SRS publications decline in the last decade? (iii) Does the number of abstracts at sponge conferences influence overall SRS publications? In addition, we checked whether the SRS community has answered Ereskovsky’s ‘five important questions’, enabling us to advance SRS enough to be considered as a fourth period of this scientific field. We found that SRS was less represented at the last sponge conference, despite an increase in the number of publications during the last decade. Moreover, the number of abstracts presented at sponge conferences contributed to a small portion (25%) of the published works in this area during the last decade. In addition, we found that two of the five Ereskovsky’s questions are still mostly not answered. Thus, we conclude that SRS is healthy and advancing steadily, especially in some subareas (e.g. developmental biology and life history). There are still much to advance, but this is still a strong field of biological science research.     

Neurochemical dementia diagnostics in Alzheimer's disease: where are we now and where are we going?

Neurochemical dementia diagnostics (NDD) is a routine laboratory tool used in the diagnostic process for patients with neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease. Currently, two groups of biomarkers analyzed in the cerebrospinal fluid are considered - namely amyloid-β peptides and Tau proteins - along with the hyperphosphorylated forms of the latter (pTau). Current directions in the development of NDD include the following: search for novel biomarkers with improved analytical or diagnostic performance; optimization of the analysis of the biomarkers already available (e.g., by improved quality control and interlaboratory comparison of results); applications of novel technologies enabling better management of patient samples; and search for biomarkers in the blood. This article presents the state-of-the-art in the field of cerebrospinal fluid-based NDD, and also summarizes some of the hypotheses of how the future development of NDD tools might look.     

Teaching history-taking: where are we?

Knowledge in history-taking has increased rapidly over the last twenty years. Currently the principles to be taught include "conduct," "content," and "diagnostic reasoning." However, inattentiveness of medical schools, reluctance of busy faculty to be involved, and increasing enrollments have resulted in difficulties in teaching these skills. Studies have shown a beneficial short-term effect of teaching these materials on interview performance but it is unknown whether this effect is long-lasting. The methods for instruction include the bedside and videotape models utilizing the concept of the fifteen-minute interview technique, programmed instruction, patient instructors, and direct student feedback. Future research should focus on identifying strategies in diagnostic reasoning, developing graduated competency criteria for trainees at different levels of their education, refining methods to evaluate large numbers of students, measuring outcomes of effective training such as compliance, and comparing costs and effectiveness of various methods. In addition, there remains the need to establish an association of course directors.     

Insensitivity to road salt: an advantage for the American bullfrog?

The health of freshwater ecosystems is negatively affected by a multitude of pollutants. In northern latitudes, road deicing agents enter nearby ponds and waterways elevating chloride concentrations in winter and spring. Few studies have examined how amphibians respond to road salt contamination and no study has focused on the response of an invasive amphibian. We examined the effects of NaCl, the most commonly used deicing agent, on the embryos and tadpoles of the American bullfrog, Lithobates catesbeianus, a species that is invasive in many regions around the world. In the first experiment, we exposed L. catesbeianus embryos to ecologically relevant levels of chloride for 60 days. The second experiment examined the indirect consequences of chloride contamination by exposing L. catesbeianus tadpoles to dragonfly larvae. Lithobates catesbeianus did not experience reduced survival, growth, or ability to evade predation in elevated chloride concentrations compared to controls. The lack of a response by L. catesbeianus suggests that its population growth will not be negatively impacted by road salt contamination. This result may be good news for L. catesbeianus, but raises concern for sympatric amphibians that have to contend with negative impacts of both chloride contamination and non-native L. catesbeianus.     

Genetic research in osteoporosis: Where are we? Where should we go next?

Fractures resulting from low bone mass and excessive skeletal fragility (osteoporosis) are common worldwide both in males and females, particularly in later years of life. Both fractures, and the most important predictor of fractures, bone mass, are now known to be strongly heritable. This fact, plus the current growth in genetic science, has led to a surge of genetic research in osteoporosis, mostly in the search for genes and their polymorphisms that are responsible for variation in bone mass. Finding the genetic basis underlying variation in bone mass will lead us to deeper understanding of the biology of bone mass accumulation, maintenance and adaptation to load. This, plus finding the genetic basis for overall variation in fracture risk per se, will facilitate the development of interventions, both pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical, to prevent and/or treat osteoporosis successfully. This research has produced a rather large number of gene loci that seem to influence bone mass. The challenge now is to refine the statistical genetics and the phenotypes involved so that we can confidently identify those gene loci that truly influence bone mass, and to find ways to study the genetic basis for the most direct disease outcome of interest, fracture.     

Extinction debt in plant communities: where are we now?

In many ecological communities, extinctions following habitat loss do not happen immediately. Understanding this delay is a major challenge, with conservation implications. In this issue, Otsu et al. show how landscape and management features affect the time lag. With this research as a starting point, we highlight the gaps and challenges still remaining in the study of extinction debt, especially in plant communities.