👤 Eugene Healy

Physical inactivity is a health concern for children and adolescents with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) as it directly increases their risk of developing various health problems. Evidence on differences in accelerometer-assessed physical activity between children and adolescents with and without NDDs is inconclusive. And age- and body mass index (BMI)-related effects on physical activity remain unclear. The systematic literature searches were performed in 6 databases up to March 2025. Methodological quality was evaluated by the Newcastle-Ottawa Scales. Data were pooled using a random-effects model. Hedges' g was used to express the effect size index with 95 % confidence interval (CI). Meta-regression on age and BMI was also performed to investigate the potential moderating effects. Out of the 2167 studies initially identified, 28 were included in the analysis, which comprised total physical activity (TPA), moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), and light physical activity (LPA) included in the meta-analysis, respectively. These studies involved 1060 children and adolescents with NDDs and 1820 without, aged 6.6-16.9 years. A small-to-moderate effect size exists for the difference in TPA (g=-0.299) and MVPA (g=-0.479) between children and adolescents with and without NDD, particularly indicating a difference in 12.7 min of MVPA daily. The difference in LPA was not significant (g=0.450, p = 0.125). The decline in MVPA with age was more pronounced in those with NDDs, and the difference in MVPA was smaller for those with lower BMI. The variation in MVPA differences by age and BMI highlights the need to develop better physical activity habits and reduce these disparities for children and adolescents with NDDs. Show less

UVR and immunosuppression are major risk factors for cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC). Regulatory T cells promote cSCC carcinogenesis, and in other solid tumors, infiltrating regulatory T cells and CD8 Show less

The integration of in vitro cardiac tissue models, human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) and genome-editing tools allows for the enhanced interrogation of physiological phenotypes and recapitulation of disease pathologies. Here, using a cardiac tissue model consisting of filamentous three-dimensional matrices populated with cardiomyocytes derived from healthy wild-type (WT) hiPSCs (WT hiPSC-CMs) or isogenic hiPSCs deficient in the sarcomere protein cardiac myosin-binding protein C (MYBPC3 Show less

The need for novel approaches to cardiovascular drug development served as the impetus to convene an open meeting of experts from the pharmaceutical industry and academia to assess the challenges and develop solutions for drug discovery in cardiovascular disease. The Novel Cardiovascular Therapeutics Summit first reviewed recent examples of ongoing or recently completed programs translating basic science observations to targeted drug development, highlighting successes (protein convertase sutilisin/kexin type 9 [PCSK9] and neprilysin inhibition) and targets still under evaluation (cholesteryl ester transfer protein [CETP] inhibition), with the hope of gleaning key lessons to successful drug development in the current era. Participants then reviewed the use of innovative approaches being explored to facilitate rapid and more cost-efficient evaluations of drug candidates in a short timeframe. We summarize observations gleaned from this summit and offer insight into future cardiovascular drug development. The rapid development in genetic and high-throughput drug evaluation technologies, coupled with new approaches to rapidly evaluate potential cardiovascular therapies with in vitro techniques, offer opportunities to identify new drug targets for cardiovascular disease, study new therapies with better efficiency and higher throughput in the preclinical setting, and more rapidly bring the most promising therapies to human testing. However, there must be a critical interface between industry and academia to guide the future of cardiovascular drug development. The shared interest among academic institutions and pharmaceutical companies in developing promising therapies to address unmet clinical needs for patients with cardiovascular disease underlies and guides innovation and discovery platforms that are significantly altering the landscape of cardiovascular drug development. Show less