Health care articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    There are currently no validated methods for the diagnosis of prion disease at the preclinical stage. Here the authors show that serial protein misfolding cyclic amplification and real-time quaking-induced conversion can be used to detect prions in the skin of prion-inoculated hamsters and humanized transgenic mice at early preclinical stages.

    • Zerui Wang
    • , Matteo Manca
    •  & Wen-Quan Zou

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cancer patients are at an increased risk of suicide: elderly, white, unmarried males with localized disease are at highest risk vs other cancer patients. Among those diagnosed at < 50 years of age, the plurality of suicides is from hematologic and testicular tumors; if > 50, from prostate, lung, and colorectal cancer patients.

    • Nicholas G. Zaorsky
    • , Ying Zhang
    •  & Vernon M. Chinchilli

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Real-time disease surveillance can aid mitigation of outbreaks. Here, Lu et al. combine an approach using Google search and EHR data with an approach leveraging spatiotemporal synchronicities of influenza activity across states to improve state-level influenza activity estimates in the US.

    • Fred S. Lu
    • , Mohammad W. Hattab
    •  & Mauricio Santillana

  • Article
    | Open Access

    While human lifespan is only moderately heritable, “getting old” runs in families. Here, van den Berg et al. study mortality data from three-generation cohorts to define a threshold for longevity and find that individuals have an increasing survival advantage with each additional relative in the top 10% survivors of their birth cohort.

    • Niels van den Berg
    • , Mar Rodríguez-Girondo
    •  & P. Eline Slagboom

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Parasitic nematodes causing onchocerciasis and lymphatic filariasis rely on a bacterial endosymbiont, Wolbachia, which is a validated therapeutic target. Here, Clare et al. perform a high-throughput screen of 1.3 million compounds and identify 5 chemotypes with faster kill rates than existing anti-Wolbachia drugs.

    • Rachel H. Clare
    • , Catherine Bardelle
    •  & Stephen A. Ward

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Robust surveillance methods are needed for trachoma control and recrudescence monitoring, but existing methods have limitations. Here, Pinsent et al. analyse data from nine trachoma-endemic populations and provide operational thresholds for interpretation of serological data in low transmission and post-elimination settings.

    • Amy Pinsent
    • , Anthony W. Solomon
    •  & Michael. T. White

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Developing new technologies for the neuromodulation of the vagus nerve can enable therapeutic strategies for body weight control in obese patients. Here, the authors present a battery-free self-powered implantable vagus nerve stimulation system that electrically responds to stomach movement.

    • Guang Yao
    • , Lei Kang
    •  & Xudong Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nutritional experience can have phenotypic consequences in subsequent generations, as is evident from studies in animals and plants. Here, Vågerö et al. find in a large three-generation cohort that access to food in the paternal grandfather associates with all-cause and cancer mortality in male grandchildren.

    • Denny Vågerö
    • , Pia R. Pinger
    •  & Gerard J. van den Berg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Biomedical image analysis challenges have increased in the last ten years, but common practices have not been established yet. Here the authors analyze 150 recent challenges and demonstrate that outcome varies based on the metrics used and that limited information reporting hampers reproducibility.

    • Lena Maier-Hein
    • , Matthias Eisenmann
    •  & Annette Kopp-Schneider

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Anemia has a global prevalence of over 2 billion people and is diagnosed via blood-based laboratory test. Here the authors describe a smartphone app that can estimate hemoglobin levels and detect anemia by analyzing pictures of fingernail beds taken with a smartphone and without the need of any external equipment.

    • Robert G. Mannino
    • , David R. Myers
    •  & Wilbur A. Lam

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Photodynamic therapy is usually ineffective against deeply seated metastatic tumors due to poor penetration of the excitation light. Here, the authors design a biomimetic nanoreactor which can convert nutriment glucose into toxic singlet oxygen via chemiluminescence resonance energy transfer with no light excitation and demonstrate its high efficacy in a mouse lung metastatic model.

    • Zhengze Yu
    • , Ping Zhou
    •  & Bo Tang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Treatment-seeking for fever is widely used to estimate treatment of childhood infections, but cross-country comparisons are problematic. Here, the authors estimate the probability of seeking treatment for fever at public facilities across 29 countries by quantifying person-level latent variables.

    • Victor A. Alegana
    • , Joseph Maina
    •  & Andrew J. Tatem

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The decision when to stop an intervention is a critical component of parasite elimination programmes, but reliance on surveillance data alone can be inaccurate. Here, Michael et al. combine parasite transmission model predictions with disease survey data to more reliably determine when interventions can be stopped.

    • Edwin Michael
    • , Morgan E. Smith
    •  & Frank O. Richards

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Micromotors have a range of potential healthcare applications. Here, the authors describe the development of a metal nanoparticle DNA micromotor which can be used to detect human HIV-1 by a change in the motion of the micromotors, monitored by cell phone camera, triggered by binding of HIV-1 RNA.

    • Mohamed Shehata Draz
    • , Kamyar Mehrabi Kochehbyoki
    •  & Hadi Shafiee

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Health care in the United States is heterogeneous with respect to factors like disease incidence, treatment choices and health care spending. Here, the authors use insurance claims data from over 150 million patients to compare prescription rates of over 600 drugs, and uncover patterns of geographical variation that suggest an influence of race, health care laws and wealth.

    • Rachel D. Melamed
    •  & Andrey Rzhetsky

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Fluorescent tracers are being tested in clinical trials to improve detection of tumor margins, but procedures are not standardised. Here, the authors develop an analytical framework that is compatible with the workflow in the operating theatre, and show that it leads to an 88% increase in intraoperative detection of tumor margins in patients with breast cancer.

    • Marjory Koller
    • , Si-Qi Qiu
    •  & Gooitzen M. van Dam

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Conventional coil arrays require complex decoupling technologies to reduce electromagnetic coupling between coil elements. Here, the authors report a self-decoupled RF coil design that achieves high inter-coil isolation between adjacent and non-adjacent elements and mixed arrays of loops and dipoles

    • Xinqiang Yan
    • , John C. Gore
    •  & William A. Grissom

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The engagement of DNA-binding drugs to their target is difficult to study, particularly in vivo. Here the authors develop an in vivo fluorescence lifetime imaging confocal laparo/endomicroscope to show intra- and inter-tumor heterogeneity in doxorubicin binding to peritoneal metastases, which depends on the route of administration.

    • Hugh Sparks
    • , Hiroshi Kondo
    •  & Erik Sahai

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Southern (SWR) and Northern (NWR) are two subspecies of the White Rhinoceros with the NWR being almost extinct. Here, using assisted reproduction technology, the authors produce and cryopreserve SWR purebred and NWR-SWR hybrid embryos developed to the blastocyst stage, and also generate embryonic stem cell lines, in an attempt to save genes of the NWR.

    • Thomas B. Hildebrandt
    • , Robert Hermes
    •  & Cesare Galli

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors examine the role of monkey populations in the sylvatic cycle of chikungunya virus in the Kédougou region, Senegal. The authors show that monkeys are amplification hosts, as opposed to reservoir hosts for infection. These findings expand our knowledge of the transmission dynamics of chikungunya virus in this region of Senegal.

    • Benjamin M. Althouse
    • , Mathilde Guerbois
    •  & Kathryn A. Hanley

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Individuals with different genotypes may respond differently to environmental variation. Here, Favé et al. find substantial impacts of different environment exposures on the transcriptome and clinical endophenotypes when controlling for genetic ancestry by analyzing data from ∼1000 individuals from a founder population in Quebec.

    • Marie-Julie Favé
    • , Fabien C. Lamaze
    •  & Philip Awadalla

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sepsis is characterized by deregulated host response to infection. Efficient therapies are still needed but a limitation for sepsis treatment is the heterogeneity in patients. Here Sweeney et al. generate prognostic models based on gene expression to improve risk stratification classification and prediction for 30-day mortality of patients.

    • Timothy E. Sweeney
    • , Thanneer M. Perumal
    •  & Raymond J. Langley

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Zika virus infection during pregnancy can result in birth defects, but underlying pathogenesis at the maternal-fetal interface is unclear. Here, the authors use non-invasive in vivo imaging of Zika-infected rhesus macaques and show that infection results in abnormal oxygen transport across the placenta.

    • Alec J. Hirsch
    • , Victoria H. J. Roberts
    •  & Daniel N. Streblow

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding global epidemics spread is crucial for preparedness and response. Here the authors introduce an analytical framework to study epidemic spread on air transport networks, and demonstrate its power to estimate key epidemic parameters by application to the recent influenza pandemic and Ebola outbreak.

    • Lin Wang
    •  & Joseph T. Wu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Mass drug administration depends on the distributors’ contact with community members. Using data of deworming treatment distribution from Ugandan villages, the authors show that community medicine distributors with tightly-knit friendship connections achieve the greatest reach and speed of coverage.

    • Goylette F. Chami
    • , Andreas A. Kontoleon
    •  & David W. Dunne

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The current FDA-approved whole blood stabilization method for circulating tumor cell (CTC) isolation suffers from RNA degradation. Here the authors combine hypothermic preservation and antiplatelet strategies to stabilize whole blood up to 72 h without compromising CTC yield and RNA integrity.

    • Keith H. K. Wong
    • , Shannon N. Tessier
    •  & Mehmet Toner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    International and domestic interprovincial trade of China are entangled, but their health impacts have been treated separately in earlier studies. Here Wang. quantify the complex impacts of trade on public health across China within an integrative framework.

    • Haikun Wang
    • , Yanxu Zhang
    •  & Michael B. McElroy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Current approaches to visualise brown adipose tissue (BAT) rely primarily on markers that reflect its metabolic activity. Here, the authors show that PD-L1 is expressed on brown adipocytes, does not change upon BAT activation, and that BAT volume in mice can be measured by PET-CT with a radiolabeled anti-PD-L1 antibody.

    • Jessica R. Ingram
    • , Michael Dougan
    •  & Hidde L. Ploegh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Islet transplantation is considered one of the potential treatments for T1DM but limited islet survival and their impaired function pose limitations to this approach. Here Loh et al. show that the Y1 receptor is expressed in β- cells and inhibition of its signalling, both genetic and pharmacological, improves mouse and human islet function.

    • Kim Loh
    • , Yan-Chuan Shi
    •  & Herbert Herzog

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Early detection of gum inflammation caused by dental implants helps prevent tissue damage. Here, the authors present a peptide sensor that generates a bitter taste when cleaved by proteases present in peri-implant disease, embed it in a chewing gum, and compare the probe to existing sensors using patient saliva.

    • J. Ritzer
    • , T. Lühmann
    •  & L. Meinel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Primary dysmenorrhoea, the most common gynaecologic complaint, remains genetically and pathophysiologically elusive. Here, Li and colleagues identify common variants inZMIZ1 and near NGFconferring risk for primary dysmenorrhoea using genome-wide association study in a Chinese population.

    • Zhiqiang Li
    • , Jianhua Chen
    •  & Yongyong Shi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Some argue that health-related behaviours, such as obesity, are contagious, but empirical evidence of health contagion remains inconclusive. Here, using a large scale quasi-experiment in a global network of runners, Aral and Nicolaides show that this type of contagion exists in fitness behaviours.

    • Sinan Aral
    •  & Christos Nicolaides

  • Editorial
    | Open Access

    The validity of conclusions drawn from functional MRI research has been questioned for some time now. Nature Neuroscience and Nature Communications are committed to working with neuroimaging researchers to improve the robustness and reproducibility of their work.

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Iron oxide microparticles (MPIO) are better MRI contrast agents than nanoparticles, but are of limited clinical use as they are not degradable and so risk toxicity. Here the authors present an iron oxide microparticle MRI contrast agent with peptide linkers that enable degradation into non-toxic nanoparticlesin vivo.

    • Francisco Perez-Balderas
    • , Sander I. van Kasteren
    •  & Benjamin G. Davis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Pain is affected by cerebral processes in addition to afferent nociceptive input. Here the authors develop an fMRI-based signature that predicts pain independent of the intensity of nociceptive signals and mediates the pain-modulating effects of several cognitive interventions.

    • Choong-Wan Woo
    • , Liane Schmidt
    •  & Tor D. Wager

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Brown adipose tissue (BAT) takes up and burns fatty acids for thermogenesis in mice. Here the authors use PET to show that, in humans, cold stimulation increases BAT dietary fatty acid uptake from plasma and oxidative metabolism, although, unlike mice, human BAT takes up less fatty acids than other metabolic tissues.

    • Denis P. Blondin
    • , Hans C. Tingelstad
    •  & André C. Carpentier

  • Article
    | Open Access

    MRI imaging can be significantly enhanced by injecting highly magnetized chemical agents, but the short magnetization lifetime requires processing at the point of use. Here, the authors demonstrate a method that could extend the lifetime from seconds to hours, enabling remote preparation.

    • Xiao Ji
    • , Aurélien Bornet
    •  & Sami Jannin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Use of soluble boron compounds in prostate cancer therapy is hampered by their short half-life time and low effectiveness. Here, the authors show that boron nitride nanospheres with controlled boron release can reduce proliferation of prostate cancer cells and inhibit tumour growth in animal models.

    • Xia Li
    • , Xiupeng Wang
    •  & Dmitri Golberg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    TSC22D4 regulates hepatic lipoprotein production, but has so far mainly been studied in the context of cancer cachexia. Here, the authors show TSC22D4 inhibition improves insulin sensitivity in several mouse models of diabetes, which they attribute at least in part to the induction of secreted LCN13.

    • Bilgen Ekim Üstünel
    • , Kilian Friedrich
    •  & Stephan Herzig

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nanomedicine efficacy in a clinical setting depends on the pharmacological properties of the therapeutic nanoparticles. Here, the authors exemplify an accelerated translational strategy from small-scale screening to clinical scale-up for an orally-dosed aqueous paediatric HIV nanomedicine.

    • Marco Giardiello
    • , Neill J. Liptrott
    •  & Andrew Owen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Magnetic resonance fingerprinting (MRF) requires a uniform B1+ radiofrequency field. Here the authors present plug-n-play MRF, a technique that enables multiparametric imaging with heterogeneous B1+fields, and demonstrate its utility in the presence of RF distortion caused by a metallic orthopaedic implant.

    • Martijn A. Cloos
    • , Florian Knoll
    •  & Daniel K. Sodickson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    NSAID-induced analgesia is typically induced by inhibition of COX enzymes. Here the authors show instead that fenamate NSAIDs inhibit the Nlrp3 inflammasome via an effect on volume-regulated anion channel function and also repurpose these drugs for therapeutic effect in rodent models of Alzheimer disease.

    • Michael J. D. Daniels
    • , Jack Rivers-Auty
    •  & David Brough

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