Biology subjects

Hughes, A.

Publications and source records attributed to Hughes, A..

22 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

bioRxiv2018

"Light-box" accelerated growth of poinsettias: LED-only Illumination

For the current commercialized agricultural industry which requires a reduced product lead time to customer and supply all year round, an artificial light emitting diode (LED)-based illumination has high potential due to high efficiency of electrical-to-light conversion. The main advantage of the deployed Red Green Blue Amber LED lighting system is colour mixing capability, which means the ability to generate all the colours in the spectrum by using three or four primary colour LEDs. The accelerated plant growth was carried out in a \"light-box\" which was made to generate an artificial day/night cycle and had a capability to tune the colour mixing ratio along the colour temperature curve of the chromaticity diagram. The control group of plants form the same initial batch was grown on the same shelf in a greenhouse at the same conditions with addition of artificial illumination by incandescent lamps for few hours. More dense and better quality (hence, commercial value) plants were grown in the light-box. Costs and efficiency projections of LED lamps for horticultural applications is discussed together with required capital investment. The total cost of the \"light-box\" including LED lamps and electronics was 850 AUD.

plant biology↗

bioRxiv2018

Signaling pathway screening platforms are an efficient approach toidentify therapeutic targets in precision-medicine oriented early phaseclinical trials

Precision medicine aims to tailor cancer therapies to target specific tumorpromoting aberrations. For tumors that lack actionable drivers, extensive molecular characterization and pre-clinical drug efficacy studies will be required to match patients with the appropriate targeted therapy. A cell line maintained at low passage and a patient-derived xenograft model (PDX) were generated using a fresh biopsy from a patient with a poorly-differentiated neuroendocrine tumor of unknown primary origin. Next-generation sequencing, high throughput signaling network analysis, and drug efficacy trials were then conducted to identify actionable targets for therapeutic intervention. No actionable mutations were identified after whole exome sequencing of the patients DNA; however, whole genome sequencing revealed amplification of the 3q and 5p chromosomal arms, that include the PIK3CA and RICTOR genes, respectively. Consistent with amplification of these genes, pathway analysis revealed activation of the AKT pathway. Based on this analysis, efficacy of PIK3CA and AKT inhibitors were evaluated in the tumor biopsy-derived cell culture and PDX, and response to the AKT inhibitor AZD5363 was observed both in vitro and in vivo indicating the patient would benefit from targeted therapies directed against the serine/threonine kinase AKT. In conclusion, our study demonstrates that high throughput signaling pathway analysis complements next-generation sequencing approaches for detection of actionable alterations and will aid in patient stratification into early-phase clinical trials.

clinical trials↗

bioRxiv2018

The Delirium and Population Health Informatics Cohort study protocol: ascertaining the determinants and outcomes from delirium in a whole population.

BackgroundDelirium affects 25% of older inpatients and is associated with long-term cognitive impairment and future dementia. However, no population studies have systematically ascertained cognitive function before, cognitive deficits during, and cognitive impairment after delirium. Therefore, there is a need to address the following question: does delirium, and its features (including severity, duration, and presumed aetiologies), predict long-term cognitive impairment, independent of cognitive impairment at baseline?\n\nMethodsThe Delirium and Population Health Informatics Cohort (DELPHIC) study is an observational population-based cohort study based in the London Borough of Camden. It is recruiting 2000 individuals aged [≥]70 years and prospectively following them for two years, including daily ascertainment of all inpatient episodes for delirium. Daily inpatient assessments include the Memorial Delirium Assessment Scale, the Observational Scale for Level of Arousal, and the Hierarchical Assessment of Balance and Mobility. Data on delirium aetiology is also collected. The primary outcome is the change in the modified Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status at two years.\n\nDiscussionDELPHIC is the first population sample to assess older persons before, during and after hospitalisation. The cumulative incidence of delirium in the general population aged [≥]70 will be described. DELPHIC offers the opportunity to quantify the impact of delirium on cognitive and functional outcomes. Overall, DELPHIC will provide a real-time public health observatory whereby information from primary, secondary, intermediate and social care can be integrated to understand how acute illness is linked to health and social care outcomes.

epidemiology↗

bioRxiv2017

Quantius: Generic, high-fidelity human annotation of scientific images at 105-clicks-per-hour

We describe Quantius, a crowd-based image annotation platform that provides an accurate alternative to task-specific computational algorithms for difficult image analysis problems. We use Quantius to quantify a variety of computationally challenging medium-throughput tasks with ~50x and 30x savings in analysis time and cost respectively, relative to a single expert annotator. We show equivalent deep learning performance for Quantius- and expert-derived annotations, bridging towards scalable integration with tailored machine-learning algorithms.

bioinformatics↗