Optimizing the Aging Brain: The BEAD Study on the Ethics of Dementia Prevention.

Dementia has lately undergone a profound reconceptualization. Long conceived of as an unpreventable process of mental deterioration, current evidence shows that it can be prevented in at least one in three cases intervening on a specified set of factors. Issues of justice and equity loom large on the implementation of dementia prevention, from a global health perspective. Our project thus embraces emerging evidence about dementia risk factors and their uneven distribution nationally and globally by specifically focusing on the situated aspects of dementia prevention. The aim of the BEAD study (Optimizing the Aging Brain? Situating Ethical Aspects in Dementia Prevention) is to dissect the ethical and clinical assumptions of this novel understanding of dementia, and to analyze how such new discourse on dementia prevention plays out in three countries: Canada, Germany and Switzerland. This study adopts a multi-perspective, comparative, qualitative approach, combining stakeholder interviews with different kinds of focused ethnographies, elaborating on conceptual, ethical, and social aspects of what we would like to call the "new dementia". By situating the paradigmatic shifts in Alzheimer's and dementia research within current aging cultures and contemporary social policies, we aim to initiate a debate about the often implicit unresolved social, ethical, and political implications and preconditions of the medical understanding and handling of cognitive disorders.

Why take part in personalised cancer research? Patients' genetic misconception, genetic responsibility and incomprehension of stratification-an empirical-ethical examination.

Therapeutic misconception is a well-known challenge for informed decision-making for cancer research participants. What is still missing, is a detailed understanding of the impact of "personalised" treatment research (e.g. biomarkers for stratification) on research participants. For this, we conducted the first longitudinal empirical-ethical study based on semi-structured interviews with colorectal cancer patients (n = 40) enrolled in a biomarker trial for (neo)adjuvant treatment, analysing the patients' understanding of and perspectives on research and treatment with qualitative methods. In addition to therapeutic misconception based on patients' confusion of research and treatment, and here triggered by misled motivation, information paternalism or incomprehension, we identified genetic misconception and genetic responsibility as new problematic issues. Patients mainly were not aware of the major research aim of future stratification into responders and non-responders nor did they fully acknowledge this as the aim for personalised cancer research. Thus, ethical and practical reflection on informed decision-making in cancer treatment and research should take into account the complexity of lay interpretations of modern personalised medicine. Instead of very formalistic, liability-oriented informed consent procedures, we suggest a more personalised communication approach to inform and motivate patients for cancer research.

Understanding public skepticism toward organ donation and its commercialization: the important role of reciprocity.

QUESTION: We explored ideas and motives behind public attitudes toward organ donation and its commercialization in the context of recent academic and political debates on attempts to increase the number of donor organs by means of financial incentives. METHODS: We analyzed 4 focus group discussions (FGs) conducted in Germany between 2005 and 2008 with various participants: (1) recipients of a cadaveric donation, (2) recipients of a living donation, (3) living organ donors, and (4) lay people (N((a-d)) = 30). In our analysis we used the method of qualitative content analysis to extract the major argument classes and moral viewpoints about organ donation and its commercialization. RESULTS: We found a thorough concordance in the critical assessment of most commercial strategies over the 4 groups of participants. Slight deviations between groups were most likely due to different perspectives resulting from the various ways the groups were affected. Overall, we observed a strong tendency to assess the practice of organ procurement in terms of reciprocity. CONCLUSIONS: The current political and legal discourse neglects the central role of reciprocity for lay people and patients. Targeted legal and practical solutions should (re) consider strategies to integrate the highly valued idea of reciprocity in organ donation practice: for example, the club model and the paradigm of anonymity in cadaveric organ allocation.

"One man's trash is another man's treasure": exploring economic and moral subtexts of the "organ shortage" problem in public views on organ donation.

The debate over financial incentives and market models for organ procurement represents a key trend in recent bioethics. In this paper, we wish to reassess one of its central premises-the idea of organ shortage. While the problem is often presented as an objective statistical fact that can be taken for granted, we will take a closer look at the underlying framework expressed in the common rhetoric of "scarcity", "shortage" or "unfulfilled demand". On the basis of theoretical considerations as well as a socioempirical examination of public attitudes, we will argue that this rhetoric has an economic subtext that imbues the debate with normative premises that have far-reaching social and ethical consequences and need to be made explicit and discussed.

Long-term culture of a cell population from Siberian sturgeon (Acipenser baerii) head kidney.

In vitro cultures of native fish cell lines are of great importance, both for basic research and applied science. In particular, there is strong demand for long-term growable cell lines from breeding fish, like sturgeon. Here, we describe the culture of cells from Siberian sturgeon (Acipenser baerii) head kidney. The cells have so far been cultured over a period of 12 months (24 passages). Cytochemical and immunocytochemical examination suggests that, in vitro, the cells exhibit markers that are indicative for different cell types. In particular, fat storing cells (adipocytes) were observed, and the expression of cytokeratins and glial fibrilar acidic protein (GFAP) can be concluded on the basis of immuncytochemical analysis. The observation of different morphologies additionally underlines the heterogeneity of the cell population and matches the typical behaviour of in vitro cultures of stem/progenitor cells. Different applications can be imagined.

Structural, immunological and functional properties of natural recombinant Pen a 1, the major allergen of Brown Shrimp, Penaeus aztecus.

BACKGROUND: Recombinant allergens are considered the basis for new diagnostic approaches and development of novel strategies of allergen-specific immunotherapy. As Pen a 1 from brown shrimp Penaeus aztecus is the only major allergen of shrimp and binds up to 75% of all shrimp-specific IgE antibodies this molecule may be an excellent model for the usage of allergens with reduced IgE antibody-binding capacity for specific immunotherapy. AIM: The aim was to clone, express and characterize a full-length recombinant Pen a 1 molecule and compare it with natural Pen a 1 in regard to structural and immunological parameters such as IgE antibody capacity and ability to induce IgE-mediated mediator release. METHODS: Total RNA was isolated from P. aztecus and a rapid amplification of cDNA ends (5' RACE) was performed to obtain full-length cDNA coding for Pen a 1. Using a gene-specific primer, PCR was performed and full-length cDNA was cloned and sequenced. Recombinant His-tagged Pen a 1 was isolated from Escherichia coli under native conditions by immobilized metal affinity chromatography. Secondary structure of natural and recombinant Pen a 1 was compared by circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy, and the IgE antibody-binding capacity evaluated by RAST. The allergenic potency was tested by the capability of natural and recombinant Pen a 1 to induce mediator release in a murine and human in vitro model of IgE-mediated type I allergy. RESULTS: The deduced amino-acid sequence was 284 residues long and amino-acid sequence identities with allergenic and non-allergenic tropomyosins ranged from 80% to 99% and 51% to 58%, respectively. The analysis of the secondary structure of natural and recombinant Pen a 1 by CD spectroscopic analysis showed that both nPen a 1 and rPen a 1 had alpha-helical conformation that is typical for tropomyosin. The IgE antibody binding capacities of nPen a 1 and r Pen a1 were found to be essentially identical by RAST. The mediator release experiments using both wild-type and humanized rat basophilic leukaemia 30/25 cells showed that rPen a 1 and nPen a 1 induced a similar level of mast cell activation. CONCLUSIONS: Recombinant Pen a 1 and natural Pen a 1 are structurally and immunologically identical and rPen a 1 may be used as the basis for component-resolved diagnosis and the generation of modified shrimp tropomyosin for allergen-specific immunotherapy. The results of the animal studies indicate that C3H/HeJ mice that were sensitized with shrimp extract in combination with cholera toxin as adjuvant may be a suitable model to study shrimp allergy.