Consensus statement understanding health and malnutrition through a systems approach: the ENOUGH program for early life.

Nutrition research, like most biomedical disciplines, adopted and often uses experimental approaches based on Beadle and Tatum's one gene-one polypeptide hypothesis, thereby reducing biological processes to single reactions or pathways. Systems thinking is needed to understand the complexity of health and disease processes requiring measurements of physiological processes, as well as environmental and social factors, which may alter the expression of genetic information. Analysis of physiological processes with omics technologies to assess systems' responses has only become available over the past decade and remains costly. Studies of environmental and social conditions known to alter health are often not connected to biomedical research. While these facts are widely accepted, developing and conducting comprehensive research programs for health are often beyond financial and human resources of single research groups. We propose a new research program on essential nutrients for optimal underpinning of growth and health (ENOUGH) that will use systems approaches with more comprehensive measurements and biostatistical analysis of the many biological and environmental factors that influence undernutrition. Creating a knowledge base for nutrition and health is a necessary first step toward developing solutions targeted to different populations in diverse social and physical environments for the two billion undernourished people in developed and developing economies.

Proton and sodium MRI assessment of fluid level in calf tissue.

PURPOSE: To investigate the feasibility of using (1)H and (23)Na MRI to detect fluid levels in the lower leg muscle. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Proton and sodium MRI was applied to detect body fluid levels in the lower leg muscles of 18 healthy young male subjects at 3T and 4T. The paradigms under investigation were a postural change from sitting upright to lying supine, and saline infusion. RESULTS: We found that the average proton MR signal in gastrocnemius and soleus muscles were reduced following the postural change by 3.5% +/- 1.4% (P < 0.05) and rose following saline infusion by 3.7% +/- 0.9% (P < 0.01). More dramatically, the sodium MR signal decreased by 7.1% +/- 1.2% (P < 0.01) following the postural change and increased following saline infusion by 12% +/- 3.8% (P < 0.05). The ratio of intra- to extracellular fluid levels was 1.6 +/- 0.5 for the subjects based on the acquired proton and sodium data. CONCLUSION: Our results indicate that proton and sodium MRI can be used to assess fluid levels in the lower extremities, and this technique may be applied to evaluate fluid retention.

From traditional biomarkers to transcriptome analysis in drug development.

Traditional biomarkers have played an important role in drug development as well as patient care. A single traditional biomarker or surrogate endpoint is unlikely to either characterize the complete pathophysiology of a complex disease or capture all the therapeutic benefits or potential adverse effects that a drug will have in a diverse patient population. Transciptome analysis, on the other hand, can provide a large-scale survey of gene expression associated with the etiology of a human disease or pharmacological responses to a therapeutic intervention. The quantitative and qualitative readouts can provide increased power to identify novel drug targets or biomarkers indicative of drug safety or efficacy. Transcriptomics has positively impacted drug development and will continue to improve the medicines of the future. Here, we describe the increasingly important roles that traditional biomarkers and transcriptome analysis have played in various phases of drug discovery and development as well as the opportunities and challenges that they present to the pharmaceutical industry.