Radiation Reveal: Moving from research engagement to involvement.

Here, we report on the process of a highly impactful and successful creative, collaborative, and multi-partner public engagement project, Radiation Reveal. It brought together ten young adults aged 17-25-year-olds with experience of radiotherapy with researchers at Cancer Research UK RadNet City of London across three 2-hour online workshops. Our aims were to 1) initiate discussions between young adults and radiation researchers, and 2) identify what people wish they had known about radiotherapy before or during treatment. These aims were surpassed; other benefits included peer support, participants' continued involvement in subsequent engagement projects, lasting friendships, creation of support groups for others, and creation and national dissemination of top ten tips for medical professionals and social media resources. A key learning was that this project required a dedicated and (com)passionate person with connections to national cancer charities. When designing the project, constant feedback is also needed from charities and young adults with and without radiotherapy experience. Finally, visually capturing discussions and keeping the door open beyond workshops further enhanced impact. Here, we hope to inform and inspire people to help project the patient voice in all we do.

Awareness of inappropriate use related to antimicrobial resistance among medical doctors by country economic status: A systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is promoted by inappropriate use and is a greater burden for low to middle income countries (LMIC) than high income countries (HIC). OBJECTIVE: This systematic review aimed to compare the awareness of inappropriate use related to AMR among medical doctors from LMIC and HIC using published knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) studies. METHODS: Following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses guidelines, sequential systematic literature search of PubMed and Web of Science databases for articles published since inception up to June 1, 2022 for KAP studies involving medical doctors. Using fifteen KAP items related to promoting AMR, data on proportion of participants responding affirmatively was extracted and reported using means, ranges and 95% confidence intervals (CI). RESULTS: Forty-two studies met the inclusion criteria and involved 13,089 medical doctors from 11HIC and 21LMIC. All were cross-sectional studies, 71.4% involved non-probability sampling and 78.6% were of satisfactory quality. Knowledge items showed mean proportion of more medical doctors responding correctly. Similar affirmation trends were observed for attitude and prescribing practice items. Awareness appeared similar between medical doctors of the economic groups, except for a greater interest in training for LMIC (95.4%; 95%CI 93.0%, 97.9%) versus HIC (81.7%; 95%CI 65.6%, 97.9%). Countries with poor proportions were identified in both economic groups. CONCLUSION: For identified studies, trends suggest good awareness among medical doctors of the known inappropriate use and perceived threat of AMR, as well as prescribing practices to reduce the risk of AMR. Trends were similar across HIC and LMIC; however, countries with evidence of poor awareness exist in both economic groups.

Highlights of the twelfth annual meeting of the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI), 6-9 November 2016, Liverpool, UK.

The annual meeting of the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI), held in Liverpool, UK, is a multidisciplinary conference. The meeting generally outlines research trends for the coming year and is aimed at cancer professionals at every level. The most important themes discussed for this conference was that of cancer stem cells. Alongside once again prominence was given to topics of cancer evolution and the role of social prevention programmes like previous years.

Rational design of anticytoadherence inhibitors for Plasmodium falciparum based on the crystal structure of human intercellular adhesion molecule 1.

Adhesion of Plasmodium falciparum-infected erythrocytes (IE) to host endothelium has been associated with pathology in malaria. Although the interaction with endothelial cells can be complex due to the relatively large number of host receptors available for binding, specific proteins have been identified that are more commonly used than others. For example, binding to intercellular adhesion molecule 1 (ICAM 1) is found frequently in parasites from pediatric cases of malaria. The binding site for P. falciparum-infected erythrocytes on ICAM 1 has been mapped in some detail and is distinct from the site for lymphocyte function-associated antigen 1 (LFA-1). Part of the ICAM 1 binding site for P. falciparum-infected erythrocytes (the DE loop) was used to screen a library of compounds based on its structure (derived from the crystal structure of human ICAM 1). This resulted in the identification of 36 structural mimeotopes as potential competitive inhibitors of binding. One of these compounds, (+)-epigalloyl-catechin-gallate [(+)-EGCG], was found to inhibit IE adhesion to ICAM 1 in a dose-dependent manner with two variant ICAM 1-binding parasite lines, providing the first example of a potential mimeotope-based anticytoadherence inhibitor for Plasmodium falciparum.