We systematically reviewed randomized controlled trials of interventions to improve the health of people during imprisonment or in the year after release. We searched 14 biomedical and social science databases in 2014, and identified 95 studies.Most studies involved only men or a majority of men (70/83 studies in which gender was specified); only 16 studies focused on adolescents. Most studies were conducted in the United States (n = 57). The risk of bias for outcomes in almost all studies was unclear or high (n=91). In 59 studies, interventions led to improved mental health, substance use, infectious diseases, or health service utilization outcomes; in 42 of these studies, outcomes were measured in the community after release.Improving the health of people who experience imprisonment requires knowledge generation and knowledge translation, including implementation of effective interventions.Worldwide, more than 11 million people are imprisoned at any given time, and the prison population continues to grow at a rate faster than that of the general population. 1 Substantial evidence reveals that people who have experienced imprisonment have poor health compared with the general population, as indicated by the prevalence of mental illness, infectious diseases, chronic diseases, and mortality. 2 There are several reasons to focus on improving the health of people who experience imprisonment. 3 The burden of disease in this population affects the general population directly through increased health care costs and through the transmission of communicable diseases (e.g., HIV, HCV, and tuberculosis) after people are released from detention. Imprisonment has also been associated with worse health in family members of those who are detained, compared with the general population, including chronic diseases 4 and poor mental health 5,6 in adult relatives and mortality in male children. 7 At the community level, higher rates of incarceration have been associated with adverse health outcomes, such as sexually transmitted infections and teen pregnancies. 8 There is also evidence that poor health in persons who are released from detention, particularly those with inadequately treated mental illness and substance use disorders, 3 may affect public safety and reincarceration rates, 3 and that better access to health care is associated with less recidivism. 9,10 Finally, the right to health and health care is enshrined in international human rights documents, 11,12 and is a legislated responsibility of governments in many countries.Intervening during imprisonment and at the time of release could improve the health of people who experience imprisonment and public health overall. 13 To address this gap, we systematically reviewed randomized controlled trials of interventions to improve health in persons during imprisonment and in the year after release.We chose this population because we view imprisonment as a unique opportunity to deliver and to link with interventions for this population, and to highlight interventions t...

Mutant huntingtin (mHTT) protein carrying the elongated N-terminal polyglutamine (polyQ) tract misfolds and forms protein aggregates characteristic of Huntington’s disease (HD) pathology. A high-affinity ligand specific for mHTT aggregates could serve as a positron emission tomography (PET) imaging biomarker for HD therapeutic development and disease progression. To identify such compounds with binding affinity for polyQ aggregates, we embarked on systematic structural activity studies; lead optimization of aggregate-binding affinity, unbound fractions in brain, permeability, and low efflux culminated in the discovery of compound 1, which exhibited target engagement in autoradiography (ARG) studies in brain slices from HD mouse models and postmortem human HD samples. PET imaging studies with 11C-labeled 1 in both HD mice and WT nonhuman primates (NHPs) demonstrated that the right-hand-side labeled ligand [11C]-1R (CHDI-180R) is a suitable PET tracer for imaging of mHTT aggregates. [11C]-1R is now being advanced to human trials as a first-in-class HD PET radiotracer.

Reproductive medical tourism is by some accounts a multibillion dollar industry globally. The seeking by clients in high income nations of surrogate mothers in low income nations, particularly India, presents a set of largely unexamined ethical challenges. In this paper, eight such challenges are elucidated to spur discussion and eventual policy development towards protecting the rights and health of vulnerable women of the Global South.

Amelogenin is essential for proper enamel formation. The present in vitro study extends our previous work at low (10 mM) ionic strength (IS) by examining the effect of amelogenin on mineralization under higher (162 mM) IS conditions found in developing enamel. Full-length phosphorylated (P173) and non-phosphorylated (rP172) amelogenins were examined, along with P148 and rP147 that lack the hydrophilic C-terminus. Calcium phosphate formation was assessed by pH change, while minerals formed were characterized using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Amelogenin self-assembly was also studied using dynamic light scattering and TEM. Results indicate that IS does not influence the effects of rP147, rP172 and P173 have on mineralization. However, in contrast to low IS findings, where both P173 and P148 stabilize initially formed amorphous calcium phosphate (ACP) nanoparticles for >1 d, elongated hydroxyapatite crystals were observed after 24 h using P148 at high IS, unlike that seen with P173. Differences in self-assembly help explain these findings, which suggest that P173 and P148 may play different roles in regulating enamel mineral formation. Present data support the notion that proteolytic processing of P173 is required in vivo to induce the transformation of initial ACP phases to apatitic enamel crystals.