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The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an urgent need for engaging computational alternatives to traditional laboratory exercises. Here we introduce a customizable and flexible workflow, designed with the SARS CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 in mind, as a means of reinforcing fundamental biology concepts using bioinformatics approaches. This workflow is accessible to a wide range of students in life science majors regardless of their prior bioinformatics knowledge, and all software is freely available, thus eliminating potential cost barriers. Using the workflow can thus provide a diverse group of students the opportunity to conduct inquiry-driven research. Here we demonstrate the utility of this workflow and outline the logical steps involved in the identification of therapeutic or vaccine targets against SARS CoV-2. We also provide an example of how the workflow may be adapted to other infectious microbes. Overall, our workflow anchors student understanding of viral biology and genomics and allows students to develop valuable bioinformatics expertise as well as to hone critical thinking and problem-solving skills, while also creating an opportunity to better understand emerging information surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.

Peri-implant bone level values have been used as the clinical standard of reference to describe the status of a dental implant. Reduction of marginal bone levels in association with bleeding on probing have been claimed to be a sign of pathology and an indication of treatment needs.

To assess the available evidence that peri-implant bone loss is caused by infection.

This article is a narrative review on the interpretation of marginal bone level changes around dental implants as a consequence of infection.

There is evidence that plaque accumulation induces an inflammatory reaction in the peri-implant soft tissues and that resumption of plaque control measures results in the reduction of the inflammation. TH-257 LIM kinase inhibitor Since plaque is always present in the oral cavity, a cause-effect relationship between plaque accumulation and peri-implantitis, defined as inflammation of the peri-implant soft tissues associated with marginal bone loss has been difficult to validate and has not been proven so far. There is no evidencons in large, routine populations.A research participant’s right to withdraw from all research procedures is widely accepted, but there can be justifiable limits to a participant’s exercise of autonomy to withdraw from some procedures. Clinical outcomes trials depend on complete subject follow-up for accurate assessment of the safety and efficacy of investigational therapies. Subjects’ refusal to complete follow-up, even through passive medical record review, can cause failure to detect safety signals, inaccurate estimation of efficacy, or lack of acceptance of trial results, which alters the study’s benefit-risk ratio. Allowing participant refusal of follow-up data collection therefore creates tension between respect for persons and beneficence. With minimal risk study procedures that can help preserve trial benefit, such as passive data collection, we argue that the importance of upholding the principle of beneficence outweighs individual autonomy concerns. Furthermore, a consent process that prospectively informs participants of mandatory passive follow-up is ethically justified and optimizes the balance between autonomy and beneficence.The federal research misconduct regulations finalized in 2005 did not incorporate important principles regarding human subjects protections articulated in The Belmont Report, yet research misconduct can involve harms to research subjects and to subsequent patients whose treatments are based on false research findings. Consistency with the Belmont principles would require assuring regular monitoring to detect research misconduct, tracing effects of research misconduct on trial participants and informing them of these effects, and assuring timely correction of published reports of research findings if research misconduct related to the study was subsequently discovered. Research misconduct has historically been viewed as a matter for the scientific community to manage; it is actually a threat to the welfare of human subjects and ethically ought to be treated as such.In prospective interventional research, a treatment may provide an advantage for the recipient over other people who do not receive it. If the intervention proves successful, the treated are better able to compete for such things as a scarce ventilator, a class grade, or a litigation outcome, potentially risking the deaths, jobs, or incomes of nontreated persons. Discussions of ethical concerns related to “bystanders” have typically focused on direct harms (such as infecting them with a virus), rather than the competition for a rivalrous good (such as a ventilator or clinical outcome). After broadly scoping this problem of advantage, this article reveals several reasons that such interventional research is typically permissible, notwithstanding the potential setbacks to nonparticipants. I consider the almost-dispositive concept of clinical equipoise and then glean insights from the harm principle, status quo bias, the leveling-down problem, and a potential bias against prospective interventional research versus program interventions with retrospective study. My consideration of institutional relationships does not change the analysis that such research is permissible.Pragmatic clinical trials (PCTs) may improve the efficiency, relevance, and representativeness of research. While prior research has indicated that willingness to join a PCT is high, it is not universal among those asked in surveys exploring attitudes toward hypothetical PCTs. The objective of this study was to examine what factors predict willingness to join a hypothetical low-risk PCT comparing two blood pressure medicines. In our study, 2,618 respondents, recruited from three populations (adult patients from an academic health system, adult patients from an integrated delivery system, and adults from an online nationally representative panel), completed an online survey. Most respondents (90%) expressed willingness to participate in the hypothetical PCT. The two key predictors of expressed willingness to join low-risk PCTs were respondents’ understanding of key features of PCTs, including how they differ from traditional research, and the degree of importance respondents perceived comparative research to have.