Goethe University Frankfurt

About: Goethe University Frankfurt is a education organization based out in Frankfurt am Main, Hessen, Germany. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Transplantation. The organization has 33342 authors who have published 69743 publications receiving 2409538 citations. The organization is also known as: Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main & University of Frankfurt am Main.

Long Noncoding RNAs in Cardiovascular Diseases

Abstract: In recent year, increasing evidence suggests that noncoding RNAs play important roles in the regulation of tissue homeostasis and pathophysiological conditions. Besides small noncoding RNAs (eg, microRNAs), >200-nucleotide long transcripts, namely long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs), can interfere with gene expressions and signaling pathways at various stages. In the cardiovascular system, studies have detected and characterized the expression of lncRNAs under normal physiological condition and in disease states. Several lncRNAs are regulated during acute myocardial infarction (eg, Novlnc6) and heart failure (eg, Mhrt), whereas others control hypertrophy, mitochondrial function and apoptosis of cardiomyocytes. In the vascular system, the endothelial-expressed lncRNAs (eg, MALAT1 and Tie-1-AS) can regulate vessel growth and function, whereas the smooth-muscle-expressed lncRNA smooth muscle and endothelial cell-enriched migration/differentiation-associated long noncoding RNA was recently shown to control the contractile phenotype of smooth muscle cells. This review article summarizes the data on lncRNA expressions in mouse and human and highlights identified cardiovascular lncRNAs that might play a role in cardiovascular diseases. Although our understanding of lncRNAs is still in its infancy, these examples may provide helpful insights how lncRNAs interfere with cardiovascular diseases.

Biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease: academic, industry and regulatory perspectives

Abstract: Advances in therapeutic strategies for Alzheimer's disease that lead to even small delays in onset and progression of the condition would significantly reduce the global burden of the disease To effectively test compounds for Alzheimer's disease and bring therapy to individuals as early as possible there is an urgent need for collaboration between academic institutions, industry and regulatory organizations for the establishment of standards and networks for the identification and qualification of biological marker candidates Biomarkers are needed to monitor drug safety, to identify individuals who are most likely to respond to specific treatments, to stratify presymptomatic patients and to quantify the benefits of treatments Biomarkers that achieve these characteristics should enable objective business decisions in portfolio management and facilitate regulatory approval of new therapies

Why negative affectivity should not be controlled in job stress research: don't throw out the baby with the bath water

Abstract: In 1987 Watson, Pennebaker, and Folger wrote an in uential paper in which they noted the potential importance of negative a€ectivity (NA) in job stress research, going so far as to suggest the provocative hypothesis that NA biased self-reports of most job stressors (and other measures of work conditions) and job strains. A number of concerned researchers, noting correlations between NA and other variables, have recommended that we statistically control for NA bias in general stress (McCrae, 1990) and job stress (e.g., Brief et al., 1988; Payne, 1988) studies with some form of partialling. While we agree that a€ective dispositions are important, we disagree that it should become routine to treat them as bias factors to be statistically controlled. Although a number of researchers have noted possible non-bias or substantive roles for NA (e.g., Moyle, 1995; Schaubroeck, Ganster and Fox, 1992; Spector and O'Connell, 1994; Williams, Gavin and Williams, 1996), many researchers have started to routinely control for a NA bias in their studies. However, if indeed NA has a substantive role, one should not partial it as this can lead to removing the e€ects of the very variables one wishes to study. In this paper we will present arguments that partialling or related statistical techniques merely provide unrealistic hopes and illogical inferences in studying the potential biasing e€ect. Moreover, we will discuss the role played by NA in the job stress process and demonstrate that it should not just be considered a bias in need of statistical control. Rather NA can play a variety of substantive roles in the job stress process.

The knockout mouse project

Abstract: Mouse knockout technology provides a powerful means of elucidating gene function in vivo, and a publicly available genome-wide collection of mouse knockouts would be significantly enabling for biomedical discovery. To date, published knockouts exist for only about 10% of mouse genes. Furthermore, many of these are limited in utility because they have not been made or phenotyped in standardized ways, and many are not freely available to researchers. It is time to harness new technologies and efficiencies of production to mount a high-throughput international effort to produce and phenotype knockouts for all mouse genes, and place these resources into the public domain.