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Biomedical subjects

John Milner

Publications and source records attributed to John Milner.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

Nutrition and physical activity and chronic disease prevention: research strategies and recommendations.

A shortage of credible information exists on practical dietary and physical activity patterns that have potential to reverse the national obesity epidemic and reduce the risk of major cancers and other chronic diseases. Securing such information is a challenging task, and there is considerable diversity of opinion concerning related research designs and priorities. Here, we put forward some perspectives on useful methodology and infrastructure developments for progress in this important area, and we list high-priority research topics in the areas of 1) assessment of nutrient intake and energy expenditure; 2) development of intermediate outcome biomarkers; 3) enhancement of cohort and cross-cultural studies; and 4) criteria for and development of full-scale nutrition and physical activity intervention trials.

Biomarkers↗

Frontiers in nutrigenomics, proteomics, metabolomics and cancer prevention.

While dietary habits continue to surface as a significant factor that may influence cancer incidence and tumor behavior, there is considerable scientific uncertainty about who will benefit most. Adequate [corrected] knowledge about how the responses depend on an individual's genetic background (nutrigenetic effects), the cumulative effects of food components on genetic expression profiles (nutritional transcriptomics and nutritional epigenomics effects), the occurrence and activity of proteins (proteomic effects) and/or the dose and temporal changes in cellular small molecular weight compounds (metabolomics effects) will [corrected] assist in identifying responders and non-responders. Expanding the information about similarities and differences in the "omic" responses across tissues will not only provide clues about specificity in response to bioactive food components but assist in the identification of surrogate tissues and biomarkers that can be used for predicting a response. Deciphering the importance of each of these potential sites of regulation will be particularly challenging but does hold promise in explaining many of the inconsistencies in the literature.

Anticarcinogenic Agents↗

Numerical deconvolution of cDNA microarray signal: simulation study.

A computational model for simulation of the cDNA microarray experiments has been created. The simulation allows one to foresee the statistical properties of replicated experiments without actually performing them. We introduce a new concept, the so-called bio-weight, which allows for reconciliation between conflicting meanings of biological and statistical significance in microarray experiments. It is shown that, for a small sample size, the bio-weight is a more powerful criterion of the presence of a signal in microarray data as compared to the standard approach based on t test. Joint simulation of microarray and quantitative PCR data shows that the genes recovered by using the bio-weight have better chances to be confirmed by PCR than those obtained by the t test technique. We also employ extreme value considerations to derive plausible cutoff levels for hypothesis testing.

Cell Line, Tumor↗