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Describes a study designed to determine if secondary school students are capable of assessing their own ability and if choosing science courses that fit their aims. Makes a comparison of recommendations and choices for nine course options. (GS)

On September 30, 2014, the Texas Department of State Health Services reported a case of Ebola virus disease (Ebola) diagnosed in Dallas, Texas, and confirmed by CDC, the first case of Ebola diagnosed in the United States. The patient (patient 1) had traveled from Liberia, a country which, along with Sierra Leone and Guinea, is currently experiencing the largest recorded Ebola outbreak. A nurse (patient 2) who provided hospital bedside care to patient 1 in Texas visited an emergency department (ED) with fever and was diagnosed with laboratory-confirmed Ebola on October 11, and a second nurse (patient 3) who also provided hospital bedside care visited an ED with fever and rash on October 14 and was diagnosed with laboratory-confirmed Ebola on October 15. Patient 3 visited Ohio during October 10-13, traveling by commercial airline between Dallas, Texas, and Cleveland, Ohio. Based on the medical history and clinical and laboratory findings on October 14, the date of illness onset was uncertain; therefore, CDC, in collaboration with state and local partners, included the period October 10-13 as being part of the potentially infectious period, out of an abundance of caution to ensure all potential contacts were monitored. On October 15, the Ohio Department of Health requested CDC assistance to identify and monitor contacts of patient 3, assess the risk for disease transmission, provide infection control recommendations, and assess and guide regional health care system preparedness. The description of this contact investigation and hospital assessment is provided to help other states in planning for similar events.

The presence of multiple (5-100) colorectal adenomas suggests an inherited predisposition, but the genetic aetiology of this phenotype is undetermined if patients test negative for Mendelian polyposis syndromes such as familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) and MUTYH-associated polyposis (MAP). We investigated whether 18 common colorectal cancer (CRC) predisposition single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) could help to explain some cases with multiple adenomas who phenocopied FAP or MAP, but had no pathogenic APC or MUTYH variant. No multiple adenoma case had an outlying number of CRC SNP risk alleles, but multiple adenoma patients did have a significantly higher number of risk alleles than population controls (P = 5.7 × 10-7). The association was stronger in those with ≥ 10 adenomas. The CRC SNPs accounted for 4.3% of the variation in multiple adenoma risk, with three SNPs (rs6983267, rs10795668, rs3802842) explaining 3.0% of the variation. In FAP patients, the CRC risk score did not differ significantly from the controls, as we expected given the overwhelming effect of pathogenic germline APC variants on the phenotype of these cases. More unexpectedly, we found no evidence that the CRC SNPs act as modifier genes for the number of colorectal adenomas in FAP patients. In conclusion, common colorectal tumour risk alleles contribute to the development of multiple adenomas in patients without pathogenic germline APC or MUTYH variants. This phenotype may have 'polygenic' or monogenic origins. The risk of CRC in relatives of multiple adenoma cases is probably much lower for cases with polygenic disease, and this should be taken into account when counselling such patients. © 2015 Macmillan Publishers Limited All rights reserved.

Reliable population-based epidemiologic data regarding vision and ocular morbidity, as well as those about the perceptions of people regarding visual impairment and eye care, are lacking for the most part in the developing world including India. These data are the basis on which effective eye care services can be developed. To meet this need we designed the Andhra Pradesh Eye Disease Study, a population-based epidemiology study of 10,000 people in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. The design of this study is described in this paper. Various options for the sample size, study areas, sampling procedure, and recruitment of subjects were considered. A sample size of 10,000 people, 5,000 each in the < or = 30 and > 30 years age groups, was determined to obtain reasonable confidence in estimating the prevalence of diseases and odds ratios for risk factors of interest. A multistage sampling strategy was chosen for the study which was assumed to give a design effect of 1.5 for the estimates. One urban area, Hyderabad, and three rural areas, West Godavari, Adilabad and Mahbubnagar districts, were selected in Andhra Pradesh. Interview instruments were developed to obtain detailed information about demographic data, diet, ocular and systemic history, risk factors for eye diseases, visual function, quality of life, barriers to eye care, and knowledge about eye diseases. A detailed examination procedure was devised to obtain a broad range of normative and abnormal data related to eyes and vision. A protocol was developed for doing automated visual fields, slitlamp and fundus photography. Computer databases were made in FoxPro for data entry and subsequent analysis with SPSS. Pilot studies were done to test the instruments, procedures, and logistics of the study in urban and rural areas. Information from the Andhra Pradesh Eye Disease Study is expected to help in planning and implementation of effective long-term preventive, curative, and rehabilitative eye care services in Andhra Pradesh.

In 2007, the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) established the Electronic MEdical Records and GEnomics (eMERGE) Consortium (www.gwas.net) to develop, disseminate, and apply approaches to research that combine DNA biorepositories with electronic medical record (EMR) systems for large-scale, high-throughput genetic research. One of the major ethical and administrative challenges for the eMERGE Consortium has been complying with existing data-sharing policies. This paper discusses the challenges of sharing genomic data linked to health information in the electronic medical record (EMR) and explores the issues as they relate to sharing both within a large consortium and in compliance with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) data-sharing policy. We use the eMERGE Consortium experience to explore data-sharing challenges from the perspective of multiple stakeholders (i.e., research participants, investigators, and research institutions), provide recommendations for researchers and institutions, and call for clearer guidance from the NIH regarding ethical implementation of its data-sharing policy.

International audience; Common polymorphisms in the N-acetyltransferase 2 gene (NAT2) modify the association between cigarette smoking and bladder cancer and have been hypothesized to determine whether active cigarette smoking increases breast cancer risk. The authors sought to replicate the latter hypothesis in a prospective analysis of 6,900 breast cancer cases and 9,903 matched controls drawn from 6 cohorts (1989-2006) in the National Cancer Institute's Breast and Prostate Cancer Cohort Consortium. Standardized methods were used to genotype the 3 most common polymorphisms that define NAT2 acetylation phenotype (rs1799930, rs1799931, and rs1801280). In unconditional logistic regression analyses, breast cancer risk was higher in women with more than 20 pack-years of active cigarette smoking than in never smokers (odds ratio (OR) = 1.28, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.17, 1.39), after controlling for established risk factors other than alcohol consumption and physical inactivity. However, associations were similar for the slow (OR = 1.25, 95% CI: 1.11, 1.39) and rapid/intermediate (OR = 1.24, 95% CI: 1.08, 1.42) acetylation phenotypes, with no evidence of interaction (P = 0.87). These results provide some support for the hypothesis that long-term cigarette smoking may be causally associated with breast cancer risk but underscore the need for caution when interpreting sparse data on gene-environment interactions.