Subject research prospects

Wolbachia endosymbionts are abundant in arthropods, where they promote a variety of reproductive manipulations, including feminization of genetic males, parthenogenesis and cytoplasmic incompatibility. Wolbachia is also present in filarial nematodes and has recently attracted a great deal of attention. This chapter reviews the studies so far published and discusses potential implications and future research prospects. Since this is a relatively young field, the chapter will also refer to unpublished studies and will include some speculation. The aim is to stimulate further work on the subject. 

Under these circumstances, it may be unrealistic to expect research subjects to give scientists their DNA, family histories, and medical records for free. If the scientists are looking for millions, prospective research subjects may well wonder why their contribution should be uncompensated. On the other hand, it is extremely rare that any one individual research subject leads to a genetic breakthrough. Locating and cloning disease genes usually requires contributions of medical histories and DNA from thousands of subjects. Any one subject who held out for payment could be bypassed. 

Although there are several ethical concerns with biobanks and other large-scale research repositories (Rothstein, 2002), the most important issue is informed consent. Participants in research involving human subjects must be advised of the intended research to be performed with their specimens. With biobanks, however, the future research uses of the samples are unknown at the time of collection. It would be infeasible to contact each of the donors to obtain consent every time a new research use is contemplated, yet IRBs are reluctant to approve the use of blanket consent for unspecified uses. One way to avoid this problem is for prospective sample donors to be given a menu of possible uses of their samples. Such a list might include research in mental health, HIV/AIDS, cancer, cardiovascular disease, or other areas. The donors would then have the opportunity to approve the use of their specimens for all or some of the listed uses. Other disclosures necessary to obtain informed consent include the financial interests of the biobank and researchers, whether individuals may elect to be notified of research findings, and whether it is possible for an individual to withdraw his or her sample from the bank (Rothstein, 2002). 

This section is devoted to certain patterns of current gel research and a difficult extrapolation to future prospects. Both subjects place the author at some risk. Presentation of selected approaches in a limited space will inevitably leave some important work unmentioned. Since no attempt has been made at an exhaustive literature review, which would unduly slow the publication of this symposium, it is hoped that those whose work was excluded will not take offense. At the same time, the rapidly expanding horizons of gel research imply that future trends could come from totally unforeseen developments. 

Pharmaceutical R D is expensive to undertake and subject to an extraordinarily high risk of failure. Most recently, we have noted that even successfully marketed products such as Cox-2 inhibitors can be withdrawn from the market because of the occurrence of serious side-effects that were not observed during clinical trial programs submitted for regulatory approval. It is difficult, at best, to justify to corporate boards and major institutional investors that a company intends to pursue research platforms that have an inherently high risk of developmental failure or that have limited commercial prospects. 

In this chapter, we presented our research efforts addressing the first two issues with constrained regularization and intrinsic Raman spectroscopy, respectively. These techniques will play a critical role in prospective studies involving multiple sites/subjects/days. We are currently planning for a multiple-subject and multiple-day in vivo study, first on dogs and then on humans. We believe these new developments together with a robust sample interface will enable us to demonstrate prospective applicability. 

A prospective biomedical or behavioral research study of human subjects that is designed to answer specific questions about biomedical or behavioral interventions (drugs, treatments, devices, or new ways of using known drugs, treatments, or devices). 

Because of the outstanding prospects for catalytic combustions, a lot of R D work has been earned out in recent decades on this subject. For the above-mentioned reasons, a considerable proportion of the research is dedicated to the development of novel materials for monoliths. Pilot and demonstration plants for monolithic combustion are in operation. 

Financial remuneration, if any. Patients, whether receiving therapeutic benefit or not, are not usually paid for participation in clinical research, except for incidentals such as travel costs. Healthy volunteers are usually paid a fee for participation, but this payment should never be offered to induce the prospective subjects to take risks they would not normally consider... 

Competence refers to a prospective subject s ability to understand the information provided and its consequences, and make a free and informed decision in accordance with personal values. If a subject is not considered competent, a balance must be sought as to the subject s vulnerability versus the injustice of exclusion from potentially beneficial research. There is a moral preference to use competent subjects. Subjects not legally competent should only be asked to participate when the research question can only be addressed using the identified group, and the risk is minimal when there are no direct benefits. The researcher must also demonstrate how the subject s best interests are protected and the method of obtaining free and informed consent from an objective third party. If the subject should become competent during the study, consent must be obtained for continued participation. Of note, some subjects even if not legally competent may be able to ex-... 

The electrochemistry of semiconductors has played a major part in the development of modern electrochemistry, especially in recent years with regard to photoelectrochemical energy conversion using illuminated semiconductor electrodes. Drs. Pleskov and Gurevich of the Institute of Electrochemistry, Moscow, contribute an important chapter (3) on New Problems and Prospects in this field. Readers will find that their chapter gives a thorough account of the current directions of development in this field, as well as some of the difficulties and new areas of research in this subject. 

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