Publications by authors named "Eric Merrell"

Purpose Of Review: Biologics have proven safe and effective for severe asthma. Their introduction has offered hope for patients and prescribers with a growing list of novel medications and indications. While 'step-up' indications for biologic initiation are well described in guidelines, 'step-down' strategy remains poorly understood and thus guidance is limited.

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Article Synopsis
  • * Imaging revealed extensive lung opacities, but initial tests did not identify a specific infection, suggesting a possible atypical bacterial or viral cause.
  • * After being released with oxygen support and antibiotics, she returned to the emergency department six days later with worsening symptoms; her history includes cooking over an open fire in India and living on a poultry farm, yet she denied significant exposure to respiratory irritants or infections in the U.S.
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Article Synopsis
  • - The COVID-19 pandemic led to a surge in research focused on the SARS-CoV-2 virus, emphasizing the need for standardized interpretation of data to avoid data silos; ontologies play a crucial role in achieving this consistency.
  • - The paper discusses the development of the Virus Infectious Disease Ontology (VIDO) as an extension of the Infectious Disease Ontology (IDO), aiming to provide a structured vocabulary for viral infectious diseases, including a connection to existing ontologies like the Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology (CIDO).
  • - Future work includes developing reference ontologies for bacterial and fungal infections, with VIDO and CIDO being utilized in various applications such as host-pathogen data analysis, electronic health record
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COVID-19 often manifests with different outcomes in different patients, highlighting the complexity of the host-pathogen interactions involved in manifestations of the disease at the molecular and cellular levels. In this paper, we propose a set of postulates and a framework for systematically understanding complex molecular host-pathogen interaction networks. Specifically, we first propose four host-pathogen interaction (HPI) postulates as the basis for understanding molecular and cellular host-pathogen interactions and their relations to disease outcomes.

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Background: The current COVID-19 pandemic and the previous SARS/MERS outbreaks of 2003 and 2012 have resulted in a series of major global public health crises. We argue that in the interest of developing effective and safe vaccines and drugs and to better understand coronaviruses and associated disease mechenisms it is necessary to integrate the large and exponentially growing body of heterogeneous coronavirus data. Ontologies play an important role in standard-based knowledge and data representation, integration, sharing, and analysis.

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Background And Aims: The therapeutic strategy for the treatment of known sequelae of COVID-19 has shifted from reactive to preventative. In this study, we aim to evaluate the effects of acetylsalicylic acid (ASA), and anticoagulants on COVID-19 related morbidity and mortality.

Methods: This record-based analytical cross-sectional study targeted 539 COVID-19 patients in a single United States medical center between March and December 2020.

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Background And Objective: Low-dose acetylsalicylic acid (ASA, aspirin) is a well-known and frequently studied drug for primary and secondary prevention of disease due to its anti-inflammatory and coagulopathic effects. COVID-19 complications are attributed to the role of thrombo-inflammation. Studies regarding the use of low-dose ASA in COVID-19 are limited.

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Objectives: To review the pathophysiology of COVID-19 disease, potential aspirin targets on this pathogenesis and the potential role of aspirin in patients with COVID-19.

Design: Narrative review.

Setting: The online databases PubMed, OVID Medline and Cochrane Library were searched using relevant headlines from 1 January 2016 to 1 January 2021.

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BACKGROUND Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the viral pathogen responsible for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a pandemic respiratory illness. While many patients experience mild to moderate symptoms, severely affected patients often progress to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Specific to COVID-19, abnormal coagulability appears to be a principal instigator in the progression of disease severity and mortality.

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Recent advances in technology have allowed for innovative targeting of high-risk alcohol users. We propose the implementation of an alcohol purchase license linked to a state agency managed database, or so-called Banned Drinker Register (BDR). Individuals who are unable to drink safely will be identified by a well-founded criterion and their ability to purchase alcohol proscribed.

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