Population genomics of <em>Mycobacterium tuberculosis</em> in Ethiopia contradicts the virgin soil hypothesis for human tuberculosis in sub-Saharan... (Publications)
Colonial medical reports claimed that tuberculosis (TB) was largely unknown in Africa prior to European contact, providing a "virgin soil" for spread of TB in highly susceptible populations previously
Screening for pulmonary tuberculosis in Tanzanian prison and computer-aided interpretation of chest X-rays (Publications)
SETTING: Tanzania is a high-burden country for tuberculosis (TB), and prisoners are a high-risk group that should be screened actively, as recommended by the World Health Organization. Screening algor
Extrinsic skin ageing in German, Chinese and Japanese women manifests differently in all three groups depending on ethnic background, age and... (Publications)
BACKGROUND: It has been suggested that extrinsic skin ageing manifests differently in Caucasians versus East Asians. In particular, from previous studies it was concluded that Caucasians are more pron
Limited value of whole blood Xpert® MTB/RIF for diagnosing tuberculosis in children (Publications)
OBJECTIVES: We evaluated the ability of the Xpert(R) MTB/RIF assay to detect Mycobacterium tuberculosis in whole blood of children with tuberculosis in tuberculosis endemic settings with high rates of
Non-tuberculous mycobacteria: baseline data from three sites in Papua New Guinea, 2010-2012 (Publications)
OBJECTIVE: To determine the proportion of non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) in samples of pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) cases from Papua New Guinea who were diagnosed using acid-fast microscopy. METHOD
Safety and immunogenicity of a chimpanzee adenovirus-vectored Ebola vaccine in healthy adults: a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled,... (Publications)
BACKGROUND: The ongoing Ebola outbreak led to accelerated efforts to test vaccine candidates. On the basis of a request by WHO, we aimed to assess the safety and immunogenicity of the monovalent, reco
<em>IL-33</em> polymorphisms are associated with increased risk of hay fever and reduced regulatory T cells in a birth cohort (Publications)
BACKGROUND: IL-33 polymorphisms influence the susceptibility to asthma. IL-33 indirectly induces Th2-immune responses via dendritic cell activation, being important for development of atopic diseases.
Standard genotyping overestimates transmission of <em>Mycobacterium tuberculosis</em> among immigrants in a low incidence country (Publications)
Immigrants from high tuberculosis (TB) incidence regions are a risk group for TB in low-incidence countries such as Switzerland. In a previous analysis of a nationwide collection of 520 Mycobacterium