A group of scientists, led by mathematicians, has taken on the challenge of building a common model of immune responses. Their work will radically improve our understanding of the human immune system by allowing all the scientific disciplines working on it to have a common reference point and language.
Gastroesophageal reflux arises from increased exposure and/or sensitivity of the esophageal mucosa to gastric contents, and affects 5-40 percent of the population. Esophageal ultrasound studies in GER have mainly focused on the evaluation of the gastroesophageal junction and esophageal motility performed by transabdominal or endoluminal routes. Visualizing refluxate in transcutaneous cervical esophageal ultrasound was found to be useful as a pre-diagnostic tool for estimating GER and/or manometric pathology in 71.1 percent of adults.
Professor Sir Martin Evans, Professor of Mammalian Genetics at the School of Biosciences, Cardiff University, has won the 2007 Nobel Prize for Medicine. The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute, Sweden, announced this morning that Professor Sir Martin was one of three winners for “a series of ground-breaking discoveries concerning embryonic stem cells and DNA recombination in mammals.”
Pan-European collaboration is important for many clinical trials and essential for trials that are investigating treatments for rare diseases. That was the message delivered today by the European Medical Research Councils (EMRC), the membership organisation for medical research councils across Europe based at the European Science Foundation (ESF) in Strasbourg, which is coordinating two trials in rare diseases and about to launch a review of how best to implement clinical trials that are initiated by investigators.
A US nationwide study examining the safety of Tasers® used by law enforcement agencies suggests the devices are safe, causing a low occurrence of serious injuries.
Individuals whose close relationships have negative aspects, such as conflict and adverse exchanges, appear to have an increased risk of heart disease than those with more positive close relationships, according to a report in the Oct. 8 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Central nervous system infections develop infrequently following heart transplants but are a significant predictor of death, according to an article posted online today that will appear in the December 2007 print issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
A diet rich in antioxidant vitamins and minerals does not seem to prevent the degenerative eye disease known as age related macular degeneration, finds a study published on bmj.com today.
New research shows that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), a group of drugs commonly used to treat depression, may double the risk of gastrointestinal bleeding, according to researchers from Wake Forest University School of Medicine and colleagues. When the drugs are taken with aspirin and other similar pain medications, the risk is more than 600 percent higher.
As even the most casual observer of nature knows, males and females frequently differ in body size, form and structure. But how these differences have developed – a topic studied for decades by evolutionary biologists – is not as clear.