In a significant breakthrough in gene therapy, scientists of the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology (IICB) here claimed to have isolated a protein molecule from a parasite that could provide better treatment in some inherited disorders.
The UK face transplantation team has been given permission to perform a series of full face transplant operations at the Royal Free Hospital in North London. The independent research ethics committee for the Royal Free delivered its decision to team leader, plastic and reconstruction surgeon, Mr Peter Butler, who said he was delighted with the news.
Strains of tuberculosis (TB) that are resistant to both first-line and second-line drugs could threaten the success of not only tuberculosis programs, but also HIV treatment programs worldwide, according to an article published online this week in The Lancet. The report details a study by a team of investigators from the United States and South Africa, who found that highly resistant strains of TB were more common than previously thought in a rural area of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, and were associated with high death rates in patients with HIV infection. TB accounts for approximately 1.7 million deaths worldwide, each year, and is the leading cause of death in HIV-infected patients in low-income countries.
Those who maintain that the busy pace of life offers no time to exercise have just run out of another excuse, unless of course they can’t spare three minutes to exercise. The “catch” is that the exercise consists of short bursts of intense effort separated by a few minutes of recovery, meaning a single training session lasts about 20 min. However, a new study published in the Journal of Physiology shows that performing three of those sessions each week provides the same benefits as that achieved by up to two hours of daily moderate exercise.
On 5 October 2006, the Ministry of Health reported 2 cases of yellow fever in the towns of Korhogo and Ouaragahio in C?te d’Ivoire. The cases, a 30-year-old man in Korhogo and a 16 year-old girl in Ouaragahio, are laboratory confirmed (IgM Elisa assay) by the Institut Pasteur, Abidjan, C?te d’Ivoire and by the regional reference laboratory, Institut Pasteur, Dakar, Senegal. To date, no fatalities have been reported.
One case of wild poliovirus type-1, due to an importation of virus from neighbouring Somalia, has been reported from a Somali refugee camp in northeastern Kenya. The 3-year old girl (who was born in Kenya and had not traveled to Somalia) had onset of paralysis on 17 September 2006. The case is in the district of Garissa in North Eastern Province bordering Somalia, where an outbreak of poliomyelitis has resulted in 216 cases to date since July 2005. Genetic sequencing indicates a virus of Nigerian origin, imported from Kismayo, Somalia; however, it is not possible to determine how long the virus has been circulating in Kenya. A joint national/international rapid response team is conducting a detailed clinical and epidemiological investigation.
From February 2006 to 10 October 2006, the WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia has reported 151 districts in 8 states/provinces of India affected by chikungunya fever (see below). The affected states are Andhra Pradesh, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala and Delhi. More than 1.25 million suspected cases have been reported from the country, which 752,245 were from Karnataka and 258,998 from Maharashtra provinces. In some areas reported attack rates have reached 45%.
A research consortium, supported by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), today announced the publication of a high-quality draft genome sequence of the western honey bee, finding that its genome is more similar to humans than any insect sequenced thus far.
Using an innovative three-dimensional imaging technique, a team of UCLA researchers have tracked how Alzheimer’s disease spreads through the hippocampus ? the area of the brain linked with memory ? in a pattern consistent with the known trajectory of neurofibrilliary tangle dissemination, an accumulation of diseased proteins in the brain cells.
UCLA radiologists and Siemens Medical Solutions have jointly developed remote-control software that enables an off-site imaging expert to log onto a personal computer and operate a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine by remote control. Reported in the November issue of Radiology, the study found that the quality of the remote scans were superior to onsite scans by a less experienced technologist, suggesting options for helping facilities or regions with limited medical staff and expertise.