Clinical Research

According to lore (because apparently before the Internet, if it appeared in writing it had to be true) diarist Samual Pepes originally said, "Laughter is the best medicine." On a science site, we are inclined to note that 'medicine is the best medicine' - but studies have shown that laughter can't hurt ... and it may help. The notion that psychosocial and societal considerations have a role in maintaining health and preventing disease became crystallized as a result of the experiences of a layman, Norman Cousins. In the 1970s, Cousins, then a writer and magazine editor of the popular…

If you have suffered the flu recently, then you know that it’s quite miserable. All of the sneezing, sore throat, fever and aching can really put a damper on your day (or week for some of us). Even taking preventative measures like getting that season’s “flu shot” may not be enough to protect you from a highly infectious strain of influenza. Thanks to the collaborative efforts of the CDC and Novavax Inc., a vaccine building biotech company, researchers may have the key to protect against these high-risk and potently infectious strains of the flu virus.  Vaccines can be made from virus-…

200 new-born in the states of Florida and Georgia having high risk genes for type 1 diabetes are going to be enrolled for a research that would bring out the effect of genetics and the immediate atmosphere on the disease. A five year grant-renewal pertaining to 10 million USD is being provided by the National Institute of Health. This is bound to favor those who are presently enrolled and at the same time succor for further enrolment. Newborns will be checked for a couple of highest-risk genes for type 2 diabetes (formerly know as insulin dependant diabetes), HLA-DR and HLA-DQ, and those…

This time I am going to have to declare an interest before starting. Autism Speaks is not an organisation I particularly favour, for the most part because of the nature of their publicity and advertising, which is not what I am dealing about here. I have to acknowledge that Autism speaks do have a lot of money and influence which is why it is impossible to talk about the ethics of autism research without touching upon them somewhere. Some time ago I became aware that Autism speaks were trying to solicit the support of other organisations for their brain tissue donation programme. To their…

If I were a sneaky disease, working my pathological magic through mimicry, I think I'd be vocal cord dysfunction. What's VCD? I didn't even know it existed until last week, so don't feel embarrassed. Also known as laryngeal dysfunction, paradoxical vocal cord motion, laryngeal dyskinesia, vocal cord malfunction and a number of medicalese terms, this tricky little guy masquerades most commonly as the everyman of respiratory conditions, asthma. (And from the dawn of the 20th century to today, occasionally it's diagnosed as hysteria. It's all in your head, person who can't  breathe, it's…

Science has come one step closer to developing practical methods of gene therapy. Viable gene therapy means treatment for currently untreatable diseases including the vast amount of genetic disorders affecting millions world-wide. A new study has taking this idea to the next level. Researchers from VIRxSYS, a biotech company working on practical methods of gene therapy and developing an HIV vaccine, have demonstrated ability to use RNA therapy to reverse hemophilia in mice. Published in Molecular Therapy, this study describes a new RNA therapy technique in which implanted RNA molecules can…

Welcome to my new blog, which stands somewhere between the hurly burly of my personal blog and the quiet backwater of my academic blog. Why this blog? I currently have a book in preparation, on this topic, which is proceeding alongside my research, and I want this blog to become a public reflection of that, helping me to focus my ideas, and also for me to share my avenues of thinking. It has concerned me for sometime, that knowledge for knowledge sake is not always a good thing if it is pursued without regard either to the consequences of the research for public policy, or the consequences of…

Food is very complicated. You need food to fuel your body, so you need calories for energy. Your brain needs a constant supply of glucose, so that means sugars, starches and carbohydrates. Your muscles need protein, so that means meats, beans and veggies. Your body also needs other vitamins, minerals and protection from free radicals, meaning fruits and more veggies. Putting it all together can be confusing and convoluted, and so most of us revert to eating dinners composed of cheese and chocolate (my favorite kind), and thus America and the rest of the world have expanding waistlines. But…

A small, pilot study in 50 people in Japan suggests that eating two and a half ounces of broccoli sprouts daily for two months may confer some protection against a rampant stomach bug that causes gastritis, ulcers and even stomach cancer. Citing their new "demonstration of principle" study, a Johns Hopkins researcher and an international team of scientists caution that eating sprouts containing sulforaphane did not cure infection by the bacterium Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori). They do not suggest that eating this or any amount of broccoli sprouts will protect anyone from stomach cancer…

Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University say they have discovered a process that controls the amount of fat that cells store for use as a back-up energy source. Disruption of this process allows cellular fat to accumulate — a key factor in age-related metabolic diseases such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. Discovery of this previously unknown fat-fighting pathway could lead to novel drugs for the treatment of metabolic syndrome (characterized by obesity, blood lipid disorders, and insulin resistance) and for a common liver disease known as "fatty liver" or…