The Rhesus Factor and Disease Prevention

First published by the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL, 2004. ©The Trustee of the Wellcome Trust, London, 2004. All volumes are freely available online at: www.history.qmul.ac.uk/research/modbiomed/wellcome_witnesses/Annotated and edited transcript of a Witness Seminar held on 3 June 2003. Introduction by Professor Doris T Zallen.Annotated and edited transcript of a Witness Seminar held on 3 June 2003. Introduction by Professor Doris T Zallen.Annotated and edited transcript of a Witness Seminar held on 3 June 2003. Introduction by Professor Doris T Zallen.Annotated and edited transcript of a Witness Seminar held on 3 June 2003. Introduction by Professor Doris T Zallen.Annotated and edited transcript of a Witness Seminar held on 3 June 2003. Introduction by Professor Doris T Zallen.Annotated and edited transcript of a Witness Seminar held on 3 June 2003. Introduction by Professor Doris T Zallen.Consists of the edited transcripts of Witness SeThe prevention of rhesus disease of the newborn is a stunning medical success story. This disease afflicted thousands of newborns each year, causing serious health problems, even death. Yet from the early 1940s to the 1970s – British and American researchers uncovered the basis of the disease and developed the medical intervention that could prevent its occurrence. Many of the key steps leading to this remarkable achievement took place at the University of Liverpool School of Medicine. Chaired by Professor Sir David Weatherall, this Witness Seminar examines the factors that triggered these studies and the challenges that confronted scientists and clinicians; the intellectual, institutional, and social factors that guided the work; the crucial insights; and the vistas that the prevention of rhesus disease has opened in fetal medicine. Participants include Professor Robin Coombs, the late Professor Ronald Finn, Dr Nevin Hughes-Jones, Professor Patrick Mollison, Dr Archie Norman, Dr Derrick Tovey, Professor Charles Whitfield, Professor John Woodrow and Professor Doris Zallen. Zallen, D T, Christie D A, Tansey E M. (eds) (2004) The Rhesus factor and disease prevention, Wellcome Witnesses to Twentieth Century Medicine, vol. 22. London: The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL. ISBN 978 0 85484 099 1minars organized by the History of Twentieth Century Medicine Group and held at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine.The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at University College London is funded by the Wellcome Trust,which is a registered charity, no. 210183

Blood group reckoning: Unraveling the mystery of blood group antigens: Blood group reckoning

No abstractEditoria

The effects of Bilirubin and Bilirubin-di-taurate on ischemia reperfusion injruy in a rat model of kidney transplantation

Background: Heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) is the rate-limiting enzyme in the conversion of heme into biliverdin, carbon monoxide (CO) and free iron. Biliverdin is then subsequently reduced to bilirubin by the enzyme bilverdin reductase. In the past decades a lot of effort was conducted to investigate the beneficial effects of HO-1 and its end products biliverdin/bilirubin and CO. Due to intensive research, solid organ transplantation can nowadays be seen as clinical routine. However ischemia reperfusion injury (IR), acute rejection episodes and the occurrence of chronic rejection remain main problems. The severity of IRI can be seen as a prognostic factor for early graft function, immunogenecity of grafts as well as for long term graft survival. The goal of our experiments was to investigate the potential beneficial effects of bilirubin and biliverdin on ischemia reperfusion in a kidney transplantation model of the rat. Methods: Two different sets of experiments were performed: First, kidneys of Lewis rats were exposed to 60 minutes of warm ischemia by clamping the renal artery followed by a 24h reperfusion period. This model was used to find the optimal dosing regimen of bilirubin/biliverdin before the more clinical relevant model of kidney transplantation in the rat was performed. We found that three doses of 10mg/Kg bilirubin were the most effective dose regimen to protect kidneys from ischemia reperfusion injury. In the second set of experiments, kidney transplantation was performed in Lewis rats. Kidneys were harvested and stored in 4C cold UW-solution for 18h. Subsequently the kidneys were transplanted isotopically into the recipient rat. Time of warm ischemia was kept in all experiments constantly at 60 minutes. After 24h of reperfusion tissue samples and serum were harvested for further analyses. Results: Systemic treatment of bilirubin led to a significant amelioration of organ function after ischemia reperfusion injury as assessed by measuring serum creatinine levels and BUN levels after 24h of reperfusion. In addition treated animals showed increased eGFR and a better cell integrity as histomorphological analyses could demonstrate. Conclusion: Systemic treatment with bilirubin and bilverdin has beneficial effects on graft function after ischemia rerperfusion injury

Gravitational anomaly in the ferrimagnetic topological Weyl semimetal NdAlSi

Quantum anomalies are the breakdowns of classical conservation laws that occur in quantum-field theory description of a physical system. They appear in relativistic field theories of chiral fermions and are expected to lead to anomalous transport properties in Weyl semimetals. This includes a chiral anomaly, which is a violation of the chiral current conservation that takes place when a Weyl semimetal is subjected to parallel electric and magnetic fields. A charge pumping between Weyl points of opposite chirality causes the chiral magnetic effect that has been extensively studied with electrical transport. On the other hand, if the thermal gradient, instead of the electrical field, is applied along the magnetic field, then as a consequence of the gravitational (also called the thermal chiral) anomaly an energy pumping occurs within a pair of Weyl cones. As a result, this is expected to generate anomalous heat current contributing to the thermal conductivity. We report an increase of both the magneto-electric and magneto-thermal conductivities in quasi-classical regime of the magnetic Weyl semimetal NdAlSi. Our work also shows that the anomalous electric and heat currents, which occur due to the chiral magnetic effect and gravitational anomalies respectively, are still linked by a 170 years old relation called the Wiedemann-Franz law.Comment: 26 pages, 8 figure

KK-Masses in Dipole Deformed Field Theories

We reconsider aspects of non-commutative dipole deformations of field theories. Among our findings there are hints to new phases with spontaneous breaking of translation invariance (stripe phases), similar to what happens in Moyal-deformed field theories. Furthermore, using zeta-function regularization, we calculate quantum corrections to KK-state masses. The corrections coming from non-planar diagrams show interesting but non-universal behaviour. Depending on the type of interaction the corrections can make the KK-states very heavy but also very light or even tachyonic. Finally we point out that the dipole deformation of QED is not renormalizable!Comment: 21 pages, 5 figures, uses axodraw.sty, JHEP3.cls; v2:revised version with minor change

Diabetes mellitus and co-morbid depression: treatment with milnacipran results in significant improvement of both diseases (results from the Austrian MDDM study group)

Co-morbid depression is common in patients with diabetes mellitus and has a negative impact on diabetes self-care, adherence to treatment and the development of complications. Effective treatment of depression has been associated with improvement in metabolic parameters. We evaluated the feasibility of a two question screen for co-morbid depression in diabetic patients and studied the effect of the serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor antidepressant, milnacipran, on metabolic and psychological parameters in 64 type 2 diabetic patients with co-morbid depression. The severity of depression was evaluated using the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Patients received milnacipran, and diabetes was treated according to the guidelines of the Austrian Diabetes Association in a 6-month open label study. Metabolic parameters and BDI were measured at baseline and after 1, 3 and 6 months. 46 patients satisfied the criteria for an antidepressant response (reduction of baseline BDI score of at least 50%). Hemoglobin A1c, fasting blood glucose, body mass index, total and LDL-cholesterol and serum triglyceride levels were all significantly decreased in these patients at the end of the study whereas in antidepressant non-responders these parameters were not significantly changed. Diagnosis and treatment of depression is an important factor for the improvement of metabolic control in patients with type 2 diabetes and co-morbid depression

Transfusion medicine in philately

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/75469/1/j.1537-2995.1999.39050534.x.pd

Toward personalization of asthma treatment according to trigger factors

Asthma is a severe and chronic disabling disease affecting more than 300 million people worldwide. Although in the past few drugs for the treatment of asthma were available, new treatment options are currently emerging, which appear to be highly effective in certain subgroups of patients. Accordingly, there is a need for biomarkers that allow selection of patients for refined and personalized treatment strategies. Recently, serological chip tests based on microarrayed allergen molecules and peptides derived from the most common rhinovirus strains have been developed, which may discriminate 2 of the most common forms of asthma, that is, allergen- and virus-triggered asthma. In this perspective, we argue that classification of patients with asthma according to these common trigger factors may open new possibilities for personalized management of asthma.La lista completa de autores que integran el documento puede consultarse en el archivo.Facultad de Ciencias Exacta