Mental health needs and services in the West Bank, Palestine

Background Palestine is a low income country with scarce resources, which is seeking independence. This paper discusses the high levels of mental health need found amongst Palestinian people, and examines services, education and research in this area with particular attention paid to the West Bank. Methods CINAHL, PubMed, and Science Direct were used to search for materials. Results and conclusion Evidence from this review is that there is a necessity to increase the availability and quality of mental health care. Mental health policy and services in Palestine need development in order to better meet the needs of service users and professionals. It is essential to raise awareness of mental health and increase the integration of mental health services with other areas of health care. Civilians need their basic human needs met, including having freedom of movement and seeing an end to the occupation. There is a need to enhance the resilience and capacity of community mental health teams. There is a need to increase resources and offer more support, up-to-date training and supervision to mental health teams

Production of FAME biodiesel in E. coli by direct methylation with an insect enzyme

Most biodiesel currently in use consists of fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs) produced by transesterification of plant oils with methanol. To reduce competition with food supplies, it would be desirable to directly produce biodiesel in microorganisms. To date, the most effective pathway for the production of biodiesel in bacteria yields fatty acid ethyl esters (FAEEs) at up to ~1.5 g/L. A much simpler route to biodiesel produces FAMEs by direct S-adenosyl-L-methionine (SAM) dependent methylation of free fatty acids, but FAME production by this route has been limited to only ~16 mg/L. Here we employ an alternative, broad spectrum methyltransferase, Drosophila melanogaster Juvenile Hormone Acid O-Methyltransferase (DmJHAMT). By introducing DmJHAMT in E. coli engineered to produce medium chain fatty acids and overproduce SAM, we obtain medium chain FAMEs at titers of 0.56 g/L, a 35-fold increase over titers previously achieved. Although considerable improvements will be needed for viable bacterial production of FAMEs and FAEEs for biofuels, it may be easier to optimize and transport the FAME production pathway to other microorganisms because it involves fewer enzymes