A propos de la lutte contre le typhus exanthématique et la fièvre récurrente épidémiques

Ces deux maladies sont une des conséquences de la guerre et de la misère. Prophylaxie, et lutte contre elles, semblent être, théoriquement, d'une facilité élémentair

The Lausanne Institutional Biobank: a new resource to catalyse research in personalised medicine and pharmaceutical sciences.

Breakthrough technologies which now enable the sequencing of individual genomes will irreversibly modify the way diseases are diagnosed, predicted, prevented and treated. For these technologies to reach their full potential requires, upstream, access to high-quality biomedical data and samples from large number of properly informed and consenting individuals and, downstream, the possibility to transform the emerging knowledge into a clinical utility. The Lausanne Institutional Biobank was designed as an integrated, highly versatile infrastructure to harness the power of these emerging technologies and catalyse the discovery and development of innovative therapeutics and biomarkers, and advance the field of personalised medicine. Described here are its rationale, design and governance, as well as parallel initiatives which have been launched locally to address the societal, ethical and technological issues associated with this new bio-resource. Since January 2013, inpatients admitted at Lausanne CHUV University Hospital have been systematically invited to provide a general consent for the use of their biomedical data and samples for research, to complete a standardised questionnaire, to donate a 10-ml sample of blood for future DNA extraction and to be re-contacted for future clinical trials. Over the first 18 months of operation, 14,459 patients were contacted, and 11,051 accepted to participate in the study. This initial 18-month experience illustrates that a systematic hospital-based biobank is feasible; it shows a strong engagement in research from the patient population in this University Hospital setting, and the need for a broad, integrated approach for the future of medicine to reach its full potential

Interaction of Ligand Binding Sites of Acetylcholinesterase

Ligand binding properties of acetylcholinesterase from Electrophorus electricus have been investigated under equilibrium and transient •state conditions with the reversible fluorescent probes, N-methylacridinium (N-MAC) and bis(3-aminopyridinium)-l,10- -decane (DAP). N-MAC binds at the active site and DAP, an analog of decamethonium, bridges the active site and peripheral modifier site. The probes were used to monitor the binding of ligands that interact at one or both of these sites with resultant probe displacement. Using a nonlinear least-squares analY\u27sis to reduce fluorescent probe displacement data, d-tubocurarine was found to bind at a site remote from the active site. In physiological ionic strength media, d-tubocurarine binds exclusively at the peripheral modifier site, and in low ionic strength media it binds significantly to both the peripheral site and active site. In both ionic ,strength media, the peripheral site was found to be the same site that interacts with the second cationic function of bis-quaternary ammonium compounds like decamethonium and DAP. When d-tubocurarine occupies the peripheral site, the affinity of the enzyme for active site ligands is decreased. There is a positive correlation between the size of the active site ligand and the degree of d-tubocurarine induced destabilization suggesting steric factorn may be operative. Gallamine btnding is mutually exclusive with active site ligands. Rapid mixing stopped flow experiments were used to determine if this results from gallamine binding at the active site or bLnding at the peripheral stte with resultant conformational effects mediated to the active site. The demonstration of a transient gallamine-- enzyme--N-MAC ternary complex suggests the latter binding pattern occurs

Observation of Spin Flips with a Single Trapped Proton

Radio-frequency induced spin transitions of one individual proton are observed for the first time. The spin quantum jumps are detected via the continuous Stern-Gerlach effect, which is used in an experiment with a single proton stored in a cryogenic Penning trap. This is an important milestone towards a direct high-precision measurement of the magnetic moment of the proton and a new test of the matter-antimatter symmetry in the baryon sector

Effect of Cold Pressor Test on the Internal Diameter of the Radial Artery

The aim of this study was to investigate in normal subjects the effect of a cold pressor test on the caliber of the radial artery, a muscular artery of medium size. The internal diameter of this artery was measured continuously using a recently developed ultrasonic device. Immersion of one hand in ice water for two minutes increased blood pressure from 115/75 ± 3/2 (Mean±SEM) to 136/90 ± 6/2 mm Hg (P <.001) and decreased the internal diameter of the radial artery from 2.82 ± 0.12 to 2.60 ± 0.09 mm ( P <.01). These data therefore indicate that the vasoconstriction induced by the cold pressor test involves not only arterioles, but also medium-size arteries. Am J Hypertens 1989; 2:727-72

Image Matching and Recognition Techniques for Mobile Multimedia Applications

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