The role of new allergy specialist

Allergic diseases have continued to increase on a global scale over the past ５０ years, and one in two Japanese citizens suffer from some allergic disease in current. “Japanese Basic Law on Allergic Disease Control” promulgated in ２０１４ states that “People with allergic diseases should receive appropriate allergic diseases medicine equally based on scientific knowledge regardless of their living area, and citizens should obtain appropriate information on allergic diseases”. Under the philosophy, the medical system is being developed at a rapid pace. Allergy specialty hospital is selected in each prefecture in addition to the National Allergy Center Hospital, and allergy specialists who are responsible for medical treatment will be more important in the future. Medical collaboration system and information provision system suitable for “all the people can be equally able to benefit from correct allergy medical treatment” will be constructed. On the other side, in accordance with the new specialist system by the new Japanese Medical Specialty Board, the new allergy specialist should work for all allergic diseases that cause symptoms in various organs, different from the current allergy specialist who treats only for the allergic diseases related to their own basic field. It means that the new allergy specialist must work to diagnose, treat, and manage patients with allergic diseases of their own medical department（internal medicine, pediatrics, dermatology, otolaryngology and ophthalmology）in mild cases to severe refractory case, and also must have knowledge to be able to conduct to all allergic problems in other than their own medical department. Accumulating a wide range of knowledge experience towards this goal and practicing good medical practice is necessary for “desirable” allergy specialist

eF-seek: prediction of the functional sites of proteins by searching for similar electrostatic potential and molecular surface shape

We have developed a method to predict ligand-binding sites in a new protein structure by searching for similar binding sites in the Protein Data Bank (PDB). The similarities are measured according to the shapes of the molecular surfaces and their electrostatic potentials. A new web server, eF-seek, provides an interface to our search method. It simply requires a coordinate file in the PDB format, and generates a prediction result as a virtual complex structure, with the putative ligands in a PDB format file as the output. In addition, the predicted interacting interface is displayed to facilitate the examination of the virtual complex structure on our own applet viewer with the web browser (URL: http://eF-site.hgc.jp/eF-seek)

Treatment with gefitinib after erlotinib-induced liver injury: a case report

INTRODUCTION: Gefitinib and erlotinib have minor differences in their chemical structures, and thus it remains unclear whether the hepatotoxicity induced by one compound is affected by the other. The case of a patient who developed erlotinib-induced liver injury and was then treated with gefitinib without hepatic toxicity or disease progression is presented. CASE PRESENTATION: A 31-year-old Japanese woman, who never smoked and who was diagnosed as having lung adenocarcinoma with carcinomatous meningitis, was treated with erlotinib. She developed erlotinib-induced liver injury after four weeks of treatment. The treatment was stopped right away, but the symptoms of meningitis re-appeared immediately. Gefitinib treatment was started and continued without recurrence of drug-induced liver injury. CONCLUSION: Gefitinib appears to be a potential treatment option after erlotinib-induced liver injury