The London Patient
by Gertrud U. Rey Timothy Ray Brown, also known as the Berlin patient (reviewed in a previous post), was the only person ever to be cured of HIV/AIDS. Until last week. In a report published in the journal Nature, a group of investigators announced the cure of a second HIV-positive patient (designated the “London patient”). In the […] (Source: virology blog)
Source: virology blog - March 14, 2019 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: Basic virology Gertrud Rey Information AIDS bone marrow transplant CCR5 German patient HIV-1 London patient viral virus viruses Source Type: blogs
Bioengineered Gel to Reduce Risk of Bone Marrow Transplants
Bone marrow transplantation is a potentially life-saving treatment for leukemia, multiple myeloma, and HIV. The procedure involves depleting the patient’s immune system, then infusing blood stem cells from a donor, which develop into a new immune system. Unfortunately, during the transplant process, patients are susceptible to disease and infection, making it risky and not recommended in certain cases.
Harvard engineers and scientists have developed an injectable, sponge-like gel that may address these challenges. The gel is designed to be injected under the skin at the time of bone marrow transplantation. Over the cours...
Source: Medgadget - March 11, 2019 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Siavash Parkhideh Tags: Genetics Materials Oncology Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, February 25th 2019
Fight Aging! provides a weekly digest of news and commentary for thousands of subscribers interested in the latest longevity science: progress towards the medical control of aging in order to prevent age-related frailty, suffering, and disease, as well as improvements in the present understanding of what works and what doesn't work when it comes to extending healthy life. Expect to see summaries of recent advances in medical research, news from the scientific community, advocacy and fundraising initiatives to help speed work on the repair and reversal of aging, links to online resources, and much more.
This content is...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 24, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Transplantation of Young Bone Marrow Improves Brain Function in Old Mice
The immune cells of the brain are somewhat different in character and function from those of the body. They have a greater portfolio of tasks beyond chasing down pathogens, clearing out waste, and assisting in regeneration. For example, the immune cells known as microglia are involved in the maintenance of synaptic connections between neurons. Interestingly, microglia are not produced in the bone marrow by stem cells or progenitor cells, so in the research here in which young bone marrow is transplanted into old mice, one can be fairly sure that any beneficial effects on microglia result from signaling differences on the p...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 21, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Shai ’s Story
Shai’s Story is about a mother who fought with her daughter, Shai, through Shai’s battle with rhabdomyosarcoma, a tumorous cancer which developed in her pelvis while she was still in utero. It was diagnosed almost a year after her birth leaving Shai with little option for treatment. Shai’s mother, Frances, spent many months at a time in hospitals with Shai for chemotherapy treatment that was both saving her child’s life and killing her.
While treatment helped Shai with one cancer, leaving her family excited for her recovery, it also caused another cancer to develop while she was in remission. Shai had three organs ...
Source: Cord Blood News - January 9, 2019 Category: Perinatology & Neonatology Authors: Maze Cord Blood Tags: babies Cord Blood parents stem cells Source Type: blogs
100 percent satisfaction doesn ’t work in our health system
“I want answers!” My mother was upset over the care for her ill husband. Previously able to converse normally, he was now incoherent and disoriented. The recent recipient of a bone marrow transplant to treat his advanced leukemia, he probably experienced a brain infection because of the immune suppression therapy needed to accept the marrow. The marrow transplant didn’t work. He was sent home from the hospital on hospice care and died soon afterward in the hospice addition of the hospital where I was an intern at the time.
My mother insisted that something went wrong, that the hospital was trying to cover up a mistak...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - September 21, 2018 Category: General Medicine Authors: < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/cory-michael" rel="tag" > Cory Michael, MD < /a > Tags: Physician Oncology/Hematology Source Type: blogs
Misdiagnosis: Obamacare Tried to Fix the Wrong Things and Prescribed the Wrong Treatments
By CHARLES SILVER and DAVID A.HYMAN
Today THCB is happy to publish a piece reflecting the learnings from Charles Silver and David Hyman’s forthcoming book Overcharged: Why Americans Pay Too Much For Health Care, shortly to be published by the libertarian leaning Cato Institute. In subsequent weeks we’ll feature commentary from the right (Michael Cannon) and from the left (Andy Slavitt) about the book and its proposals. For now please give your views in the comments–Matthew Holt
There are many reasons why the United States is “the most expensive place in the world to get sick.” In Part 1 of Overcharg...
Source: The Health Care Blog - June 19, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Economics OP-ED Cato Institute Charles Silver David A. Hyman Obamacare Overcharged Source Type: blogs
Immunosenescence and Neurodegeneration
How greatly does the onset of dementia depend on the age-related decline of the immune system? The most evident contributions to neurodegeneration are vascular aging and the accumulation of protein aggregates such as amyloid-β, tau, and α-synuclein. These are only indirectly connected to the aging of the immune system, in the sense that immune function influences in some way near all aspects of tissue function, and its progressive failure tends to make everything at least a little less functional. Chronic inflammation appears to play a direct and important role in the progression of most neurodegenerative conditions, how...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 8, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
The Case For Real World Evidence (RWE)
By DAVID SHAYWITZ, MD
Randomized control trials – RCTs – rose to prominence in the twentieth century as physicians and regulators sought to evaluate rigorously the performance of new medical therapies; by century’s end, RCTs had become, as medical historian Laura Bothwell has noted, “the gold standard of medical knowledge,” occupying the top position of the “methodologic heirarch[y].”
The value of RCTs lies in the random, generally blinded, allocation of patients to treatment or control group, an approach that when properly executed minimizes confounders (based on the presumption that any significant confound...
Source: The Health Care Blog - May 15, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Real World Evidence (RWE) vs Randomized Control Trials (RCT): The Battle For the Future of Medicine
By DAVID SHAYWITZ, MD
Randomized control trials – RCTs – rose to prominence in the twentieth century as physicians and regulators sought to evaluate rigorously the performance of new medical therapies; by century’s end, RCTs had become, as medical historian Laura Bothwell has noted, “the gold standard of medical knowledge,” occupying the top position of the “methodologic heirarch[y].”
The value of RCTs lies in the random, generally blinded, allocation of patients to treatment or control group, an approach that when properly executed minimizes confounders (based on the presumption that any significant confound...
Source: The Health Care Blog - May 15, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
New treatment through stem cell transplant for Sickle cell anemia
Sickle cell anemia is a form of anemia in which there aren’t enough healthy red blood cells to carry enough oxygen throughout your body. General symptoms include fatigue and joint pain with periods of intense pain that can last either hours or weeks.
Revee Agyepong, a 17-year-old from Edmonton, Canada, suffered from sickle cell anemia with symptoms of chronic bone and joint pain, irregular heartbeat, kidney stones and shortness of breath.
“I thought that everyone would go out for recess and play, then come back with a terrible headache and body pain, couldn’t breathe … eventually I realized it was j...
Source: Cord Blood News - April 30, 2018 Category: Perinatology & Neonatology Authors: Maze Cord Blood Tags: blood disorder Cord Blood medical research stem cells Source Type: blogs
Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 228
LITFL • Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog
LITFL • Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog - Emergency medicine and critical care medical education blog
Just when you thought your brain could unwind on a Friday, you realise that it would rather be challenged with some good old fashioned medical trivia FFFF…introducing Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 228.
Question 1
Who is the Berlin patient?
+ Reveal the Funtabulous Answer
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Timothy Ray Brown
Arguably the first person to be cured of HIV. There are other patients w...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - March 2, 2018 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Neil Long Tags: Frivolous Friday Five Berlin patient bullet virus HIV PCP pneumocystis carinii Pneumocystis jiroveci Queen Square Hammer rabies Reflex hammer reflexes Taylor Hammer The Ramones Timothy Ray Brown Troemner hammer Source Type: blogs
Further Investigation of the Role of Osteopontin in Hematopoietic Stem Cell Aging
The Hematopoietic stem cell population resident in bone marrow is responsible for generating blood cells and immune cells. Like all stem cell populations, their activity alters and declines with aging. This is one of the causes of the progressive disarray of the immune system in older individuals. If we want to rejuvenate the immune system, then restoring the youthful activity of hematopoietic stem cells is one of the items on the to-do list, alongside regrowth of the thymus, and clearing out the accumulation of exhausted, senescent, and misconfigured immune cells.
The protein osteopontin appears to have a sizable r...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 16, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, January 8th 2018
Fight Aging! provides a weekly digest of news and commentary for thousands of subscribers interested in the latest longevity science: progress towards the medical control of aging in order to prevent age-related frailty, suffering, and disease, as well as improvements in the present understanding of what works and what doesn't work when it comes to extending healthy life. Expect to see summaries of recent advances in medical research, news from the scientific community, advocacy and fundraising initiatives to help speed work on the repair and reversal of aging, links to online resources, and much more.
This content is...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 7, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Vesicles from Young Cells Reverse Measures of Aging in Old Stem Cells
Much of the constant signaling that takes place between cells is carried via microvesicles and exosomes, membrane-bound packages of molecules. Researchers are finding that the contents of vesicles change in characteristic ways with advancing age, one of the many cellular reactions to rising levels of molecular damage and environmental stress. Some of these changes might be useful as a marker of cellular senescence, one of the more important changes in cell state associated with age. It should also be possible to use suitably formed vesicles to adjust cell behavior in situ, such as to spur greater regeneration. Perhaps thes...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 3, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
