Broadening Opportunities for Students in STEM at Brown University and Beyond
Credit: Courtesy of Brown University.
Andrew G. Campbell, Ph.D., a professor of medical science at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and previous dean of the graduate school, is passionate about researching understudied diseases and helping students reach their full potential.
Dr. Campbell’s lab has studied the single-cell organism Trypanosoma brucei (T. brucei), a parasite transmitted through the bite of the tsetse fly, which is only found in specific regions of Africa. In humans, T. brucei causes African Trypanosomiasis, also known as sleeping sickness. Symptoms of this illness include headache, weakne...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - February 8, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Being a Scientist STEM Education Profiles Training Source Type: blogs
Increasing Opportunities in STEM at Brown University and Beyond
Credit: Courtesy of Brown University.
Andrew G. Campbell, Ph.D., a professor of medical science at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and previous dean of the graduate school, is passionate about researching understudied diseases and helping students reach their full potential.
Dr. Campbell’s lab has studied the single-cell organism Trypanosoma brucei (T. brucei), a parasite transmitted through the bite of the tsetse fly, which is only found in specific regions of Africa. In humans, T. brucei causes African Trypanosomiasis, also known as sleeping sickness. Symptoms of this illness include headache, weakne...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - February 7, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Being a Scientist STEM Education Profiles Training Source Type: blogs
What ’s behind racial disparities in kidney disease?
My first exposure to kidney disease and its impact on communities of color occurred when I was in high school. An elderly neighbor, who was like a grandfather to me, had been diagnosed with kidney failure. At about the same time, my older first cousin, who had children about my age, was starting dialysis due to kidney failure attributed to hypertension. She would go on to get a kidney transplant. If you ask any African American, he or she is likely to have at least one relative with kidney disease requiring dialysis or transplantation.
Disparities in kidney disease not noted in medical literature until early 1980s
When I b...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - February 3, 2021 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: J. Kevin Tucker, MD Tags: Health care disparities Kidney and urinary tract Source Type: blogs
How Errors in Divvying Up Chromosomes Lead to Defects in Cells
Note to our Biomedical Beat readers: Echoing the sentiments NIH Director Francis Collins made on his blog, NIGMS is making every effort during the COVID-19 pandemic to keep supporting the best and most powerful science. In that spirit, we’ll continue to bring you stories across a wide range of NIGMS topics. We hope these posts offer a respite from the coronavirus news when needed.
Mitosis is fundamental among all organisms for reproduction, growth, and cell replacement. When a cell divides, it’s vital that the two new daughter cells maintain the same genes as the parent.
In one step of mitosis, chromosomes are se...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - March 25, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Susan Johnson Tags: Genes Cellular Processes Chromosomes Source Type: blogs
Two doctors I met in Paris
Not in person, as both are rather historical, but when in Paris, I encountered:Dr Alphonse LaveranandDr Paul GachetDr Laveran has a square named after him, adjacent to the Ecole de Val de Grace, a school of military medicine, where he worked after serving in the army as a physician, and where his father had held the same post. Paris is good at telling you who a street is named after, so the street sign tells you he was the first French winner of theNobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology. He won it for identifying both malaria and sleeping sickness as caused by parasites.Dr Gachet has aportrait in the...
Source: Browsing - January 20, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Source Type: blogs
Answer to Case 555 - Parasites and the Number Five
Wow - we received so many excellent comments on how parasites and the number 5 go together! Here are many of them - in no particular order - for your viewing pleasure:Pentatrichomonas hominis is a nonpathogenic intestinal flagellate named for its 5 flagella (penta from the Greek pente, meaning five + trich, pertaining to hair [flagella]). By Neil Anderson and Bernardino Rocha.There are 5 lobes of the lung, and all can be infected by Paragonimusspecies. By Brian Duresko.The are 5Plasmodiumspecies that are responsible for the bulk of malaria in humans:P. falciparum, P. vivax, P. ovale, P. malariae, andP. knowlesi(t...
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - August 1, 2019 Category: Parasitology Source Type: blogs
African Trypanosomiasis: Crossing Borders
141 individual importations (193 patients) of African trypanosomiasis are listed by Gideon www.GideonOnline.com Ten of these patients acquired the disease in Zambia, and 27 were treated in South Africa.
As of February, 2019 the Gideon web application and e-book series [1,2] list 2,718 individual cross-border events, arranged in 134 charts – by disease and country. Charts also include importation of infected animals (ie, rabid dogs) and contaminated foods and other vehicles which resulted in outbreaks. Charts in the web application are interactive, and allow the user to sort data according to country, year, numb...
Source: GIDEON blog - March 20, 2019 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Dr. Stephen Berger Tags: Ebooks Epidemiology ProMED Travel Source Type: blogs
Weekend Poem
ApoptosisWhen a cell suddenly dies it ’s calledapoptosis. No one knows why; it ’s a secret knowledge,A microscopic biological gnosis,A screeching halting stoppage.Maybe we ’re all programmed to just croakAccording to some inscrutable cosmic algorithmEach and every cell in on the jokeWhen the piano clangs out of tune and drums lose the rhythm Our cell membranes were always just a temporary redoubtFragile molecules arranged in aqueous oval orbs.The killer never comes from withoutIt was always a destructive directive from the inner coreThe lines drawn were always contingent.One day they suddenly wobble,Waver l...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - June 24, 2018 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 236
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 236.
Readers can subscribe to FFFF RSS or subscribe to the FFFF weekly EMAIL
Question 1:
You see a patient who has returned from Uganda complaining of pain in his arm whenever he turns the key. What is the diagnosis?
+ Reveal the Funtabulous Answer
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Source: Life in the Fast Lane - May 11, 2018 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Neil Long Tags: Frivolous Friday Five African Trypanosomiasis amblygeusia Cabot's rings Darwin award dengue fever Jean Francois Kerandel Kerandel's sign Kerandel's symptom male idiot theory MIT sleeping sickness Tourniquet test Source Type: blogs
The Lonely Witch
Near a small village where the river flowed into a deep narrow valley lived a young witch woman with hair as black and as long as a winter’s night. She lived with a cat the color of smoke, in a curious house painted a strange blue such as no one had ever seen before in this village of brick huts. Though the woman was a witch, the people were not afraid of her, for she had never set an evil spell in anyone’s memory. She made music, and she made magic. Her music was sweet and high pitched, like the hum of honeybees. And the only magic she practiced was making potions for the townspeople’s ills. If someone had a sleepin...
Source: Susan's Blog - February 4, 2018 Category: Child Development Authors: Susan Senator Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Trypanosomiasis – Imported / Exported
Gideon follows cross-border Infectious Disease events in tabular form – including movement of infected animals, and outbreaks related to imported items. [1] The following list chronicles cases of African trypanosomiasis which were imported into South Africa, or were exported from Zambia. Further details and references are available from the author.
Acquired in Zambia.
1986 – An American tourist acquired trypanosomiasis in Zambia.
2000 – A British tourist acquired trypanosomiasis (nonfatal) in Zambia.
2001 – A British national acquired trypanosomiasis in Zambia.
2008 – A British tourist acq...
Source: GIDEON blog - January 12, 2018 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Dr. Stephen Berger Tags: Ebooks Epidemiology ProMED Source Type: blogs
Travel-Related African Trypanosomiasis
During January 1970 to May 2017, 138 case reports of travel-related trypanosomiasis were published in the medical literature. In 49 cases (36%) the patients were identified as Europeans, and in 49 (37%) the disease was acquired in Tanzania. A chronology of these events follows below [1].
African Trypanosomiasis – A Chronology of Travel-Related Cases
Year Patient From Infected In Cases (#)
1970
Switzerland
multiple **
1
1970
United States
multiple
2
1975
Sweden
Gambia
1
1977
Switzerland
multiple
...
Source: GIDEON blog - May 18, 2017 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Dr. Stephen Berger Tags: Epidemiology Graphs Source Type: blogs
Remote Controlled Microbots for Medical Uses Inside Body
Researchers at École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich have developed a technique for building “mobile micromachines” inspired by origami that can be controlled and powered remotely using magnets. The goal is to eventually use the technology to create diagnostic and therapeutic devices that can travel through the body and perform specific actions, reaching areas and doing tasks that are difficult with existing techniques.
The investigators’ approach allows for a wide variety of tiny robots that change shapes in different ways and respond to ma...
Source: Medgadget - July 25, 2016 Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Editors Tags: Surgery Source Type: blogs
Concetta Tomaino and the Healing Power of Music
Congratulations to Disruptive Women in Health Care Dr. Concetta Tomaino who continues to show us the power of music to heal. The following post by Deborah Harkins first appeared in Women’s Voices for Change on July 11, 2016.
Concetta Tomaino with her late colleague Dr. Oliver Sacks, to whom Dustin Hoffman presented the Music Has Power award in 2006.
Music! We know it can stimulate, excite, soothe, transport . . . . indeed, it sometimes sparks emotion so pleasurable that it actually sends chills down the spine. (Like sex, cocaine other abused drugs, and food, music triggers the area of the brain that releases dopamine, ...
Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - July 11, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 107
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…introducing Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 107
Question 1
What is the connection between the image and the 2010 earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand?
+ Reveal the Funtabulous Answer
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Takotsubo
The image is of a Japanese octopus pot or trap, known as a “tako tsubo”.
The apical ballooning seen in stress cardiomyopathy resembles this, hence t...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - May 22, 2015 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Niall Hamilton Tags: Frivolous Friday Five Ackee fruit christchurch FFFF Winterbottom's sign Zoon's balanitis Source Type: blogs
