viernes, 13 de mayo de 2011

Book Review


On the Cover of Sunday's Book Review

'To End All Wars'

By ADAM HOCHSCHILD
Reviewed by CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
Adam Hochschild's stirring account of World War I concentrates on the appalling losses in the ranks and on the extraordinary courage of the dissenters.

Also in the Book Review

The easy part: Kissinger, Nixon, Secretary of State William P. Rogers and Prime Minister Zhou Enlai in 1972.

'On China'

By HENRY KISSINGER
Reviewed by MAX FRANKEL
China and America have become mutually dependent economic giants, Henry Kissinger argues, but they need an overarching strategic design of partnership.
Stanley Ann Dunham with her son.

'A Singular Woman'

By JANNY SCOTT
Reviewed by ELIZA GRISWOLD
This biography of Barack Obama's mother presents a more complex picture than the president offered in his own books.
A protestor in Washington on Sept. 11, 2007.

'Among the Truthers'

By JONATHAN KAY
Reviewed by JACOB HEILBRUNN
A journalist travels the world of conspiracy theories, about everything from President Obama's birthplace to 9/11 to vaccines.
A Mary Delany collage of a Magnolia grandiflora.

'The Paper Garden'

By MOLLY PEACOCK
Reviewed by ANDREA WULF
A biography of an 18th century a widow who, in her 70s, invented a new way to depict flowers.

'Caleb's Crossing'

By GERALDINE BROOKS
Reviewed by JANE SMILEY
In Geraldine Brooks's historical novel, a missionary's daughter forms a bond with a scholarly Indian.

'The Sly Company of People Who Care'

By RAHUL BHATTACHARYA
Reviewed by DINAW MENGESTU
The narrator of this novel journeys into Guyana's interior to seek answers about the country's past.

'What's Gotten Into Us?: Staying Healthy in a Toxic World'

By MCKAY JENKINS
Reviewed by ELIZABETH ROYTE
An effort to come to terms with the unknown consequences that synthetic chemicals may hold for consumers.
Edna O'Brien

'Saints and Sinners: Stories'

By EDNA O'BRIEN
Reviewed by LIESL SCHILLINGER
Some of the restless, searching people in Edna O'Brien's stories confront political violence, others reflect on disappointing loves.
Bernard Madoff entering court, 2009.

'The Wizard of Lies'

By DIANA B. HENRIQUES
Reviewed by LIAQUAT AHAMED
A Times journalist explains how Bernard Madoff pulled off history's greatest Ponzi scheme, and how he got away with it for so long.
Lincoln Steffens, circa 1920.

'I Have Seen the Future'

By PETER HARTSHORN
Reviewed by KEVIN BAKER
This biography of Lincoln Steffens traces the convictions and delusions of one of the original "muckrakers."
Gilbert Gottfried

'Rubber Balls and Liquor'

By GILBERT GOTTFRIED
Reviewed by PETER KEEPNEWS
The sometimes controversial comedian Gilbert Gottfried looks back on the performances that brought him attention.

Engineered proteins for fighting flu


By Cristina Luiggi

Engineered proteins for fighting flu

In a feat of computational biology, researchers design novel proteins capable of neutralizing a key influenza protein


[Published 12th May 2011 06:37 PM GMT]


Computational biologists designed and produced two novel proteins that strongly bind to a crucial flu protein that enables the virus to enter cells. The new creations, built with the help of more than 200,000 personal computers around the world, may one day serve as effective antiviral therapies, according to a study published today (May 12) in Science
Model of hemagglutinin stem (gray and 
yellow) with design protein bound (green) 
Image courtesy of David Baker
"This study is remarkable," said John Karanicolas, a University of Kansas computational biologist who did not contribute to the research. "This is a method which in the long run may absolutely be a useful complement to antibody technology both for diagnostics and therapeutics." 

To design proteins to interact with a desired target, such as a pathogen's protein, researchers can scan extensive libraries of protein structures in search of a few that roughly complement the target molecule, then tweak those structures slightly to produce a tighter fit. Alternatively, they can introduce the pathogen to an animal to coerce its immune system to respond to the target, and then select from the antibodies that are generated. 

While the former approach grants researchers control over where and how the designed proteins will bind to the target, they may not bind as strongly to the target. The latter, more "natural" approach, on the other hand, may yield antibodies that have a high affinity for the target molecule, but researchers have little control over the dynamics of binding. 

But with quickly-evolving target molecules such as the influenza virus's surface protein, hemagglutinin, which has a large area that is constantly mutating and changing to evade antibody binding, even antibodies that bind well are often rendered obsolete in time. 

To tackle this challenge, computational biologist David Baker of the University of Washington and his colleagues decided to focus on a region of hemagglutinin that tends to be quite stable and is conserved among many influenza strains. Antibodies that bind to this region have been shown to prevent the virus from fusing its membrane with a host cell's and cause infection. 

To target this region of the protein, the researchers had to work on the problem in reverse, first searching for "nooks and crannies" in that region where a protein would be able to take hold, Baker explained, and then identifying strings of amino acids that could fit in those spaces and act as hooks. 

Once they created an entire library of these hooks, they searched proteins with known structures for those that would roughly fit the conformation of hemagglutinin and serve as the main protein bodies to hold the hooks. 

The researchers then modified the orientation and sequence of these scaffold proteins to hold the hooks in positions so that they could interact with hemagglutinin. For this critical, time-consuming step, the researchers reached out to the public for help in solving and optimizing the 3D structures of the proteins. Around 250,000 volunteers downloaded free software developed by Baker's lab called Rosetta@home, which allowed their personal computers at home to contribute computing power for the complex calculations. 

"The design approach was really extraordinary," said Tanja Kortemme, a computational biologist at University of California, San Francisco, who did not participate in the study. "They turned the problem around by first finding the amino acid side chains that formed the interactions that they wanted, and then finding a backbone that could display those side chains." 

All in all, the researchers came up with around 80 novel proteins. When expressed on the membranes of yeast, however, only two were able to bind to hemagglutinin, and the binding strength had to be further improved by slightly tinkering with the amino acid sequences. 
X-ray structure of one of the design 
proteins bound to hemagglutinin 
Image courtesy of David Baker
"The success rate is still very low," Baker said. But comparing a crystal structure of one of the two designs that bound to hemagglutinin with the initial computational model from which the protein was designed, he found they were essentially superimposable, an extremely rare accomplishment in de novo protein design. Thus, although the model still needs improvement, it was able to successfully predict an interaction between two proteins. 

The fact that the researchers produced two very different designs that worked for the same target is also cause for great optimism, added Karanicolas, who did his postdoc in Baker's lab at the University of Washington. "The real strength of this method is that it allows control of the design in the very early stages." 


Fleishman, S.J., et al., "Computational design of proteins targeting the conserved stem region of influenza hemagglutinin," Science, 332:816-21, 2011 



Related stories: Single-handed flu combat? 
[23rd February 2009] Foldit for fun 
[23rd May 2008] Proteins by design 
[July 2006]


Read more: Engineered proteins for fighting flu - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/58171/#ixzz1MGvpTvf

Skeleton Keys


Skeleton Keys

There are a surprising number of unknowns about how our limbs come to be symmetrical.

If you stretch out your arms or legs and compare their length, you will, in most cases, find that they are very similar. Indeed, the external features of our body are reliably symmetrical; a noticeably asymmetrical feature is perceived as an abnormality.
Little attention has been given to how limb symmetry is achieved, even though much is known about how bones themselves grow. Limb structures are specified in the embryo and then grow for some 16 years. We do not even know why they finally stop growing or why their growth rate varies at different ages. Arm length matches with extraordinary accuracy, varying by no more than about 2%. Yet much about how this finely tuned growth is controlled remains a mystery. There is no evidence for communication between the right and left limbs: if a child has an accident that causes one limb to have reduced growth, the opposite limb is unaffected. Thus, the growth process in the two limbs must be under some kind of intrinsic control—separate, but almost identical in each corresponding limb.
click to enlarge
Infographic: Growth Plate Dynamics
View full size JPG (417 KB) | PDF (463 KB)
Lucy Reading-Ikkanda
The extension of the limbs is due to longitudinal growth of bones. Growth plates at each end of the long bones are where this extension is carried out on the cellular level. How does symmetry emerge, given the tens of thousands of cells in each growth plate whose proliferation and size must be controlled? The sheer number of cells may act to cancel any effect of small differences in cell behavior. One might test this possibility by using computer models that vary the behavior of cells populating the different zones of the growth plate to see which conditions yield reliable and consistent growth. Here are four other unknowns that still bedevil the explanation of limb symmetry, along with possible experiments to address them—a hard, but solvable, problem.

Lucy Reading-Ikkanda
1. Column length and zonal boundaries
Indian hedgehog (Ihh) is a protein that is master regulator of chondrocyte behavior in the growth plate. Ihh directly stimulates chondrocyte proliferation and, in concert with parathyroid hormone?related protein (PTHrP), forms a feedback loop controlling cell proliferation and the boundary at which the cells cease proliferating and begin to hypertrophy. Do these processes have to be kept at the same levels in opposite limbs? One could increase the concentration of either the regulator or the hormone on the left or right growth plate to measure the long-term effects. This might be done experimentally by implanting a few cells that have been genetically modified to produce an additional source of one of these two signaling proteins.
2. Comparison of Growth Plates in Corresponding Limbs
A rigorous comparison of the growth plates in corresponding limbs—the relative size of the various regions of the growth plate, the cycling rate of cells populating each region, the height of the chondrocyte columns—and the effect on bone growth of varying any one of these would help elucidate how symmetry is attained.
3. Observing Growth Plates in vitro
Many important features of the growth plate have no clear molecular explanation, such as the determinants of the polarity of proliferative columns and of the boundaries between the various regions. It would be very difficult, but possibly rewarding, to culture growth plates, as this would open up new ways of experimenting with them.
4. Cessation of Bone Growth
The cessation of bone growth appears to be controlled by an intrinsic program that is related to cell proliferation. If stem cells in the growth plate have a finitely determined proliferative capacity—some method for counting how many times the chondrocyte has divided—isolating growth-plate stem cells at different stages during bone elongation and testing their behavior in cell culture might reveal different intrinsic growth rates at different ages. If that were the case, one could investigate the molecular basis for this behavior.


Read more: Skeleton Keys - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/58130/#ixzz1MGwC0bTc
_

Europa pide que se impulse más el uso de las nuevas tecnologías en Sanidad.

La Comisión Europea ha instado este martes a los Estados miembros a acelerar la penetración de los servicios eHealth para garantizar una asistencia sanitaria más eficiente y segura. De esta forma también se contribuye a reducir los costes y, a largo plazo, a la sostenibilidad de los sistemas sanitarios en Europa.


"Al margen de los recortes presupuestarios, en los próximos 20 años el número de europeos mayores de 65 años aumentará un 45%. Según las previsiones, desde los 85 millones en 2008 hasta los 123 millones en 2030 y esto tendrá un enorme impacto social, económico y sanitario", expone la comisaria de Agenda Digital, Neelie Kroes durante la apertura de la Conferencia sobre eSalud, que se celebra entre el 10 y 12 de mayo en Budapest.


La comisaria de Agenda Digital ha considerado "inaceptable" que los Gobiernos no se comprometan a facilitar este tipo de servicios a los pacientes, "incluso aunque implique invertir en cambios estructurales" en los sistemas sanitarios".




La comisaria ha instado a los Estados miembros a potenciar las nuevas tecnologías de la información (TIC) y la comunicación para impulsar los servicios de diagnóstico, prevención y tratamiento y soluciones tecnológicas innovadoras basadas en la telemedicina y los sistemas de monitoreo a distancia. De esta manera, se alcanzaría la reducción de los ingresos hospitalarios con la generalización de la telemedicina.


Noticia publicada en elmundo.es si quieres ver la noticia completa pulsa aquí

jueves, 12 de mayo de 2011

Diario Pediátrico en español Jueves, May. 12, 2011



Pediatria
A través de una reciente editorial de Anales de Pediatría, bajo el título "Asma, educadores y escuela", somos conocedores del interesante trabajo denominado "Estudio de asma en los centros escolare...
 pediatriabasad...
Salud

evidpediatria
Objetivo: comparar la eficacia y seguridad del suero salino (SS) al 5, al 3 y al 0,9% en el tratamiento de la bronquiolitis aguda (BA). Diseño: ensayo clínico, aleatorizado y doble ciego, realizado...
 evidenciasenpe...

lamamapediatra
Por aquello de seguir las consecuencias lógicas de los actos y no castigar, -ejem ejem que eso está muy mal visto y yo ya acumulo demasiados puntos en el club de las malas madres-, hace unos días, ...
 dra-amalia-arc...
Cultura y Espectáculos

evidpediatria
Objetivo: comparar la eficacia y la seguridad indometacina (Indo), ibuprofeno (Ibu) y placebo (P) en el cierre del conducto arterial persistente (CAP) del prematuro. Diseño: revisión sistemática (R...
 evidenciasenpe...

jmartinezal
Cuando hablamos de pediatría enseguida nos viene a la cabeza los bebes indefensos, la lactancia materna, las noches sin dormir y los mocos. Pero la edad pediátrica oficial es hasta los 14 años. ¿Po...
 elmedicodemihi...
Cultura y Espectáculos

Pediatria
Las técnicas de reproducción asistida (TRA) son definidas por algunos como tratamientos en los que el ovocito y el esperma se manipulan en el laboratorio, como ocurre con la fecundación in vitro (F...
 evidenciasenpe...

mipediatra
A partir de ahora, muchos padres que deseen tener la noche en paz se lo van a pensar dos veces antes de iniciar una discusión. Porque una nueva investigación llevada a cabo por científicos de diver...
 elmundo.es
Negocios

Maluavi
Los ingresos de niños asmáticos en centros hospitalarios tomados como indicadores han disminuido desde la entrada en vigor de la ley antitabaco, según el Comité Nacional de Prevención del Tabaquism...
 elpais.com
Salud

mipediatra
El estudio halló que los niveles de colesterol mejoraron aún más en los pacientes jóvenes que en los adultos LUNES, 9 de mayo (HealthDay News/HolaDoctor) -- Según una investigación reciente, los ad...
 healthfinder.gov
Salud

lamamapediatra
Gracias, muchísimas gracias a todas por vuestro interés y toda vuestra energía. Desde Suavinex queremos agradeceros a todas las mamás blogueras vuestro participación en la primera edición del I Pre...
 elclubdelasmad...
Cultura y Espectáculos

HSJDBCN
Durante los meses de marzo y abril de 2011 en la Biblioteca hemos añadido 27 obras nuevas, aquí tienen una relación de algunas de ellas:  Albert Gómez MJ. La Investigación educativa: claves teórica...
 bibliosjd.word...
Cultura y Espectáculos

HSJDBCN
De Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre El Día Internacional de la enfermería es celebrado en todo el mundo cada 12 de mayo. Este día es celebrado para recordar todas las contribuciones de los enfermer...
 es.wikipedia.org
Cultura y Espectáculos

Pallapupas
â–ºLos Mossos d'Esquadra eligen a Pallapupas para su donación benéfica. El Col·lectiu Autònom de Treballadors de los mossos otorga el premio solidari.cat! a nuestra entidad por valor de 1.000â‚...
 pallapupas.org
Cultura y Espectáculos

conestetoscopio
Publicado en el Journal of the American College of Cardiology de enero del 2011, este estudio colaborativo de diversos hospitales líderes en nuestra especialidad en los Estados Unidos efectúa el an...
 conestetoscopi...
Salud

Pallapupas
Santiago Ambrosio i Xavier Ariza Vicedegà i Coordinador de Semiologia, Facultat de Medicina de la Universitat de Barcelona “Pot ser més fàcil curar un mal físic que un emocional” Pallapupas...
 pallapupas.org

drjmacias
El próximo 1 de junio entra en vigor en la UE la prohibición de fabricar biberones de plástico con bisfenol A por sus posibles riesgos en la salud TweetA finales de enero de 2011, la Unión Europea ...
 consumer.es

jramonfernandez
Muchos de vosotros ya conoceréis El Cosmonauta ese fantástico proyecto independiente e innovador en forma de película con licencia Creative Commons y que cualquiera puede apoyar y producir desde só...
 alt1040.com
Cultura y Espectáculos

AP12causas
12 mayo, 2011 · 0:01 La inteligencia sanitaria es aplicable en cualquiera de los niveles de gestión: macro (políticas sanitarias); meso (estructuras de salud); micro (gestión clínica). En todos los...
 apxii.wordpres...

pediaguibel
Madrid, 12 may (EFE).- Casi un 40 por ciento de los conductores, en concreto un 37 por ciento, reconoce haber llevado en el coche en alguna ocasión a un niño sin la sillita de seguridad obligatoria...
 elcorreo.com
Negocios

giordanopg
Systematic review Results Stearic acid Flavenoids in chocolate Chocolate and mechanisms Flavenoids and heart disease Comment Bandolier obviously has chocolate lovers among its readers, but chocolat...
 medicine.ox.ac.uk
Salud