A modern method of prescribing drugs at Southampton’s teaching hospitals is helping to cut doctors’ hours. The practice, known as non-medical prescribing, allows nurses and pharmacists to prescribe medication, freeing up doctors to carry out other essential tasks at Southampton General Hospital. The nutrition support team, one of a number of teams carrying out non-medical prescribing, saved a total of 519 hours - 13 weeks - of doctor time last year alone.
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A novel electronic sensor array for more rapid, accurate and cost-efficient testing of DNA for disease diagnosis and biological research has been developed by scientists at Singapore’s Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN). In a recent Journal of the American Chemical Society, IBN scientists reported that based on laboratory results, their Nanogap Sensor Array has shown “excellent” sensitivity at detecting trace amounts of DNA.
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Current research suggests that viral polymerase may provide a new therapeutic target for host-adapted avian influenza. The related report by Gabriel et al, “Spread of Infection and Lymphocyte Depletion in Mice Depends on Polymerase of Influenza Virus” appears in the September 2009 issue of the American Journal of Pathology. Highly pathogenic avian influenza, commonly known as bird flu, is a strain of the influenza virus that has adapted to infect birds.
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It is known that I/R induces an inflammatory response deleterious to the organ involved but also to the system as a whole. Mesenteric ischemia occurs when the veins or arteries that supply blood to the intestine are obstructed. In transplants, the organ undergoes total (arterial and venous) I/R. Few available treatments exist. Greater knowledge of these conditions would aid in the search for new therapies.
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For the first time, Whitehead Institute researchers have shown definitively that mutations associated with prion diseases are sufficient to cause a transmissible neurodegenerative disease. The discovery is reported in the August 27 edition of the journal Neuron. Until now, two theories about the role mutations play in prion diseases have been at odds. According to one theory, mutations make carriers more susceptible to prions in the environment.
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Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have developed an experimental technique with the potential to prevent a class of hereditary disorders passed on from mother to child. The technique, as yet conducted only in nonhuman primates, involves transferring the hereditary material from one female’s egg into another female’s egg from which the hereditary material has been removed.
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Entomologists at the University of California, Riverside working on fruit flies in the lab have discovered a novel class of compounds that could pave the way for developing inexpensive and safe mosquito repellents for combating West Nile virus and other deadly tropical diseases. When fruit flies undergo stress, they emit carbon dioxide (CO2) that serves as a warning to other fruit flies that danger or predators could be nearby.
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The European Union’s REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemical) legislation is intended as a comprehensive safety evaluation for commercial chemicals used in consumer products that are traded in Europe at amounts more than one ton per year. However, implementation of the regulation may require 54 million research animals and €9.5 billion ($13.
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The circadian system is not the only pathway involved in determining alertness at night. Research described in the open access journal BMC Neuroscience showed that red light, which does not stimulate the circadian system, is just as effective at increasing night-time alertness as blue light, which does.
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A hand-held device which could offer point-of-care blood cell analysis in doctors’ surgeries is being developed by academics at the University of Southampton and is described in a paper in Lab on a Chip this month.
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