A blog for Biomedical Laboratory Science, Clinical Laboratory Medicine, Medical Laboratory Technology with relevant news, abstracts, articles, publications and pictures for lab medicine professionals, students and others
This is how Covid-19 is spreading pandemic across the globe !
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Watching carefully the entire video presents a very interesting and important hidden information how rapidly the virus at first spreads in China, then subsequently to other countries, at the same time how some countries including China were able to control and maintain the rate of spread while others such as Italy not able to and USA making to top !
Damage to the surface of the cornea causes pain and loss of vision, but regenerative therapies are providing a clearer, brighter future.
If the eyes are the window to the soul, then it is the cornea that lets the light enter.
For more than 200 years, physicians have been preoccupied with keeping this dome-shaped, transparent surface in front of the iris and pupil clear. German surgeon Franz Reisinger was the first to attempt a corneal transplant in animals in 1818. And in 1838, US ophthalmologist Richard Kissam tried to replace the opaque cornea of a young patient with the healthy cornea of a pig, but the procedure failed when the transplant was rejected. The first successful transplant in humans was in 1905, but outcomes remained poor until the mid-twentieth century, when developments in infection control, anaesthesiology, surgical techniques and immunology vastly improved the success rate of corneal transplantation. In the twenty-first century, advances in cell-culture techniques and bioengineering have opened the door to regenerative treatments for people with damage to one or both corneas.
Unclouded vision requires a clear cornea. Its epithelial surface constantly renews itself to maintain an unblemished, uniformly refractive surface. Cells that are shed from the surface are replaced by new ones that emanate from a small population of stem cells located at the edge, or limbus, of the cornea.
If the stem cells at the limbus are damaged, the renewal process is interrupted. The complete or partial loss of these stem cells — limbal stem-cell deficiency (LSCD) — allows the opaque conjunctiva to grow over the cornea. This can lead to intense pain and, in the most-severe cases, blindness.
Androgen-deprivation therapy, which is a common treatment for prostate cancer, has been tentatively linked with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. A new study solidifies these concerns.
Prostate cancer needs testosterone to grow and thrive, so androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) is designed to reduce the amount of testosterone in the body to close to zero, thereby helping to slow cancer's growth.
Although the findings are controversial, some studies have shown that ADT combined with radiation therapy is more successful at treating prostate cancer than just radiation alone.
Currently, ADT is recommended for advanced prostate cancer. But it is increasingly being used to treat localized prostate cancer, despite minimal evidence for its efficacy.
At the same time, the number of localized prostate cancer cases has increased dramatically over recent years, due in part to the more widespread use of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing.
Side effects of ADT — including erectile dysfunction, diabetes, bone loss, and swollen breast tissue, or gynecomastia — can be fairly substantial. Added to this, there is growing evidence to suggest that low testosterone levels might increase the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD).
A common prostate cancer treatment comes under scrutiny in a new study.
Hepatitis C (HCV) is a viral infection that affects the liver and an estimated 3.2 million people in the USA are infected with HCV, and most do not feel ill or know that they are infected. Since 2010, acute cases of HCV have more than doubled, with new cases predominantly among young, white individuals with a history of injection drug use.
The current recommendations are that doctors screen patients at high-risk for contracting HCV, which include but are not limited to people born between 1945 and 1965, those diagnosed with HIV, children born to HCV-positive women and individuals who engage in injection drug use (PWID), among other select populations at high risk. This strategy is called "targeted" screening. "Routine" screening, as defined in the study, tests all individuals in a community with a high prevalence of HCV.
Video: One step Hepatitis C Virus Test Cassette, Raecho International
There are two ways to perform these screenings. Rapid testing is when results are given on the same day that the sample is drawn. Standard testing requires patients to return for a second appointment to get the results. Scientists at Boston Medical Center (Boston, MA, USA) and their colleagues evaluated the clinical benefits and cost-effectiveness of testing strategies among 15 to 30-year-olds at urban community health centers. They developed a decision analytic model to project quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), lifetime costs (2016 USDs) and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICER) associated with nine strategies for one-time testing. The strategies differed in three ways: targeted versus routine testing; rapid finger stick versus standard venipuncture; and ordered by physician versus counselor/tester using standing orders.
Illustration of the Hepatitis C Virus
The team found that compared to targeted risk-based testing (current standard of care), routine testing increased lifetime medical cost by USD 80 and discounted QALYs by 0.0013 per person. Across all strategies rapid testing provided higher QALYs at a lower cost per QALY gained, and was always preferred. Counselor-initiated routine rapid testing was associated with an ICER of USD 71,000/QALY gained. Results were sensitive to offer and result receipt rates. Counselor-initiated routine rapid testing was cost-effective (ICER greater than USD 100,000/QALY) unless the prevalence of PWID was greater than 0.59%, HCV prevalence among PWID less than 16%, reinfection rate greater than 26 cases per 100 person-years, or reflex confirmatory testing followed all reactive venipuncture diagnostics.
Sabrina A. Assoumou, MD, MPH, an infectious disease physician and lead author of the study, said, “When standard testing was applied, patients were less likely to come back for that second appointment to get their results, which in turn meant more people weren't getting the treatment they so desperately needed. Our results indicate that we must initiate rapid testing strategies so that more people will know their status and get treatment more quickly.” The study was published on September 9, 2017, in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
So, you’re looking to shed a pound or two. Time to cut back on those pesky calories, right?
Not so fast. According to Michelle Adams-Arent, a sports nutrition consultant and the Director of Science and Education for Metabolic Precision, reducing your food intake might not work like you originally thought. In fact, it might actually backfire.
'Your body is built for survival,' Adams-Arent told Business Insider. 'It doesn’t care what you want to look like.'
The minute you start cutting back on your caloric consumption, your body goes into full-on starvation mode. Translation? Your metabolic rate will actually decrease as your body tries to preserve what little nutrition it has. A lower metabolism means fewer calories burned. What’s more, research even shows burning more calories than you consume over a long period of time can increase your body fat. Not exactly the outcome you were hoping for.
HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus, which is the virus that causes HIV infection. The abbreviation “HIV” can refer to the virus or to HIV infection.
AIDS stands for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. AIDS is the most advanced stage of HIV infection.
HIV attacks and destroys the infection-fighting CD4 cells of the immune system. The loss of CD4 cells makes it difficult for the body to fight infections and certain cancers. Without treatment, HIV can gradually destroy the immune system and advance to AIDS.
How is HIV spread?
HIV is spread through contact with certain body fluids from a person with HIV. These body fluids include:
Blood
Semen
Pre-seminal fluid
Vaginal fluids
Rectal fluids
Breast milk
The spread of HIV from person to person is called HIV transmission. The spread of HIV from a woman with HIV to her child during pregnancy, childbirth, or breastfeeding is called mother-to-child transmission of HIV.
In the United States, HIV is spread mainly by having sex with or sharing drug injection equipment with someone who has HIV. To reduce your risk of HIV infection, use condoms correctly and consistently during sex, limit your number of sexual partners, and never share drug injection equipment.
Mother-to-child transmission is the most common way that children become infected with HIV. HIV medicines, given to women with HIV during pregnancy and childbirth and to their babies after birth, reduce the risk of mother-to-child transmission of HIV.
You can’t get HIV by shaking hands or hugging a person who has HIV. You also can’t get HIV from contact with objects such as dishes, toilet seats, or doorknobs used by a person with HIV. HIV does not spread through the air or through mosquito, tick, or other insect bites.
The HIV Life Cycle
HIV attacks and destroys the CD4 cells of the immune system. CD4 cells are a type of white blood cell that play a major role in protecting the body from infection. HIV uses the machinery of the CD4 cells to multiply (make copies of itself) and spread throughout the body. This process, which is carried out in seven steps or stages, is called the HIV life cycle.
What is the connection between the HIV life cycle and HIV medicines?
Antiretroviral therapy (ART) is the use of HIV medicines to treat HIV infection. HIV medicines protect the immune system by blocking HIV at different stages of the HIV life cycle.
HIV medicines are grouped into different drug classes according to how they fight HIV. Each class of drugs is designed to target a specific step in the HIV life cycle.
ART combines HIV medicines from at least two different HIV drug classes, making it very effective at preventing HIV from multiplying. Having less HIV in the body protects the immune system and prevents HIV from advancing to AIDS. ART also reduces the risk of HIV drug resistance.
ART can’t cure HIV, but HIV medicines help people with HIV live longer, healthier lives. HIV medicines also reduce the risk of HIV transmission (the spread of HIV to others).
What are the seven stages of the HIV life cycle?
The seven stages of the HIV life cycle are: 1) binding, 2) fusion, 3) reverse transcription, 4) integration, 5) replication, 6) assembly, and 7) budding. To understand each stage in the HIV life cycle, it helps to first imagine what HIV looks like.
Now follow each stage in the HIV life cycle, as HIV attacks a CD4 cell and uses the machinery of the cell to multiply.
This video explains how HIV targets human immune cells, and uses immune cell machinery to make copies of itself. By comparing an analogy to the life cycle of HIV, this presentation will help you understand how HIV systematically reduces immunity within the body.
National DNA Day is not only a celebration of the structure and sequence of the double-helix, but also the tireless commitment of researchers to understand the complexities of our genetic blueprint. As we revel in all things DNA, the GEN editorial staff has assembled a brief video timeline highlighting significant dates in DNA discovery.
Perhaps the most common laboratory procedure performed for hospital patients and outpatients is complete blood count (CBC) or CBC with differential. CBC serves as a screening and diagnostic test for a wide range of conditions and diseases as well as a monitoring tool for treatment and disease status. Given its foundational nature and despite its relative simplicity, the veracity of this basic blood testing is essential. Therefore, thorough validation testing on all new hematology analyzers must be performed to ensure patient safety.
It is reasonable to assume that a newly acquired piece of diagnostic equipment would run as intended, as manufacturers perform their own validation testing to prove intended use and to fulfill regulatory requirements prior to launching a product in the market. However, the ultimate responsibility of verifying instrument performance specifications and characteristics prior to the patient testing falls to the end-user laboratory.
Anyone who's ever taken a shot of hard liquor can tell you: it burns on the way down. But it's not the alcohol itself that's burning your throat. Instead, the ethanol in the liquid is making your throat's VR1 heat receptors more sensitive, prompting them to perceive your own body temperature as hot. (Of course, this doesn't mean you should do shot after shot without fear of consequences.) Learn more about the science of alcohol with the videos below.
Here's Why Taking A Shot Of Tequila Burns Your Throat
The shock toward the meat business is a developing issue these days all around the world. Namely, its flaws have been revealed in numerous documentaries and books and have triggered a massive dissatisfaction among people.
The video below is a short fragment from a narrative called “Samsara”, which is an imaginative examination of the creation of advanced nourishment. It will provide fundamental data on pork, poultry, and cattle facilities, as well as a grocery store, followed by a view of the conditions in a fast food restaurant. It ends in a doctor’s office.
Artist Johannes Stoetter has gained worldwide attention for using body paint to create stunning animal creations.
In this video created by Stoetter, you may think you're seeing a frog and a chameleon -- but in fact you're seeing human beings, painted and intertwined to create an incredible illusion.
For the 26th birthday of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers are highlighting a Hubble image of an enormous bubble being blown into space by a super-hot, massive star. The Hubble image of the Bubble Nebula, or NGC 7635, was chosen to mark the 26th anniversary of the launch of Hubble into Earth orbit by the STS-31 space shuttle crew on April 24, 1990 “As Hubble makes its 26th revolution around our home star, the sun, we celebrate the event with a spectacular image of a dynamic and exciting interaction of a young star with its environment.
The view of the Bubble Nebula, crafted from WFC-3 images, reminds us that Hubble gives us a front row seat to the awe inspiring universe we live in,” said John Grunsfeld, Hubble astronaut and associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, in Washington, D.C.
The Bubble Nebula is seven light-years across—about one-and-a-half times the distance from our sun to its nearest stellar neighbor, Alpha Centauri, and resides 7,100 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia. The seething star forming this nebula is 45 times more massive than our sun. Gas on the star gets so hot that it escapes away into space as a “stellar wind” moving at over four million miles per hour. This outflow sweeps up the cold, interstellar gas in front of it, forming the outer edge of the bubble much like a snowplow piles up snow in front of it as it moves forward.
As the surface of the bubble's shell expands outward, it slams into dense regions of cold gas on one side of the bubble. This asymmetry makes the star appear dramatically off-center from the bubble, with its location in the 10 o’clock position in the Hubble view. Dense pillars of cool hydrogen gas laced with dust appear at the upper left of the picture, and more “fingers” can be seen nearly face-on, behind the translucent bubble. The gases heated to varying temperatures emit different colors: oxygen is hot enough to emit blue light in the bubble near the star, while the cooler pillars are yellow from the combined light of hydrogen and nitrogen.
The pillars are similar to the iconic columns in the “Pillars of Creation” Eagle Nebula. As seen with the structures in the Eagle Nebula, the Bubble Nebula pillars are being illuminated by the strong ultraviolet radiation from the brilliant star inside the bubble. The Bubble Nebula was discovered in 1787 by William Herschel, a prominent British astronomer. It is being formed by an O star, BD +60º2522, an extremely bright, massive, and short-lived star that has lost most of its outer hydrogen and is now fusing helium into heavier elements. The star is about four million years old, and in 10 million to 20 million years, it will likely detonate as a supernova.
Hubble’s Wide Field Camera-3 imaged the nebula in visible light with unprecedented clarity in February 2016. The colors correspond to blue for oxygen, green for hydrogen, and red for nitrogen. This information will help astronomers understand the geometry and dynamics of this complex system. The Bubble Nebula is one of only a handful of astronomical objects that have been observed with several different instruments onboard Hubble. Hubble also imaged it with the Wide Field Planetary Camera (WFPC) in September 1992, and with Wide Field Planetary Camera-2 (WFPC2) in April 1999.
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington, D.C. Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
