Immune cells self-healing brain after stroke

After a stroke, there is inflammation in the damaged part of the brain. Until now, the inflammation has been seen as a negative consequence that needs to be abolished as soon as possible. But, as it turns out, there are also some positive sides to the inflammation, and it can actually help the brain to self-repair.

"This is in total contrast to our previous beliefs", says Professor Zaal Kokaia from Lund University in Sweden.

Zaal Kokaia, together with Professor of Neurology Olle Lindvall, runs a research group at the Lund Stem Cell Center that, in collaboration with colleagues at the Weizmann Institute in Israel, is responsible for these findings. Hopefully, these new data will lead to new ways of treating stroke in the future. The study was recently published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

When stroke occurs, the nerve cells in the damaged area of the brain die, causing an inflammation that attracts cells from the immune system. Among them you find monocytes—a type of white blood cells produced in the bone marrow.

Read more: Immune cells self-healing brain after stroke

False-colored scanning electron micrograph of a blood clot. There are many red blood cells and

a single white blood cell held together in a meshwork of fibrin (brown).

Source: Anne Weston, LRI, CRUK, Wellcome Images

Lymphoma

Overview

Lymphoma is cancer that begins in cells of the lymph system. The lymph system is part of the immune system, which helps the body fight infection and disease. Because lymph tissue is found all through the body, lymphoma can begin almost anywhere.

The two main types of lymphoma are Hodgkin lymphoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). These can occur in both children and adults.

Most people with Hodgkin lymphoma have the classic type. With this type, there are large, abnormal lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell) in the lymph nodes called Reed-Sternberg cells. Hodgkin lymphoma can usually be cured.

There are many different types of NHL that form from different types of white blood cells (B-cells, T-cells, NK cells). Most types of NHL form from B-cells. NHL may be indolent (slow-growing) or aggressive (fast-growing). The most common types of NHL in adults are diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, which is usually aggressive, and follicular lymphoma, which is usually indolent.

Read more: Lymphoma

Source: cancer.gov

Free eBook - Teitz Fundamentals of Clinical Chemistry

A condensed, student-friendly version of Tietz Fundamentals of Clinical Chemistry, this text uses a laboratory perspective to provide you with the chemistry fundamentals you need to work in a real-world, biomedical laboratory. Accurate chemical structures are included to explain the key chemical features of relevant molecules. Offering complete, accurate coverage of key topics in the field, it's everything that you expect from the Tietz name!

Key Features:

• More than 500 illustrations and easy-to-read tables help you understand and remember key concepts.
• Key words, learning objectives, and other student-friendly features reinforce important material.
• Chapter review questions are included in an appendix to test your knowledge.
• A two-color design makes it easier to read and easy to find important topics.
• In-depth, reader-friendly content is appropriate for MT/CLS and MLT/CLT students and may also be used by laboratory practitioners, pathology residents, and others.

Series: Tietz Fundamentals of Clinical Chemistry 

Hardcover: 976 pages

Publisher: Saunders; 6 edition (November 20, 2007)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0721638651

ISBN-13: 978-0721638652

This eBook has been published by Comanche County Memorial Hospital School of Medical Technology

Download here: Tietz Fundamentals of Clinical Chemistry

Source: Comanche County Memorial Hospital School of Medical Technology

Biomedical Laboratory Scientist Career: Salary, Requirements and Overview

Medical laboratory scientists require a significant amount of formal education. Learn about the degree, job duties, and certification to see if this is the right career for you.

Essential Information

Medical laboratory scientists, also known as medical laboratory technologists, conduct lab tests related to the detection and cure of diseases. They use complex medical equipment to analyze body fluids or tissue samples for bacterial infection, hormone levels, and other chemical components affecting human health. A bachelor's degree with a major in one of the life sciences can open the door to this career.

Required Education	Bachelor's degree
Other Requirements	Certification or licensure required in some states
Projected Job Growth (2012-2022)	22% for medical and clinical laboratory technologists and technicians*
Mean Annual Wage (2014)	$60,560 for medical and clinical laboratory technologists*

Source: *U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Salary of a Medical Laboratory Scientist

Wages for medical laboratory scientists vary based upon experience and job location. The mean annual salary earned by medical and clinical laboratory technologists was $60,560 as of May 2014, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (www.bls.gov). Hospitals are the largest employer of medical and clinical laboratory technologists; those working in this environment earned an average salary of $61,600 annually in 2014. However, the highest paying industry, according to the BLS, is pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing, paying an average salary of $71,910 as of May 2014. The BLS also states that the projected job outlook for medical and clinical laboratory technologists and technicians is 22% for the years 2012-2022.

Read more: Biomedical Laboratory Scientist Career: Salary, Requirements and Overview

Source: bls.gov

Can diabetes be cured?

What Causes Diabetes?

Scientists don’t know exactly what causes diabetes. They think that type 1 diabetes is a disease in which your immune system attacks your own cells as if they were foreign invaders. This is called an autoimmune disease. In type 1 diabetes, your immune system attacks your pancreas cells and destroys their ability to make insulin. Most scientists believe that an environmental factor, such as a virus, triggers this process in your body. Your genes play a role as well. Certain people are more prone to develop diabetes.

Likewise, health experts don’t fully understand what causes type 2 diabetes. They do know that it is closely linked to obesity and it tends to run in families. Type 2 diabetes is the most common type of diabetes but you can prevent it in many cases. If you have type 2 diabetes, you may be able to reverse or control high blood sugar through diet and exercise. However, you will always have diabetes and you will always need to manage it to prevent serious health problems.

Is There a Cure for Diabetes?

Both type 1 and type 2 diabetes are chronic, lifelong conditions. Currently, there is no permanent cure for either type. However, there is hope in research for a cure and in prevention. While you can’t prevent type 1 diabetes, you may be able to prevent type 2 diabetes. Maintaining a healthy weight, eating a healthy diet, and exercising regularly are all ways you can help prevent type 2 diabetes.

Read more: Can diabetes be cured?

Source: internetmedicine

Can we really outgrow asthma?

If you're one of the 25 million Americans who have asthma, you probably want to know if you're always going to be living with it. If you're a parent of one of the 7 million U.S. children with asthma, you probably want to know if your child might outgrow it. The short answer: That depends. Here's why.

Can Children Outgrow Asthma?

About half of all children with asthma start having symptoms before age five. However, it's hard to diagnose asthma in a child under age five. That's because the lung function tests that are most important for making the diagnosis are too hard for a young child to perform.

If you have a child with asthma symptoms, there is about a 50% chance your child will outgrow the symptoms. But there's also a 25% chance those symptoms will come back once the child is an adult. This means the chance of your child permanently outgrowing asthma is about 25%.

Read more: Can we really outgrow asthma?

Source: healthgrades

DNA damage detected in patients after CT scanning.

Using new laboratory technology, scientists have shown that cellular damage is detectable in patients after CT scanning. In this study, researchers examined the effects on human cells of low-dose radiation from a wide range of cardiac and vascular CT scans. These imaging procedures are commonly used for a number of reasons, including management of patients suspected of having obstructive coronary artery disease, and for those with aortic stenosis, in preparation of transcatheter aortic valve replacement.

Using new laboratory technology, scientists have shown that cellular damage is detectable in patients after CT scanning, according to a new study led by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

"We now know that even exposure to small amounts of radiation from computed tomography scanning is associated with cellular damage," said Patricia Nguyen, MD, one of the lead authors of the study and an assistant professor of cardiovascular medicine at Stanford. "Whether or not this causes cancer or any negative effect to the patient is still not clear, but these results should encourage physicians toward adhering to dose reduction strategies."

Read more: DNA damage detected in patients after CT scanning.

Computed tomography (stock image). Along with the burgeoning use of advanced medical imaging
tests over the past decade have come rising public health concerns about possible links between low
dose radiation and cancer. The worry is that increased radiation exposure from such diagnostic
procedures as CT scans, which expose the body to low-dose X-ray beams, can damage DNA and
create mutations that spur cells to grow into tumors.

Source: Lilyana Vynogradova / Fotolia

Microbes and Cancer.

Understanding cancer’s relationship with the human microbiome could transform immune-modulating therapies.

In 2013, two independent teams of scientists, one in Maryland and one in France, made a surprising observation: both germ-free mice and mice treated with a heavy dose of antibiotics responded poorly to a variety of cancer therapies typically effective in rodents. The Maryland team, led by Romina Goldszmid and Giorgio Trinchieri of the National Cancer Institute, showed that both an investigational immunotherapy and an approved platinum chemotherapy shrank a variety of implanted tumor types and improved survival to a far greater extent in mice with intact microbiomes. The French group, led by INSERM’s Laurence Zitvogel, got similar results when testing the long-standing chemotherapeutic agent cyclophosphamide in cancer-implanted mice, as well as in mice genetically engineered to develop tumors of the lung.

The findings incited a flurry of research and speculation about how gut microbes contribute to cancer cell death, even in tumors far from the gastrointestinal tract. The most logical link between the microbiome and cancer is the immune system. Resident microbes can either dial up inflammation or tamp it down, and can modulate immune cells’ vigilance for invaders. Not only does the immune system appear to be at the root of how the microbiome interacts with cancer therapies, it also appears to mediate how our bacteria, fungi, and viruses influence cancer development in the first place.

Read more: Microbes and Cancer.

Source: © Istock/Kateja_FN/Frank Ramspott

Combined HIV-Hepatitis C Vaccine Soon Preventing Co-Infection

Some 2.3 million people around the world are infected with both HIV and the hepatitis C virus (HCV) at the same time. The two are often intertwined, with HCV being the top cause of death aside from AIDS for co-infected patients. While there are currently vaccines for both hepatitis A and hepatitis B, there is no vaccine for hepatitis C. Likewise, HIV/AIDS treatment has improved significantly in recent decades, but there is still no vaccine.

In a new study, researchers note that a combined HIV and hepatitis C vaccine may soon be on the horizon. The study, which was presented at The International Liver Congress in Barcelona, describes how a combined vaccine would involve two main steps: first, exposing the immune system to adenoviral vectors that contain fragments of both HCV and HIV viruses, which would trigger antigens; and afterwards, administering booster vaccinations in an MVA vector containing the same HCV and HIV virus fragments.

“Finding effective vaccinations against the world’s biggest killers is a huge and pressing problem,” said Laurent Castera, Secretary General of the European Association for the Study of the Liver, in a statement. “This study shows for the first time that it is possible to generate simultaneous immune response against diseases HCV and HIV, raising the possibility of a combined vaccination.”

HIV, or the human immunodeficiency virus, causes HIV infection and over time, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). HCV is also a viral infection that mostly targets the liver, resulting in symptoms of fever, dark urine, stomach pain, and eventually liver disease, cirrhosis (scarring of the liver), or liver failure.

Read more: Combined HIV-Hepatitis C Vaccine Soon Preventing Co-Infection

While HIV and hepatitis C vaccines are still in experimental stages, researchers may have paved

the way for a combined vaccine in which they're administered at the same time.

Source: Josep Lago / Getty

Diabetes once a problem of the rich, now belongs to the poor too.

As the global diabetes rate soared over the past quarter-century, the affected population transformed: What was once predominantly a rich-country problem has become one that disproportionately affects poorer countries.

That's one of the many conclusions of the World Health Organization's first global report on the chronic disease. Worldwide, diabetes rates nearly doubled, from 4.7 percent in 1980 to 8.5 percent in 2014. Roughly one in 12 people living in the world today have the disease, which has spread dramatically.

“If we are to make any headway in halting the rise in diabetes, we need to rethink our daily lives: To eat healthily, be physically active, and avoid excessive weight gain,” Dr. Margaret Chan, WHO Director-General, said in a statement. “Even in the poorest settings, governments must ensure that people are able to make these healthy choices and that health systems are able to diagnose and treat people with diabetes.”

Read more: Diabetes once a problem of the rich, now belongs to the poor too.

A woman fills a syringe as she prepares to give herself an injection of insulin.

Source: Reed Saxon/AP