The Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) is one of the most common sexually transmitted infections among adults worldwide and it is estimated that 80% of women in America will have contracted at least one type of HPV by the age of 50. Most are unaware they have carried it and their body will recover over a… Read more »
Saturday 1st December is World AIDS Day. World Aids Day was the first global health awareness day held in 1988 to help commemorate those who have died of AIDS, raise awareness of the disease, and help drive support for people living with HIV. 25 years on, this year the WHO has defined this year as… Read more »
Lifestyle risk factors (poor diet, physical inactivity and smoking) are key contributors to highly prevalent medical illnesses, with new data emerging of these risk factors for common mental disorders. Effective drug treatment and biomarker discovery is needed for diabetes, a widespread medical condition known to be highly comorbid with psychiatric conditions such as mood disorders…. Read more »
Cancer research has invested in cancer genome sequencing with the aim of identifying somatic mutations that drive tumorigenesis. Yet, the thousands of somatic mutations identified in cancer sequencing projects have little meaning without being able to distinguish the cancer-causing “drivers” from the neutral “passengers”. Identifying the mutations with a functional impact is one approach to… Read more »
Clinical guidelines are widely used by physicians to advise on appropriate patient care, and smart phone apps are increasingly being adopted by the general public to provide guidance on self-management for long-term conditions. It is therefore important that such tools provide clear, safe and correct recommendations. Research articles published in BMC Medicine this week have… Read more »
Since their discovery in the early nineties, microRNAs (or miRNAs) have been found in all complex organisms including mammals, plants and fungi. More than 700 miRNAs have been discovered in humans and more than 800 are predicted to exist. The functions of miRNA seem to lie in gene regulation and they have various roles in… Read more »
Whether you call it precision medicine or personalized medicine or any one of a number of other terms, one of the major goals in medical research is to be able to predict or diagnose disease, and choose therapeutic options, based upon simple and non-invasive tests. Hundreds of molecular biomarkers have been identified with this goal… Read more »
The 2012 annual scientific meeting of the Canadian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology in Calgary last month was a fantastic event bringing clinicians, allergists, researchers and health professionals together to uncover and discuss the latest developments within the field. Food allergy and anaphylaxis remain high on the agenda, along with asthma as these continue… Read more »
BioMed Central in collaboration with an Ottawa-based researcher has received the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) research grant for a timely project which aims to facilitate wider sharing of clinical research data. In the last few weeks GlaxoSmithKline and Medtronic have made public commitments to share data from clinical trials they have sponsored, the BMJ… Read more »
Jasvinder Singh, Guest Editor for an upcoming cross-journal article collection entitled Medical Imaging in Rheumatology: New Advances to Revolutionalize Diagnosis and Treatment, provides his perspectives on why this topic is of importance to the field of rheumatology, and outlines how manuscripts can be submitted for consideration in either BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, BMC Medical Imaging or… Read more »