Multiple diseases are covered by the umbrella of poorly understood etiology coupled to an exaggerated or misguided inflammatory response. At first sight, it might seem odd that conditions as different as rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease are grouped together, but a closer look reveals that although the affected tissue is different, there are actually many… Read more »
Back in 2009, as a fresh-faced young editor, I attended the second Cold Spring Harbor Personal Genomes meeting. Nowadays medical and individual genomes are 10-a-penny (well, not quite), but four years is a long time in genomic technologies and the atmosphere at that meeting was one of excitement and anticipation. I shared a room with… Read more »
Last year, it was revealed that breast cancer can be split into 10 different diseases in a landmark study that could revolutionize how it is treated. In a video Q&A published in BMC Medicine, we talk to study lead Carlos Caldas from Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute about their findings. Caldas discusses the difficulties associated… Read more »
Each year, BioMed Central presents awards in recognition of top quality research published in its journals. The winners of the Microbiology, Immunology, Infection and Inflammation category award are Julia Oh (pictured) and her colleagues for their article ‘Shifts in human skin and nares microbiota in health children and adults’ published in Genome Medicine. The judges… Read more »
Love them or hate them, the annual release of the Thomson Reuters Impact Factors (IF) in the Journal Citations Report (JCR) never fails to generate a flurry of interest in researchers and publishers alike. Many researchers closely monitor any changes in IF before deciding where to submit their papers. Some research institutions even have policies… Read more »
In the past 30 years, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) has been transformed from a devastating and poorly understood disease to a treatable and well-managed condition. Initially described as “a strange illness of unknown origin” by Jacques Leibovitch, the turning point occurred in 1983 when human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was first recognized as the retrovirus causing… Read more »
15 million people suffer from a stroke each year, according to the World Health Organisation. Of this number, 5 million people will die, and a further 5 million people are left with a permanent disability. With stroke having such a vast global impact, research into stroke prevention and treatment, as well as investigating ways that… Read more »
Guest blog post by Professor Mike McConnell, Stanford University School of Medicine, USA. Chemotherapy can injure heart muscle, leading to heart failure, but this damage may not be apparent until many years later. Children receiving chemotherapy are of particular concern, as the risk of heart failure increases as they age into adulthood. A safe, noninvasive… Read more »
The Division of Lung Diseases of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute funds a significant amount of research on the causes, diagnosis, prevention and treatment of lung diseases and sleep disorders in the US. Advances in these areas were discussed at the recent American Thoracic Society meeting (ATS 2013), where BMC Medicine joined over… Read more »