Medical Thought Leaders

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News Medical's "Thought Leaders" series is a selection of articles written by national and international experts and trusted advisers in health and medicine. All the articles are written by experts who have been invited as recognised leaders in their fields to provide a "state of the art" contribution.

NMR in cancer research: an interview with Andy Byrd

My research these days is generally classified as structural biology, although as I trained in chemistry. I specialize in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) applied to biological problems. Our lab is very interested in studying mammalian proteins, particularly systems involved in cancer, in order to try to understand mechanisms to provide that information for our collaborators, and for the general knowledge of the community as well.

From Bruker BioSpin - NMR, EPR and Imaging 26 Jan 2015

Modelling the biological mesoscale: an interview with Professor Art Olson

The biological mesoscale range includes biological structures that range from 10 to 100 nanometers (billionths of a meter). Structures in this size range include viruses, cellular organelles, large molecular complexes, and any other internal cellular environments within that range.

18 Jan 2015

Kidney failure predictors in adolescents: an interview with Dr. Per-Ola Sundin

Diabetes, hypertension and other cardiovascular diseases as well as obesity are some of the markers of risk for kidney failure that we are aware of in adulthood. Markers of risk prior to adulthood for subsequent chronic kidney disease resulting in kidney failure are less well described.

11 Jan 2015

Using HIV drugs to treat AMD: an interview with Dr Mark Young

NRTIs are compounds which were originally developed in the 1960s as anti-cancer agents. They are similar in structure to the bases which make up DNA, and it was hoped that they would interfere with DNA replication in fast-growing cancer cells, slowing down or stopping tumour growth.

7 Jan 2015

Saatchi Bill: an interview with Dr. David Collingridge, Editor-in-Chief, The Lancet Oncology

The intention of the Medical Innovation Bill is to encourage and support doctors to explore new medicines for their patients when they believe existing options are no longer achieving good outcomes.

4 Jan 2015

Eating habits and brain chemistry: an interview with Dr Kevin Hall

Several times every day, we choose when, where, what, with whom, and how much to eat. Many of these eating decisions have become automatic and don’t require cognitive effort.

22 Dec 2014

Revolutionising back pain treatments: an interview with Dr Kieran O’Sullivan

Back pain is exceptionally common. In fact, to not experience back pain at some point of your life would be thoroughly abnormal. Experiencing back pain is like becoming tired or becoming sad; we don’t necessarily like it, but it’s perfectly common.

14 Dec 2014

Cellular mechanisms of alcohol dependence: an interview with Dr Sanna, TSRI

In the brain there are both excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitters. These are molecules that are released from nerve endings in the brain and in the periphery and either excite or inhibit other nerve cells, also known as neurons.

8 Dec 2014

Phenotyping human diseases in mice: an interview with Professor Carola Vinuesa

One of the main obstacles to finding effective therapies for human diseases has been our limited understanding of disease pathogenesis: we lack detailed knowledge of the cellular and molecular mechanisms that lead to the development of disease.

30 Nov 2014

ADHD information on social media: an interview with Gemma Ryan

It came about through the implementation of another ADHD project called One Stop Shop, which is a collaborative project with Leicestershire Partnership NHS trust (LPT) and ADHD Solutions, a charitable support organization.

From University of Derby Online Learning 24 Nov 2014

Curcumin and tackling mesothelioma: an interview with Dr. Afshin Dowlati

An important point about this work is that the research into curcumin was conducted following a discovery about mesothelioma, rather than being the primary endpoint of the study.

17 Nov 2014

Using cardiac biomarkers to identify NSTEMI and ACS patients: an interview with Peter Mason

ACS is currently identified through the use of ECGs pre-hospital and the confirmed via a Troponin biomarker test once in the acute setting.

16 Nov 2014

Stopping the death of synapses: an interview with Dr Soledad Galli

Synapses are the sites that connect neurons – sites where information is passed from one neuron to another. They are highly specialized structures and synaptic function is crucial for normal brain function.

11 Nov 2014

Light-activated diabetes drug: an interview with Dr David Hodson

We've known about chemicals that can be light-activated for about five to ten years now. They’ve mainly all been applied to neurons and, more specifically, the retina. Nobody has ever really looked at any tissues outside of the nervous system.

5 Nov 2014

3D brain-like tissue: an interview with Professor David Kaplan, Tufts University

In 2D, neurons tend to form limited connectivity reflective of the 3D complexity in the brain and have more limited cultivation time before reduction in functions.

4 Nov 2014

Game theory and the cancer ecosystem: an interview with Professor Pienta, Johns Hopkins

The classic description of game theory was described by the prisoner's dilemma, which is a situation in which two players have two options where the outcome depends on the simultaneous choice made by the other.

29 Oct 2014

Cannabis use during adolescence: an interview with Dr Edmund Silins

We know quite a lot about the effects of cannabis on the body and brain but there is still a need to better understand its impact on the health, well-being and development of long term users.

20 Oct 2014

Preventing cancer: an interview with Dr Fiona Reddington

It’s estimated that more than four in 10 cancer cases could be prevented by lifestyle changes, such as not smoking, keeping a healthy body weight, cutting back on alcohol, eating a healthy diet, keeping active and staying safe in the sun.

13 Oct 2014

Suicide prevention: an interview with Dr Shekhar Saxena, World Health Organization

Suicide is a serious public health problem. More than 800,000 people die from suicide every year – that’s one person every 40 seconds.

5 Oct 2014

Epidurals and reduced postpartum depression: an interview with Dr. Zakowski

The “maternity blues”, which resolve within 10 days of giving birth, occurs in up to 80% of new moms. A major depressive episode, by Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) criteria, is defined as having at least a 2-week period of persistent depressed mood ...

23 Sep 2014