April Cashin-Garbutt

Natural Sciences

April graduated with a first-class honours degree in Natural Sciences from Pembroke College, University of Cambridge. During her time as Editor-in-Chief, News-Medical (2012-2017), she kickstarted the content production process and helped to grow the website readership to over 60 million visitors per year.

Through interviewing global thought leaders in medicine and life sciences, including Nobel laureates, April developed a passion for neuroscience and now works at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour, located within UCL.

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Articles from April

Genetic test to predict IBD severity in children

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic relapsing inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract with abdominal pain and diarrhea being the most common symptoms. It can be challenging to diagnose as gastrointestinal complaints mimicking IBD are common.

26 Jul 2017

Diagnosing prostate cancer through a £225 urine test

This test, which we have branded SelectMDx for Prostate Cancer, came with the acquisition of a company in the Netherlands called NovioGendix. They developed a prototype assay, so they did most of the heavy lifting in terms of discovering the two specific biomarkers that are currently in the product. These biomarkers are tuned towards the detection of what I call clinically significant prostate cancer.

24 Jul 2017

Healthcare data breaches in England

According to Accenture’s survey of 1,000 consumers in England one-in-eight (13 per cent) have had their personal medical information stolen from technology systems. More than half (68 per cent) of English consumers said they want to have at least some involvement in keeping their healthcare data secured, whereas only a quarter (28 per cent) said that they have such involvement today.

19 Jul 2017

Developing software for cell and gene therapy supply chain tracking

The first thing is, to always remember that we're dealing with a living drug, cells, which are very sensitive to environmental conditions, such as temperature and humidity etc. All of those things can impact on the viability of the drug and its effectiveness.

18 Jul 2017

Internet-connected smart hearing aid: a life changing solution?

Oticon Opn is a hearing aid that allows connection to a smartphone and supports all the internet-enabled connectivity that you have on the internet that smart devices support. We have specifically chosen a web-based community called “If This Then That” (IFTTT) because it is a relatively very easy to use third party service that is supported by a lot of the large global device manufacturers.

12 Jul 2017

Medtech, biotech and pharmaceuticals in Australia

Australia is an acknowledged world leader in the medical technology, biotechnology and pharmaceutical (MTP) sector due to its vibrant ecosystem of start-ups and established companies and thriving research environment.

10 Jul 2017

Zika: costs of prevention and control

They undertook a modelling study based on six states in the US in areas that are at risk of Zika emergence. The main finding of this study was that the total cost of Zika in these sates had a range that went from approximately 183.4 million dollars to 1.2 billion dollars.

6 Jul 2017

Reducing DVT and leg ulcers through personalized compression socks

Professor Charles McCollum, who heads up the vascular studies unit, is a research vascular surgeon, and he developed four-layer bandaging technique, which is the gold standard treatment for healing up leg ulcers by compression.

5 Jul 2017

Schistosomiasis: the biggest killer you’ve never heard of?

Schistosomiasis is a parasitic disease, sometimes called bilharzia or snail fever. The disease impacts a huge number of people around the world, over 230 million people are infected with one of the schistosome species, the parasitic worms that causes the disease.

4 Jul 2017

Using quantum imaging to rule out cardiac conditions

In the UK, more than 5% of emergency department visits and up to 40% of emergency admissions are as a direct result of chest pain. Chest pain-related emergency hospital admissions not only create a vast economic burden on healthcare services but also cause huge disruption to inpatient care.

3 Jul 2017