Medical Insights from Industry

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"Insights from Industry" is a dynamic series of interviews at the cutting edge of the medical industry. Every interviewee is a leader in their particular field and is handpicked to give an informative and accessible insight into their chosen field. These interviews are guaranteed to keep you in the know in a rapidly changing industry.

Maternal age and successful egg freezing with PGS: an interview with Dr. Santiago Munné

The leading cause of of pregnancy loss or infertility is chromosomal abnormality or imbalance, where extra genetic material is present or some is missing - what’s called aneuploidy. This imbalance leads to the inability to produce viable embryos or pregnancy.

2 Dec 2014

Alport syndrome: an interview with Dr Paul Grint, CMO, Regulus

Alport Syndrome was first described by a physician called Cecil Alport, back in the late 1920s. It's a genetic disease that affects a certain type of collagen involved in the functioning of the kidney, the ear, and the eye.

1 Dec 2014

Automated biospecimen thawing: an interview with Dr Rolf Ehrhardt, CEO of BioCision

Surprisingly, even with decades of cryopreservation research, little progress has been made in the way frozen biospecimens are thawed. It’s still very common for researchers and clinicians to thaw cells and other frozen biological samples in a variety of manual ways ...

25 Nov 2014

Surgery simulator app: an interview with Jean Nehme

Touch Surgery is a mobile surgical simulation app that allows surgeons to learn and rehearse surgical procedures. It provides a cognitive map for operations on a virtual patient.

23 Nov 2014

Type 3 interferons and T helper 2 cells: an interview with Grant Gallagher, Managing Director, HUMIGEN

The type 3 interferons - usually called the “lambda” interferons, or “IFNL” - are the most recently identified IFNs. We (myself and Sergei Kotenko) originally identified the receptor and then the three ligands (IFNL1,2,3; very recently a fourth, IFNL4, was discovered); the key paper was published in 2003.

18 Nov 2014

Internet based screening mammography training: an interview with Dr. Holzhauer

About half of Radiologists in the USA who participate in breast imaging are estimated to read less than 2,000 screening mammograms per year. This is a suboptimal number, given that only 3-5 cancers in average are seen among 1,000 screening mammograms.

10 Nov 2014

Living with multiple sclerosis (MS): an interview with Gretchen Rubin and Megan Weigel

Multiple sclerosis, or MS, is a chronic, often disabling disease of the central nervous system, which is made up of the brain, spinal cord, and optic nerves. Symptoms may be mild, moderate, or severe, ranging from numbness in the limbs to paralysis or loss of vision. Approximately 400,000 Americans are living with MS.

9 Nov 2014

Epicure project: an interview with Frédéric Cren

Epicure is a project led by Inventiva and Institut Curie that aims to deliver pre-clinical candidates on two novel epigenetic targets that have been selected due to their potential to activate immune responses against cancer cells. In addition one of these two targets has potential in respiratory indications such as asthma or COPD.

3 Nov 2014

Economic impact of hypoglycaemia: an interview with Dr Klaus Henning Jensen

Hypoglycaemia is the term used to describe a lower than normal blood sugar level. There are a number of things that actually need to be formally defined in order for a hypoglycaemic episode to be diagnosed.

26 Oct 2014

Gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors: an interview with Dr. Alexandria Phan

GEP-NETs stands for gastroenteropancreatic (GEP) neuroendocrine tumors (NETs). This is a type of rare cancer that is increasing in incidence and prevalence – more on this later.

22 Oct 2014

Identifying infections rapidly: an interview with Dr. David J. Ecker

Current methods for diagnosing infectious diseases are based on the 150-year-old culture method, where physicians collect a sample of a patient’s tissue, such as blood, mucus or urine, and transfer it onto media bottle to allow the pathogens to grow.

From Abbott Diagnostics 20 Oct 2014

Reducing heart failure deaths: an interview with Dimitrios Georgiopoulos, UK Medical Director, Novartis

Heart failure is a debilitating, and life-threatening, condition in which the heart cannot pump enough blood around the body. When heart failure continues to progress and worsen over time, the persistent condition is known as chronic heart failure.

From Novartis 16 Oct 2014

Molecular diagnostics and blood screening systems: an interview with Dr Bos and Dr Koppelman

Screening blood donations and molecular diagnostics for patients started in the nineties. At the beginning, the level of automation in molecular diagnostic testing was limited; most of the work had to be done manually.

12 Oct 2014

Molecular breast imaging: an interview with Jim Calandra, CEO Gamma Medica

Studies have shown that mammograms fail to detect cancers in one-third to one-half of women with dense breasts (Clinical Literature on MBI). In some cases, the findings from a mammogram are inconclusive and secondary screening will almost always be required.

6 Oct 2014

Managing diabetes and intensive exercise: an interview with Dr Rafael Castol, Team Novo Nordisk

Team Novo Nordisk is a professional cycling team that races at UCI Pro Continental level. It's the first ever team to be made up of athletes diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. The team was created three years ago, and is part of the Changing Diabetes initiative developed by Novo Nordisk.

From Novo Nordisk 1 Oct 2014

Gaucher disease: an interview with Dr Clement Olivier, Shire

Gaucher disease is the most common condition within a family of rare diseases known as the lysosomal storage diseases. The disease causes lipids to accumulate in cells, which is why it is referred to as a storage disorder. The accumulation occurs mainly in the spleen, liver, and bones, but may also occur in the lungs, heart, and central nervous system.

30 Sep 2014

Combating prescription drug abuse: an interview with Mark Trudeau and Carmen Catizone

Prescription drug abuse is an extremely complex problem with no single solution. For example, the very same medications that are so critical for alleviating pain in legitimate patients could easily be diverted and misused by other people.

16 Sep 2014

Stages of symptoms in schizophrenia: an interview with Dr. Mark Opler, ProPhase

I think there's a perception that schizophrenia is principally a disorder that involves hallucinations such as hearing voices, seeing things and believing things that aren't real. These are indeed part of the phenomenon, but the condition is much broader than that.

9 Sep 2014

Treating wet AMD with gold nanoparticles: an interview with Jim Taylor, CEO, Oraya Therapeutics

Wet AMD is characterized by abnormal growth of blood vessels in the macula (the area of the eye containing vision-enabling photoreceptors), and is responsible for the vast majority of severe vision loss in the industrialized world.

4 Sep 2014

Aging healthily: an interview with Dr. Jack Watters, Vice President for External Medical Affairs, Pfizer

Get Old was developed by Pfizer in 2012 to challenge misperceptions about aging and foster a candid conversation around aging. Our goal for the program was to redefine what it means to “get old” and encourage people to adopt healthy behaviors to age the way they want.

3 Sep 2014