Medical Thought Leaders

RSS

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.

Innovation in stroke aftercare across Europe: an interview with Professor Urs Fischer

Stroke is the epidemic disease of the twenty-first century and the second most frequent cause of death in 2011, accounting for 11% of all deaths worldwide. Stroke is also the second most important cause of permanent disability and...

13 Dec 2016

IPF diagnosis: how do patients feel about the discussion with their physician?

IPF (Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis) is a difficult disease to diagnose. Many patients will experience many visits to the doctor and some may even be told they have a different respiratory condition before they finally get the correct diagnosis that...

12 Dec 2016

Detecting inflammation in diabetic patients

As well as presenting with high blood glucose, diabetic patients have chronic low-grade inflammation, which can be measured by a range of inflammatory markers such as so-called high-sensitive CRP, TNFa and IL-6 as well as a full blood cell count.

7 Dec 2016

Research unlocks potential new therapies for inflammatory diseases

Macrophages are frontline cells in our immune system. They detect microbial invaders and also tissue injury and then mount an appropriate response needed to clear the infection and repair the damaged tissue.

5 Dec 2016

Acne: when to seek help?

Acne develops due to an interplay between genetic factors (so people often have a family history) and hormonal factors that can increase the size and activity of the sebaceous or oil gland.

29 Nov 2016

Metabolomics research at the Phenome Centre Birmingham

An interview with Professor Mark Viant, University of Birmingham, UK, Executive Director of Phenome Centre Birmingham and Director of the NERC Biomolecular Analysis Facility.

From Bruker BioSpin - NMR, EPR and Imaging 28 Nov 2016

Improving innovation uptake in the NHS

I think innovation is one of those rather slippery terms that means different things to different people. First of all, I would make a distinction between innovations that are essentially about a new, physical product and innovations that are more to do with services or processes.

24 Nov 2016

NTM lung infections

Nontuberculous mycobacteria are part of a group of bacteria called mycobacteria. The non-tuberculous mycobacteria are, as the name suggests, mycobacteria that are not tuberculosis. They're also not leprosy, but they are the other members of the bacteria group termed mycobacteria.

23 Nov 2016

Finding reliable health information online: an interview with Dr Andrew Boyden

The research was presented by pharmacists from the Calvary Public Hospital in Canberra, who looked at conversations that took place in selected parenting groups on Facebook.

22 Nov 2016

Testing for Lynch syndrome: an interview with Kevin Monahan

Lynch syndrome is an inherited condition which causes about 1,100 cases of bowel cancer and 1,000 other cancers annually in the UK. It is caused by a fault in the mismatch repair gene (MMR) which usually works to prevent cancer.

21 Nov 2016

Getting drugs to bugs in NTM lung infections: an interview with Dr Jakko van Ingen

The first thing that is important to stress is that this is an area that we actually know very little about. What we generally think, rather than know, is that NTM has a lot in common with pulmonary tuberculosis.

17 Nov 2016

Elucidating IDP behaviour on crowded membranes

IDPs are proteins that contain stretches of amino-acid sequence that are flexible and do not comprise stable structure in isolation. This is in contrast with a more traditional view of proteins as largely occupying a stable native structure that correlates with functions such as enzyme activity or binding.

10 Nov 2016

Using urine samples to diagnose disease in preterm newborns

The majority of patients in neonatal intensive care units are premature babies, who often have infectious (congenital pneumonia) or noninfectious (tachypnea, infant respiratory distress syndrome) respiratory pathologies.

9 Nov 2016

Brain plasticity after injury: an interview with Dr Swathi Kiran

Brain plasticity is the phenomenon by which the brain can rewire and reorganize itself in response to changing stimulus input. Brain plasticity is at play when one is learning new information (at school) or learning a new language...

3 Nov 2016

Nano-biointeraction and nanopathology

Nanoparticles enter the organism in a number of ways. In most cases through inhalation and ingestion. When inhaled, the majority of them are expelled with the next breath. When ingested, most of them are gotten rid of through feces.

31 Oct 2016

Reducing contamination rates in urine samples: an interview with Prof. Frank Chinegwundoh MBE

Contamination is thought to be a significant problem. Depending on which study you look at, the rates of urine contamination can be 17% or upwards. The standard method of midstream urine collection is for the healthcare professional...

26 Oct 2016

Does music improve child brain development?

We are a research group at the Brain and Creativity Institute at University of Southern California. In 2012, we began a five-year longitudinal study in collaboration with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and their Youth Orchestra program at the Heart of Los Angeles (YOLA at HOLA).

13 Oct 2016