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.

Preventing the spread of Zika: an interview with Professor John Oxford

The link between the Zika virus and Guillain-Barré on the one hand, and pregnancy and the virus affecting the fetus in terms of microcephaly on the other, is still not confirmed conclusively.

1 Mar 2016

Advances in the field of MPI: an interview with Professor Kannan Krishnan

In around 2004, there was a Phillips paper that discussed a new imaging technique called MPI. At that time, I had an eager, promising graduate student named Matt Ferguson who wanted a project, so I asked him to take a look.

From Bruker BioSpin - NMR, EPR and Imaging 1 Mar 2016

Are we ageing healthily? An interview with Professor Carol Jagger

This is the million dollar question but it is hard to give a definite answer. Most data on trends in life and healthy life expectancy use surveys that do not include people in care homes which can skew results at older ages.

29 Feb 2016

MOOCs: the future of healthcare training? An interview with David Robertshaw

MOOCs are short, free courses run by major learning providers to share their knowledge of a particular academic topic or to help students develop a specific skill.

From University of Derby Online Learning 25 Feb 2016

Does simulated based training bring better value healthcare? An interview with Prof Sir Muir Gray, Former Chief Knowledge Officer of the NHS

We have to think of the world that we are leaving, the world we are moving into. The last fifty years in healthcare, have seen the advent of hip replacement, cardiac bypass, systematic reviews. But at the end of fifty years, every country is facing five problems.

24 Feb 2016

How to avoid breast damage when exercising: an interview with Professor Joanna Scurr

The breast itself doesn't contain any muscles and the only 2 supporting structures are the skin and the Cooper’s ligaments. Both of those structures are quite weak mechanically so they're not able to hold the breast in place firmly.

23 Feb 2016

Is breast density really linked to breast cancer risk? An interview with Dr Wenlian Zhu

Breast is composed of fatty and dense glandular and fibrous tissues. Breast density is expressed as the fraction of a mammogram occupied by dense tissues.

19 Feb 2016

Revealing dynamic protein complexes with NMR: an interview with Elisar Barbar

Most proteins are involved in interactions with one or a few functional ligands, but some proteins, like light chain 8 (LC8), have numerous binding partners. LC8 interacts with more than 100 functionally different proteins, from viral proteins to motor proteins to proteins involved in cell division.

From Bruker BioSpin - NMR, EPR and Imaging 18 Feb 2016

Unlocking intrinsically disordered proteins: an interview with Peter Wright

I'm a professor in the Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology at The Scripps Research Institute. I have been performing NMR research on proteins for nearly 40 years.

From Bruker BioSpin - NMR, EPR and Imaging 11 Feb 2016

Duchenne muscular dystrophy: direct effect on muscle stem cells? An interview with Dr Rudnicki

For twenty years, it has been understood that dystrophin is expressed in differentiated muscle fibers where it is part of a protein complex that crosses the membrane and connects the extracellular matrix to the actin network inside the cell to provide structural integrity.

5 Feb 2016

Molecular imaging and radiochemistry: the importance of instrumentation. An interview with Professor Björn Wängler

Interview conducted with Professor Björn Wängler, Professor for Molecular Imaging and Radiochemistry from Heidelberg University.

From Bruker BioSpin - NMR, EPR and Imaging 4 Feb 2016

Alternative splicing: a new approach to drug development? An interview with Lucy Donaldson

RNA is becoming an interesting drug target as it takes possible intervention back one step to the synthesis of a target protein, instead of trying to block or inhibit a process.

1 Feb 2016

Using centrifugal elutriation and flow cytometry to answer biological questions: an interview with Peter Lopez

Flow Cytometry, the measurement of various cellular characteristics as they flow through a measuring apparatus, has so many applications.

From Beckman Coulter Life Sciences - Centrifugation 27 Jan 2016

Nutrition and breast cancer; starving triple negative breast cancer cells to death: an interview with Associate Professor Jeff Holst

While there are a range of reports that different foods and food groups can increase or decrease your risk of cancer, these associations are very difficult to scientifically verify.

27 Jan 2016

Using Single-Molecule Studies to Understand Cellular Processes: An Interview with Professor W. E. Moerner

Single fluorescent molecules provide a local nanometer-sized probe of complex systems. We can measure the motion of the single molecule, use them to achieve imaging on a scale down to 20 nanometers, or we can infer aspects of the behaviour of the object under study by the details of the light that is emitted.

From Pittcon 26 Jan 2016

Age-related macular degeneration: an interview with Cathy Yelf, Macular Society

Age-related macular degeneration is a condition of the macula, a tiny area of the retina at the back of the eye. Your macula is only about the size of the grain of rice, that’s about four millimeters across.

19 Jan 2016

Determining Ectopeptidase Activity: An Interview with Professor Stephen Weber, University of Pittsburgh

The scope of the activity of neuropeptides is remarkably broad. For example, neuropeptides are involved in pain control, mood/depression/eating disorders, social and emotional behaviour, body weight, drug abuse, stress, reproduction, motor control, memory, and in maintaining neuronal health when they are stressed.

From Pittcon 14 Jan 2016

Patient recommendations for rheumatoid arthritis treatment: an interview with Dr Nowell

The study, “When patients write the guidelines: Patient panel recommendations for the treatment of RA,” published in Arthritis Research & Care, demonstrated the feasibility of developing CPG recommendations based on a voting panel composed entirely of patients.

8 Jan 2016

Does cancer affect memory? An interview with Associate Professor Janette Vardy

The study evaluated cognitive function in patients with colorectal cancer. It characterized the incidence and severity of cognitive impairment in people with colorectal cancer (CRC) compared to healthy controls.

7 Jan 2016

Using stem cells to tackle CNS disorders: an interview with Dr Stefano Pluchino

My laboratory’s long standing interest is the study of the signaling capabilities of stem cells, both under homeostatic conditions

From Beckman Coulter Life Sciences - Flow Cytometry 5 Jan 2016