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Cell
James A. Duce, Andrew Tsatsanis, Michael A. Cater, Simon A. James, Elysia Robb, Krutika Wikhe, Su Ling Leong, Keyla Perez, Timothy Johanssen, Mark A. Greenough, Hyun-Hee Cho, Denise Galatis, Robert D. Moir, Colin L. Masters, Catriona McLean, Rudolph E. Tanzi, Roberto Cappai, Kevin J. Barnham, Giuseppe D. Ciccotosto, Jack T. Rogers, Ashley I. Bush. Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is complicated by pro-oxidant intraneuronal Fe2+ elevation as well as extracellular Zn2+ accumulation within amyloid plaque. We found that the AD β-a....
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Cell
In This Issue
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Cell
The central importance of the tumor suppressor Retinoblastoma protein (Rb) in cell-cycle progression makes its regulation a focal point for diverse biological processes, as evidenced by recent wor....
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Cell
Wendell A. Lim, Tony Pawson. Tyrosine phosphorylation controls many cellular functions. Yet the three-part toolkit that regulates phosphotyrosine signaling—tyrosine kinases, phosphotyrosine phosphatases, and Src Homology 2 (S....
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Cell
Ricardo A. Fernandes, Chao Yu, Alexandre M. Carmo, Edward J. Evans, P. Anton van der Merwe, Simon J. Davis.
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Cell
Etienne Gagnon, Chenqi Xu, Wei Yang, H. Hamlet Chu, Matthew E. Call, James J. Chou, Kai W. Wucherpfennig.
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Cell
Alan R. Saltiel. The ω-3 fatty acids have anti-inflammatory and antidiabetic effects in humans. Now, Oh et al. (2010) demonstrate that the G protein-coupled receptor GPR120 is a receptor for ω-3 fatty acids on mac....
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Cell
Patricio Olguin, Marek Mlodzik. The generation of planar cell polarity (PCP) and tissue shape during morphogenesis is tightly linked, but it is not clear how. Aigouy et al. (2010) now show in the developing Drosophila win....
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Cell
Davor Solter. In a tour-de-force study, Kobayashi et al. (2010) describe the first viable rat-mouse chimeras and demonstrate that rat induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells can rescue organ deficiency in mice. Ra....
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Cell
Lora B. Sweeney, Liqun Luo. By combining gene expression profiling with image registration, Tomer et al. (2010) find that the mushroom body of the segmented worm Platynereis dumerilii shares many features with the mam....
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Cell
Jung-Shin Lee, Edwin Smith, Ali Shilatifard. It has been suggested that a specific pattern of histone posttranslational modifications and their crosstalk may constitute a code that determines transcriptional outcomes. However, recent studies....
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Cell
Da Young Oh, Saswata Talukdar, Eun Ju Bae, Takeshi Imamura, Hidetaka Morinaga, WuQiang Fan, Pingping Li, Wendell J. Lu, Steven M. Watkins, Jerrold M. Olefsky. Omega-3 fatty acids (ω-3 FAs), DHA and EPA, exert anti-inflammatory effects, but the mechanisms are poorly understood. Here, we show that the G protein-coupled receptor 120 (GPR120) functions as a....
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Cell
Mark P. Chao, Ash A. Alizadeh, Chad Tang, June H. Myklebust, Bindu Varghese, Saar Gill, Max Jan, Adriel C. Cha, Charles K. Chan, Brent T. Tan, Christopher Y. Park, Feifei Zhao, Holbrook E. Kohrt, Raquel Malumbres, Javier Briones, Randy D. Gascoyne, Izidore S. Lossos, Ronald Levy, Irving L. Weissman, Ravindra Majeti. Monoclonal antibodies are standard therapeutics for several cancers including the anti-CD20 antibody rituximab for B cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). Rituximab and other antibodies are not curativ....
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Cell
Tamaki Suganuma, Arcady Mushegian, Selene K. Swanson, Susan M. Abmayr, Laurence Florens, Michael P. Washburn, Jerry L. Workman. In response to extracellular cues, signal transduction activates downstream transcription factors like c-Jun to induce expression of target genes. We demonstrate that the ATAC (Ada t....
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Cell
Sun-Yang Park, Michael J. Cromie, Eun-Jin Lee, Eduardo A. Groisman. Bacterial mRNAs often contain leader sequences that respond to specific metabolites or ions by altering expression of the associated downstream protein-coding sequences. Here we report that the le....
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Cell
Erik Malzahn, Stilianos Ciprianidis, Krisztina Káldi, Tobias Schafmeier, Michael Brunner. Light responses and photoadaptation of Neurospora depend on the photosensory light-oxygen-voltage (LOV) domains of the circadian transcription factor White Collar Complex (WCC) and its nega....
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Cell
Benoît Aigouy, Reza Farhadifar, Douglas B. Staple, Andreas Sagner, Jens-Christian Röper, Frank Jülicher, Suzanne Eaton. Planar cell polarity (PCP) proteins form polarized cortical domains that govern polarity of external structures such as hairs and cilia in both vertebrate and invertebrate epithelia. The mechanism....
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Cell
Toshihiro Kobayashi, Tomoyuki Yamaguchi, Sanae Hamanaka, Megumi Kato-Itoh, Yuji Yamazaki, Makoto Ibata, Hideyuki Sato, Youn-Su Lee, Jo-ichi Usui, A.S. Knisely, Masumi Hirabayashi, Hiromitsu Nakauchi. The complexity of organogenesis hinders in vitro generation of organs derived from a patient's pluripotent stem cells (PSCs), an ultimate goal of regenerative medicine. Mouse wild-type PSCs inject....
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Cell
Raju Tomer, Alexandru S. Denes, Kristin Tessmar-Raible, Detlev Arendt. The evolution of the highest-order human brain center, the “pallium” or “cortex,” remains enigmatic. To elucidate its origins, we set out to identify related brain parts in phylogenetically distan....
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Cell
Shinya Ohta, Jimi-Carlo Bukowski-Wills, Luis Sanchez-Pulido, Flavia de Lima Alves, Laura Wood, Zhuo A. Chen, Melpi Platani, Lutz Fischer, Damien F. Hudson, Chris P. Ponting, Tatsuo Fukagawa, William C. Earnshaw, Juri Rappsilber. Despite many decades of study, mitotic chromosome structure and composition remain poorly characterized. Here, we have integrated quantitative proteomics with bioinformatic analysis to generate a ....
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Cell
Neil J. McKenna, Bert W. O'Malley.
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Science
Authors: Natalia Shakhova, Igor Semiletov, Örjan Gustafsson
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Science
[Letter] Readers' Poll Results: The Time of Young Scientists
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Science
Author: Janardan P. Pandey
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Science
Casti applies his background in complexity studies to explore the role of psychology in shaping the mass behavior of humans.
Author: Richard Taylor
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Science
Through discussions of particular observatories around the globe, the contributors explore the practices, technologies, and contexts of 19th-century astronomy.
Author: Gustav Holmberg
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Science
A
listing of books received at
Science during the week ended 27 August 2010.
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Science
To help meet economic challenges, 2- and 4-year colleges must collaborate to improve student completion and transfer.
Author: George R. Boggs
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Science
A return to traditional screening methods has rapidly produced a candidate malaria drug.
Author: Timothy N. C. Wells
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Science
Epidermal T cell responses to injury and infection require stimulation by a protein that maintains cell adhesion and normal dermal integrity.
Authors: Andrey S. Shaw, Yina Huang
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Science
Analysis of a large fossil database puts a new curve on the history of marine life.
Author: Charles R. Marshall
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Science
A graphene overlayer is used to map the structure of water from ice to liquid, one atomic layer at a time.
Author: Mikhail I. Katsnelson
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Science
An enzyme that senses metabolic stress phosphorylates a chromatin protein to control gene expression and adaptive responses.
Author: D. Grahame Hardie
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Science
Hydrogen-poor conditions in a planetary nebula enable the detection of carbon-cage molecules C60 and C70, confirming the existence of fullerenes in space.
Authors: Pascale Ehrenfreund, Bernard H. Foing
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Science
Authors: Qimiao Si, Frank Steglich
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Science
Isotope fractionation in a common refrigerant may provide insights into the mechanism of stratospheric ozone depletion.
Authors: J. C. Laube, J. Kaiser, W. T. Sturges, H. Bönisch, A. Engel
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Science
Tenofovir in a vaginal gel formulation shows significant protection against HIV infection in a randomized control trial.
Authors: Quarraisha Abdool Karim, Salim S. Abdool Karim, Janet A. Frohlich, Anneke C. Grobler, Cheryl Baxter, Leila E. Mansoor, Ayesha B. M. Kharsany, Sengeziwe Sibeko, Koleka P. Mlisana, Zaheen Omar, Tanuja N. Gengiah, Silvia Maarschalk, Natasha Arulappan, Mukelisiwe Mlotshwa, Lynn Morris, Douglas Taylor, on behalf of the CAPRISA 004 Trial Group
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Science
High-throughput screening has offered up an oral antimalarial drug and pointers to its mechanism of action.
Authors: Matthias Rottmann, Case McNamara, Bryan K. S. Yeung, Marcus C. S. Lee, Bin Zou, Bruce Russell, Patrick Seitz, David M. Plouffe, Neekesh V. Dharia, Jocelyn Tan, Steven B. Cohen, Kathryn R. Spencer, Gonzalo E. González-Páez, Suresh B. Lakshminarayana, Anne Goh, Rossarin Suwanarusk, Timothy Jegla, Esther K. Schmitt, Hans-Peter Beck, Reto Brun, Francois Nosten, Laurent Renia, Veronique Dartois, Thomas H. Keller, David A. Fidock, Elizabeth A. Winzeler, Thierry T. Diagana
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Science
Hydrogen-poor conditions allow fullerenes to form in space.
Authors: Jan Cami, Jeronimo Bernard-Salas, Els Peeters, Sarah Elizabeth Malek
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Science
The temporal evolution of vortices in a superfluid is revealed by imaging an ultracold atomic cloud undergoing free fall.
Authors: D. V. Freilich, D. M. Bianchi, A. M. Kaufman, T. K. Langin, D. S. Hall
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Science
The amount of plastic debris in the surface waters of the western North Atlantic Ocean has plateaued over the past 22 years.
Authors: Kara Lavender Law, Skye Morét-Ferguson, Nikolai A. Maximenko, Giora Proskurowski, Emily E. Peacock, Jan Hafner, Christopher M. Reddy
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Science
Water trapped between mica and graphene layers at ambient conditions was imaged with atomic force microscopy.
Authors: Ke Xu, Peigen Cao, James R. Heath
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Science
Future assemblies of animals following mass extinction cannot be predicted by analyses of Phanerozoic fossils.
Author: J. Alroy
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Science
An online experiment shows how network structure affects the spread of health behavior.
Author: Damon Centola
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Science
Bacterial colonization of the mucosa is facilitated if the microbes engage a human receptor that counteracts epithelial exfoliation.
Authors: Petra Muenzner, Verena Bachmann, Wolfgang Zimmermann, Jochen Hentschel, Christof R. Hauck
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Science
The energy sensor AMPK facilitates gene transcription by localizing to chromatin and phosphorylating histone H2B.
Authors: David Bungard, Benjamin J. Fuerth, Ping-Yao Zeng, Brandon Faubert, Nancy L. Maas, Benoit Viollet, David Carling, Craig B. Thompson, Russell G. Jones, Shelley L. Berger
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Science
A costimulatory receptor for immune cells in the skin is identified.
Authors: Deborah A. Witherden, Petra Verdino, Stephanie E. Rieder, Olivia Garijo, Robyn E. Mills, Luc Teyton, Wolfgang H. Fischer, Ian A. Wilson, Wendy L. Havran
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Science
Ligand engagement and initiation of signaling has been imaged for a costimulatory receptor for immune cells in the skin.
Authors: Petra Verdino, Deborah A. Witherden, Wendy L. Havran, Ian A. Wilson
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Science
Pathogenic bacterial proteins interfere with eukaryotic ubiquitination pathways to induce cytopathic effects.
Authors: Jixin Cui, Qing Yao, Shan Li, Xiaojun Ding, Qiuhe Lu, Haibin Mao, Liping Liu, Ning Zheng, She Chen, Feng Shao
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Science
A weekly roundup of information on newly offered instrumentation, apparatus, and laboratory materials of potential interest to researchers.
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Science
The show includes how social network structure affects the spread of behavior, challenging the mammoth-killer impact hypothesis, your letters to Science, and more.
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Science
Vaginal Gel Versus HIV | Antimalarial Drug Candidate | Icy Adsorption | Free Falling Vortices | Join the Club | From Simplicity to Complexity | Sea of Plastic | Skin Reaction | Cosmic Fullerenes | No Guide to the Future | Gee-Up, NEDD8 | Regulation of Energy Homeostasis | Here to Stay
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Science
Planetary Science: Lunar Exposure | Cell Biology: Turn On and Stay Put | Microbiology: Monsters in the Mangrove | Chemistry: Easing in Fluorine
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Science
Dolphin Spray Yields DNA | Outnumbered | Pulse of the City | Chock-Full of Genes
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Science
Authors: Yigong Shi, Yi Rao
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Science
A U.S. judge's surprise decision last week to block government funding of human embryonic stem cell research has left scientists across the country confused, upset, and angry.
Authors: Jocelyn Kaiser, Gretchen Vogel
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Science
A new independent review of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says the increased public scrutiny IPCC is facing and the growing importance of its work mean that it must do better than it's been doing.
Author: Eli Kintisch
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Science
At a workshop last month, astronomers unveiled plans to build two major telescopes at Dome A on the East Antarctic icecap during the Chinese government's next 5-year plan, to start in 2011.
Author: Richard Stone
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Science
ScienceNOW reported this week on the first feast, the world's smallest refrigerator, the backfiring of "hunting for conservation," and a pea-sized frog, among other stories.
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Science
Last week, a consortium led by Pennsylvania State University won a federal competition for $129 million over 5 years to spur efforts to develop technologies for making buildings more energy efficient.
Author: Jeffrey Mervis
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Science
Frank Gannon probably could have finished out his career comfortably as director of the national funding agency Science Foundation Ireland (SFI). But the biologist will resign his position at the end of the year and head off to Australia to become director of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research.
Author: John Travis
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Science
ScienceInsider reported this week that the editor of the journal Cognition says he believes that fabrication is the most plausible explanation for data in a 2002 paper by Harvard University's Marc Hauser involving cotton-top tamarins, among other stories.
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Science
After a new study failed to find nanodiamonds, impact experts are flatly rejecting outsiders' claims that an impact 12,900 years ago devastated the megafauna.
Author: Richard A. Kerr
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Science
When he arrived at the dangerous Thai-Burmese border in 1984, François Nosten barely knew what research was. Today, he's one of the world's top malaria scientists.
Author: Martin Enserink
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Science
Researchers thought they knew the sun very well. Now, they are squabbling over the abundance of different elements in it.
Author: Yudhijit Bhattacharjee
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Science
Authors: Jenifer E. Dugan, Omar Defeo, Eduardo Jaramillo, Alan R. Jones, Mariano Lastra, Ronel Nel, Charles H. Peterson, Felicita Scapini, Thomas Schlacher, David S. Schoeman
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Science
Authors: Vasilii V. Petrenko, David M. Etheridge, Ray F. Weiss, Edward J. Brook, Hinrich Schaefer, Jeffrey P. Severinghaus, Andrew M. Smith, Dave Lowe, Quan Hua, Katja Riedel
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Lancet
“No religion, no politics”, reads the sign above the bar in one of north London's otherwise very accommodating public houses, and it is a rule that all the customers seem happy to abide by. In a culturally pluralist society, there are areas of shared public life in which the respect for personal autonomy that defines most democracies in the developed world precludes any intrusion by politics or religion, which are so often seen as wellsprings of division. Medicine in developed countries is a secular profession, and it is taken somewhat ironically as an article of faith that a doctor's religious beliefs will have no influence on his or her professional judgment.
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Lancet
William S Burroughs II, the American Beat Generation author, published Junkie: Confessions of an Unredeemed Drug Addict in 1953 about life dependent on heroin (some editions use Junky). Junk was a slang term for heroin, possibly from users being seen as the “junk of society”, an early use of a stigmatising phrase.
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Lancet
To coincide with the annual European Respiratory Society meeting, in Barcelona, on Sept 18–22, The Lancet today focuses on asthma and respiratory diseases. WHO estimates that asthma affects 300 million people worldwide, and vulnerable groups—particularly children and elderly people—can be especially difficult to treat. Two Reviews in this issue focus on these groups, for which asthma is associated with substantial morbidity and mortality, and is characterised by scarce data from research.
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Lancet
Respiratory events are a major risk for perioperative morbidity and cause 30% of perioperative cardiac arrests in children. In The Lancet today, Britta von Ungern-Sternberg and colleagues present a prospective cohort of more than 9000 children who had had general anaesthesia in a single children's hospital. The investigators evaluated specific details in the children's history (with the International Study Group for Asthma and Allergies in Childhood [ISAAC] questionnaire), demographic data, and anaesthetic management, and correlated these variables with occurrence of perioperative respiratory adverse events. Multivariate analysis showed that airway sensitivity, eczema, a family history of airway disorders, and anaesthetic management statistically contributed to the risk of such events. Although today's results are mostly consistent with previous studies, they do raise questions.
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Lancet
Breathlessness is a frightening and devastating symptom which affects patients with many diseases in advanced stages. The prevalence reaches 90% in cancer, 95% in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), 88% in cardiac failure, and 80% in advanced-stage renal disease. Patients with various neurological conditions also become breathless. Oxygen therapy is often used to manage breathlessness. However, although there is accepted evidence for using oxygen in patients with COPD and hypoxaemia, palliative oxygen is often used in patients with advanced life-limiting illness, irrespective of the partial pressure of oxygen in arterial blood (PaO2). Three systematic reviews raised concerns about a lack of robust evidence with trials that were underpowered, inadequately controlled, or had unclear outcomes.
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Lancet
Isolated microscopic haematuria of glomerular origin in the context of normal renal function without proteinuria has traditionally been managed conservatively. Among the conditions that are included in this rubric, IgA nephropathy and thin-basement-membrane disease account for most cases. Although the precise worldwide prevalence of these two disorders is unknown, one is frequently the culprit in this setting. The clinical diagnosis of IgA nephropathy—the most common glomerulonephritis worldwide—is strongly supported when microscopic haematuria is accompanied by macroscopic haematuria after an upper respiratory tract infection. Without renal impairment, proteinuria, or hypertension, the need for renal biopsy to further characterise isolated microscopic haematuria is not recommended.
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Lancet
Long-acting β agonists (LABAs) might increase the risk of asthma mortality when used by patients with unstable asthma without concomitant inhaled corticosteroids or scheduled medical review. This potential risk has contributed to the recommendations in asthma guidelines that LABAs should always be taken with the steroid. Inhaled corticosteroids and LABAs can be prescribed separately or as a combination inhaler. However, in many patients, the use of separate inhalers will inevitably result in periods of LABA monotherapy because of poor compliance with inhaled corticosteroids in standard clinical practice. Prescription databases reveal that patients might stop taking their steroid for variable periods, which will result in LABA monotherapy if they continue to take their LABA inhaler for symptomatic relief. Such periods of monotherapy can be avoided by prescribing a combination inhaler. Combination use applies to all patients with asthma, not just paediatric and adolescent patients, as suggested by the US Food and Drug Administration guidelines.
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Lancet
Asthma prevalence is increasing and the economic burden is substantial. Although cost-effective therapies are available, drug regimens are not always adhered to. The impact of asthma guidelines needs re-assessing, not only for patients' care but also for a broader framework, especially because the interface between big pharma and academic institutions is under increasing scrutiny. The initial iteration of the Canadian asthma guidelines were first published in the 1990s. The primary focus of the guidelines has been an emphasis on the role of inflammation and the primary efficacy of inhaled corticosteroids. Additionally, the Canadian guidelines have focused on the importance of asthma control rather than classifying asthma on the basis of the level of severity. The guidelines use a schematic continuum to overview management (). The guidelines have formed the basis of continuing professional development—which is mostly sponsored by drug companies—and for many programmes, which are developed by professional societies. Since the first Canadian asthma guidelines were developed in 1989, hospital admissions for asthma and asthma-related deaths (which now mainly occur in elderly people) have decreased substantially.
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Lancet
Admittedly we are biased in stating that lung health has been neglected in the public discourse that research has not been adequately funded, and that we have concerns that the political reality generally does not adequately recognise the importance of respiratory diseases. The bias is mainly related to the fact that the European Respiratory Society (ERS) is a prominent member in the Forum of International Respiratory Societies, which, in December, 2009, convened at the 40th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Cancún, Mexico, to declare 2010 The Year of the Lung.
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Lancet
As recently as only 6 years ago, it was not possible to come across a radiation-induced skin injury (erythema such as a burn, or hair loss) to a patient resulting from CT. However, in 2009–10, overexposure of about 400 patients undergoing brain-perfusion CT protocols, resulting in hair loss or skin redness in some patients, was brought to the attention of the US Food and Drug Administration and in media reports. 20 years ago, it was not possible to come across a patient who had undergone scores of CT scans in a few years, especially the patient without cancer. Did we see this coming? The answer is largely “no” for visible radiation effects and “probably yes” for usage. In view of these recent events, what might be the scenario in a few years? There are no indications that the increase in CT use will decrease. On the contrary, CT might replace some traditional fluoroscopy-based angiographic procedures. The medical profession has a responsibility to account for radiation exposure from medical imaging.
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Lancet
My favourite decade—the 1970s—is back in fashion. Something happened during that decade, and now people are trying to make sense of it. Martin Amis put it this way (in The Pregnant Widow, 2010): “Something was churning in the world of men and women, a revolution or a sea change, a realignment”. In Britain, our trajectory hit an inflection point. No longer a superpower in splendid isolation, we pledged ourselves to an uncertain entente cordiale with continental Europe. Aristocracy was finally toppled, an imperfect meritocracy taking its place. Being the grandson of a duke was no longer an entry requirement for running the country. The question that faced us then, and still preoccupies us today, became purely existential: what is Britain for? We have secularised, marketised, trivialised, and post-modernised. But our role has contracted, our confidence is more brittle, and our influence has waned. Some historians (and perhaps the more Darwinian among us) argue that we don't need a purpose. We just are. But two contributions (although not unique) do continue to diffuse beyond our boundaries. One is an activity (science) and the other an attitude (internationalism). Together, they combine to give the UK potentially important comparative advantages—if only our political leaders could see what was before their eyes, as they cut, cut, cut.
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Lancet
Ugandan authorities have launched an ambitious new campaign to increase the proportion of adult men circumcised to at least 40% within 5 years. Wairagala Wakabi reports from Kampala.
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Lancet
The German coalition government pledged sweeping reforms to the health system to avert a projected €11 billion deficit. But fierce political and industrial opposition has forced the coalition to compromise. Rob Hyde reports from Bremen, Germany.
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Lancet
In the last chapter in Asthma, Health and Society: A Public Health Perspective, Noreen Clark attempts some of the syntheses the reader was expecting from this interesting but at times out-of-date compendium. She describes asthma as “one of America's most perplexing public health problems”.
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Lancet
In his Pulitzer Prize winning history Polio: An American Story, David Oshinsky suggests that the poliomyelitis epidemics of the first half of the 20th century led to the American obsession with cleanliness. Advertisers took advantage of parents' fear that infantile paralysis might visit their household next, and played up the salubrious potential of detergents, soaps, and mouthwash. Early in the century, a janitor named James Murray Spangler sold his idea for an electric vacuum cleaner to William Henry Hoover, who promptly patented the device. In the boom years that followed World War II, the public took to vacuuming in droves.
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Lancet
Heather Zar recently gave her inaugural address as Chair of the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health at the University of Cape Town and Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital (RCH), where she is also Director of the Division of Paediatric Pulmonology. Her career has highlighted the many challenges of child health in the developing world, but also shows how clinical research and advocacy can make a major difference. Respiratory illnesses, such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, and asthma, are leading causes of mortality and morbidity in children worldwide, but especially for children in Africa. Zar has spent more than a decade developing strategies to tackle these conditions and advocating for better access to health for African children. Her wide-ranging contribution was recently recognised by a special award at the 2010 International Paediatric Pulmonology Congress for “Paediatric outstanding leadership in Africa and distinguished service to the children with the greatest need”.
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Lancet
Asthma is an enigmatic entity in contemporary medicine. The condition is increasing worldwide, particularly in urban areas and countries undergoing rapid development. These statistics have elicited various explanations. The hygiene hypothesis suggests that more modern homes and lifestyles may result in lower exposure to infections and bacteria at a young age, and a consequent oversensitisation to allergens. An alternative explanation implicates the increase in pollution associated with modernisation. Some epidemiologists argue that increased attention to the disease among both medical practitioners and the public has resulted in a higher rate of diagnosis, not a higher prevalence. A similar explanation notes the changing diagnostic techniques over the past three decades. These competing accounts for the increase reveal a puzzling disease category.
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Lancet
Paediatrician and virologist who identified human respiratory syncytial virus in human beings. Born on July 8, 1924, in Chicago, IL, USA, he died on July 30, 2010, in Sykesville, MD, USA, aged 86 years.
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Lancet
Frank DeLeo and co-workers' depiction of the global distribution of community-associated meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA; May 1, p 1557) is that the ST59 clone disseminated to Singapore and Malaysia from the east coast of the USA. This is incorrect. Most patients who presented with ST59 community-associated MRSA infections in Singapore had clear epidemiological links with Taiwan (unpublished data), where ST59 remains the predominant community-associated MRSA clone. The rest could not be traced to any one country and possibly acquired the clone locally. To our knowledge, ST59 community-associated MRSA has yet to be reported from Malaysia.
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Lancet
The idea that the meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) clone ST59 originated in the USA is based on studies of the geographic distribution of MRSA clones positive for Panton-Valentine leukocidin by Vandenesch and colleagues and Tristan and colleagues. Vandenesch and colleagues reported that the country of origin for ST59 was the USA, and follow-up studies by Tristan and colleagues suggested that intercontinental exchange of MRSA clones includes movement of ST59 from the USA towards Asia. Inasmuch as ST59 was reported in Singapore by those studies, our map suggests that ST59 originated in the USA and moved towards Asia or Singapore as reported by the two previous studies. Note that we indicate that ST59 is present in Taiwan and it is certainly possible that ST59 originated in Taiwan as Li-Yang Hsu and colleagues suggest. If Hsu and colleagues have data that conclusively show the origin of ST59, this is of course a welcome addition to our understanding of the emergence and epidemiology of important community-associated MRSA clones.
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Lancet
We wish to comment on the Seminar by Frank DeLeo and colleagues on community-associated meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
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Lancet
We congratulate Anis Rassi and colleagues (April 17, p 1388) for their solid review of the neglected Chagas disease. However, we were disappointed by their recommendation of antitrypanosomal treatment for “patients up to 18 years of age with chronic disease” and that “drug treatment should generally be offered to adults aged 19–50 years without advanced Chagas heart disease”. Since more than 7 million individuals are estimated to be infected, unrestricted treatment of such a large population has epidemiological and public health consequences of paramount proportions, and must be based on data from prospective randomised trials.
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Lancet
Allergic dermatitis, the most common adverse effect of benznidazole, is self-limiting, usually of mild-to-moderate intensity, easily manageable with corticosteroids, and in most patients does not require interruption of therapy. Polyneuropathy (5–10% of patients) occurs late in the treatment course, is dose-dependent, can be avoided by decreasing the cumulative or daily dose of benznidazole (≤300 mg/day), and is always reversible. Serious side-effects, such as bone-marrow depression, are extremely rare (
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