Friday, July 13, 2007

European Commission report on bioterrorism

The European Commission has produced a green paper on bio-preparedness, which you can see at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/site/en/com/2007/com2007_0399en01.pdf. Its recommendations include some relating to people working with potential bioagents.

Thanks to an email from the European Information Association for alerting me to this.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Journal of Perioperative Practice July 2007

The July 2007 issue of JPP includes articles about anaesthesia for day surgery, preoperative assessment by phone, bunions, hernia repair, palliation of tracheobronchial carcinoma, and standardised analgesia packs after day case orthopaedic surgery.

There is no online access to the journal (though NHS England can access it through Proquest). The Clinical Sciences Library has the printed journal.

Monday, July 09, 2007

Host resistance to lung infection mediated by major vault protein in epithelial cells

This is a paper in the most recent Science, by researchers from Boston (MA) and other places. The introduction says:

"The airway epithelium plays an essential role in innate immunity to lung pathogens. Ribonucleoprotein particles primarily composed of major vault protein (MVP) are highly expressed in cells that encounter xenobiotics. However, a clear biologic function for MVP is not established. We report here that MVP is rapidly recruited to lipid rafts when human lung epithelial cells are infected with Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and maximal recruitment is dependent on bacterial binding to the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator. MVP was also essential for optimal epithelial cell internalization and clearance of P. aeruginosa. These results suggest that MVP makes a substantial contribution to epithelial cell–mediated resistance to infection. "

The paper is Kowalski MP, Dubouix-Bourandy A, Bajmoczi M, Golan DE, Zaidi T, Coutinho-Sledge YS et al. Host Resistance to Lung Infection Mediated by Major Vault Protein in Epithelial Cells. Science 317 (5834), 130. [DOI: 10.1126/science.1142311]

Friday, July 06, 2007

Bulletin of the World Health Organization - July 2007 issue

In addition to the call for papers on childhood pneumonia (see previous posting), this issue includes papers about: the Hib vaccine in Kenya, lymphatic filariasis, and the effect on indoor air pollution of reducing smoking. There is also a paper on global health partnerships.

>>Read the table of contents

Bulletin of the WHO: pneumonia theme issue

The Bulletin of the WHO is planning a theme issue on childhood pneumonia, with contributions invited by 1 October 2007.

>>Read more here.

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

New tuberculosis resource

The Science and Development Network have a new page about TB, with facts and figures, news, features, key documents, and more.