Lalita Panicker, Author at Health Issues India

UK approves CRISPR gene therapy for SCD; The latest health stories from around the world

Leave a Comment / Featured, Featured Story, Government policy, Infectious diseases, International, Medicine and Research, News, Newsletter / By Lalita Panicker

In a world first, U.K. regulators have approved a therapy that uses CRISPR, the Nobel Prize–winning gene-editing tool invented in 2012. The treatment has been shown to help people with beta thalassemia and sickle cell disease, both inherited blood disorders that involve defects in the oxygen-carrying protein haemoglobin. It relies on removing blood stem cells …

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Genetic editing, the answer to bad cholesterol? The latest health stories from around the world

Leave a Comment / Featured, Featured Story, Infectious diseases, International, Medicine and Research, News, Newsletter, Noncommunicable diseases / By Lalita Panicker

A technique for precisely rewriting the genetic code directly in the body has slashed “bad” cholesterol levels—possibly for life—in three people prone to dangerously high levels of the artery-clogging fat. The feat relied on a blood infusion of a so-called base editor, designed to disable a liver protein, PCSK9, that regulates cholesterol. https://www.science.org/content/article/base-editing-a-new-form-of-gene-therapy-sharply-lowers-bad-cholesterol? “It is …

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Oncologist Monica Bertagnolli assigned as Director of US NIH; The latest health stories from around the world

Leave a Comment / Featured, Featured Story, Government policy, Infectious diseases, International, News, Newsletter / By Lalita Panicker

At last, the world’s largest biomedical research agency has a permanent leader. The U.S. Senate recently voted 62-36 to confirm oncologist to direct the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). https://www.science.org/content/article/u-s-senate-confirms-monica-bertagnolli-nih-director? The confirmation of Bertagnolli, who is expected to be sworn in within days replacing acting Director Lawrence Tabak, brings relief to the biomedical research …

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Gonorrhoea designated “priority pathogen” following increase in antibiotic resistance; The latest health stories from around the world

Leave a Comment / Featured, Featured Story, Infectious diseases, International, Medicine and Research, News, Newsletter / By Lalita Panicker

Gonorrhoea is an old affliction. The book of Leviticus mentions a contagious condition involving the continuous emission of semen and a painful erection. Only 2,500 years later, in the mid-20th century, did the discovery of antibiotics bring relief. But not, perhaps, for long. Decades of exposure to antibiotics have led N. gonorrhoeae, the bacterium that causes the disease, …

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Malaria vaccine resulted in 13% drop in deaths; The latest health stories from around the world

Leave a Comment / Access to Healthcare, Covid-19, Featured, Featured Story, Infectious diseases, International, Medicine and Research, News, Newsletter, Noncommunicable diseases / By Lalita Panicker

In a major analysis in Africa, the first vaccine approved to fight malaria cut deaths among young children by 13% over nearly 4 years, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported last week. Data from a pilot rollout of the vaccine, called RTS,S or Mosquirix and made by GSK, also showed a 22% reduction in severe …

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Project NextGen unveils contracts for vaccine development support; The latest health stories from around the world

Leave a Comment / Covid-19, Featured, Featured Story, Government policy, Infectious diseases, International, Medicine and Research, News, Newsletter, Science and Technology / By Lalita Panicker

Six months after announcing the $5 billion Project NextGen to develop treatments and vaccines that can “stay ahead of COVID-19,” the U.S. government has awarded 20 contracts that reveal what much of that sum will support. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on 13 October that up to $1.2 billion will go …

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Haemoglobin: more than just blood? The latest health stories from around the world

Leave a Comment / Featured, Featured Story, Infectious diseases, International, Medicine and Research, News, Newsletter, Science and Technology / By Lalita Panicker

Blood is red because it’s brimming with the oxygen-toting protein haemoglobin, but scientists have long wondered whether cells outside of the bloodstream depend on this protein as well. Now, a team of researchers from China has demonstrated that cartilage-making cells called chondrocytes manufacture and use haemoglobin, perhaps to help them survive in cartilage’s oxygen-poor environment. …

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Strain of flu eradicated during pandemic? The latest health stories from around the world

Leave a Comment / Covid-19, Featured, Featured Story, Government policy, Infectious diseases, International, Medicine and Research, News, Newsletter, Noncommunicable diseases / By Lalita Panicker

An influenza virus variant that circulated widely before the COVID-19 pandemic has disappeared, leading an expert group that advises the World Health Organization (WHO) to recommend last week that it no longer be included in flu vaccines. https://www.science.org/content/article/news-glance-more-success-fusion-medical-tests-under-scrutiny-and-grizzly-reintroduction? The strain, known as Yamagata, has not been detected since March 2020, and some scientists suspect it …

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Nobel Prize awarded for COVID-19 mRNA vaccine development; The latest health stories from around the world

Leave a Comment / Covid-19, Featured, Featured Story, Government policy, Infectious diseases, International, Medicine and Research, News, Newsletter, Noncommunicable diseases / By Lalita Panicker

The 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been jointly awarded to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2023/press-release/ The discoveries by the two Nobel Laureates were critical for developing effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 during the pandemic …

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Could bats hold the secrets to preventing cancer? The latest health stories from around the world

Leave a Comment / Featured, Featured Story, Infectious diseases, International, Medicine and Research, News, Newsletter / By Lalita Panicker

A new paper in Genome Biology and Evolution, published by Oxford University Press, shows that rapid evolution in bats may account for the animals’ extraordinary ability to both host and survive infections as well as avoid cancer.  https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1001498# Bats are exceptional among mammals not only for their ability to fly but also their long lives, low cancer …

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