You may fool all the people some of the time

12.11.2007 admin

Nature news reports an unpublished meta analysis of Cesarean section and asthma risk. The authors interpret the outcome in the light of the hygiene hypothesis: unhygienic siblings, risky! Normal delivery, risky!! No early bullshit, risky!!!
Again, delivery mode may be a proxy for physician contact and iatrogenic causes. Having heard today also lectures that take the hygiene hypothesis for granted, the old adage comes to my mind:

You may fool all the people some of the time. You can even fool some of the people all of the time. But you cannot fool all of the people all the time.

Genetics

Origin of toll like

9.11.2007 admin

I always thought that toll like receptors owe their name to the toll function of the immune system. As I learned only today, the origin is with the German “toll” (amazing, phantastic) ascribed by Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard to a Drosophila protein.

Allergy, Genetics, Software

GPS for biological pathways

8.11.2007 admin

After running a dual core CPU for two weeks I have a list here of all transcripts that are associated with the “ORMDL3” SNP gene cluster. Making sense from this list is a difficult task even with dozen of dedicated websites.
To get an overview of what is available I would start Continue reading GPS for biological pathways →

Joke

Science of the surf

7.11.2007 admin

DonÂ´t confuse me with Science of the Surf Continue reading Science of the surf →

Allergy, Vitamins

Do not stand between me and the sun

29.10.2007 admin

Diogenes, “the Cynic,” Greek philosopher, was born at Sinope about 412 BC, and died in 323 at Corinth, according to Diogenes.

Do not stand between me and the sun – the vitamin/allergy story is getting confusing with the new JACI review. Continue reading Do not stand between me and the sun →

Allergy, Vitamins

Can you see these neat little fingers

26.10.2007 admin

… reaching into the intestinal lumen? They belong to dendritic cells and are depicted also in a nice review about immune responses to commensal and environmental microbes Continue reading Can you see these neat little fingers →

Uncategorized

A self explanatory letter

24.10.2007 admin

Dear Dr. Wjst:
Thank you very much for your letter. However, we don’t allow author commentaries on their own articles, except to supply errata, which is not involved here.
Sincerely, XXX

the dream journal, you name it, yea, yea.

Allergy

Eat peanut to avoid peanut allergy

23.10.2007 admin

There is a new comment in the BMJ about a Lords committee report

a number of recent epidemiological studies had indicated that early peanut consumption in countries such as Israel was associated with a low incidence of peanut allergy in the population. These observations had led many academics to say that exposing a child’s immune system to peanut allergen at an early age might result in tolerance.

It seems that allergen avoidance versus sportively exposure is a never ending story – forth and back and back and forth – and largely irrelevant as being only about the second line of defense?

Philosophy

Of guests and ghosts

23.10.2007 admin

Here is a rare occasion where you can identify “guests” and “ghosts” in a paper – a common practice. Continue reading Of guests and ghosts →

Joke, Philosophy

Look here

22.10.2007 admin

From an email that I received today:

while open access has provided the scientific community with broader accessibility, little seems to have been done to make better use of the on-line content. We are trying to address this shortcoming through pubcasts. Pubcasts are 5-10 minute video clips which are integrated with the contents of the open access paper.

I agree with the observation that Open Access hasnÂ´t been very innovative so far in technical terms. On the other hand I feel that my job is less about marketing than development. Are you climbing on this bandwagon? Continue reading Look here →

Allergy, Vitamins

Archie Cochrane speaking

22.10.2007 admin

I did not expect what a new Cochrane writes on the prevention of nutritional rickets in term born children — Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2007 concludes

There a only few studies on the prevention of nutritional rickets in term born children. Until new data become available, it appears sound to offer preventive measures (vitamin D or calcium) to groups of high risk, like infants and toddlers; children living in Africa, Asia or the Middle East or migrated children from these regions into areas where rickets is not frequent. Due to a marked clinical heterogeneity and the scarcity of data, the main and adverse effects of preventive measures against nutritional rickets should be investigated in different countries, different age groups and in children of different ethnic origin.

May I summarize: 1. only a few studies; 2. vitamin D OR calcium and 3. to high risk kids only. This looks different to what Nestlé manufactures at the moment.

Genetics

Original research in blogs

22.10.2007 admin

It does not seem very unusual to have original research in blog posts. Evolgen is doing that by currently publishing a series exploring the evolution of a duplicated gene in the genus Drosophila. So finally science is more than knowing which is a high impact journal – peer review may be replaced comments below.

Genetics

What’s in your genome?

21.10.2007 admin

My latest idea is to create a wiki like annotation server that lets everybody create rules how to analyze an individual genome – we could use the CV dataset as a testbed.
Maybe we should start with SNPs only and develop some ground rules first at which threshold any predictive rule may be applied?
Otherwise these personal genomes will be quite useless, yea, yea.

Allergy

Auto desensitization

20.10.2007 admin

Blackley found already in 1873 an interesting explanation of the “no allergy in farming children” effect by referring to some kind of auto desensitization in this particular environment – e.g. the high pollen and LPS exposure.
Do you know that a commercial allergen preparation used for desensitization already includes a LPS derivate, 3-o-desacyl-4′ monophosphoryl lipid A as an adjuvant? It is believed to push the pollen reaction into a IL12 – IFNg – Th1 pathway. This therapeutic approach already perfectly fits the early explanation of Blackley.
When will the allergy farming lobby ultimately close their files?

Software

Henryk Goldszmit (Janusz Korczak)

19.10.2007 admin

moblog – When being in Warsaw for the first time I wanted to honour Henryk Goldszmit / Janusz Korczak by visiting the orphanage. This was a home for Jewish children in the Jaktorowska (former Krochmalna) Street. Henryk, born 1878 or 1879, a physician, writer and outstanding pedagogue was the director of the orphanage since 1913. Continue reading Henryk Goldszmit (Janusz Korczak) →