Genetics, Vitamins

First 25OH-D3 GWA online

The first genomewide association for vitamin D serum levels is already online as the Framingham people told me earlier this day, many thanks!

d3gwa.png

There are 3 important regions on the above figure figure: around rs1394615, rs1877165 and rs2160595, see also the attached excel sheet fram25ohdexam6or7agesexadj.xls.

What are the reasons that my linkage study arrived at completely different regions? The accompanying BMC Genetics paper even highlights 2 different SNPs: rs1048516 + rs10507577). Anyway, the best region in my opinion is on chromosome 6. Here are the significant SNPs in relation to their neighboring genes: Continue reading First 25OH-D3 GWA online →

 

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Philosophy

My first scientific meeting

was in 1986 at the German Society of Endocrinology in Lübeck. I just scanned these old B&W films but can’t renember so many details. My results were only published under pseudonym as my clinical advisor (#3 from left) did not renember my name correctly when publishing it in Acta endocrinologica.

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Uncategorized

Caecus sed lucidus

“Blind but enlightened”, a motto at the Nikolauspflege impressed me as a child when my parents visited the former director of this academy in Stuttgart.
There are so many examples where the norm isn´t the norm – think also of Paul Wittgenstein, the one-handed pianist, who lost his right arm but approached many composers to write him sheet music: Benjamin Britten, Paul Hindemith, Richard Strauss, Maurice Ravel, Sergej Prokofjew among others.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025
Software

Dr. rer. photocop.

This is an old saying among medical students – you get your degree by copying a lot of papers.
When it comes to copy music I learned only recently that it makes a differences which software you are using to create a mp3 from your CD. Exact audio copy reads audio CDs almost perfectly while some other software does a jitter correction on scratched CDs. Differences can be really heard!
Back to photocopies – when I visited the largest medical library in Germany, the ZMB in Cologne, I was deeply impressed by all the students wearing headphones and sun glasses while copying pages hour by hour, an eldritch scenery, yea, yea.

 

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Philosophy, Theology

Precisez, mon cher, precisez

I am currently reading Geert Mak’s “In Europa”, an excellent history of European history (in particular important for me as my high school education ended with the Weimar republic! I always wanted to ask my former teacher R. Grundel for the reasons but he died recently). This book finds and connects all the lost threads while being excellently written and easy to read. I am citing here from the notes of Harold Nicolson (p 137), a young British diplomat, who served as an advisor to Lloyd George, Clémenceau and Wilson: Continue reading Precisez, mon cher, precisez →

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025
Genetics, Philosophy

Who’s the boss?

A news focus in Science Magazine asks “Who’s the queen? Ask the genes” and shows new research that in some social insects nature, not nurture, determines whether offspring becomes worker or royalty.
I am not aware of any genetic studies of bosses but there might be also inherited personality traits in humans that favor a certain behavior.
Given my interest in a German gene-test law and the corresponding passivity of the German government, I am now proposing a “Biobank German Bundestag” that will allow me to go for gene variants that make our representatives different from us, the commonalty. I am sure that we will have a gene test law within 12 months …

 

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Genetics, Vitamins

You may fool all the people some of the time

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.

 

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Genetics

Origin of toll like

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.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025
Allergy, Genetics, Software

GPS for biological pathways

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 →

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025