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.
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?
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)
A forthcoming “Perspectives in asthma” paper in “JACI” by Litonjua and Weiss will be about the vitamin D hypothesis. Although the authors find that
Evidence exists that vitamin D induces a shift in the balance between TH1 and TH2-rype cytokines toward TH2 dominance
they make a largely unexpected turn by saying that vitamin DEFICIENCY may be to blame for the asthma epidemic. The basic argumentation is
We hypothesize that as populations grow more prosperous and more Westernized, more time is spent indoors and there is less exposure to sunlight leading to vitamin D deficiency…
Given the immediate and effective vitamin D production in skin and its longterm availability by fat stores I cannot follow their last conclusion. Continue reading Contrary or Contradictory
There is a new German dissertation about Vigantol (R) excellently written by Jochen Haas and just published at Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft “Vigantol, Adolf Windaus und die Geschichte des Vitamin D”. Altogether 425 pages, it contains a biographical sketch of Windaus (p 32-83), a detailed summary of the juristical questions about irradiating ergosterin (p 96-154), a detailed history of the pharmaceutical production (p 155-238) and finally a chapter about marketing of different brands by Merck (p 238-281). Continue reading The history of vitamin D discovery, industrial production and marketing
Getting the right expression is not always easy if you are thinking in a different language. “Borrowing good English” as confessed now by a Turkish scientist is therefore understandable. Best regards to Mark Twain from an awful German language speaker.
Theodor Fontane is characterizing Adolf Menzel:
Gaben, wer hätte sie nicht.
Talent, Spielzeug für Kinder.
Erst der Ernst macht den Mann,
Erst der Fleiß das Genie.Skills, everyone has quids.
Talents, toys of the kids.
Seriousness makes a man,
dilligence the genius span.
sorry for my translation ;-)
What do these guys offer here? Continue reading Para asma, bronquios y catarros
It seems that Google has several interesting books that may be downloaded if you are using a proxy located somewhere in the U.S. A. It is quite interesting to see that there are many more books out there than I thought before:
Most interesting is certainly the 1880 2nd edition of Blackley’s “Hay fever” Continue reading Historical research on hayfever
moblog – I have now spent another day at the Berlin Document Center browsing through hundreds of RKI pages – manuscripts, correspondence, bills and personal files. My goal was to find out why the allergy epidemic did not already start off 1935 in Germany when vitamin D synthesis was already possible on a large scale.
Indeed, I found evidence that at least 3 companies radiated at that time yeast derived ergosterin by UV quartz lamps – I.G. Farben, Nordmark-Werke and Deutsche Vitamin Gesellschaft. The number of companies in this field Continue reading Why the allergy epidemic did not already start 1935 in Germany
Thousands and millions of talks start with the “first slide please” although there is no “slide” at all. This post, however, is more about my problems to manage the 300 slide shows here while making a new one. I found some nice software, that can re-index my old PP slides, and let me drag and drop to a new slide show. Costs for Slide Executive are ~79€. Is there any alternative? Continue reading The first slide please
A new nature medicine review has listed clinical trials targeting toll-like receptors. These including 3 preclinical studies using cpG-ODNs against TLR9 by Dynavax Astra-Zeneca, Coley / Sanofi-Aventis and Idera / Novartis. Lets wait and see…
Slowly but surely, the hygiene hypothesis is going to be more and more perforated. A new NEJM paper finds Continue reading One small step for man
Here are my gratulations to the current IG Nobel Prize Winners – see also Science magazine. Is there anything else that I may have missed? Oh yes, the official prizes… As a new service you can even ask them questions.
Transcription factor Pax5 is a key regulator for the B cell lineage (it may even be reponsible for redifferentiation from B to T cells according to new research from the Busslinger lab). As human CD23a, the low affinity IgE receptor, has a functional Pax-5-binding site, there could be a relationship to allergy inheritance. So far I have only looked into Pax-8 while Pax-5 might be even more important.