Category Archives: Allergy

Allergy, Genetics

Probability that a genetic association is false positive

An (anonymous) reviewer of our forthcoming EJHG paper on IgE and STAT3 pointed me towards a JNCI paper that has a nice supplement – an excel sheet to calculate the probability that a positive report is false. It basically relies on (i) the magnitude of the p-value (ii) statistical power and (iii) fraction of tested hypothesis. While we certainly know (i) and (ii), (iii) is always hard to know with many datasets including hundreds of traits that allow indefinite numbers of subgroups. Are you really interested in a new paper about “An African-specific functional polymorphism in KCNMB1 shows sex-specific association with asthma severity” that encompasses 1 of virtually 100 ethnic groups; 1 or virtually 25000 genes; 1 of 2 sexes; 1 or virtually 50 asthma related traits, yea, yea.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 27.08.2026
Allergy, Genetics, Philosophy

Will the Data Deluge Make the Scientific Method Obsolete?

A new Edge article answers this question. According to Chris Anderson, we are at “the end of science”, that is, science as we know it.

The quest for knowledge used to begin with grand theories. Now it begins with massive amounts of data. Welcome to the Petabyte Age.

Yesterday I reviewed a paper that crunches massive amount of data (and even found a new pathway for asthma). Nevertheless I was asking the question if this wishful thinking? Just take the next gene in one region and the overnext in another one and I would come up with a completely different pathway. This is all about association and not by the traditional “theorize, model, test it” way of science we have been brought along, yea, yea.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 27.08.2026
Allergy

Asthma and allergy trend

Besides traditional and expensive epidemiological studies to compare disease prevalence over time, the net offers also some nice research tools – click on the thumbnail to see Google asthma trend results by today. The query counts are largely consistent with most recent scientific papers seeing the asthma epidemic now at a (high) plateau. Did the environmental risk now saturate all individuals at risk?

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 27.08.2026
Allergy, Genetics

The many problems of GWAs

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genetic-future has an excellent article why the recent genome scans failed (i) alleles with small effects? (ii) population differences? (iii) epistatic interactions? (iv) cnvs more relevant than snps? (v) epigenetic inheritance? (vi) disease heterogeneity? It is a thorough review better than everything Continue reading The many problems of GWAs →

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 27.08.2026
Allergy, Vitamins

Vitamin D: A 18%! reduction in early infant mortality

A study published earlier this year in the Lancet found a 18% reduction in mortality when women obtained supplements during pregnancy until 90 days post partum including additional 800 ug retinol, 200 IU vitamin D, 10 mg vitamin E, 70 mg ascorbic acid, 1.4 mg vitamin B1, 18 mg niacin, 1.9 mg vitamin B6, 2.6 ug vitamin B12, 15 mg zinc, 2 mg copper, 65 ug selenium and 150 ug iodine. Much of the effect will be due to the vitamin D supplementation Continue reading Vitamin D: A 18%! reduction in early infant mortality →

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 27.08.2026
Allergy

CF and PHP at the same time

For a clinical research project I need a fast webserver that understands both COLD FUSION (for the existing database stuff) and PHP (for dokuwiki). As this is a non-commercial project, I decided for the RAILO 2.0 community version that works right out of the box as it includes the Resin webserver and the H2 database as well. Following some recommendations found on the net, php is running now with with the fastcgi option showing good acceptable performance with eAccelerator.

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CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 27.08.2026
Allergy, Genetics, Vitamins

CD 14 now also on the vitamin+allergy list

Just for curiosity I am collecting a list of allergy genes that are vitamin D dependent. The list is already rather long but now there is a prominent addition: CD14. Known as asthma gene for many years the vitamin D dependency isn’t such clear. A clever analysis, however, now shows that there is an intermediate step involved Continue reading CD 14 now also on the vitamin+allergy list →

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 27.08.2026
Allergy, Vitamins

Vitamin D as an adjuvans to specific immunotherapy

Despite the known allergy promoting effect of vitamin D in early childhood, there is mounting evidence that it may have beneficial effects during specific immunotherapy. A paper on “IL-10-inducing adjuvants enhance sublingual immunotherapy efficacy in a murine asthma model” by researchers from a French allergen company Continue reading Vitamin D as an adjuvans to specific immunotherapy →

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 27.08.2026
Allergy, Software

Genome Browser now with GADview track

Just reveived an email from the creators of the Genetic Association Database (GAD)

… Your published genetic association study has been included in the recent update of the NIH based, Genetic Association Database (GAD), the database of human genetic association studies. Continue reading Genome Browser now with GADview track →

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 27.08.2026
Allergy

A catholic view of science

Following the protestantic view of science here are some thoughts that I found in the new book by Benedetto XVI aka Joseph Ratzinger “Jesus von Nazareth”. Rationality as divine gift? Yes, Benedict follows the Historical Critical Method but wants to reconcile it with revelation that is not accessible to logical arguments. While it is not a book on science Continue reading A catholic view of science →

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 27.08.2026