stevev

Havard’s School of Public Health and Medical School sponsoring their course in clinical trials for FREE.

By stevev|June 9, 2013|Education, Ethics, Medicine, Public Health, Randomized Controlled Trial, Research|

HSPH-HMS214X Fundamentals of Clinical Trials is just one of the courses offered at www.edx.org.

Ever wonder what it would be like to take a course offered at an Ivy League University? Wonder no more! Harvard is part of a consortium of the most prestigious Universities in the world that is offering MOOC‘s (Massive Open Online Courses). There are no costs involved in taking a MOOC and you get all the same information that you would in an on ground course. The only differences are that you don’t get the instructor (or even TA’s) grading your papers nor will you get college credit on a transcript from Harvard. They are however the same information used in the universities’ on ground for-credit courses that can cost thousands of dollars.

MOOC’s typically use open source materials (available at no charge for personal use) and a type of self grading system based off of discussion forums in the course (It is totally up to the professor how that is handled, so it will vary depending on the course and instructor). They are a combination of one answer to cutting high educational and making it available to everyone.

The course begins October 14, 2013, runs a total of 13 weeks and depending on your background will take between 4-6 hours of your time each week. A background in biostatistics and epidemiology equivalent to the content of PH207X Health in Numbers: Quantitative Methods in Clinical & Public Health Research.

From the course site;

“This course will provide an introduction to the scientific, statistical, and ethical aspects of clinical trials research. Topics include the design, implementation, and analysis of trials, including first-in-human studies (dose-finding, safety, proof of concept, and Phase I), Phase II, Phase III, and Phase IV studies. All aspects of the development of a study protocol will be addressed, including criteria for the selection of participants, treatments, and endpoints, randomization procedures, sample size determination, data analysis, and study interpretation. The ethical issues that arise at each phase of therapy development will be explored.”

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Newer antimicrobial therapies proposed may lead to resistance of human innate immune response.

By stevev|February 23, 2012|Ethics, Fever Management, General Health, Health Care, Immune Function, Immune System, Medicine, Public Health, Research, Safety|

One current trend into fighting antibiotic resistant bacteria is developing a new class refered to as antimicrobial peptides (AMP’s). However a newly published study published¹ a proof of concept that bacteria will develop not only resistance to these new drugs but to our own innate immune response peptides as well.

A very nice summary of the findings was published in the latest issue of The Scientist online magazine.²

1. G. J. L. Habets, Michelle, and Michael Brockhurst. “Therapeutic
antimicrobial peptides may compromise natural immunity .” Biology Letters. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Feb. 2012. <http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2012/01/20/rsbl.2011.1203

2. Richards, Sabrina. “Antimicrobial Cross-Resistance Risk | The Scientist.” The Scientist. N.p., 24 Jan. 2012. Web. 23 Feb. 2012. <http://the-scientist.com/2012/01/24/antimicrobial-cross-resistance-risk/

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Heart Attacks and Folic Acid

By stevev|February 6, 2011|Nutrition, Prevention, Supplementation|

Randomized trials have suggested that folic acid may not have any beneficial effects for preventing heart attacks especially a second episodes. However in a meta-analysis published Wednesday (2/2/11) Wald,et. al. suggest that previous studies have failed to account for the use of aspirin by study participants. The authors suggest folic acid could be a part of a preventative measure to reduce first attacks but not second due to the use of aspirin by those suffering from a previous attack.

The study was published online as part of the PLoS site, an open access peer reviewed site. You can download the study in its entirety here;

Wald DS, Morris JK, Wald NJ (2011) Reconciling the Evidence on Serum Homocysteine and Ischaemic Heart Disease: A Meta-Analysis. PLoS ONE 6(2): e16473. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0016473

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Calcium deposition in osteoarthritic menisci and meniscal cell culture

By stevev|April 6, 2010|Health, Nutrition|

osteoarthritic menisci and meniscal cell culture

The results of a study published online on March 30th 2010 could very well present a treatment dilemma in OA patients with concomitant osteoporosis.

How to insure target tissue specific outcome for Ca++ supplementation therapy in these type of patients? I certainly am no expert when it comes to supplements, are there any other supplements that could be coupled with the Ca++ in order to at least maximize osseous uptake while also decreasing cartilaginous uptake?

Abstract is available here which includes a link to the complete article as a provisional PDF.

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Ringing in the New Year the NIH way.

By stevev|December 23, 2009|NIH|

Just ran across this posting from 12/22/2009. In light of all the fraud being found in articles published in refereed journals (see my posting tagged with “irresponsible reporting“), this may be good news for our patients! With so much of today’s research being funded by the NIH, this change in policy would be a welcomed departure from their current policy of leaving the issue up to the funded institution. You can read more on this issue from The-Scientist.com’s blog.

The announcement came from Dr. Francis Collins, Dir. of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in an interview aired by C-SPAN on their show, “Newsmakers”. You can watch the entire interview on C-SPAN.org

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Fake Conferences Alert!! Beware of E-mail Invitations

By stevev|November 25, 2009|Fraud, Legal Issues, News|

The newest type of internet scam is looking like ID theft attempts. The imagination of these jokers is getting rather sophisticated. The authors of The Scientist Blog have reported two of them just in the last 4 months!! The first was on Aug, 19th 2009. It had reported;

A month or two ago, David Iovannisci, a geneticist studying heart disease at Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute in California, received an email invitation to speak at the “1st International Cardiology Conngress” in Shanghai, to be held on 5-7 December of this year. The email, signed by Alex Li, provided a (now defunct) link to the conference program at www.internationalcardiologycongress.com, which listed several speakers from well-known institutions, both in the US and abroad.

The second, posted just yesterday, Nov 24th 2009, asks the question, “Are phony academic conferences the new Nigerian princes of the internet?” Well they just might be, only time will tell. The post goes on to say;

Last week, I received an email from someone going by the name of Alyssa Logan, who claimed to be “Youth Leader” at a group called the Action World International Organization (AWIO) and a member of the International Committee of the Red Cross. In the message, Logan invited me to the “Seventh Annual International Global combine Conference on Global Economy and Human Welfare” that AWIO was hosting.

To read more on these scam reports you will need to register for a free account on The Scientist Blog’s website. They will not end up sending you out a bunch of spam email, only email alerts that you decide you wish to see. So don’t let the fear of that prevent you from using this excellent resource. The two posts can be accessed directly below.

Another fake conference?
[24th November 2009]

Conference kerfuffle hits scientists
[19th August 2009]

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About stevev

Havard’s School of Public Health and Medical School sponsoring their course in clinical trials for FREE.

Newer antimicrobial therapies proposed may lead to resistance of human innate immune response.

Heart Attacks and Folic Acid

Calcium deposition in osteoarthritic menisci and meniscal cell culture

Ringing in the New Year the NIH way.

Fake Conferences Alert!! Beware of E-mail Invitations