Eastshire Communications

15/07/2024

26/06/2023

Cell engineering is a rapidly evolving technology to treat diseases by controlling and directing cellular networks in the body. Whereas gene therapy seeks to alter the genetic makeup of cells, cell engineering goes a step further to consider how cells interact and ultimately function. Cell engineering is based on understanding how cells function in the body and how to alter these functions to achieve therapeutic success....

Cell engineering is a rapidly evolving technology to treat diseases by controlling and directing cellular networks in the body. Whereas gene therapy seeks to alter the genetic makeup of cells, cell…

24/05/2023

Immunotherapy has resulted in great achievements in cancer treatments. However, significant adverse side effects have also occurred, often resembling autoimmune diseases. Harnessing the immune system to treat cancer has long been a dream of researchers and oncologists. After overcoming many obstacles, success seems to have been achieved. An essential feature of the immune system is its ability to distinguish “self,” the body’s own cells and tissues, from “non-self,” originating from outside the body....

Immunotherapy has resulted in great achievements in cancer treatments. However, significant adverse side effects have also occurred, often resembling autoimmune diseases. Harnessing the immune syst…

11/08/2022

Using immunotherapy to fight cancer is currently a hot topic. Although the procedure has resulted in amazing successes for some cancers, it has not been successful in many cases. The problem may lie in the phenomenon of T cell exhaustion. T cells are an essential component of the immune system and quickly migrate to the site of infection to fight pathogenic organisms or cancer cells....

http://www.eastshirecommunications.net/2022/08/11/stem-like-t-cells-key-to-successful-cancer-immunotherapy/

Using immunotherapy to fight cancer is currently a hot topic. Although the procedure has resulted in amazing successes for some cancers, it has not been successful in many cases. The problem may li…

04/05/2022

04/05/2022

The development of new cancer therapies has been proceeding at an astounding rate. These advancements have led to publishing a second edition of Treating Cancer with Immunotherapy and Targeted Therapy two years after the first edition. A more comprehensive understanding of the process of metastasis has unfolded, leading to the prospect of developing drugs targeting metastasis. The role of cancer stem cells in the…...

https://www.eastshirecommunications.net/2022/05/04/treating-cancer-with-immunotherapy-and-targeted-therapy-2/

The development of new cancer therapies has been proceeding at an astounding rate. These advancements have led to publishing a second edition of Treating Cancer with Immunotherapy and Targeted Ther…

05/01/2021

Nutrients affect many essential functions in the development and functioning of the immune system. Scientists agree that deficiencies in nutrients can cause immune function impairment, which can be reversed by nutrient supplementation. Controversy exists whether supplementation above levels required to reverse the effects of deficiencies can further augment the normal immune system. Older adults are more subject to nutrient deficiencies than younger people due to a variety of causes....

http://www.eastshirecommunications.net/2021/01/05/immunosenescence-and-nutrition/

Nutrients affect many essential functions in the development and functioning of the immune system. Scientists agree that deficiencies in nutrients can cause immune function impairment, which can be…

17/12/2020

Immunosenescence Immunosenescence can be defined as immune function changes that contribute to the increased susceptibility to disease in older people. A related term is inflamm-aging, the persistence of chronic inflammation characteristic of immunosenescence. The immune system consists of two branches, the innate system, and the acquired system. The innate system is the first line of defense of the body and consists of physical barriers such as skin and mucus membranes and various immune cells....

http://www.eastshirecommunications.net/2020/12/17/immunosenescence/

Immunosenescence Immunosenescence can be defined as immune function changes that contribute to the increased susceptibility to disease in older people. A related term is inflamm-aging, the persiste…

13/10/2020

The microbiome refers to the collection of all the gene sequences from a community of microbes in the human body. The microbiome has many effects on the human body and may promote cancer progression or aid in controlling cancer. The interactions between the microbiome, diet, host factors, drugs, and cell interactions are complex. Studying the nature of these interactions will require a systems approach. [ 426 more words ]

http://www.eastshirecommunications.net/2020/10/13/how-the-microbiome-affects-cancer/

The microbiome refers to the collection of all the gene sequences from a community of microbes in the human body. The microbiome has many effects on the human body and may promote cancer progressio…

02/09/2020

Bispecific antibodies are bioengineered proteins that can simultaneously bind to two different types of antigen (such as found on cancer cells). Bispecific antibodies appear to be destined to play an important role in immunotherapy-based cancer therapy together with checkpoint inhibitors, CAR-T cell therapy, and other types of immunotherapy. Cancer immunotherapy improves the functioning of the immune system to better seek out and destroy cancer cells. [ 303 more words ]
http://www.eastshirecommunications.net/2020/09/02/bispecific-antibodies-for-cancer-treatment/

Bispecific antibodies are bioengineered proteins that can simultaneously bind to two different types of antigen (such as found on cancer cells). Bispecific antibodies appear to be destined to play …

26/08/2020

CRISPR is a gene editing tool that works by precisely removing short segments of DNA from genes. CRISPR technology has attracted interest from the cancer research community since cancer is a genetic disease. CRISPR consists of two components: an RNA targeting device called guide RNA, and an enzyme, commonly Cas9. The precise location of the problematic DNA sequence of a gene is determined. [ 234 more words ]
http://www.eastshirecommunications.net/2020/08/26/using-crispr-in-cancer-research-and-treatment/

CRISPR is a gene editing tool that works by precisely removing short segments of DNA from genes. CRISPR technology has attracted interest from the cancer research community since cancer is a geneti…

11/08/2020

18/06/2020

Cancer is caused by genetic mutations. Although targeted therapy seeks to control cancer by targeting the proteins created by the genes, the vast number of mutated genes present in cancers could necessitate the development of thousands of drugs to effectively control all cancers. Andrea Califano, a systems biologist at Columbia University has developed a new approach to the problem of cancer gene mutations. [ 195 more words ]
http://www.eastshirecommunications.net/2020/06/18/targeting-cancers-master-regulators/

Cancer is caused by genetic mutations. Although targeted therapy seeks to control cancer by targeting the proteins created by the genes, the vast number of mutated genes present in cancers could ne…

09/06/2020

A newly emerging type of cancer immunotherapy uses bispecific antibodies. These drugs attach to both immune cells and tumor cells thereby facilitating destruction of the tumor. They are called bispecific as they bind to a unique surface protein, CD3, on an immune T cell and to a antigen marker on a tumor. Although bispecific antibodies have been studied for decades, the field was slow to develop due to difficulties in designing and producing the drugs. [ 219 more words ]
http://www.eastshirecommunications.net/2020/06/09/a-new-type-of-cancer-immunotherapy/

A newly emerging type of cancer immunotherapy uses bispecific antibodies. These drugs attach to both immune cells and tumor cells thereby facilitating destruction of the tumor. They are called bisp…

02/05/2020

02/05/2020

In a recent article in the New York Times, ( Stuart Thompson provided sobering information regarding a proposed timetable to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. Although the most optimistic estimate provided by top health officials is to develop a vaccine in 12-18 months, typically vaccine development requires at least a decade. Why does vaccine development take so long? A vaccine must be proven to be safe and effective to be approved for use by the FDA. [ 281 more words ]
http://www.eastshirecommunications.net/2020/05/02/592/

In a recent article in the New York Times, ( Stuart Thompson provided sobering information regarding a proposed timetable to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. Although the most optimistic estimate provid…

29/01/2020

Benedict Carey, Science reporter for The New York Times, takes issue with the World Health Organization's classification of Internet Gaming Disorder as a mental health disorder. Mr. Carey seems to agree with the American Psychiatric Association that it is still premature to classify internet gaming as a diagnosable disorder.
http://www.eastshirecommunications.net/2020/01/29/video-gaming-disorder-the-controversy-continues/

Benedict Carey, Science reporter for The New York Times, takes issue with the World Health Organization’s classification of Internet Gaming Disorder as a mental health disorder. Mr. Carey see…

23/01/2020

Better off Bald is an extraordinary book by Andrea Wilson Woods describing the journey she took with her younger sister Adrienne, who was diagnosed with liver cancer. The book serves as a profound statement on how cancer affects both patients and caregivers. Andrea carries on the legacy of Adrienne through nonprofit organizations she founded to provide awareness and education related to cancer. [ 336 more words ]
http://www.eastshirecommunications.net/2020/01/23/review-of-better-off-bald/

Better off Bald is an extraordinary book by Andrea Wilson Woods describing the journey she took with her younger sister Adrienne, who was diagnosed with liver cancer. The book serves as a profound …

14/01/2020

Treating cancer has always been a major challenge. Although great strides in treatment have taken place in recent years, all too often current treatments are less than effective, or patients relapse. Newer methods of cancer treatment, namely targeted therapy and immunotherapy, have generated great excitement in the scientific community. These newer methods of cancer treatment hold promise for patients who otherwise may have few options. Also, in the case of immunotherapy, responses to treatment can be maintained even after a cycle of treatments is complete.

This book discusses all the basics of cancer for the general reader, including characteristics and development of cancer, diagnosis, and classification. Standard methods of cancer treatment are discussed, including surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, and hormone therapy. The rationale and development of targeted therapies are presented. The immune system as it relates to cancer is explained, followed by the presentation of the main categories of immunotherapy, including checkpoint inhibitors, adoptive cell therapy, and cancer vaccines.

David Olle - Author
Published by Mercury Learning and Information

10/01/2020

Treating cancer has always been a major challenge. Although great strides in treatment have taken place in recent years, all too often current treatments are less than effective, or patients relapse. Newer methods of cancer treatment, namely targeted therapy and immunotherapy, have generated great excitement in the scientific community. These newer methods of cancer treatment hold promise for patients who otherwise may have few options. [ 99 more words ]
http://www.eastshirecommunications.com/2020/01/10/treating-cancer-with-immunotherapy-and-targeted-therapy/

Treating cancer has always been a major challenge. Although great strides in treatment have taken place in recent years, all too often current treatments are less than effective, or patients relaps…

09/04/2018

Is Video Game Addiction a True Mental Disorder?

The World Health Organization has included the condition “gaming disorder” in the latest 11th edition of its International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). This inclusion follows the classification by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) of “Internet Disorder” as a “condition for further study” in its latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). The ICD and DSM are major diagnostic manuals for mental disorders. As a result of collaborations between the organizations, the classification systems described in the publications have converged strongly in their latest revisions.
The APA is hesitant to call Internet Disorder as an “official” disorder; as such a classification would have significant implications for physician diagnosis and treatment as well as for insurance claims. The WHO classification is already official for that organization.

According to the WHO, gaming disorder can include: impaired control over gaming; 2) increasing priority given to gaming to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other life interests and daily activities; and 3) continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of adverse consequences. For gaming disorder to be diagnosed, the behavior pattern must be of sufficient severity to result in significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other critical areas of functioning and would typically have been evident for at least 12 months.

The WHO recognizes that gaming disorder affects only a small proportion of people who engage in digital- or video-gaming activities. However, the inclusion of gaming disorder in ICD-11 will result in the increased attention of health professionals to the risks of development of this disorder and, accordingly, to appropriate prevention and treatment measures. Addiction judgment with the taking of drugs or other substances (substance abuse), but an understanding of the disorder has been expanded to include behaviors not involving substances, such as gambling addiction.

A group of scholars has taken issue with the WHO’s classification of gaming disorder. They contend that the WHO and the APA find a unique disorder in what is a healthy recreational activity (video gaming). The scholars argue that the wrong criteria are used to diagnose gaming addiction (neglecting other activities in the gamer’s daily life). They feel that problems with video gaming could be the result of a preexisting mental health disorder.

This issue is related to broader problems of classifying mental disorders. Classification systems are often based on the assumption of assigning categories with distinctive characteristics. In the case of mental disorders, the characteristics shown in many categories can show overlap. In other words, it can be challenging to classify mental disorders as distinct entities. Mental disorders are primarily based on observable signs and patient-reported symptoms rather than by their underlying causes.

Van Den Brink replied to the scholars’ paper agreeing that there is nothing inherently wrong with video gaming and that it can be just another recreational activity. However, he notes that, just like other activities, gaming becomes a problem when the person loses control over it, and it replaces other essential activities.

What should the gamer or concerned family and friends do?
Gamers, as well as concerned family and friends, should be alert to the extent that gaming activities could be impairing their daily activities. Only a small proportion of gamers develop a genuinely addictive behavior, so people around the gamer should not become unduly alarmed. Many gamers with disorders can overcome their problems without professional help. The ICD-11 and DSM-5 classifications of gaming addiction provide guidelines to professionals, but they still use their clinical judgement for diagnosis and treatment of the condition.

References
1. Aarseth, Espen, et al. “Scholars’ open debate paper on the World Health Organization ICD-11 Gaming Disorder proposal.” Journal of Behavioral Addictions 6(3), pp. 267–270 (2017) https://akademiai.com/doi/pdf/10.1556/2006.5.2016.088
2. Clark, Lee Anna, et al. “Three Approaches to Understanding and Classifying Mental Disorder: ICD-11, DSM-5, and the National Institute of Mental Health’s Research Domain Criteria (RDoC)” Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 18(2) pp.72–145 (2017) http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1529100617727266
3. Sarkis, Stephanie. Internet Gaming Disorder in DSM-5. Psychology Today
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/here-there-and-everywhere/201407/internet-gaming-disorder-in-dsm-5
4. Van den Brink, Wim. “ICD-11 Gaming Disorder: Needed and just in time or dangerous
and much too early?” Journal of Behavioral Addictions 6(3), pp. 290–292 (2017)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5700715/
5. World Health Organization. Gaming Disorder.
http://www.who.int/features/qa/gaming-disorder/en

12/02/2018

Video game addiction is a term that should be used with care. When video gaming disrupts multiple areas of a gamer's life, it may more properly be called a disorder or addiction. Although only a small percentage of video gamers experience addiction, in terms of total numbers it is significant. Video Game Addiction addresses the question of clinical addiction as well as other topics; including the nature of video gaming, the treatment and recovery from video game addiction, and some beneficial effects of video gaming. The book can be obtained from Mercury Learning and Information.

http://www.eastshirecommunications.com/2018/02/12/video-game-addiction/

Video game addiction is a term that should be used with care. When video gaming disrupts multiple areas of a gamer’s life, it may more properly be called a disorder or addiction. Although onl…

07/09/2017

Asthma is a very serious, widespread, and growing problem in the U.S. Asthma affects over 24 million Americans, and its prevalence has increased 12% in the last decade. This book is designed to be a comprehensive background on asthma for the general public. The latest developments in the understanding of asthma and its relationships to allergies and other conditions are presented. [ 30 more words ]

http://www.eastshirecommunications.com/2017/09/07/asthma/

Asthma is a very serious, widespread, and growing problem in the U.S. Asthma affects over 24 million Americans, and its prevalence has increased 12% in the last decade. This book is designed to be …

02/05/2016

Everyone experiences itching. The sensation of Itching can result from something as innocuous as an insect bite to a more serious chronic debilitating form that can be difficult to treat. Recent advances in understanding the itching process may help in developing more effective treatments to control itch. It has been known for some time that an irritation to the skin caused by a mosquito bite or poison ivy, for example, results in an immune response by the body releasing histamine. [ 327 more words. ]

http://www.eastshirecommunications.com/2016/05/02/advances-in-understanding-itch/

Everyone experiences itching. The sensation of Itching can result from something as innocuous as an insect bite to a more serious chronic debilitating form that can be difficult to treat. Recent ad…

30/03/2016

journalists should be careful about using words such as "breakthrough" when reporting on health news so as not to mislead readers.
https://medivizor.com/blog/2015/11/16/groundbreaking-breakthrough-miracle-really-mean-health-news/

What does "breakthrough" or "miracle" mean in health news? For patients and caregivers knowing what drives the news business is critical to reasonable hope.

23/03/2016

Precision medicine is not yet ready to go mainstream as a strategy for treatment acording to this author.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-paradox-of-precision-medicine/?WT.mc_id=SA_HLTH_20160322

Early attempts to tailor disease treatment to individuals based on their DNA have met with equivocal success, raising concerns about a push to scale up such efforts

09/03/2016

The federal Precision Medicine Initiative announced on January 2015 has enjoyed broad support, but there are detractors. Soon after the announcement, Dr. Michael Joyner wrote an op-ed in the New York Times with the view that the Initiative will not deliver as promised. his opinion prompted a large number of replies both pro and con. In July 2015, Dr. Timothy Caulfield wrote in a British Medical Journal blog downplaying the notion that personalized medicine should be considered a "revolution" and would likely follow the same path as other so-called genetic revolutions. [ 238 more words. ]

http://www.eastshirecommunications.com/2016/03/09/how-revolutionary-is-personalized-medicine/

The federal Precision Medicine Initiative announced on January 2015 has enjoyed broad support, but there are detractors. Soon after the announcement,  Dr. Michael Joyner wrote an op-ed in the New Y…

19/02/2016

In the February issue of "The Scientist," Cynthia Brandenburg discusses how true scientific literacy is not simply understanding science, but also considering the social and cultural contexts of scientific discoveries.
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/45102/title/Scientific-Literacy-Redefined/

Researchers could become better at engaging in public discourse by more fully considering the social and cultural contexts of their work.

17/02/2016

Recognizing the growing importance and promise of personalized medicine, the federal government launched the Precision Medicine Initiative with President Obama’s State of the Union Address in 2015. A key component of the Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI) is the creation of a national research participant group, called a cohort, of 1 million or more Americans to expand our knowledge and practice of precision medicine. [ 319 more words. ]

http://www.eastshirecommunications.com/2016/02/17/precision-medicine-initiative/

Recognizing the growing importance and promise of personalized medicine, the federal government launched the Precision Medicine Initiative with President Obama’s State of the Union Address in 2015.…

08/02/2016

genome researchers