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Outcomes Improved By Early Mobilization Of Patients In ICU
Aside from the obvious and immediate health problems that patients undergoing mechanical ventilation face, those who recover often do so with profound loss of strength and mobility that can impair their daily functioning and even lead to increased risk of morbidity and mortality down the line. Now research shows that functional status may be restored earlier to ICU patients by performing daily interruptions in sedation paired with mobilization and exercise, as led by physical and occupational therapists.
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New Map Of Genomic Variation WIll Enable Disease Research
Genetics researchers have unveiled a powerful new re for scientists and health providers studying human illnesses--a reference standard of deletions and duplications of DNA found in the human genome. Drawn from over 2,000 healthy persons, the study provides one of the deepest and broadest sets of copy number variations (CNVs) available to date, along with a new research tool for diagnosing and identifying genetic problems in patients.
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Smoking In Military Populations, VA Medical Centers: DOD, VA, Congress Should Take Stronger Steps Toward Eliminating Tobacco Use
Because tobacco use impairs military readiness, harms the health of soldiers and veterans, and imposes a substantial financial burden on the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, these agencies should implement a comprehensive strategy to achieve the Defense Department"s stated goal of a tobacco-free military, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine. DOD should gradually phase in a ban on tobacco use in the military, starting at military academies and officer training programs and among new recruits, the report says. DOD should also stop selling tobacco products in Army and Air Force commissaries -- Navy and Marine Corps commissaries already do not sell them -- and should stop selling them at a discount in military exchanges and other stores. In addition, Congress should allow VA to establish tobacco-free medical centers.
Public Health

How An Enzyme Tells Stem Cells Which Way To Divide

Driving Miranda, a protein in fruit flies crucial to switch a stem cell"s fate, is not as complex as biologists thought, according to University of Oregon biochemists. They"ve found that one enzyme (aPKC) stands alone and acts as a traffic cop that directs which roads daughter cells will take. "Wherever aPKC is at on a cell"s cortex or membrane, Miranda isn"t," says Kenneth E. Prehoda, a professor in the chemistry department and member of the UO"s Institute of Molecular Biology. When a stem cell duplicates into daughter cells, the side, or cortical domain, containing aPKC (atypical protein kinase C) continues as a stem cell, while the other domain with Miranda becomes a differentiated cell such as a neuron that forms the central nervous system. Prehoda and co-author Scott X. Atwood, who studied in Prehoda"s lab and recently earned his doctorate, describe how the mechanism works in the May 12 issue of the journal Current Biology. Instead of a complex cascade of protein deactivation steps that many biologists have theorized, Prehoda said, aPKC strips phosphate off an energy-transfer nucleotide known as ATP and then attaches it to Miranda. This process forces Miranda away from aPKC and helps determine the fates of subsequent daughter cells. "This process is pretty simple," he said, when viewed from a biochemical perspective. "What happens is that Miranda gets phosphorylated by aPKC, turning it into an inactivated substrate and pushing it into another location in the cell." Much of the paper in Current Biology is devoted to why the more complex scenarios are not accurate. "There have been a lot of ideas on how this works, and most seemed to be really complicated and difficult to explain. We have found it"s a much simpler mechanism," Prehoda said, adding that the mechanism likely is similar in many other types of cells, not just stem cells. "It"s a basic-research question. How does this polarity occur? In order to develop stem cell-specific therapeutics based on a rational methodology you have to understand the mechanism," he said. If Miranda is improperly isolated into other regions by aPKC, the stem cell divides symmetrically, with both daughter cells adopting the same fate, In turn, Prehoda said, these cells can become tumorous as they continue to rapidly divide without proper polarization. The National Institutes of Health supported the research through a Developmental Biology Training Grant to Atwood and a research grant to Prehoda. Jim Barlow University of Oregon


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