Also called: Infantile paralysis, Poliomyelitis, PPS
Polio is an infectious disease caused by a virus. It attacks your nervous system. In rare cases, polio infection can cause paralysis. Polio vaccination will protect most people for life. The United States and most other countries eradicated polio decades ago, except for rare cases.
The disease most commonly affects young children. Poliovirus spreads in human waste. People usually get it from contaminated food or water. Symptoms include fever, tiredness, vomiting, neck stiffness, and leg and arm pain. Most infected people never have symptoms. No treatment will reverse polio paralysis. Moist heat, physical therapy and medicines might ease symptoms.
Some people who've had polio develop post-polio syndrome (PPS) years later. Symptoms include tiredness, new muscle weakness and muscle and joint pain. There is no way to prevent or cure PPS.
Polio Vaccine
What is polio?
Poliomyelitis (polio, for short) is caused by a virus. The virus can be spread by drinking water with the polio virus in it. It can also be passed by close contact, such as kissing, with an infected person. Polio is a serious illness. It can cause paralysis (when you can't move your arms and legs) or even death. Before the first polio vaccine was developed in the 1950s, thousands of children got polio every year. Fortunately, the use of the polio vaccine has made the disease very rare in most parts of the world.
How can polio be prevented?
You can keep your children from getting polio by making sure they get the polio vaccine.
What is the polio vaccine?
A vaccine is used to protect you from getting a disease. The polio vaccine, also called IPV, is given by injection (a "shot"). (It used to be given by drops in the mouth.)
When should my child be vaccinated?
Most children get 4 doses of polio vaccine on this schedule:
First dose when they are 2 months old.
Second dose when they are 4 months old.
Third dose when they are 6 to 18 months old.
Last dose when they are 4 to 6 years old.
Are there reasons not to get polio shots?
Your child should not get the polio shots if he or she is allergic to these medicines: neomycin, streptomycin or polymyxin B.
What are the risks of the vaccine?
Most people have no problems. Some people will have some pain or redness where the shot was given. Vaccines carry a small risk of serious harm, such as a severe allergic reaction.
About Malaria:
Malaria is a serious disease caused by a parasite. Infected mosquitoes spread it. Malaria is a major cause of death worldwide, but it is almost wiped out in the United States. The disease is mostly a problem in developing countries with warm climates. If you travel to these countries, you are at risk. There are four different types of malaria caused by four related parasites. The most deadly type occurs in Africa south of the Sahara Desert.
Malaria symptoms include chills, flu-like symptoms, fever, vomiting, diarrhea and jaundice. The disease can be life-threatening. However, you can treat malaria with medicines. The type of medicine depends on which kind of malaria you have and where you were infected.
Malaria can be prevented. When traveling to malaria-prone regions
See your doctor for medicines that protect you
Wear insect repellent with DEET
Cover up
Sleep under mosquito netting
Information for The General Public
Malaria can be a severe, potentially fatal disease (especially when caused by Plasmodium falciparum) and treatment should be initiated as soon as possible.
In endemic areas, the World Health Organization recommends that treatment be started within 24 hours after the first symptoms appear. Treatment of patients with uncomplicated malaria can be conducted on an ambulatory basis (without hospitalization) but patients with severe malaria should be hospitalized if possible.
In areas where malaria is not endemic, all patients with malaria (uncomplicated or severe) should be kept under clinical observation if possible.
Patients who have severe P. falciparum malaria or who cannot take oral medications should be given the treatment by continuous intravenous infusion.
In some countries (but not the United States) some antimalarial drugs are found in suppository form.
Several antimalarial drugs are available for treatment by continuous intravenous infusion.
Most drugs used in treatment are active against the parasite forms in the blood (the form that causes disease) and include:
chloroquine
sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (Fansidar®)
mefloquine (Lariam®)
atovaquone-proguanil (Malarone®)
quinine
doxycycline
artemisin derivatives (not licensed for use in the United States, but often found overseas)
In addition, primaquine is active against the dormant parasite liver forms (hypnozoites) and prevents relapses. Primaquine should not be taken by pregnant women or by people who are deficient in G6PD (glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase). Patients should not take primaquine until a screening test has excluded G6PD deficiency.
How to treat a patient with malaria depends on:
The type (species) of the infecting parasite
The area where the infection was acquired and its drug-resistance status
The clinical status of the patient
Any accompanying illness or condition
Pregnancy
Drug allergies, or other medications taken by the patient.
Malaria symptoms include chills, flu-like symptoms, fever, vomiting, diarrhea and jaundice. The disease can be life-threatening. However, you can treat malaria with medicines. The type of medicine depends on which kind of malaria you have and where you were infected.
Malaria can be prevented. When traveling to malaria-prone regions
See your doctor for medicines that protect you
Wear insect repellent with DEET
Cover up
Sleep under mosquito netting
Information for The General Public
Malaria can be a severe, potentially fatal disease (especially when caused by Plasmodium falciparum) and treatment should be initiated as soon as possible.
In endemic areas, the World Health Organization recommends that treatment be started within 24 hours after the first symptoms appear. Treatment of patients with uncomplicated malaria can be conducted on an ambulatory basis (without hospitalization) but patients with severe malaria should be hospitalized if possible.
In areas where malaria is not endemic, all patients with malaria (uncomplicated or severe) should be kept under clinical observation if possible.
Patients who have severe P. falciparum malaria or who cannot take oral medications should be given the treatment by continuous intravenous infusion.
In some countries (but not the United States) some antimalarial drugs are found in suppository form.
Several antimalarial drugs are available for treatment by continuous intravenous infusion.
Most drugs used in treatment are active against the parasite forms in the blood (the form that causes disease) and include:
chloroquine
sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (Fansidar®)
mefloquine (Lariam®)
atovaquone-proguanil (Malarone®)
quinine
doxycycline
artemisin derivatives (not licensed for use in the United States, but often found overseas)
In addition, primaquine is active against the dormant parasite liver forms (hypnozoites) and prevents relapses. Primaquine should not be taken by pregnant women or by people who are deficient in G6PD (glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase). Patients should not take primaquine until a screening test has excluded G6PD deficiency.
How to treat a patient with malaria depends on:
The type (species) of the infecting parasite
The area where the infection was acquired and its drug-resistance status
The clinical status of the patient
Any accompanying illness or condition
Pregnancy
Drug allergies, or other medications taken by the patient.
Stones, Heart Disease:
The results are consistent with findings from other recent studies and suggest that nephrolithiasis may reflect a systemic vascular disorder. In fact, lead author Brian Eisner, MD, observed that stone disease may be an early marker for heart disease.
“We found at least a 15% increased risk of heart disease in patients who had a history of kidney stones,” said Dr. Eisner, a fifth-year resident in urology at Massachusetts GeneralHospital in Boston. “We believe this is important when considering the overall health care and treatment of patients with stone disease.”
The etiology of nephrolithiasis is incompletely characterized, Dr. Eisner said. He, senior author Marshall Stoller, MD, professor of urology at the University of California in San Francisco, and colleagues have theorized that the initial stone event may be vascular in origin, so they examined whether a history of nephrolithiasis was associated with sub-sequent development of coronary disease in patients.
The researchers analyzed data from the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, which included 45,988 men whose age range at baseline was 40-75 years. Dr. Eisner and his colleagues adjusted findings for age, BMI, thiazide diuretic use, antihypertensive and cholesterol-lowering medications, tobacco use, history of gout, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, fluid intake, and other dietary factors. The primary end point was coronary heart disease, defined as MI, angina, or need for coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG). Stroke, including ischemic or hemorrhagic cerebrovascular events, was the secondary end point.
A total of 4,747 patients (10.3%) reported a history of nephrolithiasis at baseline. After adjusting for confounders, Dr. Eisner's team found a 15% higher risk for coronary heart disease (CHD) among subjects with a history of nephrolithiasis compared with men without nephrolithiasis. A history of nephrolithiasis was associated with a 16% increased risk for MI, a 27% increased risk for angina, and a 15% increased risk for CABG.
“These were all highly statistically significant associations. There was no increased risk of stroke in these patients,” Dr. Eisner told Renal & Urology News. “We see stone formers very early in their life. Patients tend to be in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. We should consider possible in-creased risk of coronary disease in these patients as we care for them long-term.”
Previous studies also have linked kidney stone disease with heart disease. These include a study by Japanese investigators who compared 181 calcium oxalate stone formers and 187 control subjects. The team found a history of CHD in seven (3.9%) of the stone form-ers but none of the controls, according to a report in the International Journal of Urology (2005;12:859-863).
“We found at least a 15% increased risk of heart disease in patients who had a history of kidney stones,” said Dr. Eisner, a fifth-year resident in urology at Massachusetts GeneralHospital in Boston. “We believe this is important when considering the overall health care and treatment of patients with stone disease.”
The etiology of nephrolithiasis is incompletely characterized, Dr. Eisner said. He, senior author Marshall Stoller, MD, professor of urology at the University of California in San Francisco, and colleagues have theorized that the initial stone event may be vascular in origin, so they examined whether a history of nephrolithiasis was associated with sub-sequent development of coronary disease in patients.
The researchers analyzed data from the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, which included 45,988 men whose age range at baseline was 40-75 years. Dr. Eisner and his colleagues adjusted findings for age, BMI, thiazide diuretic use, antihypertensive and cholesterol-lowering medications, tobacco use, history of gout, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, fluid intake, and other dietary factors. The primary end point was coronary heart disease, defined as MI, angina, or need for coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG). Stroke, including ischemic or hemorrhagic cerebrovascular events, was the secondary end point.
A total of 4,747 patients (10.3%) reported a history of nephrolithiasis at baseline. After adjusting for confounders, Dr. Eisner's team found a 15% higher risk for coronary heart disease (CHD) among subjects with a history of nephrolithiasis compared with men without nephrolithiasis. A history of nephrolithiasis was associated with a 16% increased risk for MI, a 27% increased risk for angina, and a 15% increased risk for CABG.
“These were all highly statistically significant associations. There was no increased risk of stroke in these patients,” Dr. Eisner told Renal & Urology News. “We see stone formers very early in their life. Patients tend to be in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. We should consider possible in-creased risk of coronary disease in these patients as we care for them long-term.”
Previous studies also have linked kidney stone disease with heart disease. These include a study by Japanese investigators who compared 181 calcium oxalate stone formers and 187 control subjects. The team found a history of CHD in seven (3.9%) of the stone form-ers but none of the controls, according to a report in the International Journal of Urology (2005;12:859-863).
Heart Diseases:
Also called: Cardiac disease :
If you're like most people, you think that heart disease is a problem for other folks. But heart disease is the number one killer in the U.S. It is also a major cause of disability. There are many different forms of heart disease. The most common cause of heart disease is narrowing or blockage of the coronary arteries, the blood vessels that supply blood to the heart itself. This is called coronary artery disease and happens slowly over time. It's the major reason people have heart attacks.
Other kinds of heart problems may happen to the valves in the heart, or the heart may not pump well and cause heart failure. Some people are born with heart disease.
You can help reduce your risk of heart disease by taking steps to control factors that put you at greater risk:
Control your blood pressure
Lower your cholesterol
Don't smoke
Get enough exercise
If you're like most people, you think that heart disease is a problem for other folks. But heart disease is the number one killer in the U.S. It is also a major cause of disability. There are many different forms of heart disease. The most common cause of heart disease is narrowing or blockage of the coronary arteries, the blood vessels that supply blood to the heart itself. This is called coronary artery disease and happens slowly over time. It's the major reason people have heart attacks.
Other kinds of heart problems may happen to the valves in the heart, or the heart may not pump well and cause heart failure. Some people are born with heart disease.
You can help reduce your risk of heart disease by taking steps to control factors that put you at greater risk:
Control your blood pressure
Lower your cholesterol
Don't smoke
Get enough exercise
Mental Health:
Mental health is the positive balance of the social, physical, spiritual, economic and mental aspects of one’s life and is as important as physical health. When people are mentally healthy they are able to live productive daily activities, maintain fulfilling relationships with others, and have the ability to adapt to change and cope with stress.Alternatively, mental illness is a psychological or behavioural phenomenon that leads to disorder or disability that is not part of normal development. Mental illness can occur when the brain (or part of the brain) is not working well or is working in the wrong way. When the brain is not working properly, one or more of its six functions will be disrupted (thinking or cognition, perception or sensing, emotion or feeling, signaling, physical functions and/or behavior). When these functions significantly disrupt a person’s life, we say that the person has a mental disorder or a mental illness.The World Health Organization notes that “Mental health is as important as physical health to the overall well-being of individuals, societies and countries. Yet only a small minority of the 450 million people suffering from a mental or behavioural disorders are receiving treatment” (The World Health Report 2001, Chapter 1). The WHO also indicates that 15 to 20 per cent of young people worldwide suffer from a mental disorder that would benefit from mental-health treatment. Currently, neuropsychiatric disorders contribute to almost one-third of the global burden of disease in this age group.While effective treatment for mental disorders is available, barriers including lack of health professionals, health care infrastructure, cost, as well as a strong and persistent stigma against people with mental disorders prevents millions of adults and youth from accessing and receiving the help they need to get well and say well.The more we learn about mental health, the better we understand the impact that mental health problems can have on personal, social, civic and economic development. Addressing mental health problems early in life enhances the opportunity for young people to get well and stay well through adulthood, improving not only the lives of individuals and families, but also enhancing civil society increasing opportunity for socio-economic development and encouraging global acceptance of human and cultural diversity.Mental health is a right, not a privilege. As global citizens it is important that we work together to provide the best care for people who are mentally ill and to ensure that physical and mental health are at the forefront of the international agenda.
Maternal Health & Child Mortality:
Maternal health is intimately connected with the health of a child therefore when we define barriers to maternal health, we can at the same time predict barriers to child mortality. In the most general sense, maternal health and child mortality is described as a mother’s ability to eat healthy, to have access to safe reproductive strategies, to seek and have access to the appropriate medical services, and to get educated on how to ensure that their life and the life of their baby remains healthy. Under the Millennium Development Goals, nations around the world have the opportunity to sign on to reduce the maternal mortality ratio by at least three quarters as soon as 2015 (www.unicef.org).Motherless children tend to be at a greater risk of death than children with mothers. Thousands of women die during childbirth [from complications] every minute around world, and in sub-Saharan Africa where there is a 1 in 16th chance of a woman dying during childbirth (www.unicef.org). Yet many of the factors (i.e. unsafe child birthing conditions) that lead to maternal mortality are for the most part preventable. A mother who has access to safe and effective medical services also has a better chance of raising a child (under the age of five) that does not suffer from a potentially fatal sickness such as Acute Respiratory Infection or diarrhoea (D’Souza, 2003). Moreover in a study by Gyimah, Takyi, & Addai (2006), researchers found that socio-economic factors, such as extreme poverty, was not one of the major predictors of maternal health and infant mortality, however religious and other very strong ideological beliefs were seen as more of a predictor of current disparities in the rates at which women seek reliable medical services.Some of the factors that directly contribute to poor maternal health and high frequencies of child mortality are: '''Haemorrhage''', '''obstructed labour''', '''hypertensive''' disorders in pregnancy, unsafe abortion, birth-related disabilities, and nutritional deficiencies. At least 30% of women worldwide lack '''antenatal''' care with 34% originating from Sub-Saharan Africa and 46% from South Asia (www.unicef.org). Highly infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS put both mothers and their infants at a greater risk of long-term sickness and early mortality. Children left orphaned by HIV/AIDS are at a greater risk of dying in the first two years of becoming orphans than children with parents (www.unicef.org). High-risk deliveries also pose a major threat to child mortality such that each year about 8 million babies die worldwide during labour and delivery and remain at risk up until the infant’s first week of life (www.unicef.org). Maternal health organizations around the world have narrowed down four effective intervention strategies that have played a significant part in improving maternal health and reducing child mortality. The most important intervention specified by organizations such as UNICEF is the availability of quality medical services pre- and post-birth. This includes better-trained traditional (i.e. midwife) and formal (i.e. doctor) health care providers and available emergency '''obstetrics'''. As well, improving maternal nutrition practices during and after pregnancy is a strong predictor of the quality of health a newborn baby or infant will have once they are born. In addition counselling for mothers with HIV/AIDS or other infectious diseases (i.e. malaria) ensures that safer practices are utilized during mother-to-infant contact (i.e. breastfeeding). Finally, secondary education for girls has been shown to significantly increase the likelihood that mothers will have healthier pre-natal pregnancies and increase the survival rate of newly born babies.
Dieseas research:
Malaria:
We are part of a collaborative project headed by Austin Burt at Imperial College in London that is one of the Gates Foundation "Grand Challenge Projects in Global Health". Malaria is caused by a parasite that spends part of its life cycle inside the mosquito, and is passed along to humans by mosquito bites. The idea behind the project is to make mosquitoes resistant to the parasite by eliminating genes required in the mosquito for the parasite to live. Our part of the project is to use our computer based design methods (ROSETTA) to engineer new enzymes that will specifically target and inactivate these genes.
Anthrax:
We are using ROSETTA to help John Collier's research group at Harvard build models of anthrax toxin that should contribute to the development of treatments. You can read the abstract of a paper describing some of this work at
HIV:
One of the reasons that HIV is such a deadly virus is that it has evolved to trick the immune system. We are collaborating with researchers in Seattle and at the NIH to try to develop a vaccine for HIV. Our role in this project is central--we are using ROSETTA to design small proteins that display the small number of critical regions of the HIV coat protein in a way that the immune system can easily recognize and generate antibodies to. Our goal is to create small stable protein vaccines that can be made very cheaply and shipped all over the world.
Other viruses:
We have been collaborating with Pam Bjorkman's laboratory at Cal Tech to use the ROSETTA protein-protein docking methodology to build models of herpes simplex virus proteins in complex with human proteins.
Alzheimer's disease:
Alzheimer's and many other diseases are likely to be caused by abberant protein folding in which proteins form large aggregated structures called amyloids rather than folding up into their normal biologically active states. A big advance was made recently by David Eisenberg's research group at UCLA in solving the first structure of an amyloid. We are collaborating with their research group to use the structure to predict which parts of proteins are likely to form amyloids, which will be a first step to blocking amyloid formation and hopefully disease.
Cancer:
Cancer can be caused by mutations in key genes that disrupt normal cellular control processes. We are developing methods for cutting DNA at specific sites in the genome, and we will be targeting sites that are implicated in cancer. After these sites are cut, they should be repaired by the cell using a second, unmutated copy of the gene and the cell should no longer be cancerous. This is a very specific form of gene therapy that, if successful, will circumvent one the main objections to current gene therapy methods; namely, current methods insert the unmutated copy of a gene randomly into the genome, and if the insertion point happens to be near an oncogene, the gene therapy will cure one disease but cause another. Because our methods will target specific sites instead of random sites, they should avoid this pitfall.
Prostate Cancer:
The androgen receptor (AR) binds testosterone and is responsible for normal male development. When the AR becomes hypersensitive to testosterone, prostate cancer is the result. The current treatment for prostate cancer, called "hormone therapy", involves lowering the amount of testosterone available (sometimes by castration). Many malignant tumors are resistant to this therapy, however, so we are applying our protein design methodology to find different ways to inhibit the AR and to treat prostate cancer. Specifically, we are trying to design proteins that will disable the AR even in the presence of testosterone. We are doing this by designing proteins that will prevent the AR from entering the nucleus of the cell (which is where it does its dirty work), and also preventing it from binding DNA and activating tumor-specific genes even if it does get into the nucleus.
We are part of a collaborative project headed by Austin Burt at Imperial College in London that is one of the Gates Foundation "Grand Challenge Projects in Global Health". Malaria is caused by a parasite that spends part of its life cycle inside the mosquito, and is passed along to humans by mosquito bites. The idea behind the project is to make mosquitoes resistant to the parasite by eliminating genes required in the mosquito for the parasite to live. Our part of the project is to use our computer based design methods (ROSETTA) to engineer new enzymes that will specifically target and inactivate these genes.
Anthrax:
We are using ROSETTA to help John Collier's research group at Harvard build models of anthrax toxin that should contribute to the development of treatments. You can read the abstract of a paper describing some of this work at
HIV:
One of the reasons that HIV is such a deadly virus is that it has evolved to trick the immune system. We are collaborating with researchers in Seattle and at the NIH to try to develop a vaccine for HIV. Our role in this project is central--we are using ROSETTA to design small proteins that display the small number of critical regions of the HIV coat protein in a way that the immune system can easily recognize and generate antibodies to. Our goal is to create small stable protein vaccines that can be made very cheaply and shipped all over the world.
Other viruses:
We have been collaborating with Pam Bjorkman's laboratory at Cal Tech to use the ROSETTA protein-protein docking methodology to build models of herpes simplex virus proteins in complex with human proteins.
Alzheimer's disease:
Alzheimer's and many other diseases are likely to be caused by abberant protein folding in which proteins form large aggregated structures called amyloids rather than folding up into their normal biologically active states. A big advance was made recently by David Eisenberg's research group at UCLA in solving the first structure of an amyloid. We are collaborating with their research group to use the structure to predict which parts of proteins are likely to form amyloids, which will be a first step to blocking amyloid formation and hopefully disease.
Cancer:
Cancer can be caused by mutations in key genes that disrupt normal cellular control processes. We are developing methods for cutting DNA at specific sites in the genome, and we will be targeting sites that are implicated in cancer. After these sites are cut, they should be repaired by the cell using a second, unmutated copy of the gene and the cell should no longer be cancerous. This is a very specific form of gene therapy that, if successful, will circumvent one the main objections to current gene therapy methods; namely, current methods insert the unmutated copy of a gene randomly into the genome, and if the insertion point happens to be near an oncogene, the gene therapy will cure one disease but cause another. Because our methods will target specific sites instead of random sites, they should avoid this pitfall.
Prostate Cancer:
The androgen receptor (AR) binds testosterone and is responsible for normal male development. When the AR becomes hypersensitive to testosterone, prostate cancer is the result. The current treatment for prostate cancer, called "hormone therapy", involves lowering the amount of testosterone available (sometimes by castration). Many malignant tumors are resistant to this therapy, however, so we are applying our protein design methodology to find different ways to inhibit the AR and to treat prostate cancer. Specifically, we are trying to design proteins that will disable the AR even in the presence of testosterone. We are doing this by designing proteins that will prevent the AR from entering the nucleus of the cell (which is where it does its dirty work), and also preventing it from binding DNA and activating tumor-specific genes even if it does get into the nucleus.
Biomedical research
Biomedical research (or experimental medicine), in general simply known as medical research, is the basic research, applied research, or translational research conducted to aid the body of knowledge in the field of medicine. Medical research can be divided into two general categories: the evaluation of new treatments for both safety and efficacy in what are termed clinical trials, and all other research that contributes to the development of new treatments. The latter is termed preclinical research if its goal is specifically to elaborate knowledge for the development of new therapeutic strategies. A new paradigm to biomedical research is being termed translational research, which focuses on iterative feedback loops between the basic and clinical research domains to accelerate knowledge translation from the bedside to the bench, and back again.
The increased longevity of humans over the past century can be significantly attributed to advances resulting from medical research. Among the major benefits have been vaccines for measles and polio, insulin treatment for diabetes, classes of antibiotics for treating a host of maladies, medication for high blood pressure, improved treatments for AIDS, statins and other treatments for atherosclerosis, new surgical techniques such as microsurgery, and increasingly successful treatments for cancer. New, beneficial tests and treatments are expected as a result of the human genome project. Many challenges remain, however, including the appearance of antibiotic resistance and the obesity epidemic.
Preclinical research
Preclinical research is research in basic science, which precedes the clinical trials, and is almost purely based on theory and animal experiments.
New treatments come about as a result of other, earlier discoveries — often unconnected to each other, and in various fields. Sometimes the research is done for non-medical purposes, and only by accident contributes to the field of medicine (for example, the discovery of penicillin). Clinicians use these discoveries to create a treatment regimen, which is then tested in clinical trials.
[edit] Clinical trials
Main article: Clinical trial
A clinical trial is a comparison test of a medication or other medical treatment, versus a placebo, other medications and devices, or the standard medical treatment for a patient's condition. Clinical trials vary greatly in size: from a single researcher in one hospital or clinic to an international multicenter trial with several hundred participating researchers on several continents. The number of patients tested can range from as few as a dozen to several thousands.
[edit] Funding
Main article: Research funding
Research funding in many countries comes from research bodies which distribute money for equipment and salaries. In the UK, funding bodies such as the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust derive their assets from UK tax payers, and distribute this to institutions in a competitive manner.
In the United States, the most recent data from 2003[1] suggest that about 94 billion dollars were provided for biomedical research in the United States. The National Institutes of Health and pharmaceutical companies collectively contribute 26.4 billion dollars and 27.0 billion dollars, respectively, which constitute 28% and 29% of the total, respectively. Other significant contributors include biotechnology companies (17.9 billion dollars, 19% of total), medical device companies (9.2 billion dollars, 10% of total), other federal sources, and state and local governments. Foundations and charities, led by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, contributed about 3% of the funding.
The enactment of orphan drug legislation in some countries has increased funding available to develop drugs meant to treat rare conditions, resulting in breakthroughs that previously were uneconomical to pursue.
[edit] Regulations and guidelines
Medical research is highly regulated. National regulatory authorities oversee and monitor medical research, such as for the development of new drugs. In the USA the Food and Drug Administration oversees new drug development, in Europe the European Medicines Agency (see also EudraLex), and in Japan the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (Japan). The World Medical Association develops the ethical standards for the medical profession, involved in medical research. The International Conference on Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Use (ICH) works on the creation of rules and guidelines for the development of new medication, such as the guidelines for Good Clinical Practice (GCP). All ideas of regulation are based on a country's etchics standards code. This is why treatment of a particular disease in one country may not be allowed, but is in another.
The increased longevity of humans over the past century can be significantly attributed to advances resulting from medical research. Among the major benefits have been vaccines for measles and polio, insulin treatment for diabetes, classes of antibiotics for treating a host of maladies, medication for high blood pressure, improved treatments for AIDS, statins and other treatments for atherosclerosis, new surgical techniques such as microsurgery, and increasingly successful treatments for cancer. New, beneficial tests and treatments are expected as a result of the human genome project. Many challenges remain, however, including the appearance of antibiotic resistance and the obesity epidemic.
Preclinical research
Preclinical research is research in basic science, which precedes the clinical trials, and is almost purely based on theory and animal experiments.
New treatments come about as a result of other, earlier discoveries — often unconnected to each other, and in various fields. Sometimes the research is done for non-medical purposes, and only by accident contributes to the field of medicine (for example, the discovery of penicillin). Clinicians use these discoveries to create a treatment regimen, which is then tested in clinical trials.
[edit] Clinical trials
Main article: Clinical trial
A clinical trial is a comparison test of a medication or other medical treatment, versus a placebo, other medications and devices, or the standard medical treatment for a patient's condition. Clinical trials vary greatly in size: from a single researcher in one hospital or clinic to an international multicenter trial with several hundred participating researchers on several continents. The number of patients tested can range from as few as a dozen to several thousands.
[edit] Funding
Main article: Research funding
Research funding in many countries comes from research bodies which distribute money for equipment and salaries. In the UK, funding bodies such as the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust derive their assets from UK tax payers, and distribute this to institutions in a competitive manner.
In the United States, the most recent data from 2003[1] suggest that about 94 billion dollars were provided for biomedical research in the United States. The National Institutes of Health and pharmaceutical companies collectively contribute 26.4 billion dollars and 27.0 billion dollars, respectively, which constitute 28% and 29% of the total, respectively. Other significant contributors include biotechnology companies (17.9 billion dollars, 19% of total), medical device companies (9.2 billion dollars, 10% of total), other federal sources, and state and local governments. Foundations and charities, led by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, contributed about 3% of the funding.
The enactment of orphan drug legislation in some countries has increased funding available to develop drugs meant to treat rare conditions, resulting in breakthroughs that previously were uneconomical to pursue.
[edit] Regulations and guidelines
Medical research is highly regulated. National regulatory authorities oversee and monitor medical research, such as for the development of new drugs. In the USA the Food and Drug Administration oversees new drug development, in Europe the European Medicines Agency (see also EudraLex), and in Japan the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (Japan). The World Medical Association develops the ethical standards for the medical profession, involved in medical research. The International Conference on Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Use (ICH) works on the creation of rules and guidelines for the development of new medication, such as the guidelines for Good Clinical Practice (GCP). All ideas of regulation are based on a country's etchics standards code. This is why treatment of a particular disease in one country may not be allowed, but is in another.
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